Transition énergétique

Why organisations work with Jonathon Porritt Three decades inside the rooms where government, business, and civil society negotiate climate policy, including nine years chairing the UK Sustainable Development Commission for three prime ministers. Co-founder of Forum for the Future, the consultancy that has worked with Marks & Spencer, Unilever, and other FTSE boards on serious sustainability strategy rather than reporting compliance. Author of Capitalism as if the World Matters, a book that argues capitalism is the only viable vehicle for sustainability and sets out what reshaping it actually demands; cited as a foundational text in corporate sustainability curricula. Independence from any single corporate paymaster; willingness to tell senior teams what their own sustainability advisors will not. A long view that connects climate, biodiversity, inequality, and population; useful for boards trying to understand how environmental risks compound across a strategic horizon. Biography highlights Co-founder and Founder Director of Forum for the Future (1996-2023), one of the world’s leading sustainability charities, with offices in the UK, US, India, and Southeast Asia. Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, 2000-2009, advising the Blair and Brown governments on environmental policy. Director of Friends of the Earth (UK), 1984-1990; former Co-Chair of the UK Green Party. Co-founder of The Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme, delivered through the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Author of Hope in Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020), The World We Made (Phaidon, 2013), and Capitalism as if the World Matters (Earthscan, 2005). CBE for services to environmental protection (2000); Chancellor of Keele University, 2012-2022. Biography The corporate climate agenda has run into its first credibility test. A decade of net-zero pledges, ESG reporting, and sustainability committees has not closed the gap between what boards say and what their capital plans deliver. Porritt has spent his working life inside that gap. He co-founded Forum for the Future in 1996 with Sara Parkin and Paul Ekins, and ran it as Founder Director for nearly thirty years. Forum has worked with Marks & Spencer, Unilever, and other FTSE-100 boards on the harder questions of business model change, not the softer ones of disclosure. Before that, he ran Friends of the Earth (UK) through the late 1980s and co-chaired the Green Party. For nine years he chaired the UK Sustainable Development Commission, advising Tony Blair and Gordon Brown directly. He also co-founded the Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme, now part of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, where senior executives go to interrogate their own sustainability strategies. Few people have spent as much time on both sides of that table. His books map the argument. Capitalism as if the World Matters made the case that capitalism is the only viable engine for a sustainable future, and set out the reforms that case requires. The World We Made imagined 2050 as if those reforms had landed. Hope in Hell, written into the climate emergency, is sharper and more impatient. Read together, they explain why he is taken seriously by chief executives and climate activists alike, even when he is telling each of them something they would rather not hear. Key speaking topics Sustainability strategy and ESG governance Climate risk and the energy transition Reforming capitalism for environmental limits Net-zero credibility and corporate accountability Long-term scenario planning and systems change Biodiversity, nature, and business Intergenerational responsibility and the next decade Ideal for Board directors and CEOs reviewing the credibility of their net-zero and ESG commitments Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads building serious, board-ready strategy Investor relations and capital allocation teams under increasing scrutiny on transition planning Strategy and risk leaders trying to integrate climate and biodiversity into long-range planning Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where their own organisation’s climate strategy is exposed to investor, regulator, and employee scrutiny A working understanding of what credible, board-level sustainability looks like beyond reporting compliance A sharper sense of how climate, biodiversity, inequality, and capital allocation compound as connected risks Direct, unflattering challenge from someone with no commercial interest in their answer

Why organisations work with Jutta Kleinschmidt She is the only woman ever to win the Dakar Rally outright, a fact buyers can repeat without qualification, in a field where most “first woman” credentials require footnotes. She brings a physics-engineering mind to a topic, high-pressure performance, that is usually dominated by intuition and anecdote. Audiences get the mechanics, not just the story. Her current FIA role gives her a serving leadership platform in international motorsport, which keeps the material current rather than retrospective. She speaks credibly to mixed audiences on team performance, risk tolerance and the practical limits of preparation, drawing on a 17-attempt Dakar career across motorcycles and cars. She works fluently in English and German, which matters for German-speaking corporates booking a global-grade keynote without losing the original voice. Biography highlights First and only woman to win the Dakar Rally outright, in 2001, driving a Mitsubishi Pajero with co-driver Andreas Schulz. President of the FIA Cross Country Rally Commission since 2019. Inaugural Championship Driver for the Extreme E electric off-road series; raced for ABT Cupra XE in 2021. Trained physicist (Isny University of Applied Sciences) and former BMW vehicle development engineer. Author of the autobiography “My Victory at the Dakar.” Recipient of the Monaco World Sports Legends Award (2018), FIM Legend status (2013) and the Lord Wakefield Trophy from the British Women Racing Drivers Club. Biography The Dakar Rally runs for two weeks across some of the most punishing terrain on the planet, with no second chances and no controlled environment. In January 2001, a German driver in a Mitsubishi Pajero crossed the line in Dakar 2 minutes 39 seconds ahead of her teammate. That driver was Jutta Kleinschmidt, and she remains the only woman ever to have won the event outright. Her route to that result is what makes her useful to senior teams. She studied physics at Isny University of Applied Sciences, completed her diploma thesis at BMW, and spent five years as a vehicle development engineer there before going professional in motorsport in 1993. She first contested Dakar in 1988 on a BMW motorcycle, switched to cars in 1994, took her first stage win in 1997, and stood on the podium in 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2005 across 17 starts. Since 2018 she has been Senior Advisor for Cross Country Rally at the FIA, and since 2019 President of the FIA Cross Country Rally Commission, where she has pushed the discipline toward more sustainable technologies. She joined the Extreme E electric series as its inaugural Championship Driver and Advisor in 2021, racing for ABT Cupra XE. For business audiences, her material is the engineer’s read on what actually drives outcomes when conditions turn hostile: how to build a team that can absorb a hit and keep deciding, what preparation is worth and what is theatre, and how to keep a clear head when the equipment, the weather and the field are all working against you. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure Team performance in endurance environments Risk management and preparation Resilience and recovery from setback Women in male-dominated industries Sustainable mobility and the future of motorsport Leadership in mixed-discipline, high-stakes teams Ideal for Boards and executive teams running performance, safety or operational risk agendas Sales and commercial leadership conferences focused on competitive edge Senior leadership programmes building resilience and decision quality Engineering, automotive and mobility audiences working on the energy transition Audience outcomes A working language for what high performers actually do when the plan fails A sharper view of where preparation pays off and where it stops Specific examples of team coordination under physical and time pressure A credible counterweight to the assumption that elite performance is mostly talent Confidence that high-stakes decisions can be trained, not just hired for

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

Why organisations work with Karl Schmedders He brings a computational finance lens to ESG, climate risk, and carbon pricing, so net zero plans get tested as financial decisions, not as messaging. His public position on the “just transition” gives executive teams a defensible way to talk about the social and governance side of ESG, without retreating into either greenwashing or culture war. He directs IMD’s Strategic Finance program and has taught finance to senior executives at Kellogg and IMD for over two decades, which means complex valuation and risk arguments arrive in language a non-finance board can act on. His research record in journals such as Econometrica, the Journal of Finance, and the Review of Financial Studies makes him a credible counterweight when consultants and asset managers are pitching the same story to the room. Board roles at LPX Group and SYLVA AG, plus advisory work with firms including ABB, Airbus, Maybank, and Julius Baer, mean the examples land in operating reality. Biography highlights Professor of Finance at IMD; Director of the Strategic Finance program. PhD in Operations Research, Stanford University; Walter J. Gores Award for teaching at Stanford. Former Associate Professor at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University; L.G. Lavengood Professor of the Year, 2002. Former Professor of Quantitative Business Administration at the University of Zurich. Published in Econometrica, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Management Science. Co-editor, Handbook of Computational Economics (Elsevier). Board member, LPX Group and SYLVA AG; Advisory Council member, Reward Value. Regular columnist on ESG and climate finance in I by IMD. Biography ESG has spent a decade as a marketing layer over corporate strategy. Karl Schmedders treats it as a finance problem. He starts from the externality, works through the price signal, and asks whether the company’s capital allocation reflects the climate position it has publicly committed to. That move, from narrative to numbers, is what most boards still find uncomfortable. His authority for that move comes from a long career in computational finance. After a PhD in Operations Research at Stanford, he taught at Kellogg School of Management for over a decade, where he was named L.G. Lavengood Professor of the Year. He was Professor of Quantitative Business Administration at the University of Zurich before joining IMD in 2019, where he now directs the Strategic Finance program and teaches across the Executive MBA portfolio. His research has appeared in Econometrica, the Journal of Finance, and the Review of Financial Studies. The applied work follows the same logic. As a board member of LPX Group and SYLVA AG, and an advisor to firms including ABB, Airbus, Maybank, and Julius Baer, he tests claims about climate strategy, executive pay, and financial risk against the underlying economics. His writing in I by IMD argues that carbon taxes are still too low to price the “mother of all externalities,” that climate financial risk is being understated on corporate balance sheets, and that companies are quietly admitting their net zero promises were unrealistic. He is also one of the few finance economists making a public, technical case for the “just transition.” His argument is that ignoring the social and governance side of ESG, the cost borne by lower income households and developing economies, is the fastest way for the political consensus on climate to collapse. For a board that is being told ESG is either everything or a fraud, that is a more useful framing than either. Key speaking topics Climate financial risk Carbon pricing and the economics of net zero ESG strategy and capital allocation Just transition and the social side of climate policy Strategic finance for non-finance executives Executive compensation and sustainability incentives Computational finance and quantitative decision making Sustainable investing and stranded assets Ideal for Boards and CFO offices stress testing climate commitments against capital allocation Investment committees, asset owners, and asset managers reviewing ESG and sustainable investing strategies CSOs and Heads of Sustainability who need a finance-grounded counterpart to the consulting view Executive education audiences in Strategic Finance, EMBA, and senior leadership programs Audience outcomes A clearer view of where their organisation’s net zero plan does and does not survive financial scrutiny. Concrete vocabulary for separating ESG substance from ESG narrative when investors and regulators ask. A working sense of how carbon pricing, stranded assets, and climate risk feed into corporate valuation. An economist’s case for the “just transition” that holds up in front of a sceptical board. Sharper questions to take into the next investment committee or strategy meeting.

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.

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

Why organisations work with Kunle Barker He runs a construction firm. Illustrious Homes has delivered thousands of residential refurbishments, school refits, and sports-centre projects since 2004, so his views on retrofit and net zero are grounded in what is actually buildable. He sits inside the policy conversation. He has advised the House of Lords and the Church of England on housing strategy and is the lead masterplan consultant on the Brent Cross Town regeneration scheme. He is a recognised voice on UK net zero in the built environment. He was the first Unlock Net Zero Ambassador and a CIOB Client Champion, with a regular column in the Architects’ Journal and frequent commentary on Sky News and Times Radio. He works comfortably at the front of a stage. Presenter and curator credits at Grand Designs Live with Kevin McCloud, plus Channel 4 and ITV property shows, mean he can host, moderate, and translate technical content for non-technical audiences. Biography highlights Founder of Illustrious Homes (2004), a construction and design management firm specialising in residential refurbishment, education and sports facility projects. Lead Masterplan Consultant on Brent Cross Town, the multi-billion-pound regeneration scheme led by Related Argent. 2022 inaugural Unlock Net Zero Ambassador; 2023 Unlock Net Zero Ambassador for Inside Housing. CIOB Client Champion for the Chartered Institute of Building. Broadcasting credits include ITV’s “Save Money: My Beautiful Green Home” and “Love Your Home & Garden” with Alan Titchmarsh, “Renovate Don’t Relocate” with Sarah Beeny, “Project Home” (Channel 4, 2023) with Nick Grimshaw, and presenter/curator at Grand Designs Live with Kevin McCloud. Regular columnist for the Architects’ Journal and Grand Designs Magazine; property commentator for Sky News and Times Radio. Biography UK housing accounts for roughly a fifth of national carbon emissions, and the country has more than 28 million existing homes. The retrofit problem is not abstract; it is a question of which walls, which boilers, which planning rules, and which budgets, on which streets. Kunle Barker has spent two decades inside that problem. He founded Illustrious Homes in 2004 and has since delivered thousands of residential refurbishments alongside school and sports-centre projects. That operating base gives his commentary on net zero, retrofit, and sustainable construction something most built-environment speakers lack: a working site to test the argument against. The advisory work followed. He has briefed the House of Lords and the Church of England on housing policy, sits on a round table on UK future housing strategy, and is the lead masterplan consultant on Brent Cross Town, the Related Argent regeneration scheme. He is the inaugural Unlock Net Zero Ambassador and a CIOB Client Champion, and writes regularly for the Architects’ Journal and Grand Designs Magazine. The broadcasting work is where most audiences first meet him. He has co-presented with Alan Titchmarsh and Sarah Beeny on ITV, fronted “Project Home” on Channel 4 with Nick Grimshaw, and presents at Grand Designs Live alongside Kevin McCloud. The reason that matters here, beyond profile, is that he can take a board-level argument about decarbonising housing stock and make it land with a non-specialist room without losing the technical substance. Key speaking topics Sustainable building and retrofit Net zero in the built environment UK housing policy and the housing crisis Urban regeneration and placemaking Future of housing and home design Construction industry transformation Ideal for Property, construction, and real-estate boards setting retrofit and net zero strategy Housing associations, developers, and local authority leadership teams working on regeneration or decarbonisation programmes ESG, sustainability, and building-products organisations needing a credible external voice on UK housing Conference and awards organisers who need a host or moderator who can carry technical built-environment content Audience outcomes A clearer sense of where UK net zero ambition collides with the reality of building, retrofitting, and financing housing. A practitioner’s view of which sustainable building practices actually scale on real projects and which stall. Familiarity with the policy and regeneration conversations shaping the next decade of UK housing. A confident framing of how organisations in property, construction, and adjacent sectors should talk about climate action with customers, residents, and regulators.

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.

Why organisations work with Linda Mabhena-Olagunju She has actually built and operates a 244MW utility-scale wind farm in the Northern Cape, not advised on one. Her authority on the energy transition comes from owning the asset, raising the capital, and running it. A legal foundation in oil and gas law from Aberdeen, applied to renewable energy operations in Africa. That sequence gives her a sharper view than most operators on how regulation, project finance, and offtake contracts actually shape what gets built. Direct line of sight on what local ownership looks like in practice. DLO acquired the engineering services and operations capability behind its plants, making it the rare African IPP with both equity and technical control. Sits at the table where African energy policy is shaped: advisor to South Africa’s Minister of Energy, University of Oxford International Advisory Board, founder of the DLO Africa Power Roundtable. Recognised by named bodies, not bureau hype: Choiseul 100 (multi-year), Forbes Woman Africa, CNBC All Africa Business Leaders Award, Veuve Clicquot. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, DLO Energy Resources Group, owner and operator of a 244MW wind farm in South Africa’s Northern Cape. LLB, University of Cape Town (Dean’s Merit List); LLM in International Commercial Law with oil and gas specialisation, University of Aberdeen (First Class). Admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa. Member of the University of Oxford International Advisory Board since 2018. External contributor to Institut Montaigne on African energy and infrastructure. Recognition: Choiseul 100 Africa Economic Leaders for Tomorrow (multi-year); Forbes Woman Africa Best Emerging Entrepreneur; CNBC All Africa Business Leaders Award; Veuve Clicquot Businesswomen Award; Oprah Power List of 20 most powerful women in Africa. Biography Africa’s renewable energy build-out is shaped less by technology than by who can hold a project together long enough to reach financial close. DLO Energy Resources Group, founded by Linda Mabhena-Olagunju and now the operator of a 244MW wind farm in the Northern Cape, is one of the few independent power producers on the continent that owns both the equity and the engineering capability behind its assets. Her route into the sector is unusual. She read law at the University of Cape Town, then took an LLM in International Commercial Law at Aberdeen with a specialism in oil and gas. She is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa. That legal grounding, in the contracts and regulation that govern energy projects, is what allowed DLO to acquire an EPC and O&M operation and bring operational control in-house, a step most African IPPs never take. The recognition has followed the work, not the other way round. The Choiseul 100 has listed her among Africa’s economic leaders of tomorrow across multiple years. Forbes Woman Africa named her Best Emerging Entrepreneur; CNBC named her Young Business Leader for Southern Africa. She sits on the University of Oxford International Advisory Board, contributes to Institut Montaigne on African energy policy, and advises the South African Minister of Energy. For audiences working on energy transition strategy, climate-related disclosures, or capital allocation to emerging markets, she is one of the very small group who can describe the path from policy ambition to a generating asset, with the receipts to back it up. Key speaking topics Africa’s energy transition Renewable energy project finance and ownership Independent power producers in emerging markets Local content and black ownership in energy Women in energy and infrastructure Climate policy and capital allocation in Africa Ideal for Boards and investment committees with African or emerging-market energy exposure CFOs, treasury, and capital allocators reviewing climate transition strategy Energy, utilities, and infrastructure executives planning African projects DEI sponsors and women-in-leadership programmes in capital-intensive sectors Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what it takes for an African renewable project to reach financial close, told by someone who has done it. A working understanding of where policy ambition on energy transition diverges from project finance reality on the continent. Concrete answers on how local ownership, EPC control, and offtake structures change the economics of a generation asset. A sharper view of where African renewable capacity is actually being built, by whom, and at what cost of capital.

Why organisations work with Louis De Jaeger He runs a working design practice, Commensalist, that has delivered regenerative projects from food forests and future-proof farms to vineyard hotels and private eco-islands, so the recommendations on stage are tied to built assets, not slideware. He frames regeneration as a financial proposition. Boards leave able to discuss soil, biodiversity and food systems as long-term yield and risk variables, not as CSR. He is one of the few sustainability voices who has also built infrastructure at scale, co-founding the Belgian night-train start-up Moonlight Express that merged into European Sleeper, which gives him direct credibility with leaders who care about how new green businesses actually get financed and operated. He brings a body of evidence from his own work: the FoodForest documentary, the book SOS: Save Our Soils, and over fifty opinion pieces in titles such as De Standaard, De Morgen and Knack. Audiences hear arguments that have already been pressure-tested in print and on screen. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Commensalist, a regenerative landscape architecture practice working on productive landscapes, regenerative farms and hospitality estates worldwide. Co-founder of the Food Forest Institute and of the ByeByeGrass biodiversity campaign in Belgium. Co-founder of Moonlight Express, the Belgian night-train start-up that merged into European Sleeper, now operating sleeper services from Brussels. Director of the award-winning documentary FoodForest (2022) and of the feature documentary Eat More Trees on the role of food forests in climate and food security. Author of SOS: Save Our Soils (2025) and of Design your own food forest, a technical reference on food forest design. Long-running opinion contributor to De Standaard, De Morgen, Knack, Knack Weekend and MO*, with more than fifty published columns since 2018. Biography Most boards now accept that climate, biodiversity and food security are material risks. Far fewer can describe what to actually do about the soil their supply chains depend on. Louis De Jaeger has spent the last decade closing that gap, designing the land and writing the case for it at the same time. He runs Commensalist, a Belgian landscape architecture practice that designs regenerative projects from productive farms and food forests to vineyard hotels and private eco-islands. The work is built, not theoretical. Clients come to him because they need an asset that will still hold value in thirty years under heat, drought and tighter nature regulation. Alongside the practice, he co-founded the Food Forest Institute and the ByeByeGrass campaign in Belgium, and made the documentaries FoodForest and Eat More Trees about the role of food forests in cooling the climate and rebuilding food systems. His 2025 book SOS: Save Our Soils sets out a direct argument that regenerative agriculture is the cheapest, most effective form of climate infrastructure available, and that current food and land policy is mispriced against it. What makes him useful in a leadership room is the second track. With Moonlight Express, the night-train start-up he co-founded that merged into European Sleeper, he has been on the inside of building a green infrastructure business from a deck to operating trains. So when he talks to investors and operators about regeneration as a long-term asset class, the argument carries the weight of someone who has had to finance, license and run one. Key speaking topics Regenerative agriculture and soil health Food forests and productive landscapes Climate, biodiversity and nature-based solutions Sustainable land use and food systems Regeneration as long-term asset strategy Sustainable hospitality and estate design Green infrastructure entrepreneurship Ideal for Boards and investment committees pricing climate, nature and land-use risk into long-term portfolios CSOs, heads of sustainability and ESG leads moving beyond carbon accounting into soil, water and biodiversity Real estate, hospitality and agribusiness operators evaluating regenerative design for their own assets Founders and corporate venture teams backing food, agritech and green infrastructure businesses Audience outcomes A working definition of regeneration that boards can use, distinct from offsetting and from generic ESG language. A clearer view of which sustainability assumptions and assets are likely to age badly over the next decade. Practical reference points from built projects: food forests, regenerative farms, hospitality estates, biodiversity campaigns. A founder’s account of how a green infrastructure business actually gets financed and run, drawn from Moonlight Express and European Sleeper. A sharper internal narrative for connecting climate, food and land strategy to commercial decisions.

Why organisations work with Lucy Bullivant She has written the reference work on contemporary masterplanning. Masterplanning Futures (Routledge) won the Urban Design Group Book of the Year, and her thinking influences design review panels that approve real projects in London. She bridges urban planning critique and operational place strategy. Most speakers in this space do one or the other; Bullivant publishes peer-reviewed research, curates major exhibitions, and runs a working consultancy commissioned by clients. Her work on deep retrofit, hyperlocal media, and co-design gives organisations a vocabulary for participatory urbanism that goes beyond consultation theatre and connects to measurable place outcomes. She is an Honorary Fellow of RIBA who has curated exhibitions for Roca London Gallery, the Shenzhen Biennale, and The Building Centre, evidence that her authority is recognised across professional, academic, and cultural institutions. Biography highlights PhD in adaptive planning, London Metropolitan University; MA Cultural History, Royal College of Art Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Hon FRIBA), elected 2010 Author of Masterplanning Futures (Routledge), winner of the Urban Design Group Book of the Year, 2014; and Masterplanning Futures: Agents of Change (Routledge, 2026) Co-author of Recoded City: Co-Creating Urban Futures (Routledge, 2015) with Thomas Ermacora Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Urbanista.org Curator of Urbanistas (Roca London Gallery), Remake-We Make (Shenzhen Biennale), and Phoenix Rising and Retrofit 23 (The Building Centre) Biography Masterplans rarely fail at the design stage. They fail at the point where ambition meets the politics, capital cycles, and community expectations of the neighbourhood or city the plan has to live inside. Bullivant’s career has been built around closing that gap, both as a critic of how cities get planned and as a practitioner working inside design review and consultancy. Masterplanning Futures, her Routledge book that won the Urban Design Group Book of the Year in 2014, set out a comparative reading of large-scale plans across cultures and remains a reference text for planning departments and architecture schools. Her follow-up, Masterplanning Futures: Agents of Change, is published by Routledge in autumn 2026. Recoded City, co-authored with Thomas Ermacora, extended the argument toward participatory and bottom-up regeneration, the territory all cities have to operate in. Her credibility comes from working across the professional stack at once. She is an Honorary Fellow of RIBA, founder of Urbanista.org, and a Design Council expert. She chaired the Lambeth Design Review Panel from 2019 to 2025, and has sat on review panels for Enfield and the London Legacy Development Corporation, the panels that shape which projects in London get approved and built. Her recent curatorial work, Phoenix Rising: Visions for Rebuilding Ukraine and Retrofit 23 at The Building Centre, and Urbanistas at Roca London Gallery, sits on the same axis: how to rebuild, retrofit, and reimagine cities under climate, conflict, and demographic pressures. The thread across her writing, consultancy, and curatorship is a single insistence, that liveability is the hard test of any urban strategy, and that planning systems still under-equip leaders and teams to meet it. Key speaking topics Adaptive planning and masterplanning Deep retrofit and adaptive reuse of existing building stock Liveable urbanism and place quality Co-design and participatory placemaking Design review and design governance Urban regeneration and post-conflict rebuilding Climate adaptation in city strategy Ideal for City and regional government leaders, planning directors, and chief design officers Property developers, masterplanning teams, and large-scale regeneration boards Architecture and engineering firm leadership commissioning urban strategy work Sustainability and ESG leads inside real estate, infrastructure, and built environment portfolios Audience outcomes A clearer reading of why masterplans succeed or fail, drawn from comparative international case material Specific principles for deep retrofit at scale rather than project-by-project A working vocabulary for participatory placemaking that goes beyond consultation A sharper view of how design review and governance shape long-term place quality Reference points from leading European, Asian, and post-conflict rebuilding programmes

Why organisations work with Luiz Barroso He has held three seats that almost no one else holds together: national energy planner (CEO of Brazil’s EPE), market designer and consultant across 30 countries, and partner in Latin America’s largest investment bank. That gives him a view of energy decisions from the policy desk, the operator’s desk and the capital allocator’s desk simultaneously. His work answers the question most energy speakers avoid: how does decarbonisation actually get financed and priced in markets that do not look like Western Europe? Investors and regulators in Latin America, Asia and Africa book him for that reason. He sits inside the IEA conversation on emerging-economy transition, having been a visiting researcher in Paris on exactly that question. That places him close to where international finance and national policy intersect. IEEE Fellow status, granted for contributions to electricity market design, signals a rare technical depth for an industry speaker. Most transition commentators cannot model what they recommend. Biography highlights CEO of PSR Energy Consulting and Analytics, the BTG Pactual-owned firm Former CEO of Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica (EPE), Brazil’s national energy planning agency Visiting researcher, International Energy Agency, Paris Associate researcher, Institute for Research in Technology, Comillas University, Madrid IEEE Fellow; IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award recipient Author of one book, three book chapters and more than 70 peer-reviewed papers on electricity and gas market design Biography The energy transition has stopped being a question of ambition and become a question of capital. Boards have set decarbonisation targets; the harder problem is financing them through power markets that work differently in every country an investor touches. Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia do not have the same grid, the same regulation or the same risk pricing. Luiz Barroso has spent his career inside that problem. As CEO of PSR Energy Consulting and Analytics, a BTG Pactual-owned firm, he advises private investors, public lenders, governments and regulators in around 30 countries on market design, financing and risk in electricity and gas. Before that, he ran Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica, the Brazilian government body responsible for national energy planning, a role equivalent to deputy minister. His research credentials are unusual for someone operating in industry. He is an IEEE Fellow, recognised specifically for contributions to electricity market regulation and design, and an associate researcher at the Institute for Research in Technology at Comillas University in Madrid. In 2018 he spent a year at the International Energy Agency in Paris, working on the question of how energy transition unfolds in emerging economies. That combination matters because most senior leaders hearing about energy transition are hearing from policy commentators, academic modellers or industry executives. Barroso has held all three roles. His work helps capital allocators, board directors and regulators see where the transition narrative meets the actual structure of power and gas markets, and where the money has to go for it to function. Key speaking topics Energy transition in emerging economies Electricity and gas market design Investment and financing under decarbonisation Regulation and policy in liberalised power markets Risk management in energy infrastructure Power system economics Ideal for Board directors and investment committees with energy exposure outside Western Europe and North America Infrastructure investors, development banks and sovereign wealth funds allocating to the transition Energy regulators, system operators and policy bodies in emerging markets Senior leaders in utilities, oil and gas, and large industrial energy buyers Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how energy transition is actually financed and priced in emerging-economy power and gas markets A working understanding of why decarbonisation pathways diverge across jurisdictions, and what that means for cross-border capital Practical exposure to the trade-offs regulators face when designing markets that must attract investment and deliver reliability simultaneously A grounded view of which transition assumptions hold up when tested against grid reality and which do not