Geopolitisk påverkan speakers

Why organisations work with Jan Peter Balkenende Eight years leading a G20 economy through financial crisis, EU enlargement and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gives him a view from inside the machine that almost no executive adviser can match. His book with Govert Buijs, “Capitalism Reconnected” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024), sets out a specific European alternative to both Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism, which boards can use as a reference point for their own strategy. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he convenes AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever around common sustainability positions, so he speaks with current standing, not archive authority. Minister of State status in the Netherlands and membership of Club de Madrid keep him close to working heads of government, which gives audiences a read on political risk that goes beyond press coverage. He pairs the institutional authority of a former PM with the working vocabulary of a senior adviser at EY and Hague Corporate Affairs, so corporate audiences get policy insight translated into commercial language. Biography highlights Prime Minister of the Netherlands 2002 to 2010, across four cabinets. Held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2004. Professor Emeritus of Governance, Institutions and Internationalisation, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Minister of State, Kingdom of the Netherlands, since October 2022. Chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition; Chair of the Noaber Foundation; Executive Board member, Global Center on Adaptation; Member, Club de Madrid. External Senior Advisor to EY; Associate Partner at Hague Corporate Affairs. Co-author, “Capitalism Reconnected: Toward a Sustainable, Inclusive and Innovative Market Economy in Europe” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024). Biography European economies are being asked to reinvent themselves at the same time as they govern themselves. Jan Peter Balkenende has spent more than two decades inside that tension, first as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2002 to 2010 and then as an adviser, academic and convenor of corporate leaders. Four successive cabinets and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gave him direct experience of how EU decisions are actually made, from enlargement to financial crisis response. That institutional memory now sits alongside a current role as Minister of State and as a member of Club de Madrid, the association of former heads of government. His intellectual contribution is set out in “Capitalism Reconnected,” co-written with political philosopher Govert Buijs and published by Amsterdam University Press in 2024. The book argues that Europe should stop defending its model defensively and instead frame a sustainable, inclusive and innovative market economy as a distinct offer, positioned between Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism. The argument is not theoretical for him. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he works with the CEOs of AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever on shared positions around climate, circularity and social equality, supported by VNO-NCW and facilitated by Accenture. Erasmus University Rotterdam, EY and Hague Corporate Affairs provide the academic and advisory base. The through-line, across government, campus and corporate rooms, is the same: Europe can only lead on sustainability if its companies and its institutions work from the same playbook. Key speaking topics European market-economy reform Sustainable and inclusive growth strategy Governance and public-private collaboration ESG and corporate responsibility in European context Geopolitical and policy risk for business Institutional leadership and long-term decision making Climate adaptation and the role of business Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting European sustainability and ESG strategy CEOs and CFOs navigating EU regulation, climate policy and geopolitical risk Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on public-private cooperation Leadership and strategy summits with a European or transatlantic agenda Audience outcomes A concrete reference framework, drawn from “Capitalism Reconnected,” for positioning a European business between state-led and shareholder-led models. A clearer read on how EU-level decisions are made, and where corporate influence actually lands. Live examples of how eight Dutch multinationals translate sustainable growth commitments into joint positions. A sharper sense of which political risks matter for strategy, and which are noise. Direct perspective from a former head of government on leading through crisis with contested public trust.

Why organisations work with Janusz Antoni Lewandowski Direct first-person insight into how the EU’s multiannual budget is built, negotiated, and defended. He led that process for the 2014 to 2020 framework. One of the few European speakers who designed a national privatisation programme, the Polish Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, and co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Useful for boards reading Central and Eastern European exposure. A Solidarity-era economic adviser turned cabinet minister turned Commissioner. The arc gives him standing on how political will translates into economic structure, and where it fails. Active commentary in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, and Newsweek Polska. He is a working public voice on EU and Polish policy, not a retired official. Biography highlights European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, 2010 to 2014, under President José Manuel Barroso. Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Budgets from 2004; later First Vice-Chair (2019 to 2024). Member of the European Parliament across the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th terms. Minister of Ownership Transformations in two Polish governments (1991; 1992 to 1993); co-founder of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Co-founder and Chair of the Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD), 1988. Economic adviser to Solidarity, 1980 to 1989. Chairman of the Economic Council under Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, 2015. Doctorate in economics, University of Gdańsk. Founder of the Institute for Market Economy Research, Gdańsk. Biography Poland’s transition from a state-planned economy to a market economy was not an academic exercise. It was designed and run, in real time, by a small group of economists who had been advising Solidarity through the 1980s. Janusz Lewandowski was one of them. As Minister of Ownership Transformations in the Bielecki and Suchocka governments, he co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange and built the Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, the mass privatisation programme that reshaped Polish corporate ownership. That experience travelled with him into Brussels. He served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004, chaired the Committee on Budgets, and was appointed European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget under José Manuel Barroso between 2010 and 2014. The Commissioner role placed him at the centre of negotiations for the 2014 to 2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, the trillion-euro budget settlement that defined EU fiscal priorities through the post-crisis decade. He returned to the European Parliament in 2014, served as First Vice-Chair of the Budgets Committee in the 2019 to 2024 term, and has continued as a working voice on European economic policy. In 2015 Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz appointed him Chairman of the Economic Council. He writes regularly for Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Parkiet, Wprost, and Newsweek Polska. The combined record gives him a vantage point that few European speakers can match. He has built market institutions from a standing start, written a national privatisation programme, and held senior fiscal responsibility for the entire Union. When he reads EU budget politics, Central European exposure, or the durability of the European project, he is reading instruments he has helped to build. Key speaking topics EU budget architecture and the Multiannual Financial Framework The political economy of European integration Post-communist economic transition and privatisation Central and Eastern Europe in the EU Polish economic and political outlook Geopolitical risk for European capital The future of EU fiscal policy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to Central and Eastern Europe CFOs, treasury, and policy teams tracking EU regulatory and fiscal direction Investor and banking audiences reading European political risk Senior public-sector and institutional audiences on EU policy and enlargement Audience outcomes A clear read of how EU budget priorities are set and where they are heading Direct insight into the political economy of Central and Eastern Europe from someone who shaped it Sharper interpretation of European policy signals affecting capital allocation A working framework for thinking about EU enlargement, sanctions, and the durability of the European project

Why organisations work with Javier Solana Very few people alive have run both NATO and the EU’s foreign policy machinery. His read on transatlantic, Russian and Chinese intent is grounded in a decade of handling the actual files, not in commentary. He was the signing hand on the 2003 European Security Strategy, the document that still frames how European governments think about security, neighbourhood and partnership. Leadership teams exposed to European regulation get the logic from the source. His current work at EsadeGeo and Brookings is forward looking, not memoir. Briefings engage with AI governance, supply chain fragmentation, climate diplomacy and the fragility of the rules based order. He is a working columnist at Project Syndicate, publishing into 2026 on US-China competition, European strategic autonomy and the future of multilateralism. Boards get a current thesis, not career recollections. He operates comfortably as a counterpart to a CEO, chair or sovereign, and speaks to leadership teams on that level. The register is peer to peer, not lecture. Biography highlights Secretary General of NATO, 1995 to 1999, including the alliance’s first post-Cold War enlargement and the 1999 Kosovo campaign. European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary General of the Council of the EU, 1999 to 2009. Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1992 to 1995, and earlier holder of the Culture and Education and Science portfolios under Felipe Gonzalez. President, EsadeGeo – Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, Barcelona and Madrid. Distinguished Fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School, Berlin. Charlemagne Prize 2007 and Carlos V European Award 2011 for services to European integration. Biography The European Security Strategy was signed in Brussels in December 2003. It was the first time the Union had put its name to a single, coherent description of what it was for in the world, what it was willing to defend, and how it intended to act with partners. Solana drafted it. Much of the architecture that European governments, and the companies that operate across them, still live inside was laid down in that document. Before Brussels, there was Kosovo. As Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999, he held together a nineteen-member alliance through the most contested military operation in its history, while also overseeing its first enlargement since the Cold War. Before NATO, he had spent thirteen years in the Spanish cabinet under Felipe Gonzalez, including three years as Foreign Minister. The arc is unusual: national politics, military alliance, civilian foreign policy, all at the top of each. He now runs EsadeGeo, the Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics he founded in Barcelona and Madrid in 2010, and is a Distinguished Fellow at Brookings and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin. He chairs Aspen Institute Espana and sits on the boards of Human Rights Watch, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Crisis Group. What he offers a leadership audience is not the memoir of the files he handled. It is a structural read of where the international order is breaking, where it is holding, and what boards and executive teams should be doing with that information before the next shock lands on the balance sheet. Key speaking topics The future of the rules based international order Transatlantic relations and European strategic autonomy US-China competition and the implications for global business Geopolitics of the energy transition and climate diplomacy NATO, European security and the war in Ukraine Multilateralism and global governance reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to Europe, the US and China CEOs, chairs and chief strategy officers setting five to ten year strategic plans under geopolitical uncertainty Senior policy, risk and government affairs leads at financial institutions, energy and industrial groups Audience outcomes A working model of which pillars of the international order are cracking, which are holding, and where corporate risk actually sits. A sharper read on European policy intent on China, industrial strategy, energy and sanctions, from the person who helped write the doctrine. Concrete framing on what transatlantic drift and US-China competition mean for supply chains, capital allocation and market access. A sense of how peers at the sovereign and multilateral level are framing the same questions your board is wrestling with.

Why organisations work with Jay Tuck He has reported on AI from inside the places it matters most: Ukrainian battlefields, US carrier decks, intelligence agencies, and the trading floors AI has effectively emptied. The talk lands as field reporting, not theory. His book Evolution ohne uns sold widely enough in Germany that the Bundeswehr bought 10,000 copies to put in front of its officers. The German defence establishment treats his framing as a serious internal reference, not bureau copy. He carries 35 years of ARD investigative reporting and a TEDxHamburgSalon talk past five million views. Audiences arrive already knowing the argument, which raises the floor on the room. He is fluent on AI risk in language that translates: what a generative model actually decides, where the human is no longer in the loop, and what a bank or hospital board can still control. Biography highlights 35 years at ARD German Television, including Executive Producer of the flagship nightly news programme ARD-Tagesthemen. Author of High-Tech Espionage (St. Martin’s Press), published in 14 countries. Author of Evolution ohne uns (Plassen Verlag), a German technology bestseller; the German Ministry of Defence acquired 10,000 copies for its armed forces. Author of KI und der moderne Krieg (Econ Verlag) on battlefield AI in the Ukraine war. War correspondent in Kuwait, Iraq, and Ukraine; embedded aboard USS Truman. TEDxHamburgSalon talk “Artificial Intelligence: It Will Kill Us” with more than five million views. Founder and CEO of Airtime Dubai Ltd, producing the technology magazine Understanding Tomorrow for Al-Jazeera Arabic. Biography The systems now embedded in military, financial, and clinical decisions are no longer fully legible to the people who own the risk. Code writes its own next version. Targets are nominated by software. Trades clear without a human in the chair. The question for any serious board is whether the governance model around these systems still matches what they actually do. Tuck reports on this gap from the inside. His investigative book High-Tech Espionage was published in fourteen countries by St. Martin’s Press. Evolution ohne uns became a sustained bestseller in Germany on Plassen Verlag, with the Federal Ministry of Defence acquiring ten thousand copies for distribution within the Bundeswehr. KI und der moderne Krieg documents how AI is being used and contested on the battlefield in Ukraine. The reporting sits on a long career in serious news. He spent 35 years inside ARD German Television, ending as Executive Producer of the flagship nightly programme ARD-Tagesthemen, with combat assignments across both Gulf Wars, Ukraine, and the carrier USS Truman. Bylines in Stern, Der Spiegel, Die Welt, Time, and Le Point. His TEDxHamburgSalon talk on AI risk has passed five million views. What he offers a room is the journalist’s job done well: specific cases, named systems, and a clear account of where human authority over machine decisions has already been ceded. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and national security AI in modern warfare Autonomous weapons and the human-in-the-loop question AI in financial markets and algorithmic trading AI in law enforcement and biometric forensics Cybersecurity and high-tech espionage AI in healthcare and clinical decision-making Ideal for Boards and audit committees stress-testing AI risk and oversight Defence, intelligence, and law enforcement leadership audiences CROs, CISOs, and heads of compliance in regulated industries Senior leadership offsites in financial services and healthcare are reckoning with model risk Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for how contemporary AI systems actually make decisions, and where human review has quietly dropped out. Named case studies from defence, finance, and law enforcement where the technology has already moved past existing governance. A sharper read on which AI risks belong on a board agenda and which sit lower in the organisation. A grounded view of the strategic stakes for Western institutions as adversary states deploy AI in conflict and intelligence.

Why organisations work with Jayati Ghosh Sits on the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism and the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, so her read on global financial and health governance is drawn from inside the rooms where it is being rewritten. Co-chairs ICRICT, the independent commission pressing for reform of international corporate taxation, which gives her first-hand authority on the OECD-led tax overhaul that is reshaping how multinationals plan their effective rate. Reads emerging-market risk from a development-economist vantage point, not a Wall Street one, which is what buyers booking her tend to want: a sharper picture of sovereign debt, currency stress, and the political economy of the Global South. Thirty-five years at Jawaharlal Nehru University and now at UMass Amherst, author or editor of nineteen books, and winner of the ILO Decent Work Research Prize and the Galbraith Award: credentials that translate into credibility with serious audiences. Writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, so her current thinking is publicly available and buyers can hear the argument before booking the room. Biography highlights Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, since January 2021. Member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (2022). Member, WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by Mariana Mazzucato. Co-chair, Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). ILO Decent Work Research Prize (2011); John Kenneth Galbraith Award, AAEA (2023). Author or editor of nineteen books, including Women Workers in the Informal Economy and The Making of a Catastrophe: Covid-19 and the Indian Economy; monthly columnist for Project Syndicate. Biography The rules governing cross-border capital, corporate tax, and public health spending are being rewritten at the same time. Boards that track any one of these in isolation tend to miss how they interact. Ghosh works across all three. She is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a post she took up in 2021 after nearly 35 years teaching at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Her research has long focused on globalisation, employment in developing countries, macroeconomic policy, and the gendered structure of informal labour. Nineteen books and roughly two hundred scholarly articles sit behind that work. The institutional footprint is what sets her apart from other macro voices. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres named her in 2022 to the 12-person High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, the body tasked with proposing reforms to global governance ahead of the Summit of the Future. She sits on the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by Mariana Mazzucato, and co-chairs ICRICT, which has driven much of the civil-society case for a global minimum corporate tax. Outside academic journals she writes a monthly Project Syndicate column read by finance ministers and central bankers, and for nearly three decades ran a fortnightly column at Frontline. The ILO awarded her its Decent Work Research Prize in 2011; the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association gave her its Galbraith Award in 2023 for contributions to economics and to humanity. Key speaking topics Global financial architecture and reform International corporate tax and ICRICT’s agenda Inequality, labour, and the informal economy Development and growth in India and the Global South Economics of health and public goods Sovereign debt and emerging-market risk Gender and the economics of care Ideal for Boards and investment committees sizing emerging-market and sovereign-debt exposure. CFOs and tax leaders tracking the OECD minimum tax and the next wave of multinational tax reform. Leadership teams in global health, pharma, and development finance who need a public-goods frame for their strategy. Conferences on globalisation, inequality, and the future of multilateralism where a policy-insider voice is needed. Audience outcomes A clear read on how the UN, WHO and OECD reform agendas translate into corporate risk over the next three to five years. A defensible position on international tax reform and what it means for transfer pricing, effective rates and reputational exposure. A sharper picture of sovereign debt and currency stress in the Global South, drawn from development-economics evidence rather than market commentary. An argument for why care, informal labour, and gender sit inside the macro picture, not alongside it.

Why organisations work with Jean Asselborn Nineteen years of continuous EU foreign ministerial decision-making, spanning the 2008 financial crisis, the eurozone crisis, the 2015 migration shock, Brexit, and Russia’s war on Ukraine. A board hearing him is hearing from the room, not about it. Led Luxembourg into its first ever UN Security Council seat in 2013 to 2014, including chairing the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and steering humanitarian resolutions on Syria. A working brief on how small-state diplomacy moves a multilateral system. A public record of confronting democratic backsliding inside the EU, including a documented call for Hungary’s expulsion in 2016. Useful for any leadership audience wrestling with values, compliance, and political risk in European markets. Decorated by both the German and French states (Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, 2010; Commander of the Legion of Honour, 2013) and recognised with the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize, 2016. A credible Franco-German interlocutor at a moment when the Paris-Berlin axis is again the structural question. Biography highlights Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2023; the longest-serving foreign minister in EU history. Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2013, under Jean-Claude Juncker. Presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005. Architect of Luxembourg’s elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2010); Commander of the French Legion of Honour (2013); Grand Media Prize, Franco-German Journalism Prize (2016). Subject of two published political biographies, “Merde alors!” by Margaretha Kopeinig (Czernin Verlag, 2021) and “Die Tour seines Lebens” by Michael Merten. Biography For nineteen years, every major European foreign policy crisis crossed the desk of Luxembourg’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the 2015 migration emergency, Brexit, the rule-of-law fights with Warsaw and Budapest, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Jean Asselborn was in the room for all of them, from 2004 to 2023, longer than any foreign minister in EU history. The seat mattered. Luxembourg is small enough to be heard without threatening anyone, and Asselborn used that position to push the EU on values when larger member states preferred to look away. He called publicly for Hungary’s expulsion from the bloc in 2016 over the treatment of asylum seekers, and remained one of the most consistent ministerial voices on democratic backsliding inside the Union. He also built institutional weight beyond Brussels. As Deputy Prime Minister from 2004 to 2013, he presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005, and engineered Luxembourg’s first elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. During that term Luxembourg chaired the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and helped pass the Syria humanitarian resolutions that defined the Council’s response that year. France and Germany have both recognised him at the highest civic level: the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in 2010, the Legion of Honour as Commander in 2013, and the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize in 2016. For organisations trying to read what the Paris-Berlin axis, the European Commission, and a more brittle multilateral order will actually do next, Asselborn is one of the few accessible voices who spent two decades inside those decisions. Key speaking topics European integration and the future of the EU The rules-based international order and multilateralism Democracy and rule of law inside the European Union Franco-German relations and the EU institutional axis UN Security Council diplomacy and small-state influence Migration, asylum, and European border policy Transatlantic relations and EU strategic autonomy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material European exposure assessing political and regulatory risk Public affairs, government relations, and ESG leads working at EU-institution level Banking, asset management, and defence audiences pricing geopolitical and sanctions risk in Europe Foundations, NGOs, and policy convenings on democracy, human rights, and multilateralism Audience outcomes A first-hand reading of how decisions actually get taken inside the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council A sharper view of where rule-of-law tensions inside the EU are heading, and what that means for operating in those member states A clear sense of how the Franco-German axis and the European Commission are likely to align on the next phase of sanctions, enlargement, and defence An informed perspective on the limits and uses of multilateral institutions, drawn from a UN Security Council term A serious, non-partisan frame for discussing democracy, migration, and European values without recourse to talking points

Why organisations work with Jean-Claude Trichet Organisations gain access to the actual reasoning behind the ECB’s decisions during the 2008 global financial crisis and the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis – including what monetary policy can and cannot do when sovereign risk becomes systemic. His career spans the full architecture of international financial governance: sovereign debt rescheduling at the Paris Club, European monetary union design as Governor of the Banque de France, and macroprudential oversight as founding Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board. No other available speaker holds that range from a single career. In the late 1990s, he introduced the “Principles for stable capital flows and fair debt restructuring” into international debt strategy – a specific policy contribution to the rules governing sovereign exposure that remains directly relevant to current debates about emerging market risk and debt sustainability. He remains active in the forums where the next financial crisis is being anticipated: honorary Chairman of the G30 in Washington, Special Advisor to the Systemic Risk Council, and twice appointed to G20 expert panels on financial governance and pandemic risk financing. His analysis of central bank behaviour, inflation trajectories, and sovereign risk appears regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC – he is not a retrospective commentator on events that closed in 2011, but a current voice in the financial policy conversation. Biography highlights President of the European Central Bank (2003-2011) and Governor of the Banque de France (1993-2003), serving across two consecutive financial crises Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board (2010-2011); Chairman of the Group of Ten Central Bank Governors; President of the Global Economy Meeting in Basel Director of the French Treasury (1987-1993); Chairman of the Paris Club of sovereign debt creditors (1985-1993) Financial Times “Person of the Year” (2007); Euromoney “Central Bank Governor of the Year” (2008); Charlemagne Prize for contribution to European unity (2011); NABE Lifetime Achievement Award for Economic Policy (2014); inaugural class of the European Order of Merit, conferred by the European Parliament (2026) Honorary Chairman, Group of Thirty (G30), Washington; former European Chairman, Trilateral Commission; Honorary Chairman, Bruegel Institute, Brussels Member, Institut de France (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques); President of the Académie (2023); regular contributor to Bloomberg and CNBC Biography Few financial decisions carry higher stakes than the ones that determine whether a currency union holds together. Jean-Claude Trichet chaired the institution making those decisions for eight years. As ECB President from 2003 to 2011, he simultaneously led the Group of Ten Central Bank Governors and the European Systemic Risk Board. His presidency covered the 2008 global financial crisis and the early Eurozone sovereign debt crisis – two events that defined how governments, regulators, and boards understand systemic financial risk. The depth of that perspective was not built at the ECB alone. As Director of the French Treasury, Trichet was instrumental in the anti-inflationary franc fort policy that made European monetary union structurally viable. As Chairman of the Paris Club from 1985 to 1993, he negotiated sovereign debt restructurings across Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. He chaired the European Monetary Committee during the years in which the Maastricht Treaty’s fiscal framework was being constructed. In the late 1990s, he introduced the “Principles for stable capital flows and fair debt restructuring” into international debt strategy – a policy contribution to the governance of sovereign debt that remains relevant in current debates about emerging market exposure. After the ECB, Trichet moved into the forums where the long-term architecture of financial governance is debated and contested. He became European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission and honorary Chairman of the Group of Thirty in Washington. He has been appointed to G20 expert panels on financial governance and pandemic risk financing, and continues to appear regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC with practitioner analysis of central bank behaviour, inflation dynamics, and sovereign risk. The Financial Times named him Person of the Year in 2007. Euromoney named him Central Bank Governor of the Year in 2008. The Charlemagne Prize followed in 2011 for his contribution to European integration. The National Association of Business Economists awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award for Economic Policy in 2014. He is a member of the Institut de France and served as President of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 2023. In May 2026, the European Parliament appointed him to the inaugural class of its newly established Order of Merit, conferred at the Strasbourg plenary alongside Angela Merkel, Lech Wałęsa, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Mary Robinson. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank decision-making European economic governance and integration Sovereign debt and global financial stability Geopolitical risk and the international financial order Inflation, macroprudential policy, and systemic risk The future of the eurozone and EU institutional architecture Ideal for Boards and risk committees navigating macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty in their long-range strategy CFOs, treasury leaders, and finance committees at major international organisations Central bank, financial regulator, and supervisory authority audiences International investment conferences and economic policy forums Audience outcomes A practitioner’s account of how central banks make decisions under crisis conditions – drawn from direct decision-making authority, not retrospective analysis Clearer understanding of the relationship between monetary policy, sovereign risk, and systemic financial stability A framework for anticipating how geopolitical fragmentation affects capital flows, interest rate trajectories, and credit conditions Informed context for how the European institutional architecture and the international financial order are evolving Direct analysis of current inflation and debt dynamics from someone who managed a price stability mandate at the highest institutional level

Why organisations work with Jeff Moody A working CGTN anchor based in Beijing, which is a rare credential for a UK-available conference host and immediately useful for any agenda that touches China, trade, or cross-border media. Three decades of live broadcast experience across ITN, BBC, Channel Five, ITV Meridian, and now GB News, meaning he can hold a room when an agenda slips, a speaker drops out, or a Q&A goes off script. Equally credible on consumer affairs, business, and current affairs material, having reported across all three at network level in the UK. Comfortable with the format demands of corporate work, including after-dinner sets, on-stage interviews, awards hosting, and tightly produced multi-camera shows. Biography highlights News anchor at CGTN, Beijing, hosting the network’s flagship English-language discussion programming and co-presenter of the Chinese Terminology series. Began at Independent Television News (ITN) in London and went on to present Channel Five News (Breakfast and Entertainment) and BBC’s Liquid News. Consumer Correspondent at ITV Meridian Tonight. Currently reports for GB News from the South West of England. Wrote and directed a UK touring theatrical production in 2013. Earlier career includes radio in San Francisco and ownership of a hotel, restaurant, and wedding venue before returning to broadcasting. Biography Most non-Chinese journalists describe China from outside it. Jeff Moody describes it from a desk in Beijing. He is the only non-Chinese anchor hosting CGTN’s flagship discussion shows and co-presents Chinese Terminology, the network’s regular explainer of language, policy, and cultural concepts. For an event that needs a chair able to handle a China-related agenda without reaching for cliche, that working position matters. The broader career is a thirty-year arc through British broadcast news. ITN in London first, then Channel Five News as a Breakfast and Entertainment presenter, BBC’s Liquid News and Wish You Were Here, and ITV Meridian as Consumer Correspondent. He still reports in the UK, currently for GB News covering the South West of England. The mix means he can switch register: hard news at one end, consumer and lifestyle at the other. There is also a non-broadcast chapter. He stepped out of the media for several years to run a hotel, restaurant, and wedding venue, and returned in 2013, the same year he wrote and directed a touring theatre production. That history sits behind the on-stage manner: someone who has run a room as an operator, not only presented from one. For a corporate buyer, the practical case is straightforward. He chairs panels, moderates discussions, presents awards, and hosts after-dinner sessions, with the bench depth that comes from live news experience and a current vantage point inside Chinese state broadcasting that few peers can offer. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and on-stage interviewing Awards hosting and after-dinner presenting China and the UK media perspective Brexit and international news context Consumer affairs Corporate event hosting Ideal for Communications, public affairs, and external relations leads briefing audiences on China-related topics Conference organisers seeking a senior broadcaster to chair multi-session agendas Awards programmes and gala dinners requiring a polished on-stage host Internal leadership events that need a broadcast-grade interviewer for executive Q&A Audience outcomes A conference that runs to time, with sessions threaded into a coherent narrative rather than running as isolated talks. Panels that produce sharper material because the chair pushes back, redirects, and follows up. An after-dinner or awards segment that lands tonally for a senior corporate room. For China-adjacent agendas, framing from a host who works daily inside the Chinese broadcasting system rather than commenting on it from outside.

Why organisations work with Jeffrey Sachs He co-designed the global development frameworks that most large organisations now report against. As Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to three successive UN Secretaries-General, Sachs helped shape both the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals – meaning he can explain what those frameworks were designed to achieve, where they are falling short, and why. His “clinical economics” methodology, introduced in The End of Poverty (2005), replaced one-size-fits-all policy prescription with country-specific diagnosis of binding constraints. Organisations operating across different markets gain a principled framework for understanding why development conditions diverge – not just the observation that they do. His credentials run through direct policy intervention rather than academic modelling. He advised the Bolivian government on halting acute hyperinflation in 1985 and the Polish Solidarity government on its market transition in 1989-90, and has subsequently advised the WHO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the OECD. What he brings is experience operating inside crises, not only analysing them. The Economist ranked him among the three most influential living economists. Time magazine named him twice to its 100 Most Influential World Leaders. Few speakers working at the intersection of sustainability, geopolitics, and global economics carry simultaneously a peer-reviewed academic reputation and independent recognition at this scale. He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, distributed across more than 145 countries, and contributes regularly to CNN Opinion and the Financial Times. For organisations that need macro-economic and geopolitical complexity made accessible to boards and senior leadership, his practice in public communication is part of what he brings. Biography highlights University Professor at Columbia University – the institution’s highest academic rank – and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development; formerly Director of the Earth Institute (2002-2016) Special Advisor to three UN Secretaries-General: Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon, and António Guterres (2001-2018); currently SDG Advocate under Guterres and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Director of the UN Millennium Project (2002-2006); co-founder and director of the Millennium Villages Project (2005-2015) Author of three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth (2008), The Price of Civilization (2011); monthly Project Syndicate columnist reaching over 145 countries 2022 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development; co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize; France’s Legion of Honor; India’s Padma Bhushan; over 40 honorary doctorates Ranked by The Economist among the three most influential living economists; twice named to Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential World Leaders; prior faculty at Harvard University for more than 20 years Biography Most large organisations now set sustainability commitments and report against the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Making those commitments credible requires an understanding of the geopolitical and macroeconomic forces that will determine whether they hold. That layer of analysis is rarely available in standard corporate planning. Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor at Columbia University and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development, helped design those goals. He served as Special Advisor to three successive UN Secretaries-General and directed the UN Millennium Project that established the predecessor MDG framework. The End of Poverty (2005) – a New York Times bestseller – introduced what Sachs termed “clinical economics.” The framework argues that sustainable development requires specific diagnosis of each country’s binding constraints rather than universal prescription, just as medicine requires examination before treatment. The approach has since shaped how international development institutions analyse economic stagnation. For organisations operating across multiple markets, it offers a principled basis for understanding why economic and development conditions differ. Before his work at Columbia, Sachs spent over two decades at Harvard. He advised the Bolivian government on halting acute hyperinflation in 1985, and the Polish Solidarity government on its transition to a market economy in 1989-90. He has since advised the WHO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the OECD on development policy and macroeconomic reform. His standing is independently documented from multiple sources. The Economist ranked him among the three most influential living economists. Time magazine named him twice to its 100 Most Influential World Leaders. He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, distributed across more than 145 countries, and contributes to CNN Opinion and the Financial Times. He is the 2022 recipient of the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development and co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize. Key speaking topics Global sustainable development strategy and the SDG framework Geopolitics and international economic cooperation Climate economics and the energy transition Macroeconomic reform and development finance Poverty reduction and global health policy “Clinical economics” and country-specific development diagnosis Long-term global risk and the international system Ideal for Boards and C-suite leaders with sustainability commitments who need geopolitical and macroeconomic grounding Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads working to align corporate strategy with the global development agenda Government ministers and public sector leaders engaged with the SDG framework International development institutions and multilateral organisations Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of the geopolitical and macroeconomic forces that will determine whether climate and sustainability commitments prove viable Familiarity with the design and strategic intent of the UN Sustainable Development Goals – beyond compliance reporting An analytical framework – “clinical economics” – for understanding why development and economic conditions differ across markets and regions Informed perspective on the relationship between geopolitics, international cooperation, and long-term economic and climate outcomes Context for assessing global economic risks – sovereign debt, financial instability, energy transition, and North-South cooperation – relevant to long-term strategy

Why organisations work with Jens Weidmann A decade inside the ECB Governing Council during the sovereign debt crisis, the Draghi “whatever it takes” period, and the pandemic response. Few speakers can describe those decisions from inside the room. The hawkish dissent on the ECB council was not branding. It was a substantive position on bond purchases, fiscal dominance, and the limits of central bank independence, and it informs how he reads today’s inflation and debt dynamics. Active commercial bank chairman (Commerzbank) and reinsurance supervisor (Munich Re). His view on rates, regulation, and risk is grounded in current board exposure, not a retired official’s recollections. Chief G8 and G20 sherpa for Germany under Chancellor Merkel. He brings a working knowledge of how monetary, fiscal, and geopolitical decisions are negotiated between major economies. Chaired the BIS board and led the IMF’s 2022 panel on institutional safeguards. The credentials matter because they signal access to the small group of people who set the rules of cross-border finance. Biography highlights President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, 2011 to 2021 Member of the ECB Governing Council and Chairman of the Board of the Bank for International Settlements during his Bundesbank presidency Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank since 2023 Member of the Supervisory Board of Munich Re Professor of Practice in Central Banking and Co-Director of the Centre for Central Banking, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management Former Head of Division IV (Economic and Financial Policy) at the German Federal Chancellery and chief German sherpa for G8 and G20 summits Chair of the IMF External and Independent Panel of High-Level Experts on Institutional Safeguards, 2022 Biography The Bundesbank seat on the ECB Governing Council carries a particular weight. It represents the largest economy in the eurozone and a tradition of monetary discipline that predates the single currency. For a decade, that seat was occupied by Jens Weidmann, and during the Draghi era he was the Council’s most consistent dissenter on sovereign bond purchases and on the boundary between monetary and fiscal policy. Before the Bundesbank, Weidmann was the German Chancellery’s chief economic adviser and the country’s sherpa at the G8 and G20. The negotiations after Lehman, the Greek programme, and the early architecture of European banking union all crossed his desk. Earlier still he served the German Council of Economic Experts, where his work fed into the Agenda 2010 reforms that reshaped the German labour market. Since stepping down from the Bundesbank in 2021, his focus has shifted from rule-setting to rule-applying. As Chairman of Commerzbank’s Supervisory Board he oversees one of Germany’s two large commercial banks through a higher-rate environment and a renewed debate over European banking consolidation. At Munich Re he sits inside the supervisory governance of a major reinsurer, where climate and geopolitical risk meet capital adequacy. He teaches and writes from the Frankfurt School Centre for Central Banking, which he co-directs. The IMF’s 2022 decision to appoint him chair of its independent panel on institutional safeguards, after the data scandal involving its managing director, signalled that his judgement on institutional integrity carries weight beyond Germany. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank independence Eurozone economic and financial stability Inflation, public debt, and fiscal dominance Banking supervision and financial regulation G7, G20, and international policy coordination Geopolitical risk and the global financial system Ideal for Bank, asset manager, and insurer boards setting strategy under shifting rate and regulatory regimes CEOs, CFOs, and CROs of multinationals exposed to euro-area policy and currency risk Government, regulator, and policy audiences working on financial stability and reform Audience outcomes A grounded reading of where eurozone monetary policy is heading and what would shift it A clearer sense of how political and fiscal pressure now interacts with central bank decisions A working view of the constraints and choices facing European banks and insurers An informed perspective on G20-level coordination, sanctions, and the financial architecture around geopolitical risk

Why organisations work with Jeroen Dijsselbloem He chaired the Eurogroup through the Cyprus bail-in, the third Greek programme, and the build-out of the banking union, so the explanation of how the euro area actually behaves under stress is first-hand, not analytical. As current Mayor of Eindhoven and President of Brainport Eindhoven, he sits at the centre of Europe’s most concentrated semiconductor and high-tech manufacturing cluster, with direct line of sight on industrial policy and chip supply. He led the Dutch Safety Board’s public investigation into the Netherlands’ COVID-19 crisis response, giving him a working framework for how governments and institutions actually decide under shock. His book “The Euro Crisis: The inside story” is one of very few first-person accounts of eurozone crisis management written by a sitting chair of the Eurogroup, used as a reference text by financial sector audiences. He speaks credibly to two audiences most macro speakers cannot bridge at once, finance ministers and central bank counterparts on one side, and industrial and technology leaders on the other. Biography highlights President of the Eurogroup, 2013 to 2018, serving two consecutive terms elected by euro area finance ministers. Minister of Finance of the Netherlands, 2012 to 2017, in the second Rutte cabinet. President of the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism, 2013 to 2018. Author of “The Euro Crisis: The inside story,” Prometheus, 2018, with editions in Dutch and English. Chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, 2019 to 2022, leading the official investigation into the Dutch COVID-19 response. Mayor of Eindhoven since 2022 and President of the Brainport Eindhoven Region, home to ASML and the Dutch semiconductor cluster. Biography The Cyprus bail-in in March 2013 was the first time a eurozone rescue forced losses onto uninsured bank depositors. Jeroen Dijsselbloem chaired the Eurogroup meeting where that decision was taken. Two years later he chaired the room again when Greece’s third programme was negotiated against a referendum, a missed IMF payment, and an expiring bailout. Those two episodes did more to define how the euro area would behave under stress than any treaty change. Before Brussels, he served as Minister of Finance of the Netherlands from 2012 to 2017 in the second Rutte cabinet, and before that as a long-serving Labour member of the House of Representatives. As President of the Eurogroup from 2013 to 2018 he also chaired the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism. His own account of that period, “The Euro Crisis: The inside story,” is one of the few first-person records of those negotiations written by the person who chaired them. Since leaving Brussels he has done two unusual things for a former finance minister. He chaired the Dutch Safety Board from 2019 to 2022, leading the official public investigation into how the Netherlands handled COVID-19, including its decision-making structure and crisis governance. Then in 2022 he became Mayor of Eindhoven and President of the Brainport Eindhoven Region, which means he now has political responsibility for the area that hosts ASML and a large share of Europe’s advanced chip manufacturing capability. That sequence, eurozone crisis manager, then crisis-response investigator, then operating leader of a strategic European tech cluster, gives him a working view of where European competitiveness, capital and security policy now intersect. He speaks regularly on European competitiveness, the proposed Savings and Investment Union, and the future of the EU’s industrial base. Key speaking topics Eurozone crisis management and sovereign debt European banking union and financial stability European competitiveness and industrial policy Semiconductor supply chains and the Brainport ecosystem The Savings and Investment Union and capital markets in Europe Government decision-making under shock Future of the European Union Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material euro area exposure CFOs and treasurers managing European sovereign and bank risk Technology and industrial leaders tracking EU chip policy and Brainport Public-affairs, policy and government-relations leads working on Brussels Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how eurozone decisions are actually taken when a member state is in crisis A working sense of what the banking union does and does not yet cover A grounded view of European industrial policy and the chip supply question through the Brainport lens A first-person account of leading a national crisis investigation, useful for risk and resilience audiences

Why organisations work with Jim Rogers He co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1973 and helped run one of the most successful early hedge funds in history, which gives institutional audiences a primary source on how a global macro book is actually built. He created the Rogers International Commodity Index, still used as a benchmark for broad commodity exposure, so his views on energy, agriculture, and metals carry a structural weight that pure commentators do not have. He has driven and ridden through more than 100 countries on documented multi-year journeys, including a Guinness-recognised car trip across six continents, which means his country views are informed by direct contact rather than desk research. He has been calling the shift of capital toward Asia since relocating to Singapore in 2007, and audiences get a long-running, internally consistent thesis rather than a quarter-by-quarter pivot. His books, from Investment Biker to Hot Commodities to Street Smarts, give boards and investment committees a pre-read that frames the conversation before he is even in the room. Biography highlights Co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros, 1973 Creator of the Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI), 1998 Former guest professor of finance, Columbia Business School Author of Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist, Hot Commodities, A Bull in China, A Gift to My Children, and Street Smarts Guinness World Record holder for most countries visited in a continuous journey by car, with Paige Parker, 1999 to 2002 Yale (BA, history, cum laude, 1964) and Balliol College, Oxford (BA, PPE, 1966); chairman of Beeland Interests; based in Singapore Biography The Quantum Fund returned roughly 4,200% in its first decade while the S&P moved about 47%. Jim Rogers co-founded that fund with George Soros in 1973, and the partnership remains one of the reference points for how a global macro book can compound when the manager is willing to look beyond the home market. He retired from active fund management at 37 and turned to teaching, writing, and travelling. A guest professorship at Columbia Business School followed, alongside two long-form journeys: a motorcycle trip across six continents in the early 1990s, and a Guinness-recognised car trip with Paige Parker from 1999 to 2002 covering 111 countries and three territories. The travel is not decoration. It is how he tests his macro thesis against border posts, fuel stations, and local exchange rates. In 1998 he built the Rogers International Commodity Index, a broad-basket benchmark still referenced by commodity-tracking products. The index is the structural expression of a view he has held for decades: that real assets, food, energy, metals, and the countries that produce them, are systematically underweight in most portfolios. Since moving from New York to Singapore in 2007, his argument has sharpened around the eastward shift of capital and growth. His books, from Investment Biker to Hot Commodities and Street Smarts, set out the same case in detail. For an investment committee, a board, or a treasury team, the value is access to a thesis that has been held, traded, and revised over fifty years on three continents. Key speaking topics Global macro investing Commodity cycles and the case for real assets Asia, China, and the eastward shift of capital Long-term economic and currency outlook Emerging and frontier markets Investing through political and policy risk Ideal for Institutional investors, asset managers, family offices, and sovereign funds setting long-horizon allocation Banks, treasury teams, and CFO communities exposed to commodity, currency, and rate cycles Boards and executive committees of multinationals with significant Asia or emerging-market exposure Wealth management and private bank client events where the audience expects a contrarian macro voice Audience outcomes A clear, fifty-year-tested thesis on how capital is shifting between West and East and what that means for portfolio construction A working framework for thinking about commodity cycles and where real assets sit in a long-only book Specific country and sector views on China, the broader Asia region, and frontier markets, drawn from direct travel and current allocation Sharper questions to bring back to investment committees and boards about consensus assumptions on the dollar, US equities, and global growth A reading list, anchored on Hot Commodities, Investment Biker, and Street Smarts, that lets attendees keep working with the argument afterwards