Geopolitisk påverkan speakers

Why organisations work with Abishur Prakash He defined the geopolitics-of-technology field early and keeps naming what comes next. His 2016 book Next Geopolitics set out a scenario framework for state competition over AI and robotics that boards are now living through. His latest, The Great Fracturing, maps the broken order they operate in today. He gives executives a working vocabulary for the new operating environment. Concepts he coined, including Vertical Globalization, Geopolitics of AI and Business Iron Curtain, name dynamics that buyers can otherwise only describe in fragments. His work at the Center for Innovating the Future has been cited by the World Economic Forum, Brookings, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, signalling that policymakers and corporates draw on the same analysis. He briefs in two registers. He has testified to the Senate of Canada and writes regularly in CNBC, Nikkei Asia, BBC, Politico, Fortune and the WSJ, so he is fluent with both heads of state and operating executives. He runs an advisory firm, The Geopolitical Business, that is built specifically for corporate decision-makers, not academic audiences. The reading frame is always: what does this mean for your next investment, supplier, market or product launch. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of The Geopolitical Business, a Toronto-based advisory firm. Author of six books, including his latest, The Great Fracturing: How Geopolitics Is Breaking the World (2026), The World Is Vertical, and Next Geopolitics Volumes One and Two. Former geopolitical futurist at the Center for Innovating the Future; represented CIF in testimony to the Senate of Canada in 2017. Work cited by the World Economic Forum, Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Bylines and commentary in CNN, BBC, CNBC, WSJ, Nikkei Asia, Reuters, Politico, Fortune, The Telegraph, Scientific American and SCMP. Coined frameworks now used in corporate strategy discussions: Next Geopolitics, Vertical Globalization, Geopolitics of AI, Business Iron Curtain. Biography The intersection of state power and corporate strategy is where most boardroom assumptions are now breaking. Export controls on chips, sanctions regimes that shift quarterly, severed supply corridors and AI rivalry between Washington and Beijing are no longer macro context. They sit on the operating P&L. Abishur Prakash has been mapping this terrain since 2013, when he first set out the case that geopolitics and technology had become a single field. Six books built that argument in stages. Next Geopolitics Volumes One and Two used scenario-based chapters to show how AI, robotics and biotech would force governments and companies into new postures. Go.AI examined the state-level race for artificial intelligence advantage. The Age of Killer Robots looked at autonomy in defence. The World Is Vertical: How Technology Is Remaking Globalization argued that the flat, integrated world of the 1990s and 2000s is being replaced by a layered, segmented one in which corporates choose blocs rather than markets. His latest book, The Great Fracturing: How Geopolitics Is Breaking the World, widens the lens from technology to the whole order. It traces how trade, ideology, connectivity and alliances are breaking into rival systems, reshaping everything from capital flows to how AI is deployed. His vantage point is built on both policy and corporate exposure. As a futurist at the Center for Innovating the Future, his work was cited by the World Economic Forum, Brookings and the UAE foreign ministry, and he testified to the Senate of Canada in 2017. He now runs The Geopolitical Business, a firm built to convert that analysis into decisions for executives, central banks and investors. His commentary appears regularly in CNBC, BBC, Nikkei Asia, the WSJ, Politico and Fortune. What boards take from him is not a worldview, but a working method. Concepts he coined, Vertical Globalization, Geopolitics of AI, Business Iron Curtain, give leadership teams a vocabulary for things they were already feeling on supply, capital and market access. The output is concrete: which corridors are closing, which blocs are forming, where the next sanction or subsidy is likely to land, and what that means for the next investment cycle. Key speaking topics Geopolitics of technology and AI US-China strategic and technology competition Vertical Globalization and the end of flat-world supply chains Sanctions, export controls and the Business Iron Curtain Scenario planning for boards and investors Long-range geopolitical foresight Bloc formation and the future of trade corridors The fracturing of the global order Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CSOs setting strategy across multiple geopolitical blocs CFOs and treasury leaders running capital allocation under sanctions and currency volatility Heads of supply chain, procurement and manufacturing footprint Investors, central banks and policy leaders responsible for long-horizon risk Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how state-level technology rivalry is reshaping their specific industry Named frameworks for describing geopolitical change inside their own strategy process Sharper questions for the next board, investment committee or supply review A view of which corridors, blocs and choke points to watch over the coming cycle Confidence to act on geopolitical risk before it becomes a balance-sheet event

Key speaking topics UK politics and government Global political developments Election campaigns and political strategy Media and political broadcasting US politics and transatlantic relations The role of journalism in modern democracy Political leadership and decision-making Ideal for Corporate leadership teams seeking political and geopolitical context Financial services and global businesses monitoring political risk Conferences focused on public affairs, media or government relations Organisations hosting moderated discussions with political leaders or policymakers Audience outcomes Clearer understanding of the UK political landscape and decision-making environment Insight into global political developments and their implications for organisations Perspective on election campaigns, political strategy and leadership Understanding of how political narratives are shaped in modern media Context for interpreting government policy and political risk Why organisations work with Adam Boulton Extensive experience covering UK and international politics across broadcast media. Ability to explain complex political developments in clear, structured terms for business audiences. Credibility built through decades of political reporting, interviews with national leaders and major election coverage. Skilled moderator and conference host able to guide informed discussions on politics, policy and public affairs. Biography Adam Boulton is one of the most experienced figures in British political broadcasting, with a career spanning more than four decades reporting on UK and international politics. As the founding Political Editor of Sky News, he played a central role in shaping the channel’s political coverage and became a prominent voice in live political journalism and election reporting. During his time at Sky News he hosted several of the network’s flagship political programmes, including All Out Politics, Boulton and Co, Sunday Live and Week in Review. He has fronted major live political and election coverage and conducted interviews with every UK Prime Minister from Sir Alec Douglas-Home onwards, alongside extensive reporting on US politics since the Reagan era. Earlier in his career he served as Political Editor at TV-am before joining Sky News, and he was elected chairman of the Parliamentary Lobby. His contribution to political journalism has been recognised with the Royal Television Society’s supreme judges’ award. Alongside his broadcasting career, Adam is an established political commentator and presenter. He hosts Sunday Morning with Adam Boulton on Times Radio, contributes commentary for Sky News, and has written political analysis for publications including Reaction. Adam is also an author. His books include Tony’s Ten Years: Memories of the Blair Administration and Hung Together: The 2010 Election and the Coalition Government, written with Joey Jones. Beyond broadcasting and writing, Adam is a sought-after moderator and speaker for corporate and public affairs events. He brings decades of experience covering government, elections and global political developments, helping organisations understand the forces shaping political decision-making and international affairs. He has also served as a governor of Sevenoaks School and received an honorary Doctor of Business from the University of Plymouth.

Why organisations work with Adjiedj Bakas His analytical framework tracks six categories of structural change simultaneously – economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security – giving leadership teams a coherent map rather than a trend list. No single category is read in isolation; the interactions between them are where the real strategic insight lives. His “#Forwardism” thesis reframes megatrend analysis as a source of opportunity rather than a catalogue of threat. This is a deliberate intellectual stance, not a motivational gloss – it changes how an organisation positions itself in response to disruption. His biography is genuinely differentiating in a field dominated by Western vantage points. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas brings a Global South perspective to questions about the shifting balance of economic and cultural power that most European or American futurists cannot replicate. His material has been tested against the most demanding institutional audiences on the circuit: the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, Shell’s major futures conferences, and central banking and financial institutions across Africa and Asia. A Shell audience of senior executives elected him one of the top two speakers from a field of fifty. His books – including World Megatrends and Beyond the Crisis – have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai, and the intellectual rigour of his framework has earned consistent media recognition from CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. Biography highlights Founder of Trend Office Bakas, Amsterdam – a trendwatching practice serving multinationals, financial institutions and governments internationally Author of more than ten books on global megatrends, distributed across 40+ countries; titles include World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis, Megatrends Europe and #Forwardism Elected Trendwatcher of the Year 2009 and Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 in the Netherlands Covered as a leading voice on global futures by CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Times of India and China Daily Keynote engagements include Shell, Deloitte, Google, Microsoft, ABN AMRO, KPMG, Rabobank, Credit Suisse and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Course material at CEIBS (China Europe International Business School, Shanghai) and Emory University, Atlanta Biography Most organisations run their long-term strategy on a three-to-five year horizon. The megatrends that actually reshape industries – demographic reordering, geopolitical power shifts, energy transitions, technological discontinuities – operate on timescales of twenty years or more. Adjiedj Bakas, founder of Trend Office Bakas in Amsterdam, has spent his career helping senior leaders read those slower, more consequential signals before they arrive as operational emergencies. His body of work – more than ten books published across 40 countries, including World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis and Megatrends Europe – develops a consistent analytical lens across six categories of structural change: economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security. His most recent work, #Forwardism, introduces the concept of “Happynomy” – the argument that the most powerful megatrends are better interpreted as sources of strategic opportunity than as threats to be mitigated. The perspective he brings is shaped by biography as much as by research. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas has a genuinely non-Western vantage point on shifts in global economic and cultural power that most European futurists cannot replicate. His engagements span Shell, Deloitte, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, and financial institutions across Africa, Asia and Europe – audiences for whom a view of the future that goes beyond the Western horizon is not optional. Elected Trendwatcher of the Year in the Netherlands in 2009, his work has been covered by CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. His books have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai and Emory University in Atlanta. Key speaking topics Global megatrends and structural futures Geopolitical power shifts and the rise of the Global South Demographic change and its economic consequences Long-cycle economic forecasting and scenario planning Energy and environmental transitions Technology and innovation futures Opportunity-centred strategic foresight (#Forwardism / Happynomy) Ideal for C-suite and board leaders developing long-range organisational strategy Strategy and foresight teams in multinationals requiring a structured macro-trend framework Financial institutions and investment firms assessing long-term geopolitical and economic risk Government and public-sector organisations navigating demographic and geopolitical change Audience outcomes A structured, six-category framework for mapping structural megatrends across economic, technological, demographic, environmental and geopolitical dimensions Greater confidence in distinguishing long-cycle structural shifts from short-term cyclical noise Exposure to the Global South’s increasing influence on economic and cultural direction – a perspective absent from most standard futures briefings A reframed strategic posture: tools for reading disruption as a source of opportunity rather than purely a risk management challenge A renewed and evidence-based basis for organisational optimism in conditions of uncertainty

Why organisations work with Alastair Campbell Direct experience of running government communications through general elections, war, and the daily pressure of Downing Street, applied to corporate equivalents: contested deals, regulatory crises, leadership transitions. A working method for handling hostile media and political environments that has been tested at the centre of UK government, not theorised about. Author of Winners: And How They Succeed, drawing named lessons from political, business, and sporting leaders that translate directly into how senior teams plan, decide, and execute. One of the UK’s most prominent voices on workplace mental health, with lived experience and the institutional credibility of an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. A platform that reaches senior decision-makers at scale: The Rest Is Politics runs at around eight million downloads a month, giving him a current read on the political and economic context boards are trying to interpret. Biography highlights Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair, 1997 to 2003, after running Blair’s communications in opposition from 1994. Co-host with Rory Stewart of The Rest Is Politics, one of the most-listened-to political podcasts in the UK and the leading politics show on YouTube during the 2024 general election. Bestselling author of The Blair Years, Winners: And How They Succeed, Living Better, and But What Can I Do?, alongside the All In The Mind novels. Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; former Mind Champion of the Year; co-founder of Equality4MentalHealth. Editor-at-large of The New European and a long-standing political columnist and broadcaster. Senior journalism background at the Daily Mirror and Today before moving into political communications. Biography Communication inside government is judged on the days when something has gone wrong. For nine years from 1994, Alastair Campbell sat at the centre of those days for Tony Blair, first as press secretary, then as Director of Communications and Strategy, through the 1997 election, the early years of devolution, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Iraq. The job was not press handling. It was the operational core of how a government decided what to say, to whom, and when. That experience now sits behind a second career as an author, broadcaster, and advisor. Winners: And How They Succeed set out a working theory of strategic leadership drawn from named figures across politics, business, and elite sport. The Blair Years and his subsequent diaries are the most detailed account of decision-making inside a modern UK government. His work is read by leaders who have to make calls under the same kind of scrutiny, in different sectors. The mental health work is the second strand. Living Better is an account of his depression and the systems, clinical and personal, he has used to manage it. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a former Mind Champion of the Year, and a co-founder of Equality4MentalHealth, the cross-party campaign that secured an additional 600 million pounds for UK mental health services. For corporate audiences, this is not an add-on topic. It is a senior leader who has built a public discipline around a private struggle. The Rest Is Politics, his podcast with former Conservative minister Rory Stewart, reaches several million listeners a month and led the UK politics charts through the 2024 election. The podcast is an unusual asset for a speaker: a current, weekly read on the geopolitical and domestic context in which boards and executive teams are now operating. Key speaking topics Communications strategy under pressure Leadership and decision-making in crisis Political risk and the geopolitical operating context Workplace mental health and senior leader resilience Lessons from winners across politics, business, and sport Media, scrutiny, and reputation management Campaign strategy and persuasion Ideal for CEOs, chairs, and executive committees facing contested decisions, regulatory scrutiny, or leadership transitions Communications, public affairs, and corporate affairs leaders responsible for crisis and reputation HR and people leaders building senior-level mental health and resilience programmes Leadership development audiences and partner conferences in professional services, financial services, and regulated sectors Audience outcomes A clearer view of how to make and communicate decisions when scrutiny is hostile and information is incomplete. Specific, named lessons from inside government and elite performance environments on what separates winners from competent operators. A more honest framework for senior leaders to think about their own resilience, including mental health, as a strategic variable rather than a personal weakness. A current read on the political and geopolitical environment shaping commercial decisions over the next cycle. Practical reference points for handling media, public scrutiny, and internal communication under pressure.

Why organisations work with Alec Ross He has advised both a US Secretary of State and a global venture capital firm on the same question: where power is moving as technology, capital and national interest collide. Boards get a single read across all three. The Industries of the Future sold into 24 languages and remains a reference text for executive teams framing long-range technology strategy. That gives him a shared vocabulary with global leadership audiences before he opens his mouth. The Raging 2020s offers a specific thesis, not a survey: the social contract between government, business and citizens is broken, and companies that misread the rebalancing will lose licence to operate. Leaders leave with a framework for where regulatory and political risk is actually heading. He built and sat inside the first serious technology policy function at the State Department, then moved to the investor side at Amplo. He speaks to both the regulator’s logic and the cap table’s logic, which most commentators cannot. Named to Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers and awarded the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award. Credentials buyers can cite when justifying the booking internally. Biography highlights Senior Advisor for Innovation to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 2009 to 2013, in a role created specifically to modernise the practice of diplomacy. Author of two New York Times bestsellers: The Industries of the Future (Simon and Schuster, 2016) and The Raging 2020s (Henry Holt, 2021). Distinguished Professor at the Business School of the University of Bologna; previously Distinguished Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and Senior Fellow at Columbia SIPA. Board Partner at Amplo, a global venture capital firm, with director roles across technology, finance, manufacturing, human capital and cybersecurity companies. Co-founder of One Economy, a nonprofit that expanded broadband access for low-income households before broadband policy was a political issue. Named to Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers and holder of the US Department of State Distinguished Honor Award. Biography The Senior Advisor for Innovation job at the State Department did not exist before 2009. It was built for Alec Ross, who spent four years travelling to forty-one countries turning emerging technology into an instrument of US foreign policy under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. That mandate, sitting at the join between diplomacy, national security and the technology industry, is the lens he has brought to every role since. The Industries of the Future, published in 2016, mapped the sectors he believed would reorganise the global economy over the following decade: robotics, genomics, the commercialisation of data, the weaponisation of code. It sold into 24 languages and became a fixture on executive reading lists. The Raging 2020s, published in 2021, moved the argument on. The question is no longer which technologies win. The question is whether the contract between governments, companies and citizens holds, and what companies do when it does not. Ross now teaches at the University of Bologna Business School and sits as a Board Partner at the venture capital firm Amplo, with director seats across technology, finance, manufacturing and cybersecurity. He reads a regulatory brief the way a former diplomat does and a growth plan the way an investor does, and has held both jobs in earnest. What that produces for a leadership audience is judgement on questions that sit above the CTO and below the board: where the geopolitical weather is turning, which regulatory frames are about to land, which technology bets will still make sense when the politics catches up. Foreign Policy named him to its Top 100 Global Thinkers for a reason specific to this moment. Very few commentators have worked the diplomatic side, the commercial side and the academic side of the same argument. Key speaking topics Geopolitics of technology and the US to China contest The social contract between governments, companies and citizens Artificial intelligence, data and national competitiveness Cybersecurity as a board-level risk Regulation, antitrust and the future licence to operate Long-range industry disruption and capital allocation Innovation policy and the future of work Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting multi-year technology and geopolitical strategy CEOs, CSOs and heads of government affairs briefing for regulatory inflection points Financial services, technology and industrial leadership teams exposed to US, EU and China policy divergence Conferences convening CEOs, policymakers and investors on the intersection of technology and state power Audience outcomes A sharper read on where regulation, capital and public sentiment are pushing the next decade of technology strategy. A working framework for pricing political and geopolitical risk inside commercial decisions. Named examples of how governments, companies and citizens are renegotiating the social contract, and the implications for licence to operate. A clearer view of which technology sectors are concentrating power, and where corporate strategy has to adjust. An investor and policymaker’s dual perspective on the same question, translated for operators.

Why organisations work with Aleksander Kwasniewski He was President of Poland through the single most consequential decade in the country’s modern foreign policy, signing the 1997 Constitution and overseeing accession to NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004. As the mediator of Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and a long-time EU envoy on Ukraine-EU negotiations, he holds one of the deepest first-hand views of the Russia-Ukraine-EU interaction now dominating European risk analysis. His current institutional footprint is substantive: Chairman of Yalta European Strategy, Distinguished Scholar at Georgetown, former member of the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board and former board member of the International Crisis Group. Club de Madrid membership places him alongside more than 120 former heads of state and government, reinforcing the peer-level standing corporate audiences expect when a former President speaks. His long-standing reconciliation and tolerance work, including chair of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation and the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center board, gives him credibility across a range of cross-cultural and public-diplomacy briefs. Biography highlights President of Poland, 1995 to 2005 (two terms) Led Polish accession to NATO (1999) and the European Union (2004); signed the 1997 Constitution Mediated the 2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution; co-led the European Parliament monitoring mission on Ukraine to November 2013 Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership, Georgetown University Chairman of Yalta European Strategy; founder of Amicus Europae; member of Club de Madrid and the Global Commission on Drug Policy Chair of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation; supervisory board, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center Biography The generation that designed modern Poland’s international position included a short list of people who had to take the decisions in real time. Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland from 1995 to 2005, is the one with the clearest record on the outcomes that still shape the continent: a new Constitution in 1997, accession to NATO in 1999 and to the European Union in 2004. Two terms, each won at the ballot box, in a country that had become a democracy less than a decade before he took office. His post-presidential record is built around Ukraine and European security. He mediated the 2004 Orange Revolution, brokering the settlement that ended the crisis and placed Viktor Yushchenko in the Ukrainian presidency. From then until late 2013 he co-led the European Parliament’s monitoring mission in Ukraine and headed EU talks with Ukraine on the association agreement whose collapse in 2013 triggered the Euromaidan protests the following year. Few external politicians have as long an unbroken view of the Ukraine-EU-Russia triangle as he does. The current institutional portfolio reflects that expertise. He is Chairman of Yalta European Strategy, founder of the Amicus Europae Foundation, and Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership at Georgetown University. He sits on the Club de Madrid and the Global Commission on Drug Policy, on the supervisory board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv, and on the International Advisory Council to Uzbekistan. His earlier international board roles included the Atlantic Council of the United States International Advisory Board and the International Crisis Group. For governments, multinational corporations, financial institutions and policy audiences trying to read European security, Eastern European risk and the trajectory of Ukraine, Kwasniewski is among the small group of former heads of state who speak with both political experience and current institutional engagement. His register is direct, and his material is built for executive audiences working on decisions that have consequence. Key speaking topics European security and the future of the EU and NATO Ukraine, Russia and the Eastern European geopolitical picture Poland’s transition, EU accession and political economy International diplomacy and mediation under pressure Reconciliation, tolerance and post-conflict public policy Global drug policy reform Ideal for Boards, CEOs and investment committees assessing European and Eastern European geopolitical risk Financial institutions, energy companies and multinationals with Central and Eastern European exposure Policy forums, think tanks and international affairs audiences Diplomatic, EU and NATO-adjacent events Audience outcomes A head-of-state reading of the forces shaping European security and Ukraine’s position Inside account of the 2004 Orange Revolution mediation and the 2013 EU-Ukraine association talks Historical context from Poland’s NATO and EU accession directly applicable to emerging-market strategy conversations A clearer view of how current international institutions are likely to respond to ongoing crises, from someone who has advised them

Why organisations work with Aljan de Boer A structured research model, not trend commentary. TrendsActive’s trend model draws on two decades of social science research – psychology, sociology, anthropology – to convert cultural signals into strategic implications. Audiences receive a framework, not a list of observations. Direct access to what 400+ CMOs are actually doing. As Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth, de Boer works inside a practitioner network of senior marketing leaders navigating the same pressures he describes. His insight is tested against real decisions, not desk research. The IRG Growth and Impact Studies as evidence base. His talk on humanized growth draws on two large-scale global studies produced by IRG in partnership with the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford – giving commercial teams a peer-reviewed foundation for strategies that go beyond shareholder primacy. Translation from complexity to commercial action. Where other trend speakers describe what is happening, de Boer’s focus is on what organisations should do about it – specifically for brand strategy, customer understanding, and growth planning at C-suite level. Named-brand consulting experience behind the research. TrendsActive’s client list includes Disney, Vodafone, and Hugo Boss – organisations where the same analytical approach has been stress-tested against real strategic choices. Biography highlights Head of Inspiration, TrendsActive – Netherlands-based trend consultancy applying social science to brand and business strategy Community Director, Institute for Real Growth – leads CMO leadership programme and connects a global community of 400+ senior marketing leaders IRG Impact Study, produced in partnership with Saïd Business School, University of Oxford – foundational research underpinning his humanized growth framework Board member, Dutch Platform of Innovative Marketing, for close to a decade Regular speaker and moderator, Dutch Marketing Awards; three-time winner, Best of MIE Senior Lecturer (Hoofddocent), Iris Academy; advisory and teaching roles in marketing and trends Biography Brands lose relevance not because their products deteriorate, but because the people they serve quietly change around them. Aljan de Boer has spent the past two decades helping commercial leaders see that shift before it becomes a crisis – using social science, not sentiment analysis, as the primary instrument. As Head of Inspiration at TrendsActive, de Boer works with a methodology that draws on psychology, sociology, and anthropology to decode fundamental changes in how people think, trust, and make decisions. The consultancy’s client list runs to major international brands across consumer, financial services, and technology sectors. Its trend model is designed not to describe what is fashionable but to identify what is structurally different about the human context organisations are operating in. Alongside his work at TrendsActive, de Boer serves as Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth, where he leads a global CMO leadership programme and connects a practitioner network of more than 400 senior marketing leaders. The IRG’s work – including its Growth and Impact Studies, developed in partnership with the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford – provides the empirical backbone for his argument that durable commercial growth requires creating value for colleagues, customers, communities, and capital markets simultaneously. He calls this humanized growth; the research quantifies why it outperforms narrower models. The result is a speaker who brings an evidence base to questions that typically attract only opinion: what is actually changing in consumer behaviour, why geopolitical and generational pressure shifts brand expectations at a structural level, and what a marketing or commercial leadership team should concretely do next. Key speaking topics Sociocultural trends and brand strategy Humanized growth and multi-stakeholder value creation Consumer behaviour under economic and geopolitical pressure Generation Z and generational change Future-proofing organisations through social science ESG and sustainability as commercial strategy The polycrisis and its implications for business Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leadership teams Chief Commercial Officers and growth strategy leaders Executive committees preparing for medium-term strategic planning Corporate conference programmes focused on brand relevance, customer strategy, or commercial resilience Audience outcomes A structured framework for identifying which sociocultural shifts are commercially significant, and which are noise Clearer understanding of the specific psychological, sociological, and generational forces reshaping customer and employee expectations Language and evidence for making the case internally for human-centred growth strategies, grounded in the IRG research base Sharper perspective on what Generation Z’s formative context – climate anxiety, political polarisation, pandemic – means for brand and product strategy A practical lens for translating societal complexity into near-term decisions on brand positioning, customer engagement, and organisational priorities

Why organisations work with Alok Sharma He chaired the negotiation that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact, working with nearly 200 governments. Few advisors can read multilateral climate dynamics from inside the chair. As Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, he is actively shaping how private capital is mobilised for transition, not commenting on it from a distance. His vantage spans Cabinet, COP, the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, Conservation International and Oxford Martin School, giving boards a single voice across policy, philanthropy, science and finance. TIME named him in the 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for his work mobilising transition finance, a credible external benchmark of current relevance. A 16-year investment banking career in London, Stockholm and Frankfurt gives him the financial fluency to discuss transition with CFOs and treasurers in their own language. Biography highlights President of COP26, Glasgow 2021, the conference that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact Former UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and previously Secretary of State for International Development Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, appointed by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation in 2025 Visiting Fellow, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Co-Chair, Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council; Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International KCMG, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to tackling climate change; created Baron Sharma of Reading, 2024; named to TIME 100 Climate, 2025 Biography The Glasgow Climate Pact was negotiated in a room with delegations from nearly 200 countries. Alok Sharma chaired that room as President of COP26. The pact, agreed in November 2021, kept the 1.5 degree goal in formal reach and pulled coal and fossil fuel subsidies into a UN climate text for the first time. Before COP, he was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and earlier Secretary of State for International Development. The route there was unusual for a climate principal: chartered accountant at Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte, then sixteen years in investment banking with Nikko Securities and Enskilda Securities across London, Stockholm and Frankfurt. That financial background sits behind his current work on capital flows. He now chairs the UK Transition Finance Council, set up by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation to make the UK a leading market for high integrity transition finance. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, Co-Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, and a Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International. TIME named him to its 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for that body of work. For boards, the value is the through-line. He has held the pen on a multilateral climate text, sat in a UK Cabinet making industrial policy, and now sits in the room where transition finance rules are being written. He was made KCMG in the 2023 New Year Honours and elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Sharma of Reading in 2024. Key speaking topics Transition finance and capital allocation under net zero Climate diplomacy and the post-Paris multilateral system Energy transition and industrial strategy COP outcomes and what they mean for corporate strategy Geopolitics of climate, including US, EU and emerging market dynamics ESG under regulatory and political pressure Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CFOs reconciling net zero commitments with capital plans Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of ESG and transition leads inside financial institutions Investor and asset owner audiences working on transition portfolios Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on climate and industrial strategy Audience outcomes A clear read of where multilateral climate policy stands after COP26 to today, from someone who chaired the room A grounded view of how transition finance is actually being structured in the UK and globally A senior-level perspective on how climate intersects with geopolitics, industrial policy and capital markets Specific signals to track for boards making transition-linked decisions over the next planning cycle

Why organisations work with Álvaro Vargas Llosa His “Five Principles of Oppression” framework – developed in Liberty for Latin America and recognised with the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award – gives risk and strategy teams a structural model for diagnosing why reform fails in emerging markets, beyond surface political cycle analysis. His critique of statism and populism is applied equally to left and right administrations, making his assessments more defensible in polarised environments and more useful for boards that must operate above partisan interpretation. He brings first-hand political engagement – as press spokesman for one Peruvian presidential campaign and international relations adviser for another – to strategic conversations that frequently lack any understanding of how political institutions function from the inside. His parallel work on development entrepreneurship (the Templeton Freedom Award-winning Lessons from the Poor) and immigration economics (Global Crossings) extends his analytical scope into talent, trade, and demographic strategy – giving organisations a unified frame for markets that most advisers treat in isolation. Named by Foreign Policy as one of the top 50 public intellectuals in the Spanish-speaking world (2012), he carries credibility with government, regulatory, and C-suite audiences across Latin America, Spain, and the United States simultaneously. Biography highlights President of the Fundación Internacional para la Libertad (Foundation for International Liberty) and President of the Cátedra Vargas Llosa (Vargas Llosa Chair). Senior Fellow, Center on Global Prosperity, Independent Institute, Washington DC. B.Sc. International History, London School of Economics; M.A. Value Investing and Theory of the Economic Cycle, OMMA (Spain) Author of Liberty for Latin America (Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award, 2005); editor of Lessons from the Poor (Templeton Freedom Award, 2010); author of Global Crossings: Immigration, Civilization, and America Nationally syndicated columnist, Washington Post Writers Group; former op-ed editor and columnist, Miami Herald; contributor to Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, BBC World Service, and Time Named Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum, 2007; named one of the top 50 public intellectuals in the Spanish-speaking world, Foreign Policy, 2012; Thomas Jefferson Award, Association of Private Enterprise Education, 2021 Writer and presenter, four-part National Geographic Channel documentary series “Consecuencias” on contemporary Latin American history, broadcast in more than 100 countries Member, Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy; press and political advisory roles in two Peruvian presidential campaigns Biography For five hundred years, Latin American economies have cycled through liberalisation and state capture. In Liberty for Latin America, Álvaro Vargas Llosa offers a structural explanation for why – identifying five persistent institutional conditions he calls the “Principles of Oppression”: corporatism, state mercantilism, privilege, bottom-up wealth redistribution, and political law. It is one of the few analytical frameworks that diagnoses a pattern rather than merely describing events, and it won the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award in 2005. Based at the Independent Institute in Washington DC, Vargas Llosa has spent his career at the intersection of political economy, journalism, and policy advisory work. He spent five years as a nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group and has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the BBC World Service, and Time. His four-part National Geographic Channel documentary series “Consecuencias,” which aired in more than 100 countries, brought the same analytical frame to a mainstream global audience. His work extends beyond Latin American political history. As editor of Lessons from the Poor – recipient of the Templeton Freedom Award – he examined bottom-up entrepreneurship in Africa and Latin America, making the case that development is driven by individual agency, not state intervention. His book Global Crossings: Immigration, Civilization, and America applies a comparable structural lens to immigration, separating economic evidence from political narrative. Named one of the top 50 public intellectuals in the Spanish-speaking world by Foreign Policy (2012), Vargas Llosa carries credibility across Latin America, Europe, and Washington DC. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader in 2007; he also serves as President of the Fundación Internacional para la Libertad and sat on the Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy. For organisations exposed to politically complex markets, his work offers something uncommon: a tested structural model for understanding risk, not simply informed commentary. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and political economy in emerging markets Populism and institutional fragility across the left-right divide Latin American politics and the conditions for durable market reform Immigration economics, cultural assimilation, and demographic change Development entrepreneurship and the structural limits of foreign aid Rule of law, state capture, and the business cost of institutional weakness US foreign policy and Western hemisphere strategy Ideal for Boards and senior executive teams of companies with material Latin American exposure, assessing political and institutional risk alongside commercial strategy Chief Risk Officers and geopolitical risk functions navigating political cycle uncertainty in emerging markets Investors and asset allocators active in Latin American, Ibero-American, or broader developing-economy markets Government affairs teams, policy-facing organisations, and trade bodies operating across the Americas, Spain, and Washington DC Audience outcomes A structural model – grounded in the “Five Principles of Oppression” framework – for explaining why market reform in emerging economies reverses, independent of which party holds power A clearer understanding of how populism operates across the ideological spectrum, and what this means for business exposure and investment sequencing Practical tools for distinguishing between political risk that is cyclical and risk that is structural – and the different responses each requires A contextualised, evidence-based account of immigration and demographic change as economic and strategic forces, separated from political rhetoric A sharper analytical basis for assessing the stability of institutional environments when entering, operating in, or exiting politically complex markets

Why organisations work with Amy Webb Webb’s foresight methodology applies quantitative modelling to emerging signals, which gives boards a defensible evidential basis for long-horizon technology decisions. Her annual Tech Trends Report tracks more than 700 emerging technology and science trends and is downloaded more than one million times a year; few advisory practices produce intelligence infrastructure at comparable scale or breadth. The Big Nine named the “G-MAFIA”, the six American corporations which, alongside China’s BAT, Webb argues hold structural control over AI’s trajectory. Audiences gain a durable analytical vocabulary for a problem most organisations are still describing in generic terms. Her advisory relationships with the White House, European Union, United Nations, and World Economic Forum are ongoing rather than project-based. Her understanding of how governments are approaching AI governance and technology risk is first-hand. Her latest concept, “living intelligence”, describes the convergence of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and advanced sensors into a single technology supercycle. It gives senior leaders a framework for thinking beyond current AI strategy before that convergence forces reactive decisions. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Future Today Strategy Group; ranked #3 most influential management thinker globally by Thinkers50 (2025) Adjunct Professor of Strategic Foresight, NYU Stern School of Business; Visiting Fellow, Oxford University’s Saïd Business School; former Nieman Fellow, Harvard University Author of The Big Nine (2019), longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year and winner of the 2020 Gold Axiom Medal, and of The Signals Are Talking (2016), winner of the Thinkers50 RADAR Award and the 2017 Gold Axiom Medal The Genesis Machine (2022, co-authored with Andrew Hessel) named by The New Yorker as one of the year’s best nonfiction works; books translated into 23 languages Life member, Council on Foreign Relations; founding member, WEF Strategic Foresight Advisory Board; member, WEF Global Risks Board; AI Governance Alliance partner Former reporter for The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek; contributor to Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review; TED Talk “How I hacked online dating” viewed more than 8.5 million times Biography The gap between sensing that a technology will reshape a sector and knowing when to act on it is where most long-range strategy breaks down. Amy Webb’s work is built around closing that gap. As founder and CEO of the Future Today Strategy Group, she pioneered a quantitative modelling approach to strategic foresight: one that applies the analytical rigour of economic forecasting to the identification of emerging technology signals, rather than relying on narrative scenarios or trend decks. Her books have given organisations specific frameworks for understanding the structural dynamics of technology change. The Big Nine grouped the six American corporations Webb calls the “G-MAFIA” with China’s BAT, and argued that together they hold disproportionate control over AI’s development. It traced the geopolitical and commercial consequences of that concentration. The Genesis Machine, co-authored with biotechnologist Andrew Hessel, examined the organisational and governance implications of synthetic biology before the technology entered mainstream strategy conversations. Both were recognised externally: The Big Nine was longlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year; The Genesis Machine was named by The New Yorker as one of the year’s best nonfiction works. Her access to the rooms where technology governance is being decided is direct and ongoing. She advises the White House, the European Union, and the United Nations. She was a founding member of the World Economic Forum’s Strategic Foresight Advisory Board. Webb reported for The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek before founding the firm, and holds a master’s degree from Columbia’s journalism school. Her annual Tech Trends Report, tracking more than 700 emerging technology and science developments, is downloaded more than one million times a year. Ranked third on Thinkers50’s 2025 list of the world’s most influential management thinkers, Webb teaches strategic foresight at NYU Stern’s MBA programme and holds a visiting fellowship at Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Her current framework, “living intelligence”, maps the convergence of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and advanced sensors into what she argues is a technology supercycle already underway. For organisations whose long-range strategy begins and ends with AI, it is a substantive challenge to the scope of their thinking. Key speaking topics Quantitative strategic foresight Artificial intelligence and the global technology power landscape Living intelligence: AI, biotechnology, and advanced sensors Technology supercycles and long-horizon planning Geopolitics of emerging technology Futures methodology and organisational decision-making Synthetic biology and the next frontier of disruption Ideal for C-suite and boards developing long-range technology and competitive strategy Chief Strategy Officers and innovation leads rethinking their approach to uncertainty and futures planning Government, regulatory, and policy audiences responsible for technology governance Risk, investment, and scenario-planning teams assessing the strategic implications of AI and converging technologies Audience outcomes A clear analytical method for distinguishing which emerging technology signals warrant a strategic response from those that represent noise Understanding of the “living intelligence” framework and why the convergence of AI, biotechnology, and advanced sensors represents a broader challenge than current AI strategy typically accounts for A structural vocabulary for the global AI power landscape, and for the dynamics between major US and Chinese technology actors in particular, that simplifies a complex geopolitical issue for non-specialist leaders Familiarity with the Tech Trends methodology: how to scan, filter, and prioritise signals across a large and rapidly evolving technology landscape Practical frameworks for building a long-horizon foresight capability internally, rather than depending on periodic external consultancy

Why organisations work with Ana Palacio She has held executive authority inside three of the systems organisations most need to understand – the EU’s legislative and treaty-making bodies, the World Bank Group, and the energy infrastructure sector – not as an adviser, but as a principal. That changes the character of the analysis. Her standing argument is specific: energy security cannot be separated from geopolitical alignment. As a board director of Enagás (IBEX 35), where she chairs the Sustainability Committee, she is applying that argument under fiduciary conditions – not as commentary. Her monthly column in Project Syndicate and weekly column in El Mundo give her a verifiable track record of public positions on live geopolitical events. Audiences can test her analysis against what she has actually said, not just what she claims to believe. She participated directly in drafting the European Constitution as a member of the Presidium of the Convention for the Future of Europe. Her understanding of how EU institutions are built – and how they fail – is first-hand, not textbook. Her Georgetown course, “Global Powers Institutions and Governance,” signals a structured analytical framework behind her commentary on geopolitics – not anecdote, but architecture. Biography highlights First woman to serve as Spain’s Foreign Minister (2002-2004); at the time, the most senior governmental role held by a woman in the Spanish government Member of the Presidium of the Convention for the Future of Europe; Head of the Spanish Delegation to the EU’s Intergovernmental Conference – participated directly in drafting the European Constitution Senior VP and General Counsel, World Bank Group; Secretary-General, ICSID (2006-2008) Independent Leading Director, Enagás (IBEX 35), Chair of its Sustainability Committee; Director, Ecoener; board member, PharmaMar Visiting Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; course: “Global Powers Institutions and Governance” Monthly columnist, Project Syndicate; weekly columnist, El Mundo (Spain’s second-largest national daily) Sandra Day O’Connor Justice Prize (2016); Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Georgetown University; Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, France (2016) Biography Most organisations encounter geopolitics through external briefings. Decisions, however, are made by people who have never been inside the institutions being analysed. Ana Palacio has been inside three of them – and not as a visitor. As a Member of the European Parliament, Palacio chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee and the Conference of Committee Chairs, the Parliament’s most senior legislative coordination body. As Head of the Spanish Delegation to the EU’s Intergovernmental Conference and a member of the Presidium of the Convention for the Future of Europe, she participated directly in drafting the European Constitution. As Senior VP and General Counsel of the World Bank Group and Secretary-General of ICSID, she oversaw the legal and institutional architecture through which international investment disputes are resolved. These are not entries on a CV. They are the systems that shape the operating environment for global business. Her most specific intellectual contribution sits at the intersection of energy and geopolitics. Across a monthly column in Project Syndicate and a weekly column in El Mundo, Palacio has made a consistent and testable argument: that energy security is a geopolitical question, not a transition management one – and that the EU’s failure to build a genuine energy union represents a structural vulnerability, one that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made impossible to ignore. She makes this argument as the Independent Leading Director of Enagás, Spain’s IBEX 35-listed gas infrastructure operator, where she chairs the Sustainability Committee. The position is not academic. At Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, she teaches “Global Powers Institutions and Governance.” For organisations trying to move from geopolitical awareness to strategic decision-making, that is precisely the capability gap her work addresses. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the fracturing international order Energy security as strategic risk European Union policy and strategic sovereignty International institutions and global governance Transatlantic relations and regulatory divergence Political risk and long-horizon investment decisions ESG strategy through a geopolitical lens Ideal for Board directors and C-suite leaders making investment and capital allocation decisions in politically exposed markets Government affairs, regulatory strategy, and public policy functions in multinational organisations Energy, infrastructure, and financial services organisations navigating geopolitical and regulatory exposure Senior leadership forums focused on EU policy, transatlantic dynamics, or geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A working framework for distinguishing structural shifts in the international order from short-term political noise – applicable to investment and strategy decisions A clearer understanding of how international institutions (EU, World Bank, multilateral bodies) actually function – and how their decisions create or foreclose market and regulatory conditions A geopolitically grounded perspective on energy security: why supply chain, infrastructure, and transition decisions cannot be separated from strategic alignment Sharper context for evaluating transatlantic dynamics, including EU-US regulatory divergence, trade frameworks, and the political pressures reshaping multilateral cooperation A more rigorous basis for incorporating political risk into board-level decision-making – with the same analytical discipline applied to financial and operational risk

Why organisations work with Anastasia Graham-Yooll She has reported conflict from the inside, as part of the CNN team that won the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage of the war in Ukraine, and more recently on the Iran war. Few moderators on a geopolitics panel have stood that close to the story. She has produced for outlets at opposite ends of the political spectrum, from CNN and Al Jazeera English to Fox News and News Nation. For a board-level panel on a divisive issue, that means a chair who can hold a partisan room without being read as taking a side. Two decades of editorial work across CNN International, Bloomberg TV, and Al Jazeera English means she can shape a programme arc, brief speakers in advance, and keep a session on the record without drift. As a Ukrainian journalist based in London, she brings primary-source authority on the fracturing rules-based order that few UK-based moderators can match. She brings a working position on press freedom, journalist mental health, and neurodiversity in newsrooms to media, culture, and people-focused programmes. Biography highlights Co-recipient of the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage of the war in Ukraine, as part of the CNN team. Over two decades of broadcast and production experience across CNN International, CNN en Español, Bloomberg TV, and Al Jazeera English. Recent reporting spans the political spectrum, including production work on the Iran war for the US networks Fox News and News Nation. Founder and Executive Director of HGY Media Ltd, a London-based documentary production and media consultancy firm. Former media consultant to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, advising on communications for its agribusiness and food-security strategy. Public advocate for press freedom, ethical storytelling, journalist mental health, and neurodiversity in newsrooms. Biography A geopolitics panel is only as good as the person in the chair. Put partisan voices in the same room and most moderators either pick a side or let the session drift into headlines. The discipline of holding that room, pressing each speaker on substance while staying neutral, is what Graham-Yooll has built over two decades of broadcast journalism. She was part of the CNN team that won the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage of the war in Ukraine, reporting in the earliest days of the Russian invasion. Her career runs across CNN International, CNN en Español, Bloomberg TV, and Al Jazeera English. More recently she has produced coverage of the Iran war for the US networks Fox News and News Nation, and royal coverage with the Associated Press’s AP 360. Reporting for outlets at opposite ends of the political spectrum is itself the credential. It is why she can chair a divided room without being read as partisan. Away from live coverage, she founded HGY Media Ltd, a London production and consultancy firm working on documentary projects and purpose-driven campaigns on human rights, conflict communication, and freedom of expression. Her earlier advisory work for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, on communications around agribusiness and food security, gives her technical footing on the sustainability and supply-chain questions that increasingly sit inside the geopolitical brief. She also speaks on the working conditions inside modern newsrooms, from the mental health toll of conflict coverage to the case for neurodiversity in editorial teams. For media, culture, and people programmes that want substance over presenter polish, that track is the draw. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and conflict reporting Editorial impartiality across the political spectrum Press freedom and ethical storytelling Editorial leadership and narrative strategy Neurodiversity in the newsroom Mental health in journalism The geopolitics of food security Ideal for Conference organisers seeking a panel chair for geopolitics, defence policy, or Ukraine and Middle East programmes Boards and policy forums that need a neutral chair for politically divided or high-stakes sessions Corporate communications and policy forums on press freedom, disinformation, and crisis communications Media, HR, and culture programmes on newsroom mental health and neurodiversity Audience outcomes A panel that stays editorially controlled, on record, and on time, with each speaker challenged on substance Geopolitical context on Ukraine, the Middle East, and the wider European security picture from a journalist with frontline reporting credit A read on how the same story is framed differently across the political spectrum, from US partisan media to international broadcasters A direct view of what ethical storytelling and press freedom mean for organisations operating in politically volatile markets The practical case for neurodiversity and mental health support in high-pressure editorial and communications teams