Hans Diels
Boards built their strategies on assumptions that no longer hold: open markets, cheap energy, predictable supply chains, and a US-led security umbrella. Sanctions, export controls, industrial policy and armed conflict now price into quarterly numbers, not just long-term scenarios. The question is no longer whether to factor geopolitics into strategy, but how to do it without freezing decisions or chasing every headline.
Hans Diels is a futurist and geopolitical expert at Belgian think tank ETION who helps boards turn geopolitical disruption into a concrete input for strategy, supply chain design, and capital allocation.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Hans Diels
- Direct operator experience inside EU trade policy. He represented Belgium on the EU Council’s Trade Policy Committee on services and investment, which gives his read on sanctions, tariffs, and industrial policy a practitioner’s weight that pure commentators cannot match.
- A continental European lens on geopolitical risk, at a moment when Anglo-American analysis dominates the boardroom. For European leadership teams exposed to Russia, China, and US policy swings, his vantage point is scarcer and more relevant.
- Two published books that form a coherent argument: “Het onzekerheidsvoordeel” (LannooCampus, 2022) sets out the scenario-thinking method; “Markt onder vuur” (LannooCampus, 2024) applies it to the economic consequences of political conflict.
- He works in the register executives need: translating sanctions regimes, trade wars, and energy shocks into decisions about where to produce, whom to sell to, and which contracts to stress-test.
- Dutch and English delivery across keynotes and workshops, with a track record in boardrooms, strategy offsites, and risk committees across the Benelux and wider Europe.
Biography highlights
- Futurist and geopolitical expert at ETION, the Belgian entrepreneurial network and think tank.
- Former Belgian representative on the EU Council’s Trade Policy Committee (services and investment).
- Former researcher at the University of Antwerp, Department of Political Science.
- Prior roles at the US Embassy in Belgium, the Belgian Parliament, and EU institutions.
- Author of “Het onzekerheidsvoordeel” (LannooCampus, 2022) and “Markt onder vuur” (LannooCampus, 2024).
- Master’s in Political Science (KU Leuven), International Relations postgraduate (UCLouvain), economics via LSE External Programme.
Biography
Sanctions, export controls, and industrial policy now set the boundary conditions for European business. Assumptions that underpinned strategy for two decades, open markets, cheap Russian gas, reliable Asian supply chains, a stable US security guarantee, are no longer reliable. That is the terrain Hans Diels works on.
His perspective is built from inside the machinery. He represented Belgium on the EU Council’s Trade Policy Committee on services and investment, worked at the US Embassy in Belgium, served in the Belgian Parliament, and researched international governance at the University of Antwerp. He now sits at ETION, the Belgian entrepreneurial network, advising boards and executive teams on how political conflict translates into commercial exposure.
Two books carry the argument. “Het onzekerheidsvoordeel” (LannooCampus, 2022) sets out a method for strategy under deep uncertainty, built on horizon scanning and scenario testing rather than forecast precision. “Markt onder vuur” (LannooCampus, 2024) turns the lens on geopolitical disruption itself: how sanctions, cyber operations, and economic warfare reshape markets, and what companies can practically do in response.
Diels is Dutch-speaking, trained in international relations at KU Leuven and UCLouvain, and read economics through the LSE External Programme. He writes regularly on futures and political disruption on Substack and in Belgian media. What he offers a board is a specific thing: the discipline of keeping strategy open to multiple plausible futures, without paralysing the decision to act in the present.
Key speaking topics
- Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy
- Economic warfare, sanctions and export controls
- Scenario thinking and strategic foresight
- Global megatrends and systemic disruption
- Europe’s position between the US, China and Russia
- Supply chain exposure and industrial policy
- Strategy under deep uncertainty
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees reassessing exposure to geopolitical shocks
- Strategy, risk and supply chain leaders at industrial and financial services firms
- European multinationals with significant US, China or Russia-linked revenue or sourcing
- Leadership offsites and strategy days where the macro picture needs to become a decision input
Audience outcomes
- A sharper read on which geopolitical shifts genuinely move their P&L and which are noise
- A working vocabulary for scenario thinking that survives contact with the executive agenda
- Concrete pressure points to test in supply chains, contracts, and market strategies
- A realistic view of Europe’s structural position between the US, China and Russia, and what that means for their sector
- Confidence to make strategic commitments without waiting for the fog to clear
Talks
How to build strategy when forecasting fails and the operating environment keeps shifting underneath the plan.
Key takeaways:
- Why traditional planning models break in a sanctions-and-shocks environment
- How to use horizon scanning to catch signals early enough to matter
- How to stress-test strategic options across multiple plausible futures
How economic warfare, sanctions, and cyber operations have become routine tools of statecraft, and what that means for corporate exposure.
Key takeaways:
- The mechanics of sanctions regimes and how they flow through to contracts and counterparties
- Where supply chain and data exposure concentrate the real vulnerability
- Practical protection strategies that go beyond compliance
The structural forces, demographic, climate, technological, and geo-economic, reshaping the conditions every business operates in.
Key takeaways:
- Which megatrends are accelerating and which have already inflected
- How demographic and climate pressure interact with geopolitical power shifts
- Where those shifts open markets and where they close them
A working read on active conflicts and their direct consequences for markets, sourcing, and pricing.
Key takeaways:
- How current conflicts are reshaping commodity and energy flows
- The second-order effects on supply chains, insurance, and capital costs
- What to watch next and where the risk is mispriced
Growth opportunities in underweighted markets including Ethiopia, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Laos.
Key takeaways:
- Why frontier markets deserve a fresh look in a fragmenting global economy
- The specific demographic and industrial dynamics that make these markets different
- The political risk realities that any entry strategy has to price in
How the European economic model is being squeezed between US industrial policy, Chinese competition, and Russian aggression.
Key takeaways:
- Why the post-Cold War European business model is structurally exposed
- The specific pressures from US IRA-style policy, Chinese overcapacity, and Russian energy leverage
- Where European firms still hold durable competitive ground