Leveranskedjans motståndskraft speakers

Why organisations work with Henrik von Scheel He is one of the named architects of Industry 4.0 as it was formalised in Germany’s high-tech strategy, so his frame of reference is the policy and standards layer most strategists only read about. His advisory seat on the EU AI Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM) lets him brief boards on regulation that is still being written, not regulation that has already shipped. He sits inside the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, whose trend material feeds the World Economic Forum, so the inputs he uses with clients are the same inputs shaping global agenda papers. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption” gives clients a documented method for sequencing disruption response rather than a slide deck of trends. Co-authorship of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model, means he moves from boardroom narrative to operational specification inside the same engagement. Biography highlights Originated the term “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2011 as a member of the Advisory Group to the German Federal Ministry of Education & Research, with Prof August Wilhelm Scheer and Prof Henning Kagermann. Co-author of Germany’s Digital Agenda (2009 to 2010), later adopted as the European Commission’s Europe Digital Agenda 2020. Managing Director of the Institute of Strategic Intelligence and Professor of Economics and Strategy Management. Author of “Strategy in the Age of Disruption: A Handbook to Anticipate Change and Make Smart Decisions” (Wiley, 2024). Advisory Council Member on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board (Green Deal, FIT for 55, CBAM Scope 1 to 3); co-author of 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. Recipient of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award (2019), the prize popularly described as the Nobel of knowledge sharing; named a leading authority on strategy by the Financial Times and a most influential futurist of the century by CNBC. Biography The phrase “Industry 4.0” was first written into a German federal policy paper in 2011, and the working group behind it had three names on it. One of them was Henrik von Scheel, then advising the Federal Ministry of Education & Research alongside August Wilhelm Scheer and Henning Kagermann. Two years later the concept was published as Germany’s high-tech strategy and became the dominant frame for industrial digitalisation across most advanced economies. That origin story matters because most strategists discuss digital transformation from outside the room. Von Scheel works from inside it. He co-authored Germany’s Digital Agenda with Scheer in 2009 to 2010, which the European Commission adopted as the Europe Digital Agenda 2020. He sits on the advisory council for the EU Artificial Intelligence Act and on the EU Climate Change Board, where he is contributing to the Green Deal, FIT for 55 and CBAM. He is briefing boards on rules he is helping draft. The operational layer is just as concrete. Through the Institute of Strategic Intelligence, where he is Managing Director, he supplies trend research used by the World Economic Forum. He has co-authored 153 business, architecture and IT standards, including the SAP implementation method and the NATO Architecture Framework C3 Taxonomy meta-model. This is what lets him move a conversation from megatrend to operational specification without losing the room. His 2024 Wiley handbook “Strategy in the Age of Disruption”, co-written with Ciprian Popa and Joshua von Scheel, sets out a method for anticipating change and sequencing decisions rather than reacting to disruption after the fact. Current demand reflects that range: law firms working through the future of legal practice, defence, banking, automotive and manufacturing leaders working through the move from automation to intelligence. Key speaking topics Industry 4.0 and industrial digitalisation Artificial intelligence strategy and the EU AI Act From automation to intelligence in industrial operations Strategic foresight and megatrend analysis Future of legal practice in the age of AI Digital transformation execution Supply chain and operations reinvention Sustainability, ESG and energy transition Ideal for Boards and CEOs in manufacturing, automotive, defence and banking setting AI, digital and Industry 4.0 strategy at group level Managing Partners and innovation leads in law firms working through how AI restructures legal practice and client work Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads sequencing capital and operating bets under disruption COOs and operations leaders reinventing factories, supply chains and service operations Government and policy audiences shaping national digital, AI or industrial agendas Audience outcomes A clear read on which megatrends are commercially actionable in the next planning cycle and which are still ten years out A defensible logic for sequencing AI, automation and digital investments against P&L impact An insider view of where EU AI and climate regulation is going before it lands A working method, drawn from his Wiley handbook, for making strategic decisions when the operating environment keeps shifting Confidence that the digital and Industry 4.0 narrative inside the organisation matches what is happening at policy and standards level

Why organisations work with Isabel Garro She has held the policy seat, the multilateral seat, and the operating seat. Special Advisor to Spain’s High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, founding Director General of the UN Global Compact Network Spain, now Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA at Votorantim Cimentos. Few ESG voices can read regulation, capital, and operations in one sitting. She built the institution that translates UN Global Compact commitments into corporate practice in Spain, then ran it for more than a decade. She speaks about ESG governance from the side that wrote the rules, not the side that complies with them. Her current operating role inside a major cement group means her view on climate transition is tested against one of the hardest decarbonisation problems in industry, not against a theoretical model. She is fluent in the gap between SDGs as communications and SDGs as commercial opportunity. The work is about which of the 17 goals contain a real margin, not which of them play well in a sustainability report. Biography highlights Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA, Votorantim Cimentos, since November 2023. Founding partner and CEO of 3a4b, a sustainability strategy advisory firm based in Madrid. Founding Executive Director and Director General, UN Global Compact Network Spain, for more than a decade. Special Advisor to the High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, Government of Spain, 2018 to 2020. President of the Local Networks Advisory Council of the UN Global Compact, the elected body that advises the Compact on regional decisions. Associate professor, Master’s in Competitive Social Transformation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and IE Business School. MBA, Brown University and IE Business School. Biography ESG arrived in the boardroom as a disclosure problem and is leaving as a capital allocation problem. The gap between what a company is required to say about sustainability and what it has to actually fund, build, and restructure to deliver on it has become one of the harder strategic questions of the decade. That gap is the territory Isabel Garro has worked in for more than twenty years, from the inside of government, the inside of the United Nations system, and now the inside of a major industrial group. She founded the UN Global Compact Network Spain in 2005 and led it for over a decade as Director General, building the institution that translates global sustainability commitments into Spanish corporate practice. She was then appointed Special Advisor to Spain’s High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, working on the integration of the SDGs into national policy. She has also chaired and now presides over the Local Networks Advisory Council of the UN Global Compact, the elected body representing networks in over 60 countries. Since November 2023 she has been Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA at Votorantim Cimentos, one of the largest cement and building materials groups in the world. That seat puts her inside one of the most operationally demanding decarbonisation problems in heavy industry, where the distance between net zero rhetoric and net zero engineering is unforgiving. She is also founding partner and CEO of 3a4b, advising organisations on sustainability strategy, and an associate professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and IE Business School on the Master’s in Competitive Social Transformation. What makes her useful in a room of senior leaders is the working hypothesis she brings: that sustainability is now a competitive variable, not an external compliance cost, and that the companies treating it as the former will allocate capital differently from those still treating it as the latter. She holds an MBA from Brown University and IE Business School. Key speaking topics ESG strategy and corporate governance The 2030 Agenda and SDGs as commercial opportunity Climate resilience and the decarbonisation of heavy industry Sustainable supply chains and stakeholder governance Sustainability reporting and regulatory change in Europe Regenerative business design and circular economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting ESG and climate strategy under tightening EU regulation Chief Sustainability Officers, Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers building the operating layer behind sustainability commitments Industrial, infrastructure and capital-intensive groups facing real decarbonisation costs Public-private leadership forums on the SDGs, 2030 Agenda, and corporate-government cooperation Audience outcomes A clearer separation between ESG as disclosure and ESG as operating substance, with the questions a board should be asking about each A working view of which of the 17 SDGs contain commercial margin for a given business model An honest read on the gap between net zero communication and net zero capital expenditure A practical map of how European sustainability regulation is reshaping corporate strategy this decade

Why organisations work with Jack Stratten Pattern recognition grounded in fieldwork. Insider Trends runs retail safaris in London, New York, Tokyo and Seoul, which means his examples come from stores he has physically been inside, not slide decks recycled from conference circuits. A named RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer in both 2023 and 2024, giving buyers a third-party signal of standing in the retail community. Direct experience advising Nike, LVMH, Ikea, Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover and Microsoft on retail formats and customer experience, so the frame of reference fits enterprise decision-makers. Works across the full retail stack, from store roles and staff models to omnichannel, supply chain and sustainability, which lets a single session connect teams that usually plan in silos. Format flexibility. Keynote, boardroom session, trend workshop or guided retail safari, all drawn from the same underlying research base. Biography highlights Head of Trends, Insider Trends, a London-based retail futures agency advising C-suite clients globally. Selected for RETHINK Retail’s Top Retail Influencers list in 2023 and 2024. Clients include Nike, Johnson and Johnson, Converse, Ikea, Shell, Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover, Costa Coffee, Diageo, Microsoft, LVMH, Nespresso, Twilio, The National Trust and Galeries Lafayette. Has run trend seminars for senior business audiences in partnership with the British Library. Media commentator on retail change, including appearances on Channel 4 and BBC Radio 5. Published author on Insider Trends and contributor to industry outlets including Retail Technology Innovation Hub. Biography Physical stores, e-commerce, app, social commerce, marketplace listings, supply chain footprint. For most retailers these are still governed as separate projects with separate owners, even though a single customer now moves across all of them inside one buying decision. That gap between how customers shop and how retailers are organised is the core tension Jack Stratten’s work addresses. As Head of Trends at Insider Trends, a London-based retail futures agency, he sits on top of a continuous research engine that tracks new store formats, brand experiences and commercial models in the cities where retail is evolving fastest. The agency’s client list spans Nike, LVMH, Ikea, Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover, Microsoft and Galeries Lafayette, and the work typically lands as a keynote, a boardroom session, a workshop, or a guided retail safari through live stores. The value to a leadership team is diagnostic as much as inspirational. Stratten is good at naming which shifts are real signals versus which are noise, which store formats actually drive commercial outcomes, and where omnichannel investment translates into loyalty rather than cost. RETHINK Retail named him one of its Top Retail Influencers in both 2023 and 2024, a practitioner-voted signal that buyers in the sector recognise his read on the category. What separates his sessions from a standard retail trends talk is the grounding. The examples are stores he has walked, brands his team has studied in depth, and commercial decisions he has watched play out, which makes the content usable inside a planning cycle rather than a year-end inspiration slot. Key speaking topics Retail trends and customer behaviour Omnichannel strategy Store of the future and new retail formats Customer experience in consumer brands Retail innovation and business model change Sustainability in retail and supply chain Direct to consumer and brand experience Ideal for Retail and consumer goods executive teams setting store, channel and format strategy. Heads of customer experience, digital and e-commerce aligning on a single commercial plan. Property, leasing and shopping centre leadership rethinking the role of physical space. Senior marketing and brand leaders in consumer categories adjacent to retail. Audience outcomes A clearer view of which retail shifts are material signals and which are surface noise. Concrete examples of store formats, brand experiences and omnichannel models that are working in 2025, with the commercial logic behind them. A shared vocabulary across store, digital, marketing and supply chain teams for the next planning cycle. Specific prompts for where to test, invest or pull back in the next 12 to 24 months. A sharper sense of how consumer brands and retailers are redefining the role of the store.

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 Kailash Satyarthi He is the only living Nobel Peace Laureate whose work targets the exact intersection of supply chain, child labour, and corporate accountability that ESG committees now have to defend. He built GoodWeave, the first voluntary certification system that traced child labour out of the South Asian carpet industry, giving him operational experience of what works and what fails when companies try to clean a supplier base. His 1998 Global March seeded ILO Convention 182, the most ratified convention in the organisation’s history, which means he can speak to the policy frame that regulators and procurement teams now have to align with. Bachpan Bachao Andolan, the movement he founded in 1980, has freed more than 130,000 children in India, giving his arguments the weight of measurable on-the-ground results rather than advocacy alone. He raises the moral altitude of a leadership conversation in a way few speakers can, which is why boards bring him in when they want a corporate purpose programme to feel earned rather than performative. Biography highlights 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded jointly with Malala Yousafzai for the struggle against the suppression of children and the right of every child to education. Founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (1980), credited with freeing more than 130,000 children in India from bonded labour, child labour, and trafficking. Founder of GoodWeave International (1994), the first independent certification system for child-labour-free carpets in South Asia. Architect of the 1998 Global March Against Child Labour across 103 countries, whose demands directly shaped ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour. UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate; recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award (1995) and the Defenders of Democracy Award (2009). Author of Every Child Matters and Will for Children (Prabhat Prakashan); co-author with the Dalai Lama of The Book of Compassion. Biography In 1980, an electrical engineer in India walked away from his profession to free children locked inside brick kilns, carpet looms, and quarries. The organisation he founded that year, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, has since liberated more than 130,000 children from bonded labour, child labour, and trafficking. Kailash Satyarthi has spent forty-five years turning that work into a system. The system has three layers that matter to corporate audiences. The first is rescue and rehabilitation, run through a network of activists and shelters in India. The second is certification: in 1994 he founded GoodWeave, which built the first credible voluntary label proving that a carpet was made without child labour, an early prototype for the supply chain audit regimes that are now standard in apparel, cocoa, and electronics. The third is policy. The Global March he led in 1998 covered 103 countries and 80,000 kilometres, and its demands fed directly into ILO Convention 182, now the most ratified convention in ILO history. The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Malala Yousafzai, gave his argument a global platform. He uses it to press a single point at boards and policy bodies: child labour is not a problem of poor countries, it is a problem of global procurement, and any company with a multi-tier supplier base owns part of it. That framing is uncomfortable for executives who treat human rights as a CSR line item, which is exactly why it lands. His books, Every Child Matters and Will for Children with Prabhat Prakashan, and The Book of Compassion co-authored with the Dalai Lama, sit alongside his role as a UN Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. The through-line is consistent: moral authority backed by operational evidence, applied to the supply chains and policy systems that decide whether a child works or goes to school. Key speaking topics Child labour in global supply chains Ethical sourcing and supplier certification Human rights and corporate accountability Education as an economic and rights agenda ESG, purpose, and moral leadership Civil society movements and policy change Ideal for Boards and ESG committees defining human-rights and supply-chain commitments Chief procurement officers and CSR leaders auditing supplier networks Investor groups and policy bodies setting standards on labour and human rights Purpose, values, and culture programmes for global organisations Audience outcomes A clearer view of where child labour actually lives inside multi-tier supplier networks, and what credible mitigation looks like. A working understanding of the certification, audit, and policy levers that have moved the needle, and where they have not. A direct account of how ILO Convention 182 came to exist, and what it now requires of buyers and regulators. The moral and strategic case for treating human rights as a board-level commitment rather than a reporting category.

Why organisations work with Louise Laing She has run the operating model she now sells advice on. As CEO of Shrimps she grew revenue by 240% and brought the business into positive EBITDA within three years, with senior prior roles at Burberry and Reiss in sourcing, development and supply chain. PhygitalTwin and Phygen give her a working technical view of how AI compresses pattern engineering and digital-to-physical production, not a consultant’s overview of the field. She translates between creative directors, production heads and technology teams. Heritage fashion businesses lose months because those three functions speak different languages; she has worked inside all three. Recode the Curriculum, the foundation she leads, gives her a credible voice on closing the technology confidence gap among young women, which connects her commercial work to a wider workforce question senior buyers care about. Biography highlights Founder, PhygitalTwin (2022), an AI platform converting 3D designs into game-ready digital assets and production-ready physical files. Founder, Phygen, AI-native pattern engineering platform. Former CEO, Shrimps (London fashion brand). Drove 240% revenue growth and positive EBITDA within three years. Senior leadership roles previously held at Burberry and Reiss, in sourcing, product development and supply chain. Founder, Recode the Curriculum, a foundation supporting girls into technology and entrepreneurship. Speaker at the World Economic Forum, Davos (January 2024, Phygital Wednesday with CV Labs and Phygicode). Contributor to The Interline. Biography Pattern engineering is the part of the fashion supply chain almost no one outside the industry sees. It is also where six to eight weeks of every new garment is spent. Louise Laing has built her last decade of work around the question of what happens when that cycle collapses to hours. PhygitalTwin, the company she founded in 2022, is an AI SaaS platform that converts a single 3D design into two commercial outputs: a rigged, game-ready digital skin and a print-ready file for physical merchandise. Phygen, a parallel venture, automates the pattern, grading and tech-pack work that traditionally sits between designer and factory. Both are built on a thesis she has lived inside: fashion’s waste problem is structural, and the solution sits in the production model rather than the marketing one. Before founding either company, she ran a fashion business. As CEO of Shrimps she grew revenue by 240% and took the company into positive EBITDA within three years, while protecting the brand’s creative identity. Earlier senior roles at Burberry and Reiss gave her direct operational experience of sourcing, product development and supply chain at scale, which is the operating context most heritage brands now have to redesign. Her wider work includes Recode the Curriculum, a foundation introducing girls to technology as a creative and entrepreneurial pathway. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos and writes for The Interline on fashion, gaming and brand strategy in virtual environments. Key speaking topics AI in fashion design and product development 3D and on-demand production Phygital fashion and the digital-to-physical product chain Supply chain optimisation in heritage and emerging brands Sustainability through production model redesign Entrepreneurship and scaling a fashion business Women and girls in technology Ideal for Boards and executive teams in fashion, retail and consumer brands considering operational redesign around AI. Heads of product, sourcing and supply chain looking for a working view of digital-to-physical workflows. Innovation, transformation and digital leaders in adjacent industries (consumer goods, luxury, sportswear) studying fashion as a sector ahead on phygital. Programme leads building gender-balanced technology talent pipelines. Audience outcomes A clearer operating picture of where AI compresses real cost and time in product development. Specific examples of how 3D, on-demand and digital twin technology change unit economics in a brand business. A view of phygital fashion as a commercial category, with the brand and IP questions it raises. An entrepreneur’s perspective on running a creative business through an operational reinvention.

Why organisations work with Malaika Vaz She has gone undercover inside wildlife trafficking networks across India, Myanmar and China, and can speak to environmental crime as a live operational and reputational risk, not a policy abstraction. Her documentary Sacrifice Zone, made in association with the National Geographic Society, reported pollution exposure across New Delhi, Dhaka, Baton Rouge and La Guajira, giving boards a concrete picture of what fenceline impact looks like in four very different jurisdictions. She has built Untamed Planet into a production house whose work reaches National Geographic, BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera, PBS and ARTE France audiences in more than 150 countries, which means her storytelling is calibrated for global, non-specialist viewers, not insiders. The credentials are independently verified: Wildscreen Panda Award for On-Screen Talent (2024), Forbes 30 Under 30 North America 2025, Earthshot Prize Advocate, and UNEP recognition as one of six environmentalists changing the world. For a sustainability or risk audience used to consultants, she offers something different: a reporter who has been in the room with traffickers, regulators and affected communities, and can connect those scenes to the decisions executives are making. Biography highlights National Geographic Explorer and presenter; films broadcast on National Geographic, BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera, PBS and ARTE France in more than 150 countries. Co-founder and creative director of Untamed Planet, an independent documentary production company. Wildscreen Panda Award for On-Screen Talent, 2024 Wildscreen Festival, Bristol, for Sacrifice Zone. Forbes 30 Under 30 North America 2025, Media category. Earthshot Prize Advocate; named by UNEP as one of six environmentalists changing the world. Presenter of On the Brink (Discovery Channel and Animal Planet) and Living with Predators (National Geographic), and lead reporter on Peng Yu Sai, a Green Oscar-nominated investigation into the illegal manta ray trade. Biography Manta rays were disappearing from the waters off the coast of Goa. Tracing why led Malaika Vaz, on camera and undercover as a seafood trader, from Indian fishing vessels to the Indo-Myanmar border and into the wildlife trafficking hubs of Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The resulting documentary, Peng Yu Sai, was nominated for a Green Oscar and aired on National Geographic India. That is the kind of reporting Vaz does. As a National Geographic Explorer and co-founder of the documentary production company Untamed Planet, she has built a body of work focused on environmental crime, industrial pollution and the human-wildlife interface. Her films have been broadcast on National Geographic, BBC, Sky, Al Jazeera, PBS and ARTE France, reaching audiences in more than 150 countries. Her 2024 documentary Sacrifice Zone, produced with the National Geographic Society, examined the human cost of industrial pollution in New Delhi, Dhaka, Baton Rouge and La Guajira. It won the Wildscreen Panda Award for On-Screen Talent at the 2024 Wildscreen Festival in Bristol. She has also presented Living with Predators, a three-part National Geographic series on coexistence with India’s big cats, and On the Brink for Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Forbes named her to its 30 Under 30 North America list in 2025, in the Media category. She is an Earthshot Prize Advocate and was named by the United Nations Environment Programme as one of six environmentalists changing the world. For an executive audience, the value she brings is specific: an investigator who has stood inside the trafficking routes, fenceline communities and ecosystems that sit underneath their environmental and supply chain risk reports. Key speaking topics Environmental crime and illicit wildlife trade Industrial pollution and frontline community impact Supply chain exposure to environmental risk Investigative environmental journalism Biodiversity and human-wildlife coexistence Documentary storytelling for non-specialist audiences Field reporting in fragile and high-risk environments Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers, ESG leads and risk committees responsible for environmental and supply chain exposure Boards and executive teams setting climate, biodiversity and human rights priorities Communications, brand and public affairs leaders translating environmental commitments into credible external narrative Investor and asset management forums focused on natural capital, biodiversity and climate-related disclosure Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how wildlife trafficking and environmental crime intersect with global supply chains Specific case material from frontline reporting in India, Myanmar, China, the United States and Latin America A sharper sense of where ESG narratives diverge from on-the-ground reality, and what that means for credibility A working model for using storytelling and visual evidence to move non-specialist stakeholders Renewed urgency, grounded in named places and named systems, not abstract climate framing

Why organisations work with Manuel Maqueda He teaches the working mechanics of circular and regenerative economics at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, and built the equivalent programmes at UC Berkeley Extension and UCLA Extension. The intellectual content has been tested on senior professional audiences for years. He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition and runs SUPER, a certification programme that operationalises single-use plastics elimination inside real businesses. The advice is operator-grade, not lecture-grade. He bridges sustainability and AI through Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response. Boards facing both decarbonisation and AI agendas get one voice across both. His client list includes Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber, Santander and the New Plastics Economy Conference. He is fluent across deep-tech, financial services and policy audiences. He delivers in English and Spanish, useful for Iberian, Latin American and Pan-American programmes where most sustainability authorities are anglophone only. Biography highlights Special Program Instructor, Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education. Architect of the Circular Economy Program at UCLA Extension and the Circular Economy online course at UC Berkeley Extension. Co-founder, Plastic Pollution Coalition; CEO and co-founder, SUPER (Single-Use Plastics Elimination or Reduction). Co-founder, Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response. Adviser to the Long Now Foundation; producer associated with the award-winning documentary Albatross on plastic pollution. Author of the forthcoming book The Meaning Economy on regenerative economics; speaking clients include Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber and Santander. Biography Most sustainability programmes inside large companies are still organised around doing less harm. They count carbon, swap materials, and add disclosures, while the core business model continues to extract, consume and discard. The leaders running them know the gap, and they are looking for a credible account of what an actual circular or regenerative business looks like. That account is the working content of Manuel Maqueda’s teaching at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, where he is Special Program Instructor in Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics. He built the equivalent programmes at UCLA Extension and UC Berkeley Extension. The frame he uses is practical: maintain the value of materials, components and products in use; eliminate waste and pollution by design; and where possible restore natural capital rather than only protecting it. His authority is not only academic. He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance on plastics, and runs SUPER, a tiered certification programme for businesses eliminating single-use plastics from their operations. Through Viento.ai he co-founded a venture applying machine learning to climate disaster response, which gives him a working view of where AI helps and where it does not in the climate agenda. Maqueda has advised the Long Now Foundation, contributed to the documentary Albatross, and speaks for clients including Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell and the New Plastics Economy Conference. His forthcoming book The Meaning Economy sets out his case that only regenerative thinking provides a serious framework for the next phase of climate action and commercial reinvention. Key speaking topics Circular economy strategy and implementation Regenerative economics and business models Plastic pollution and materials innovation Sustainability failure modes inside large organisations Supply chain redesign for circularity AI for climate resilience and disaster response Ideal for Boards and executive committees of consumer goods, retail, materials and industrial companies revisiting their sustainability strategy. Chief Sustainability Officers, Chief Supply Chain Officers and Chief Strategy Officers preparing the next ESG operating cycle. Innovation, R&D and product leaders responsible for materials choices and packaging redesign. Policy, public sector and city government audiences working on plastics, circularity and climate adaptation. Audience outcomes A working distinction between eco-efficiency, circular and regenerative business models, and where each one actually applies. The specific failure patterns that make corporate sustainability programmes stall, and what to do instead. A view of where AI changes the climate and resilience agenda for executives, and where it does not. Language and examples senior leaders can use with their board when proposing a more ambitious sustainability operating model.

Why organisations work with Marianne Abib-Pech A verified large-cap finance record at the top: Global CFO of Shell Aviation, a circa $20bn turnover business, reached before age 35 Active operating practice through Transitions First, an industrial venture fund rebuilding local, modular and resource-efficient supply chains, which keeps her material current rather than retrospective Author of The Financial Times Guide to Leadership, a published thesis on what trust-based leadership actually looks like in execution Frontier-market depth across Africa, the Middle East, and the Caspian region, useful for boards weighing growth in places where their existing playbook does not transfer Biography highlights Global CFO, Shell Aviation, before age 35 Earlier career at Arthur Andersen (Luxembourg) and GE Capital, including integration of a private bank Author, The Financial Times Guide to Leadership (FT Publishing / Pearson) Co-founder, Transitions First, industrial venture fund focused on local and modular supply chains Founder, LTF Partners, M&A and strategy advisory in emerging and frontier markets Women’s Business Initiative International Ambition Award, 2014 Biography Most leadership material is written from the inside of mature markets. Marianne Abib-Pech wrote hers from the other side. The Financial Times Guide to Leadership argues that trust, not charisma, is the operating system of senior leadership, and the cases that shape it come from places where that argument is hardest to apply. Her credibility on that point is operational. She was Global CFO of Shell Aviation, a circa $20bn turnover business, before she was 35, after earlier roles at Arthur Andersen in Luxembourg and at GE Capital, where she ran the integration of a private bank into the wider business. The seat at the top of a global division is what gives her material weight with senior audiences. Today the work is split between writing, advising, and investing. Through LTF Partners she works on M&A and strategy in frontier markets across Africa, the Middle East and the Caspian. Through Transitions First, an industrial venture fund she co-founded in 2022, she backs companies rebuilding modular, resource-efficient supply chains, the kind of capital decisions boards are now being asked to underwrite themselves. What that produces in a room is unusually concrete. She talks about leading across 88 nationalities because she has done it. She talks about capital allocation in difficult geographies because she is currently allocating it. She received the Women’s Business Initiative International Ambition Award in 2014, but the more useful credential is that her examples are still being built. Key speaking topics Leadership in male-dominated and frontier environments Trust as the operating system of senior leadership Strategy and capital allocation in emerging and frontier markets Industrial venture capital and supply-chain rebuilds Women in finance and senior leadership Cross-cultural leadership and global team performance Ideal for CEOs, CFOs and divisional leaders entering or scaling in frontier markets Boards weighing capital allocation into industrial transitions and supply-chain reconfiguration Senior women’s leadership programmes and executive development cohorts Finance leadership audiences moving from analyst to operator roles Audience outcomes A working definition of trust-based leadership grounded in real CFO-level decisions A clearer view of what changes when a leadership playbook crosses into frontier or industrial-transition contexts Specific reference points for capital allocation and deal execution in unfamiliar geographies Reframed expectations of what credibility looks like for women leading in male-dominated sectors

Why organisations work with Matthew Gitsham Two decades of research focused on what CEOs of named multinationals actually do on sustainability, not what they say in annual reports. Direct experience advising the UN Global Compact, Business in the Community and corporates including Unilever, IBM, HSBC, GSK, De Beers, Cemex and Pearson on sustainable development strategy. Thinkers50 Radar recognition and the Aspen Institute Rising Star award give boards external validation when commissioning content on a contested topic. His Rio+20 report “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World” shaped how the UN framed corporate leadership on sustainable development, evidence that his frameworks travel beyond the classroom. Research on corporate modern slavery leadership, conducted with the Ethical Trading Initiative, gives him operating substance on supply chain ESG that most academic voices lack. Biography highlights Professor of Business and Sustainability, Hult Ashridge Executive Education. Director of the Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability. Thinkers50 Radar, Class of 2021. Cited as “global expert on CEOs and sustainability.” Aspen Institute and Academy of Business in Society European Faculty Pioneer Award, Rising Star category. Hult International Business School Researcher of the Year, 2016 to 2017. Lead author of “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World,” referenced at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Biography Most ESG conversations stop at the disclosure framework. The harder question, which Gitsham has spent twenty years researching, is what CEOs of Unilever, IBM, HSBC, GSK and similar companies actually do with sustainability once it leaves the sustainability report. His work tracks the decisions boards take on capital allocation, supplier governance and public policy advocacy when sustainability stops being narrative and starts being operating substance. That research base is what earned him Thinkers50 Radar recognition in 2021, with Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove naming him a “global expert on CEOs and sustainability.” His Rising Star award from the Aspen Institute and the Academy of Business in Society European Faculty Pioneer Awards reflects the same point. He is not a commentator on sustainability. He is one of the few academics with sustained, named access to CEOs of large multinationals on the subject. At Hult Ashridge, he directs the Centre for Business and Sustainability and teaches across the MBA and executive education programmes. His report “Leadership in a Rapidly Changing World” was used to inform debate at the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. Current research partnerships include Business Fights Poverty on corporate SDG embedding and the Ethical Trading Initiative on corporate leadership on modern slavery, giving him an operating view of supply chain ESG that bridges academia and practice. His work appears in The Economist, Financial Times and Harvard Business Review. His corporate clients span Tesco, Bayer, Rolls Royce, Swarovski, Marks & Spencer and Pearson, alongside the UK Senior Civil Service. The throughline across all of it is the same question: how do leaders of large organisations make defensible sustainability decisions when the stakes are now financial, political and reputational at once. Key speaking topics Corporate sustainability and ESG strategy CEO leadership on sustainable development The UN Sustainable Development Goals and corporate practice Modern slavery and supply chain governance Business and public policy advocacy Climate action in commercial strategy Executive development for sustainability Ideal for Boards and executive committees translating sustainability commitments into capital allocation and operating decisions Chief Sustainability Officers, CFOs and General Counsels handling ESG scrutiny and regulatory exposure Senior teams in companies with exposed supply chains are addressing modern slavery and human rights Corporate affairs and public policy leaders shaping CEO advocacy on climate, SDGs and sustainable development Audience outcomes A clearer view of what CEOs of large multinationals do differently when sustainability moves from narrative to operating substance. Named research evidence on corporate SDG embedding, modern slavery leadership and CEO public policy advocacy. A defensible framing for board conversations on ESG that withstands investor, regulatory and political scrutiny. Practical reference points from Unilever, IBM, HSBC and other named corporates, not generic sustainability case studies.

Why organisations work with Michael Beckley He made the Peak China case while the consensus still ran the other way. Foreign Policy credits him and Hal Brands with bringing the term into mainstream use, and by May 2023 The Economist had built a cover package around the question. His analysis draws on award-winning research that measures national power by weighing a country’s assets against its liabilities. “The Power of Nations: Measuring What Matters” won the American Political Science Association’s best international security article award in 2019. He consults regularly for the US intelligence community, and has advised the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment for years. His reports there cover long-term geopolitical trends and the global balance of power, most recently ageing, automation, and the military balance to 2040. He holds a commercial main stage. At Nordic Business Forum 2026 in Helsinki he took the first main-stage slot with “The End of Easy Growth”, then ran a separate CEO session, “Navigating the New World Order”, on day two. The event sold out six months in advance at 8,500 attendees, on a programme with Oprah Winfrey and Angela Duckworth. He writes for the people making the decisions, not only for journals. Recent bylines include Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and The Atlantic. Biography highlights Associate Professor of Political Science with tenure at Tufts University, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and head of Asia research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Author of Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower (Cornell University Press) and, with Hal Brands, Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China (W. W. Norton); The End of Easy Growth and the Struggle for Power is forthcoming from W. W. Norton Winner of the American Political Science Association’s Best International Security Article award, the International Studies Association’s Carl Beck Award, the Amos Perlmutter Prize, and Foreign Policy’s Best Long Read of the Year Consults regularly for the US intelligence community, and has advised the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment for years Previously an International Security Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and worked for the US Department of Defense, the RAND Corporation, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace PhD in political science from Columbia University Biography The term “Peak China” entered mainstream use after a 2021 Foreign Affairs essay by Hal Brands and Michael Beckley. Two years later The Economist put the same question on its cover. The argument was that China’s slowdown was the dangerous part, because countries tend to act most aggressively when leaders sense that time is running out. Underneath that claim sits a way of counting. “The Power of Nations: Measuring What Matters”, which won the American Political Science Association’s best international security article prize in 2019, sets out a method for netting a country’s liabilities against its resources. Large populations and large GDP figures carry large costs. Once those are subtracted, the league table of national strength looks different from the one most strategy decks assume. That method now points at something wider than China. The End of Easy Growth and the Struggle for Power, forthcoming from W. W. Norton, asks what happens to competition between states when ageing populations and slowing productivity make growth harder to find everywhere. For companies the question becomes where labour and demand will actually be, and which governments will intervene to capture whatever growth remains. Beckley works both sides of that question. He consults regularly for the US intelligence community, and has advised the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment for years. His most recent work there covers ageing, automation, and the global military balance to 2040. The same analysis went to a sold-out Helsinki audience of 8,500 in September 2026. He took the first main-stage slot at Nordic Business Forum with “The End of Easy Growth”, and ran a separate CEO session the next morning. Key speaking topics US-China competition and the balance of power Peak China and the consequences of a Chinese slowdown The end of easy growth in the world economy Measurement of national power beyond GDP Demographic change and its effect on markets and security Geopolitical risk for globally exposed businesses AI and the technology race between the United States and China American power and the volatility of US policy Ideal for Chief executives and boards weighing exposure to sanctions, alliance shifts, and state-subsidised competition, and deciding where to invest, insure, and locate talent Chief strategy officers and corporate development teams setting five to ten year market bets Institutional investors, bank leadership teams, and risk committees pricing political risk into long-horizon decisions Shipping, logistics and industrial companies whose routes and input costs move with geopolitical events Audience outcomes A method for judging national strength that holds up against the GDP headlines A specific read on where China’s slowdown creates risk and where it creates opening Sharper language for the board conversation about geopolitical exposure, beyond the word uncertainty A view of what slower global growth does to labour supply and to state intervention in markets An answer to the question of whether American political dysfunction has actually weakened American power

Why organisations work with Mónica Muriel She has built two B Corp certified businesses, Zurita Madrid and NEST Solutions, and speaks from the position of someone who has signed the supplier contracts, not someone advising from outside. Operating experience inside Chinese textile supply chains, including blockchain-enabled traceability, gives her a credible voice on what regulators and auditors will actually accept. She translates circular and regenerative business models into commercial decisions that protect margin, useful for boards under pressure on both ESG and price. A double legal and business background and a Hult Executive MBA mean she briefs equally well to compliance, commercial, and sustainability leaders in the same room. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Zurita Madrid, B Corp certified sustainable fashion business launched in Shanghai in 2015. Founder and CEO, NEST Solutions, B Corp certified consultancy applying Zurita’s methods to third-party textile and consumer goods companies. Global Executive MBA, Hult International Business School. Double degree in Law and Business Administration, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Associate, WAS (Women Action Sustainability), the Spanish women-led sustainability network. More than 15 years operating between Shanghai and Madrid across fashion and impact businesses. Biography Most sustainability strategies are written in headquarters and executed thousands of miles away, inside factories the brand does not own. The work that closes that gap, on materials, traceability, audits, and supplier behaviour, is what now decides whether an ESG commitment is operating substance or marketing. Mónica Muriel has built two B Corp certified businesses on the operating side of that question. Zurita Madrid, launched in Shanghai in 2015 with two Hult Executive MBA classmates, is a sustainable fashion label built around traceable supply, ethical production, and circular design. NEST Solutions takes the methods, certifications and supplier relationships developed for Zurita and applies them to third parties in textiles and consumer goods. Her training is unusually well matched to the brief. A double degree in Law and Business Administration from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid gives her a working grasp of the regulatory side. A Global Executive MBA from Hult gives her the commercial discipline. Fifteen years between Shanghai and Madrid gives her something rarer in the speaker market: direct experience of how Asian supply chains actually behave when a brand asks them to change. She is an associate of WAS, the Spanish women-led sustainability network, and a regular voice on circular economy, regenerative business models, and blockchain-enabled traceability. The argument she brings to a boardroom is not that sustainability is morally right. It is that the companies treating it as an operating discipline today are the ones that will still be able to sell into European markets when the next compliance cycle lands. Key speaking topics Sustainable and regenerative business models Circular economy in textiles and consumer goods Supply chain traceability and certification Blockchain in supply chain verification B Corp practice and corporate impact Fashion industry transformation Women, culture and sustainability Ideal for Boards and executive teams committing to ESG targets that must now be evidenced in the supply chain Chief sustainability officers, heads of supply chain, and procurement leaders in consumer goods, fashion, and retail Founders and growth-stage CEOs designing circular or impact-led business models Industry associations and women-in-business networks focused on sustainability leadership Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what regulators and auditors will accept as evidence of supply chain sustainability Working examples of how circular and regenerative models hold up commercially A founder’s account of what changes and what does not when a business pursues B Corp certification A grounded view of Asian, and specifically Chinese, supply chain dynamics from someone who has operated inside them