Ekonomisk Prognos

Why organisations work with Dani Rodrik His “political trilemma of the world economy” – the argument that deep globalisation, national sovereignty, and democracy cannot all coexist simultaneously – gives leaders a precise framework for understanding trade conflict, populist backlash, and the limits of multilateral governance. No other speaker in this space originated a framework with comparable analytical reach. He was an early and rigorous critic of hyperglobalisation decades before it became a mainstream concern – his 1997 book Has Globalization Gone Too Far? challenged the economic consensus at a time when that consensus was near-universal. That track record gives his current views on de-globalisation a weight that commentary-based speakers cannot match. His most recent research on industrial policy – including the 2024 Annual Review of Economics paper “The New Economics of Industrial Policy” – provides organisations with an evidence-based lens on why governments are intervening in markets again, and what conditions make those interventions work or fail. His co-directorship of the Reimagining the Economy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, combined with long-standing engagement with the World Bank, IMF, and national governments, grounds his arguments in institutional and policy realities rather than theoretical abstractions. He addresses the specific commercial tension that most economists avoid: that markets require states, but too much globalisation undermines the states that markets depend on – a paradox directly relevant to any organisation managing regulatory risk, supply chain exposure, or international strategy. Biography highlights Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School; formerly Albert O. Hirschman Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Originator of the “political trilemma of the world economy” – one of the most cited frameworks in international economic theory Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, 2020; Albert O. Hirschman Prize (inaugural), Social Science Research Council, 2007; Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought, Tufts University, 2002 President of the International Economic Association, 2021-23 Author of more than twenty books including The Globalization Paradox (2011), Straight Talk on Trade (2017), and Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World (Princeton University Press, 2025) Regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 1998; affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London Member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; co-director, Reimagining the Economy Program, Harvard Kennedy School Biography Dani Rodrik has spent three decades making a single, uncomfortable argument: that the version of globalisation advanced since the 1990s contained the seeds of its own political destruction. His 2000 paper coining the “political trilemma of the world economy” – the claim that deep globalisation, national sovereignty, and democracy cannot coexist simultaneously – now reads less like a provocation than a forecast. Brexit, the rise of economic nationalism, and the collapse of the trade consensus have all traced the fault lines he identified. His 2011 book The Globalization Paradox gave the trilemma its fullest treatment: markets require functioning states, but aggressive global integration progressively undermines the democratic legitimacy that states need to operate. The book has become a reference point for policymakers and strategists trying to understand why the rules-based international order is under pressure from within its own societies, not only from geopolitical rivals. More recently, Rodrik has turned the argument forward. His work at Harvard’s Reimagining the Economy Program, his 2024 Annual Review of Economics paper on the new economics of industrial policy, and his 2025 book Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World set out the conditions under which governments can use selective intervention to create good jobs, reduce inequality, and manage the green transition without sacrificing the open economy entirely. The argument is neither protectionist nor conventionally liberal – it is a structured case for how managed markets can deliver outcomes that free markets, left alone, will not. At Harvard Kennedy School, where he has held the Ford Foundation Chair in International Political Economy since 1996, Rodrik has advised the World Bank, contributed monthly analysis to Project Syndicate since 1998, and served as President of the International Economic Association. His awards – including the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences and the inaugural Albert O. Hirschman Prize of the Social Science Research Council – recognise a body of work that has demonstrably reshaped how economists and policymakers talk about trade, development, and the relationship between markets and democracy. Key speaking topics The political trilemma of globalisation Trade policy and economic nationalism Industrial policy and the future of manufacturing Economic development and growth strategy Inclusive prosperity and the labour market Geopolitics and the international economic order Post-neoliberal economic policy The relationship between democracy and market integration Ideal for Government ministers, central bank officials, and senior civil servants navigating trade and industrial policy decisions Board-level strategy and risk committees assessing geopolitical and regulatory exposure International economic forums, sovereign wealth funds, and multilateral institutions Chief economists and global research heads at financial institutions Audience outcomes A precise analytical framework – the political trilemma – for diagnosing why trade and globalisation conflicts are structural rather than episodic Clearer understanding of the conditions under which industrial policy and managed trade create value, and when they do not Insight into the relationship between economic inequality, democratic instability, and the pressures on international institutions A sharper vocabulary for board and government conversations about de-globalisation, reshoring, and the limits of multilateral governance Historical and comparative perspective on which economic policy models have produced broad-based growth in developing and advanced economies

Why organisations work with Daniel Gros Direct lineage to the euro’s creation. As Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, he worked on the blueprint that became Europe’s monetary union, and still publishes on its unfinished architecture. Two decades steering CEPS, Europe’s leading independent economic policy think tank, give him a working map of Brussels, Frankfurt, and national capitals that few outside economists can match. Current director of the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, with live research output on EU competitiveness, defense financing, and the middle-technology trap. Adviser to the European Parliament and former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board, with standing counsel histories to governments in Greece, the UK, and the US. A syndicated Project Syndicate columnist whose positions often move ahead of consensus, useful for boards trying to separate durable shifts from noise. Biography highlights Director, Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University. Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), 2000 to 2020. Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, European Commission, on the design of the euro. Former economist at the International Monetary Fund. Adviser to the European Parliament; former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board. Co-author of European Monetary Integration (with Niels Thygesen) and Open Issues in European Central Banking (with Lorenzo Bini Smaghi); syndicated columnist for Project Syndicate. Biography The euro was designed in the late 1980s inside a committee chaired by Jacques Delors. Daniel Gros was the economic adviser on that committee, one of the technical authors of a currency now used by more than 340 million people. That origin shapes how he reads every European crisis since. For twenty years he ran the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, the think tank most closely wired into EU institutions. Under his direction CEPS became a first reference for finance ministries, central banks, and the European Parliament on questions of monetary union, enlargement, and financial stability. He now directs the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, where his research agenda has moved to EU competitiveness, defense financing, Chinese industrial policy, and what he calls the middle-technology trap. His authority rests on two things working together. The first is technical depth: a University of Chicago PhD, a career inside the IMF and European Commission, co-authorship of the standard textbook on European monetary integration. The second is access. He advises the European Parliament, has counselled governments in Greece, the UK, and the US, and sat on the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board. What he gives a senior audience is the ability to distinguish structural change from cyclical noise in the European economy. His Project Syndicate columns often take positions ahead of the Brussels consensus, which is the useful test of whether a commentator is describing reality or repeating it. Key speaking topics Eurozone economic policy and monetary union EU competitiveness and industrial strategy European defense financing and fiscal capacity Geopolitical economic risk and EU-China relations The international role of the euro European banking, financial stability, and capital markets EU enlargement and the political economy of integration Ideal for Boards and executive committees of European financial institutions, asset managers, and insurers pricing eurozone and sovereign risk. CEOs, CFOs, and strategy leads at multinationals reassessing European market exposure against US and Chinese policy shifts. Government relations, policy, and public affairs leaders tracking Brussels and Frankfurt decisions that affect capital allocation. Investor conferences and economic outlook events briefing senior audiences on EU macro conditions. Audience outcomes A sharper read on where the eurozone’s architecture is still fragile and where it is more resilient than headlines suggest. A working view of the EU competitiveness agenda, including industrial policy, defense spending, and the middle-technology trap. Clarity on how European responses to Chinese industrial policy and US tariff shifts will reshape capital flows and trade. A named set of indicators and policy triggers to watch over the next 12 to 24 months. Answers calibrated to senior decision-makers, drawing on direct experience advising parliaments, central banks, and governments.

Why organisations work with Daniel Lacalle He is one of the few macro voices who has run institutional capital at Citadel and PIMCO, which means his read on central banks, rates and currencies is shaped by position-taking, not commentary. His work on monetary policy, set out in Escape from the Central Bank Trap, gives boards a specific framework for understanding why stimulus produces weaker growth and persistent inflation rather than the recovery policymakers promise. The Energy World Is Flat anticipated the structural shift in oil, gas and commodity markets that now sits at the centre of every industrial capital plan, energy security review and net zero financing decision. He sits across the macro and the energy desk in a way almost no other economist on the speaking circuit does, which matters for any board with significant exposure to commodities, infrastructure or sovereign risk. A regular voice on CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the World Economic Forum Agenda, so the analysis a room hears in private is the analysis institutional investors are pricing in public. Biography highlights Chief Economist at Tressis SV; former Vice President at PIMCO and portfolio manager at Citadel and Ecofin Limited. Professor of Global Economics at IE Business School and lecturer at the London School of Economics. Author of Life in the Financial Markets (Wiley), The Energy World Is Flat (Wiley), Escape from the Central Bank Trap (Business Expert Press) and Freedom or Equality (Post Hill Press). Ranked among the world’s twenty most influential economists by Richtopia in 2016, 2017 and 2019, and placed fifth in 2020. Voted Top 3 in the Thomson Reuters Extel Survey for five consecutive years across generalist, oil and electricity categories. Regular contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and the World Economic Forum Agenda, and weekly columnist for El Español. Biography Central banks have spent fifteen years running the largest monetary experiment in modern history. Boards now have to allocate capital inside the consequences. Daniel Lacalle has spent his career on the side of the trade where being wrong about the macro has a price, first at Citadel, then at Ecofin, then as Vice President at PIMCO. That experience sits underneath the books. Escape from the Central Bank Trap argues that easy money produces fragile balance sheets, asset inflation and weaker real growth, not the recovery policymakers describe. The Energy World Is Flat, written before the shale revolution remade global oil markets, set out why the assumptions priced into long-dated energy contracts no longer held. Both have moved from contrarian reading to mainstream reference inside investment committees. Since 2015 he has been Chief Economist at Tressis SV and a professor of global economics at IE Business School, with lecturing roles at the London School of Economics and IEB. His weekly commentary in El Español, his monthly slots on CNBC and Bloomberg, and his contributions to the World Economic Forum Agenda give boards a continuous read on rates, currencies, sovereign debt and energy that lines up with how institutional capital is actually positioned. The reason serious organisations book him is narrower than the topic list suggests. He is one of a small number of speakers who can sit across monetary policy and energy markets at the same time, with the credibility of having priced both inside a fund. For any board with material exposure to commodities, sovereign risk, or the cost of capital, that is the conversation that matters. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank intervention Inflation, currencies and the cost of capital Global energy markets and security of supply Sovereign debt and fiscal sustainability Macroeconomic risk and capital allocation Geopolitics and global financial markets Ideal for Boards, investment committees and CFOs reviewing capital allocation under rate and currency volatility Energy, utilities and industrial leadership teams managing commodity exposure and the economics of the energy transition Banking, asset management and family office audiences setting macro positioning Sovereign and policy audiences working on fiscal, monetary and energy questions Audience outcomes A direct read on what current central bank policy implies for inflation, rates and the real cost of capital over a multi-year horizon A defensible view of structural conditions in global oil, gas and power markets, and what they mean for industrial investment A sharper sense of where sovereign and currency risk is being mispriced, and what that means for cross-border exposure The macro framing institutional investors are actually using, expressed in language a board can act on

Why organisations work with Daniel Thorniley He has spent more than three decades inside the operational reality of CEEMEA business, first as Senior Vice President at The Economist Group in Vienna for 23 years, now as President of DT-Global Business Consulting. The intelligence is primary, not secondary. Through DT-Global and the CEEMEA Business Group, he convenes a standing network of country managers and regional executives from multinationals across the region, which means briefings are grounded in what operators are actually seeing. He translates political and macroeconomic shifts into commercial decisions: pricing, distribution, partnerships, headcount, capex. Regional MDs can use the output the week they hear it. Oxford-trained in Soviet political economy with a doctorate, and co-author of “Emerging Markets: Lessons for Business Success” (Profile Books, The Economist series), so the regional judgement is backed by published work and academic credentials, not just consultancy experience. Non-executive member of the Global Advisory Board of AECOM, with long-standing advisory relationships across major European and US corporations. He is used to speaking in the idiom of the board. Biography highlights Oxford University: BA, diploma and doctorate in Soviet political economy. Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant, The Economist Group, Vienna office, for 23 years. Founder and President, DT-Global Business Consulting GmbH, Vienna. Co-founder, CEEMEA Business Group, an advisory network for regional executives operating across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Co-author, “Emerging Markets: Lessons for Business Success and the Outlook for Different Markets” (Profile Books / The Economist, 2004) with Nenad Pacek; author of a Palgrave Macmillan study on Soviet rural political economy. Member, Global Advisory Board, AECOM. Has briefed audiences including NATO, the United Nations, and corporate clients such as Coca-Cola, Procter and Gamble, Ernst and Young, Robert Bosch and Raiffeisen. Biography CEEMEA markets do not reward general-purpose economic commentary. A multinational running operations across Poland, Turkey, the Gulf, South Africa and, until recently, Russia needs someone who can say what the next two quarters look like in each of those environments and what to do about it. That is the gap Thorniley has built his career around. For 23 years he was Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant at The Economist Group in Vienna, covering global corporate trends and emerging markets. When the Vienna office closed in 2008, he founded DT-Global Business Consulting and co-founded the CEEMEA Business Group. Both serve the same buyer: a regional executive or board member who needs primary-source intelligence on CEE, CIS and MEA, not a repackaged macro report. The distinctive asset is the network. DT-Global and CEEMEA Business Group convene country managers and senior executives from multinationals with a regional presence, which means the analysis he delivers is built on what operators are seeing in their own P&Ls. That shows up in how the briefings are pitched, with specific guidance on pricing, distribution, staffing and capital allocation rather than high-altitude commentary. The academic foundation matters because the region rewards it. His Oxford doctorate in Soviet political economy and his Palgrave Macmillan monograph sit behind three decades of reading Russia and its neighbours; his co-authored Profile Books volume on emerging markets, written with Nenad Pacek under The Economist imprint, distilled the operational playbook for multinationals entering frontier economies. Sir John Major has publicly called him the world’s leading business expert on emerging markets. Key speaking topics CEEMEA economic and political outlook Russia, CIS and Central Asia business environment Central and Eastern Europe corporate strategy Middle East and Africa market entry and growth Global emerging markets risk and opportunity Multinational operating models in frontier economies Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material CEEMEA exposure Regional presidents, country managers and EMEA leadership teams Corporate strategy, risk intelligence and government affairs functions Annual leadership offsites and investor or partner conferences focused on emerging markets Audience outcomes A clear read on where CEE, CIS and MEA economies are heading in the next two to four quarters A practical view on how political risk is translating into pricing, distribution and hiring decisions on the ground Specific guidance on which markets in the region to lean into, which to hold, and which to reassess A framework for stress-testing corporate assumptions about Russia, Turkey, the Gulf and Sub-Saharan Africa Candid answers on how peer multinationals are adjusting their regional operating models

Why organisations work with David Smith More than three decades of reading the UK economy from inside the same national-press seat, which gives audiences a continuous interpretive line on monetary policy, fiscal cycles and recovery patterns that no rotating commentator can offer. A working journalist’s access. Smith writes the weekly Sunday Times economics column and a Times column, so briefings draw on live contact with policy thinkers, Treasury officials and City economists, not retrospective analysis. Authored catalogue covering the Thatcher-era monetarist experiment, the 2008 financial crisis, the China and India growth story, and post-crisis Britain. Few UK economics speakers can place a current decision against that depth of written record. Trusted by sector audiences for Budget and Spending Review briefings, including recurring briefings for the Disruptive Innovators Network in housing, which signals he reads as relevant to operational leaders, not just finance specialists. Academic credibility without academic remove: Honorary Professor at Nottingham and Visiting Professor at Cardiff, while still writing weekly for the national press. Biography highlights Economics Editor of The Sunday Times since 1989; also chief leader-writer, assistant editor and policy adviser. Weekly columnist for The Times since 2016. Honorary Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham; Visiting Professor, Cardiff University. Author of Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics, The Dragon and the Elephant, The Age of Instability, Something Will Turn Up and earlier titles including The Rise and Fall of Monetarism and North and South. Harold Wincott, Senior Financial Journalist of the Year; Economics Commentator of the Year (2013); Business Journalist of the Year, London Press Awards (2014); Property Columnist of the Year. Highly Commended Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards (2008). Biography UK economic policy has been rewritten at least three times in a generation: the monetarist experiment, the response to the 2008 crash, and the post-pandemic reset of inflation, rates and public spending. Reading each of those shifts as they happened, in the same national newspaper column, is a rare position. That is the seat David Smith has held since 1989. As Economics Editor of The Sunday Times, chief leader-writer and assistant editor, Smith writes the paper’s weekly economics column and contributes a separate weekly column to The Times. The work is grounded in continuous contact with Treasury officials, Bank of England watchers and City economists, which is why corporate audiences treat his Budget and Spending Review briefings as a baseline read rather than a comment piece. His books extend that frame backwards and outwards. The Rise and Fall of Monetarism, From Boom to Bust and North and South, track the structural arguments inside the UK economy. The Dragon and the Elephant set out the China and India growth story before it was a consensus board topic. The Age of Instability and Something Will Turn Up read the 2008 crisis and its long tail. The catalogue gives him a historical baseline that most current commentators do not have. Academic affiliations sit alongside the journalism rather than replacing it. Smith is Honorary Professor in Nottingham’s Faculty of Social Sciences and a Visiting Professor at Cardiff University, and has lectured at Nottingham’s Malaysia and Ningbo campuses. His awards record, including the Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year, the 2013 Economics Commentator of the Year and the 2014 Business Journalist of the Year at the London Press Awards, marks him as the commentator other commentators read. Key speaking topics UK economic policy and the Budget Bank of England and interest rate outlook Global markets and the US Federal Reserve UK and Europe after Brexit UK housing and property markets China, India and the shifting global economic order Long-run outlook for the UK economy Ideal for Boards and executive teams making capital allocation, hiring or pricing decisions against a moving macro picture CFOs, treasurers and heads of strategy are briefing leadership on the UK and global economic outlook Property, housing and real-estate leadership audiences planning against rate and policy cycles Annual conferences, partner meetings and client events are looking for a senior, non-partisan read of the UK economy Audience outcomes A clear, current read of where UK growth, inflation and interest rates are heading and what is driving each A view on the next Budget or fiscal event and how it changes the operating environment A grounded sense of how UK conditions sit against US, European and Asian economic shifts Confidence in distinguishing genuine structural change from short-term political and market noise Specific reference points from three decades of UK economic cycles that audiences can use in their own planning conversations

Why organisations work with Desmond Lachman Three careers in one seat: IMF crisis rooms, Salomon Smith Barney’s emerging-markets strategy desk, and two decades of published analysis at AEI. Very few macro commentators have worked the lender, the investor, and the think-tank perspectives on the same problem. A track record of specific named calls, not generic warnings. Argentina’s default, the US housing bust, and the eurozone sovereign-debt stress were all argued in print before they broke. Active columnist at Project Syndicate with regular bylines in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Barron’s. What a client hears in a private session is the same argument serious financial readers are getting in print that week. A clear, unhedged house view on US fiscal sustainability, tariff shocks, and dollar risk. Useful for boards that want a counterweight to consensus forecasts from sell-side research. Fluency in the multilateral architecture. When the IMF, World Bank, or G20 becomes the story, he can explain what those institutions will and will not do, from direct experience inside them. Biography highlights Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, since 2003 Former Deputy Director, IMF Policy Development and Review Department; earlier Senior Advisor in the Western Hemisphere and European Departments Former Managing Director and Chief Emerging Market Economic Strategist, Salomon Smith Barney Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and Georgetown University Columnist at Project Syndicate; regular contributor to the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, The Hill BBC Newsnight “Chart of the Year”, 2011, for his 10-year euro yields graph; credited by Bloomberg with calling the global credit crisis and eurozone stress PhD in Economics, Cambridge University; BA, University of the Witwatersrand Biography The argument that US debt dynamics and the dollar’s reserve status are unassailable is exactly the assumption Desmond Lachman has been dismantling in print for years. His Project Syndicate columns and AEI essays make the case that America is beginning to show the fiscal and currency signatures of a troubled emerging-market economy, and that the response from the IMF and major central banks will be slower and more constrained than markets are pricing. The credibility of that view rests on a career built across the three institutions that shape these outcomes. At the IMF, Lachman rose to Deputy Director of the Policy Development and Review Department after a decade as Senior Advisor in the Western Hemisphere and European Departments, the years that included the Mexican peso crisis and the build-up to Argentina’s default. He then moved to Salomon Smith Barney as Managing Director and Chief Emerging Market Economic Strategist, advising institutional investors on the same sovereign risks from the buy side. Since 2003 he has been a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, with adjunct chairs at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown. He writes regularly for the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, and The Hill, and is interviewed on CNBC, BBC, NPR, and CNN when the story is sovereign debt, tariffs, or currency stress. BBC Newsnight picked his 10-year euro yields chart as Chart of the Year in 2011; Bloomberg credited him with calling the global credit crisis and the strains that the euro would create among member states. For a board or investment committee, the value is pointed: Lachman will name the scenarios, the trigger variables, and the policy responses he expects, and he will tell a room why the official forecasts are wrong when he believes they are. Key speaking topics US fiscal sustainability and sovereign debt risk The dollar and global reserve currency dynamics Eurozone macro and sovereign stress Emerging-market crises and capital flows Tariffs, trade policy, and the global economy The IMF, World Bank, and multilateral lender behaviour Inflation, interest rates, and central bank policy Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting multi-year capital allocation against macro and currency risk CFO, treasurer, and corporate-risk audiences stress-testing sovereign, FX, and rate exposure Asset managers, banks, and insurers briefing clients on emerging-market and eurozone outlooks Policy, trade, and government-affairs leaders tracking tariff and multilateral-lender dynamics Audience outcomes A specific read on where US fiscal and dollar risk sits in the current cycle, with the variables to watch A working mental model of how sovereign debt crises actually unfold, drawn from cases Lachman worked at the IMF and from Wall Street A candid view on what the IMF and major central banks will and will not do in the next stress episode Sharper questions to put to sell-side research and in-house economists on tariffs, currency, and emerging-market exposure

Why organisations work with Dominic O’Connell He chairs financial services flagship events at the level institutions trust with their reputation, including two editions of TISA’s Annual Flagship Conference. He interviews executives the way a working business journalist does, with the framing of someone who has spent twenty years inside UK corporate stories at The Sunday Times, the BBC and The Times. He won the Wincott Award in 2017, the most credible signal in UK business journalism, which buyers in financial services and the City recognise on sight. He moves between hosting, on-stage interviewing, and panel moderating without flattening any of them, which is what complex multi-stream conferences need. Biography highlights Business presenter, Times Radio (from November 2021, the station’s first business correspondent). Saturday business columnist, The Times. Business presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for five years from 2016, with regular appearances across BBC television. Business Editor, The Sunday Times, 2010 to 2016; joined the paper in 2001. Wincott Award winner, 2017. Contributing author on “Grit, Rigour & Humour: The INEOS Story” (Penguin, 2023), appraising the INEOS business alongside contributors including Sebastian Coe and Andrew Likierman. Biography UK business journalism has produced a small group of people who can chair a flagship financial services conference, interview a sitting CEO live on national radio, and write a Saturday newspaper column on the same week. Dominic O’Connell is one of them. He currently anchors business coverage on Times Radio and writes the Saturday business column for The Times. Before Times Radio he spent five years as business presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, where corporate Britain went on the record before breakfast and where preparation and composure are the price of entry. He joined the BBC in 2016 from The Sunday Times, where he was business editor for six years and a senior writer on the paper from 2001. The Wincott Award in 2017, UK business journalism’s premier prize, sits behind the work. So does a longer body of corporate reporting recognised inside the City and Westminster. In 2023 he was the journalist Penguin commissioned to appraise INEOS at twenty-five in “Grit, Rigour & Humour”, alongside contributors including Sebastian Coe and Andrew Likierman. That track record is why financial services institutions hire him to chair the rooms where their boards, regulators and clients are watching. He has twice chaired TISA’s Annual Flagship Conference and has worked with firms including RSMR. The product is not a keynote thesis. It is a working business journalist running the room and keeping the agenda honest. Key speaking topics UK and global business news Financial services and investment Equity markets and corporate strategy Macroeconomics and policy Corporate leadership and CEO interviews The City of London and UK plc Ideal for Annual flagship conferences hosted by financial services trade bodies and asset managers Investor days, AGMs and capital markets events Corporate leadership summits, board offsites and CEO panels Industry awards, gala dinners and after-dinner business audiences Audience outcomes A conference programme that holds together as one editorial narrative across the day Panels that go past the prepared statements and produce something quotable A chair who can press a CEO without losing the room or the speaker Coverage that lands cleanly with a business-literate audience, on stage and in any subsequent write-up

Why organisations work with Ernesto Zedillo He has run a major economy through a currency crisis and a peaceful democratic transition, and can speak to macroeconomic decision-making with first-hand authority rather than commentary. He directs Yale’s globalization programme, which gives his reading of trade policy, capital markets and multilateral institutions an analytical base that short-horizon geopolitical speakers cannot match. His service on The Elders, the Group of Thirty and the Global Commission on Drug Policy puts him inside the rooms where international policy is actually debated, not outside them. Twenty years of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble mean he understands how boards translate geopolitical risk into capital allocation, and speaks to corporate audiences in their terms. He is the architect of Progresa, the conditional cash-transfer model later adopted from Brazil to New York City, which gives him a credible track record on social policy design as well as macro policy. Biography highlights President of Mexico, 1994 to 2000, following senior roles as Secretary of Education, Secretary of Economic Programming and the Budget, and Deputy Director of the Central Bank of Mexico. Frederick Iseman ’74 Director of the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, with professorships in International Economics and Politics and at the Yale School of the Environment. Member of The Elders, the Group of Thirty, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. Independent Director of Citigroup (since 2010), Alcoa (2002 to present in current form) and Procter and Gamble (2001 to 2019); international advisory board member at BP. Editor of influential volumes including Trade in the 21st Century (2021), The Future of Globalization (Routledge, 2008), Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto (Brookings, 2008) and Reforming the United Nations for Peace and Security (2005); Forbes columnist, 2001 to 2007. Recipient of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom from Fear Award, the Berkeley Medal, Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal, and honorary degrees from Yale, Harvard and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, among others. Biography Mexico entered 1995 with a collapsing peso, dollar-denominated short-term debt the government could not roll over, and an incoming president six weeks into office. The policy response shaped how emerging-market crises have been handled since. Ernesto Zedillo led that government, and six years later handed power to an opposition candidate in the country’s first democratic transition of the modern era. That experience sits behind the work he has done at Yale since 2002, where he directs the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. The programme has produced a stream of edited volumes on the live questions in trade, climate policy, UN reform and drug policy, with Zedillo as editor and author. His Forbes column ran for six years. His reading of globalization is not theoretical; it is built on governing through one of the defining episodes of the era and staying close to the policy conversation ever since. What makes him useful to corporate audiences is the combination of that academic base with two decades of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble. He has sat on the audit and risk side of multinational boards through the 2008 crisis, the rise of trade friction with China, and the reorganisation of supply chains. He knows how geopolitical analysis translates, or fails to translate, into capital decisions. He continues to serve on The Elders, the Group of Thirty, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s work on planetary health. He was the architect of Progresa, the Mexican conditional cash-transfer programme that Brazil, Colombia and dozens of other governments later adapted. The range matters because the argument he brings to a board or executive audience is not a topic briefing. It is a view of where the international system is heading from someone who has governed inside it, taught it, and helped steer large companies through it. Key speaking topics Globalization and the future of the international trading system Macroeconomic policy and emerging-market risk Geopolitical shifts and multilateral institutions US-Mexico relations and North American economic integration Climate policy and international cooperation Social policy design and conditional cash-transfer programmes Global governance reform Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences weighing country risk, trade exposure and cross-border capital allocation Financial services, industrial and consumer-goods companies with significant emerging-market or Latin American footprints CEO forums, investor conferences and policy gatherings that need a credible read on globalization and geopolitical risk Public sector and multilateral audiences working on trade policy, development finance or social policy design Audience outcomes A sharper read on what the unwinding of the post-1990 trade order means for corporate strategy A direct account of how a government actually makes decisions during a currency and debt crisis, and what that implies for today’s sovereign risk A realistic view of where multilateral institutions still function and where they do not An informed perspective on US-Mexico economic relations and North American supply chain strategy A grounded framework for thinking about social policy design, drawn from the Progresa experience

Why organisations work with Eugene Fama He is the architect of the efficient markets hypothesis and co-author of the Fama-French three-factor model, two of the handful of frameworks that genuinely shape how serious institutions set investment policy. His 2013 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller, was awarded specifically for empirical analysis of asset prices, the exact question committees face when they debate active versus passive, factor exposures, or long-run return assumptions. He has sat inside the practitioner world for more than four decades as a founding director of Dimensional Fund Advisors, so the perspective he brings to a room has been stress-tested against real portfolios, not just published papers. As chairman of the Center for Research in Security Prices at Chicago Booth, he oversees the dataset that underpins modern empirical finance, which gives his reading of current market behaviour an evidential weight few others can match. Before him, “what works in markets” was largely opinion. After his research, it became a testable claim. Institutions that care about fiduciary defensibility value that shift directly. Biography highlights Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 2013, for empirical analysis of asset prices. Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Chairman of the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at Chicago Booth. Founding director and member of the Investment Research Committee at Dimensional Fund Advisors. Author of more than 100 journal articles and the books “The Theory of Finance” (with Merton Miller), “Foundations of Finance”, and “The Fama Portfolio”. First recipient of the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics (2005), the Morgan Stanley AFA Award for Excellence in Finance (2007) and the Onassis Prize in Finance (2009). Biography Most of what financial markets look like from a trading floor was, until the 1960s, a matter of opinion. “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work”, published in the Journal of Finance in May 1970, reframed the question as an empirical one and forced the industry to answer it with data. Eugene Fama wrote that paper while on the Chicago faculty he has now held for more than five decades. The body of work that followed is the intellectual spine of evidence-based investing. The 1992 paper with Kenneth French, “The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns”, established that exposure to market, size and value factors explained the overwhelming share of historical returns in diversified portfolios. That result is why index and factor strategies now dominate institutional allocation, and why active managers are held to a much harder standard than they were a generation ago. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2013 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences jointly to Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller for their empirical analysis of asset prices. At the University of Chicago Booth School of Business he holds the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professorship and chairs the Center for Research in Security Prices, the dataset underneath most serious empirical finance. Since 1981 he has served as a founding director of Dimensional Fund Advisors, where the research has been deployed inside real portfolios at institutional scale. For boards and investment committees, the value is specific. He is the person who built the framework they are implicitly using when they debate active fees, factor tilts, or long-horizon assumptions, and he has stayed close enough to practice to speak to those debates with current evidence rather than historical summary. Key speaking topics Market efficiency and the empirical behaviour of asset prices The Fama-French factor models and expected returns Evidence-based and index-driven investment strategy Portfolio construction, diversification and long-horizon risk Active versus passive management under fiduciary constraints Empirical methods in financial economics Ideal for Boards, investment committees and trustees of pensions, endowments and sovereign funds CIOs, CFOs and heads of treasury setting long-horizon capital policy Asset managers, wealth managers and financial services executives refining their investment philosophy Academic and policy audiences engaged with capital markets research Audience outcomes A sharper read on what the empirical record actually says about predicting and beating markets A clearer basis for evaluating active managers, factor strategies and fee structures Language and evidence to defend long-horizon, diversified policy choices to stakeholders Direct engagement with the researcher whose frameworks sit underneath modern portfolio policy Grounded perspective on where current market debates diverge from, or align with, the empirical evidence

Why organisations work with Ewald Nowotny A first-hand account of ECB Governing Council decision-making across the sovereign debt crisis, the negative-rate era, and the start of unconventional policy unwind, by someone who voted in the room. Cross-institutional perspective most central bankers cannot match: ECB Governing Council, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, CEO of BAWAG P.S.K., and a chair of the Austrian Parliament’s Finance Committee. An economist’s framework, not a commentator’s view. Three decades as a full professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business, with nine books and a standard public finance textbook in its fifth edition. A direct read on European political economy and the durability of the euro, from a participant who was inside the German-Austrian bloc on the Council during its most contested years. Biography highlights Governor, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, and member of the ECB Governing Council, 2008 to 2019. Vice President, European Investment Bank, 1999 to 2003. CEO, BAWAG P.S.K. Group, 2006 to 2008. Full Professor of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, 1981 to 2008; Vice Rector for Finance, 2003 to 2005. Member of the Austrian National Council, 1978 to 1999; Chair of the Finance Committee, 1985 to 1999. Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur (2017); Honorary Member, SUERF. Biography The eurozone has spent fifteen years inside policy regimes most boards were not built to read. Sovereign debt crisis, negative rates, asset purchase programmes, and the start of policy normalisation each redrew the cost of capital and the political settlement around it. Ewald Nowotny was inside the room where those decisions were taken. As Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank from 2008 to 2019, he sat on the ECB Governing Council through every one of those phases. He voted on the response to the Greek crisis, on the launch of large-scale asset purchases, and on the policy stance that defined European credit conditions for a decade. His public commentary, captured across BIS speech archives and central banking media, tracked the substantive arguments inside the Council rather than the headlines outside it. Before the central bank, his career covered the institutions that shape European capital flows from different angles. He served as Vice President of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg from 1999 to 2003, then as CEO of BAWAG P.S.K. Group during a period of acute restructuring at the Austrian bank. Earlier, he chaired the Finance Committee of the Austrian Parliament for fourteen years. The academic standing is the second axis. He held a full professorship at Vienna University of Economics and Business for almost three decades and co-authored the standard German-language textbook on public sector finance, now in its fifth edition. He was made Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur in 2017 and is an honorary member of SUERF, the European Money and Finance Forum. Key speaking topics Eurozone monetary policy and the future of the euro ECB decision-making and central bank independence European banking regulation after the financial crisis Sovereign debt and fiscal policy in the EU Macroeconomic outlook and global capital markets Public sector finance Ideal for Boards and audit committees stress-testing capital and treasury assumptions against European monetary policy CFOs, group treasurers, and CIOs in banking, insurance, and asset management Public-sector and supranational audiences working on EU economic governance Senior policy and corporate-affairs leaders engaging with European institutions Audience outcomes A working account of how the ECB Governing Council weighs price stability against financial stability, from someone who voted on those trade-offs. A clearer view of what is structural versus cyclical in eurozone politics, including the German-Austrian fiscal stance and its likely persistence. Specific reference points for reading future ECB decisions: which arguments tend to win on the Council, and which signals matter. Context on the European Investment Bank and the EU’s supranational lending architecture as a tool of policy and capital allocation.

Why organisations work with Fraser Nelson Fifteen years editing The Spectator, the longest-running weekly in the English language, gives him a working memory of Westminster that most commentators do not have. He chairs panels and interviews senior figures for a living, which shows up on a corporate stage as pace, real questions, and genuine pushback rather than a scripted Q and A. He has argued the centre-right case on welfare, tax and growth in print and on Channel 4 Dispatches, so audiences that disagree with him still get a coherent argument rather than a talking-points loop. Sits on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies and the advisory board of the Centre for Social Justice, which keeps him close to the policy process leaders are trying to read. Won the British Press Award for Political Journalist of the Year in 2013 and Columnist of the Year at the 2025 British Journalism Awards, a twelve-year span that speaks to durability rather than a moment. Biography highlights Editor of The Spectator, 2009 to 2024. Columnist for The Times; previously a Daily Telegraph columnist for thirteen years. British Press Award, Political Journalist of the Year, 2013. Columnist of the Year, British Journalism Awards, 2025. BSME Editor of the Year (current affairs) in 2013, 2021 and 2023. Board member, Centre for Policy Studies; advisory board, Centre for Social Justice. Presenter of Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries including How The Rich Get Richer (2014) and a 2024 Wincott-Award-winning investigation into Britain’s sickness-benefits system. Biography British political reporting runs on access, and access runs on trust built over years. Fraser Nelson spent fifteen of those years editing The Spectator, from 2009 to 2024, during which the magazine’s subscriptions roughly doubled while the wider weekly market shrank. That job puts an editor on first-name terms with every Prime Minister, Chancellor and opposition leader of the period. Before The Spectator he covered business at The Times, then ran Scottish politics for The Scotsman. He now writes a weekly column for The Times, after thirteen years at the Daily Telegraph. The awards track records the endurance rather than the moment: Political Journalist of the Year at the 2013 British Press Awards, Editors’ Editor of the Year in the same year, BSME current-affairs editor of the year in 2021 and 2023, and Columnist of the Year at the 2025 British Journalism Awards. His policy work sits on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies, where he delivered the 2009 Keith Joseph Lecture, and on the advisory board of the Centre for Social Justice. That work has produced two Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries, including How The Rich Get Richer in 2014 and a 2024 investigation into Britain’s sickness-benefits system that won a Wincott Award. On stage he is most often used as a moderator and interviewer of senior figures, where the job is to pull something useful out of a Chancellor or a Cabinet minister in thirty minutes in front of a corporate audience. For clients who want the content rather than the craft, he delivers a sharp read on UK politics, economic policy, and the welfare reform debate he has argued from the centre-right for two decades. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster decision-making British economic policy and the case for reform Welfare, work and the long-term fiscal picture The state of British journalism and media Brexit and its unfinished consequences Panel moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and investment committees making UK-exposed capital and hiring decisions Annual conferences that want a credible moderator for a minister, regulator or CEO panel Partner and client dinners where the brief is a half-hour read of the political year Public affairs and policy teams inside UK-regulated sectors briefing senior leadership Audience outcomes A clearer read on which Westminster signals are durable and which are noise A centre-right argument on tax, welfare and growth that a mixed room can engage with A sense of how Treasury, Number 10 and the opposition actually make decisions For moderated sessions, a sharper interview of the senior guest than the room expected

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.