Geoff Cutmore
Senior leaders now sit on stages and in boardrooms where the questions cross monetary policy, sanctions, energy, and political risk in the same hour. Most chairs cannot hold that ground without losing the audience or the speakers. The right moderator pulls a precise answer from a central bank governor, then turns to a CFO without breaking the line of argument.
Geoff Cutmore is a financial journalist and conference moderator who chairs senior conversations on the global economy, central banking, and geopolitical risk, drawing on three decades anchoring CNBC’s Squawk Box Europe.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Geoff Cutmore
- He has interviewed every president of the European Central Bank and the last three Bank of England governors, which means a central banker on his panel will recognise the questioning standard and answer accordingly.
- He moderated the Global Economic Outlook panel and other plenaries at the World Economic Forum in Davos for more than twenty years, including a 2022 session with Kristalina Georgieva, Jane Fraser, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, and David Rubenstein.
- His 2014 panel with Vladimir Putin at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which Putin closed by calling him a “scary person” who kept the conversation businesslike, is on the record as evidence of his composure with hostile principals.
- He authored New Market Mavericks (Wiley, 2004), a book of interviews with leading market traders, giving him a working vocabulary for the buy side as well as the policy desk.
- A decade based in Hong Kong with CNBC Asia before Europe gives him fluency on Boao, China Development Forum, and the Asia leg of any global economic story.
Biography highlights
- Anchor of Squawk Box Europe on CNBC from 1999 to June 2023, after a thirty-year career across CNBC Asia and CNBC Europe.
- Author of New Market Mavericks, published by Wiley in 2004.
- Moderator of the Global Economic Outlook and other plenary sessions at the World Economic Forum in Davos for more than twenty years.
- Conducted on-stage interviews with Vladimir Putin at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Tony Blair, John Major, Gerhard Schroeder, and George Soros.
- Regular moderator at IMF and World Bank annual meetings, the Boao Forum, the China Development Forum, and United Nations Climate Change conferences.
- Contributor to the World Economic Forum Agenda.
Biography
Squawk Box Europe is where European institutional money starts its day, and from 1999 until June 2023 the person setting that agenda was Geoff Cutmore. Over three decades at CNBC, first in Hong Kong with CNBC Asia and then in Europe, he built the interviewing range that takes a guest from rate expectations to sanctions exposure to a board-level cash question without losing the room.
The list of principals he has questioned on air or on stage is the working evidence. Every president of the European Central Bank. The last three governors of the Bank of England. US Treasury secretaries, IMF and World Bank heads, Tony Blair, John Major, Gerhard Schroeder, George Soros. In 2014 he chaired a ninety-minute panel with Vladimir Putin at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, which closed with Putin calling him a “scary person” who had kept the exchange businesslike. That is the kind of credit only earned by holding a difficult line in front of a hostile principal.
He has moderated the Global Economic Outlook panel and other plenaries at the World Economic Forum in Davos for more than twenty years, including the 2022 session with Kristalina Georgieva, Jane Fraser, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, and David Rubenstein. He also chairs sessions at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings, the Boao Forum, the China Development Forum, and United Nations climate conferences. His book New Market Mavericks, published by Wiley in 2004, collects interviews with leading traders and gives him a working second language for the buy side.
What an organisation gets when it puts him on stage is a chair who has already had the conversation with the person sitting next to him, usually more than once, and who can move the panel through monetary policy, geopolitics, and corporate strategy without giving up the line of argument.
Key speaking topics
- Global economic outlook and central bank policy
- Geopolitical risk and the world order
- Financial markets and investor strategy
- Energy transition and climate policy
- China and the Asia growth story
- Conference and panel moderation
- Senior executive interviews
Ideal for
- Boards and investment committees commissioning a moderated session on the macro and geopolitical outlook
- CFO, treasury, and capital markets audiences requiring a chair who can question central bankers and policymakers on equal terms
- Global summits and annual conferences with multi-principal plenary panels on economy, energy, or geopolitics
- C-suite client events for asset managers, banks, and professional services firms
Audience outcomes
- A clearer read on the current macro, monetary, and geopolitical picture from the principals shaping it, drawn out in real time rather than rehearsed.
- A session that holds shape across competing speakers, with the chair keeping the argument moving and the audience oriented.
- Specific named answers from policymakers and CEOs on the questions a senior audience actually has, not the questions a moderator has been briefed to ask.
- A conversation calibrated to the room, whether that is a Davos plenary, an investor day, or a board offsite.