Business Continuity and Crisis Management

Why organisations work with Philip Keil He brings the operating discipline of Crew Resource Management, the framework airlines use to prevent crew failure under pressure, into language a leadership team can actually apply on Monday morning. He has been the captain in command during a genuine in-flight emergency with nearly 200 passengers on board, so his content on composure and decision-making is grounded in a specific event, not a hypothetical. His books You are the pilot! and The inner compass give him a published position on intuition and self-leadership, which extends a keynote into a longer programme for executive development. He delivers in English and German at a senior corporate level across more than 20 countries, which suits multinational audiences without an interpreter compromise. He is an active TV aviation expert in Germany, which means he is fluent at explaining technical environments to non-technical audiences without losing the senior register. Biography highlights Qualified as a Lufthansa-trained airline pilot at 22, one of the youngest in Germany. Over 9,000 hours of commercial flying across four continents. Author of You are the pilot! (2019) and The inner compass (2022). Listed in Europe’s TOP 100 Excellent Keynote Speakers since 2017. Two-time nominee for the Red Fox Award, Germany’s Keynote Speaker of the Year (2019, 2020). Recurring aviation expert across ZDF, RTL, Pro 7, Sat.1, WELT, and ntv. Biography The aviation industry has spent four decades engineering away a single problem: capable people, working together, still making fatal decisions. The framework that emerged is called Crew Resource Management, and it is the operating discipline behind the modern cockpit. It assumes that a senior captain can be wrong, that a junior co-pilot must be heard, and that error must surface before it compounds. Philip Keil works inside that framework professionally. He qualified as an airline pilot at 22 after training at Lufthansa in Bremen, and has since logged more than 9,000 flying hours over four continents. On 24 February 2009 he was the captain in command when a routine flight with around 200 passengers became an emergency landing, an event he has used as the empirical anchor for his work on composure and decision-making ever since. His books extend the cockpit material into something more useful for a senior leader. You are the pilot! (2019) is a study in self-leadership and confidence under load. The inner compass (2022) addresses the role of intuition in high-stakes decisions, the part of judgement that does not appear on a spreadsheet. Both have given him a published intellectual position rather than a single-incident speaker hook. That position has been recognised commercially. Keil has been listed in Europe’s TOP 100 Excellent Keynote Speakers since 2017, was nominated as Germany’s Keynote Speaker of the Year in 2019 and 2020, and is the recurring aviation voice across the major German broadcasters. He works in English and German, which is what a multinational leadership audience actually needs. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Crew Resource Management for executive teams Error culture and accountability Self-leadership and composure Crisis communication and command Team coordination across hierarchy Ideal for Executive committees and boards facing high-consequence decisions under time pressure COOs, CHROs, and operational leaders rebuilding accountability and error reporting culture Leadership development programmes for newly appointed senior managers Safety-critical, regulated, or operationally complex industries (aviation, energy, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services) Audience outcomes A working vocabulary from Crew Resource Management that they can apply to their own leadership meetings A specific model for how to surface bad news up a hierarchy before it becomes a crisis A clearer view of what composure looks like as an operational skill, not a personality trait A repeatable approach to making the next decision when the information is incomplete

Why organisations work with Glenn Wilkinson He performs live attack demonstrations on stage, including the bank-compromise walkthrough that has anchored briefings at Slaughter and May, Linklaters, Allen & Company and Google. Audiences see the mechanics of a breach, not a slide about one. He is the offensive practitioner behind Snoopy, the wireless tracking and profiling drone framework presented at DEF CON and covered by BBC and CNN. That gives him standing with technical audiences that most cyber speakers cannot match. He runs Agger Labs, a working ransomware-defence business. Boards get current-operator perspective on the ransomware economy, not retired threat-intel commentary. Rhodes Scholar with two Oxford master’s degrees, including comparative social policy. That second degree shows up in how he frames cyber for non-technical leadership audiences. He has legally compromised more than a hundred banks, governments and corporates over a fifteen-year career. The case material is his own work, not curated public incidents. Biography highlights CEO and founder, Agger Labs, an endpoint ransomware-defence company. Founder of three prior technology companies: Maevro (2016), Polira (2017), Kapenta (2020). Former senior security analyst at SensePost, where he co-created the Snoopy tracking and profiling drone framework. Speaker at Black Hat, DEF CON 22, 44CON and ZeroNights; corporate engagements include Google, Slaughter and May, Linklaters and Allen & Company. Featured on BBC, CNN, ITV, Channel 4 and Vice Motherboard, primarily on wireless surveillance, drone-borne attacks and the ransomware economy. Rhodes Scholar; MSc Computer Science and MSc Comparative Social Policy, University of Oxford; BSc Computer Science, Rhodes University. Biography Ransomware now runs faster than most response playbooks. By the time a CISO is briefing the board, the encryption is finished and the negotiation has begun. That is the operating reality Wilkinson works inside: as CEO of Agger Labs he ships endpoint software designed to halt ransomware before encryption starts, and as a speaker he translates that pace problem for senior audiences who still hear cyber as a compliance topic. The credibility comes from fifteen years on the offensive side. He started at SensePost in South Africa, running penetration tests against banks, governments and corporates, and co-built Snoopy, a distributed tracking and profiling framework that drew BBC and CNN coverage after its DEF CON 22 presentation. That technical lineage is why Black Hat, DEF CON and 44CON book him, and why his corporate keynotes for Slaughter and May, Linklaters, Allen & Company and Google still rely on live demonstrations rather than abstract slides. The Oxford background sits alongside the technical work, not on top of it. A Rhodes Scholar with master’s degrees in computer science and in comparative social policy, he brings the second discipline into how he frames a brief for a leadership team: how human systems and technical systems break together, and where boards actually have agency. That is the angle that makes his bank-compromise walkthrough land in a partner meeting rather than a security conference. The current operator role sharpens the relevance further. Three previous founder roles and the present Agger Labs platform mean briefings are grounded in this quarter’s threat economy, including the ransomware-as-a-service supply chain and the speed gap between attacker tooling and enterprise response. Key speaking topics Cybersecurity as a board capability Ransomware economy and operational defence Ethical hacking and offensive security demonstrations Nation-state cyber conflict Smart cities and critical infrastructure exposure Wireless and mobile surveillance techniques Open source intelligence and human-layer attack vectors Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning cyber as a leadership topic, not an IT update CISOs and CIOs briefing the rest of the C-suite on attacker behaviour Financial services, legal, and professional services firms with high client-data exposure Risk, audit and transformation leads designing post-incident response capability Audience outcomes A working mental model of how attackers chain wireless, social and human-layer techniques into a full compromise Specific board-level questions to put to a CISO on ransomware readiness and response speed A concrete view of where ransomware tooling is in 2026, and what that means for endpoint and backup strategy Recognition that cyber decisions belong on the executive agenda, with named accountability rather than delegated comfort

Why organisations work with Oliver Peyton He pioneered the model of high-quality restaurant and café concessions inside cultural institutions, with sites at the National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Wallace Collection and Kew Gardens, and can describe the operating logic from the inside. He has presided over both the building and the public administration of Peyton & Byrne, and discusses commercial failure and reinvention as someone who has lived it. He has applied a single operating philosophy, hospitality as a service discipline, across nightclubs, restaurants, bakeries, drinks brands and the funeral sector with Exit Here. Fifteen years as a judge on the BBC’s Great British Menu has given him sustained scrutiny of how performance operations function under pressure, and a vocabulary that translates for audiences outside hospitality. He has consulted for Sodexo, British Airways, Virgin and Pernod Ricard, organisations large enough to expose any thin theory of consumer-facing operations. Biography highlights Founder of Peyton & Byrne, with restaurants and cafés inside the National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Wallace Collection, Kew Gardens, the British Library and the Wellcome Collection. Judge on BBC Two’s Great British Menu from 2006 to 2021. Honorary OBE for services to catering, presented in 2012. Founder of Exit Here, a contemporary funeral business in Chiswick and Crouch End, opened in 2019. Founder of Unknown Pleasures, a premium canned cocktail brand launched in 2021. Author of two cookbooks; columnist for GQ Magazine; consulting client list includes Sodexo, British Airways, Virgin and Pernod Ricard. Biography Hospitality is a public discipline. Every cover is a transaction watched in real time, and a single bad year can take a brand that took fifteen years to build. Few operators have spent longer testing what that requires than Oliver Peyton. He opened nightclubs in Brighton and London in the early 1980s. He moved into restaurants with the Atlantic Bar & Grill in 1994, then launched a string of London venues including Coast, Mash and Isola. In 2005, he founded Peyton & Byrne, which placed restaurant and café concessions inside major London cultural institutions, including the National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Wallace Collection and Kew Gardens. The trajectory has not been linear. In October 2016, Peyton & Byrne entered administration after losing contracts, including Kew Gardens and the British Library. It was acquired by Sodexo, where Peyton stayed on as creative director. In 2019, he founded Exit Here, a contemporary funeral business in Chiswick, now also operating in Crouch End. It applies the hospitality model to a sector he describes as largely unchanged since the Victorian era. In 2021, he launched the premium canned cocktail brand Unknown Pleasures. Alongside the operating career, Peyton spent fifteen years as a judge on BBC Two’s Great British Menu, from 2006 to 2021. He has also presented and contributed to programmes on restaurant turnaround. He was awarded an honorary OBE for services to catering in 2012 and has consulted for Sodexo, British Airways, Virgin and Pernod Ricard. His career makes a practical point. Consumer-facing operations are a portable discipline. Operators who have lived through public failure and started again carry an authority that strategists rarely match. Key speaking topics Hospitality and consumer-facing operations Restaurant and catering entrepreneurship Brand building inside cultural and visitor attraction venues Commercial reinvention after public failure Operating discipline in service businesses Cross-sector application of hospitality models Ideal for Hospitality, retail and consumer-facing operators looking at growth or repositioning CEOs and founders of brands operating inside host environments such as museums, galleries, transport hubs and public venues Boards weighing turnaround, recovery or reinvention strategy after operational failure Senior leaders in catering, foodservice and customer-facing service industries Audience outcomes An operator’s account of how restaurants and consumer venues actually generate margin, and where it leaks Specific case material on building brands inside the National Gallery, Royal Academy, Kew Gardens and similar host venues A direct read on how Peyton & Byrne entered administration, what was lost, and what came next A view of how hospitality discipline transfers into adjacent sectors, drawn from the funeral business, Exit Here and drinks brand Unknown Pleasures

Why organisations work with Colin MacLachlan He has been the hostage, the hostage negotiator and the hostage rescuer. Very few people on any speaker roster have operated on all three sides of a crisis, and it shows in how he teaches boards to read one. His account of the 2005 Basra prison incident, including repeated mock executions before British forces broke through the compound walls, gives senior audiences an unvarnished view of composure under conditions no leadership course simulates. As an instructor on Series 1 of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, he has publicly assessed how ordinary civilians perform under Selection-grade pressure, which translates directly into honest diagnostics of corporate teams. He pairs the platform with clinical substance: co-founder of Who Dares Cares, a UK charity supporting Armed Forces and Blue Light personnel with PTSD, so the resilience content is built on years of live casework rather than stage anecdote. Author of The Pilgrim: SAS Who Dares Wins (Pen and Sword), endorsed by Bear Grylls, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab and Damien Lewis, which gives buyers a named, citable body of work to brief their leadership against. Biography highlights 22 SAS operator (Mountain Troop), serving in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. Took part in Operation Barras, the 2000 hostage rescue of British soldiers from the West Side Boys in Sierra Leone. Central figure in the Basra prison incident of September 2005, captured by Iraqi police and rescued by British forces. Instructor on Series 1 of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins; contributor to Channel 5’s Secrets of the SAS. Author of The Pilgrim: SAS Who Dares Wins (Pen and Sword), endorsed by Bear Grylls, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab and Damien Lewis. Co-founder of Who Dares Cares, a UK charity supporting Armed Forces and Blue Light personnel living with PTSD. Biography Two British SAS soldiers were captured by Iraqi police in Basra on 19 September 2005 and held through a series of mock executions before a Warrior-led assault broke through the compound walls and extracted them. Colin MacLachlan was one of those two men. That single episode shapes how he talks to leadership teams about composure, and why serious audiences listen. The operational record behind it is equally specific. Mountain Troop in 22 SAS, deployments across Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, and a role in Operation Barras, the 2000 hostage rescue against the West Side Boys. Hostage negotiation, hostage rescue and being taken hostage are three distinct problems. Very few operators have done all three, and that combined perspective is what gives his leadership argument its weight. The public-facing work gives buyers a body of evidence they can brief against. He was an instructor on Series 1 of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, putting civilians through Selection-grade pressure on camera, and a contributor to Channel 5’s Secrets of the SAS. His memoir, The Pilgrim: SAS Who Dares Wins, is published by Pen and Sword and carries cover endorsements from Bear Grylls, Chris Ryan, Andy McNab and Damien Lewis. He also co-founded Who Dares Cares, a UK charity supporting Armed Forces and Blue Light personnel with PTSD. That is what keeps the resilience material honest. When he tells a leadership team how stress shows up inside a person months after the event, the claim is backed by years of clinical casework, not a stage anecdote. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under pressure Crisis response and high-stakes negotiation Team performance in hostile environments Resilience and recovery from acute stress Risk assessment and security awareness Hostage survival and the psychology of captivity Veteran mental health and post-traumatic growth Ideal for Boards and executive committees stress-testing how their leadership team behaves when a crisis is live, not rehearsed. CROs, heads of security and business-continuity leads responsible for people in volatile jurisdictions. CHROs and wellbeing leads building resilience programmes that need clinical credibility, not motivational theatre. Senior leadership offsites where the brief is composure, judgement and team cohesion under sustained pressure. Audience outcomes A concrete vocabulary for making decisions when information is incomplete and the cost of delay is high. A sharper read on how individuals and teams actually behave under acute stress, drawn from Selection-grade assessments and live operations. A working understanding of hostage and crisis negotiation logic that transfers to hostile commercial situations. A more honest view of post-traumatic stress and recovery, useful to anyone responsible for people who have been through a serious event. A memorable, citable set of operational examples that senior audiences take back into their own leadership conversations.

Why organisations work with Ben Owen He has spent more than two decades on the operational side of intelligence, from sniper duties in Iraq to leading covert teams against counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage targets. Few cyber speakers can speak from that side of the line. He runs live OSINT demonstrations from the stage, exposing what an attacker can assemble about a named executive in minutes. Audiences leave with a visceral understanding of their own exposure, not a slide on the threat landscape. As co-founder of The OSINT Group and Co-Director EMEA for Fortalice Solutions, he advises corporates and high net worth principals on digital risk every week. The keynote content is drawn from current casework, not historical anecdote. His Hunted profile gives him cultural reach that board members already recognise, which lowers the resistance non-technical executives bring to cyber conversations. Biography highlights Co-founder, The OSINT Group, an intelligence-led cyber security consultancy. Co-Director, EMEA Region, Fortalice Solutions, the global cyber and intelligence firm founded by former White House CIO Theresa Payton. Former British intelligence officer, with operational experience in counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage. Former sniper in the British Forces, deployed to Cyprus, Kuwait, and Iraq. Lead hunter and Head of Intelligence across the UK, US, and Australian versions of Hunted (Channel 4, CBS, Channel 10). Quoted by The National and Transport + Energy on online fraud and EV charging cyber risk. Biography The attack surface that matters to senior leaders is no longer the corporate firewall. It is the LinkedIn post that confirms a travel date, the loyalty programme that leaks an address, the family member whose social profile fills in the gap. Adversaries assemble these fragments into a picture. Most boards have never been shown that picture. Ben Owen has spent his career on the other side of it. He served as a sniper in the British Forces in Cyprus, Kuwait, and Iraq, then moved into the British intelligence services, where he led covert teams running counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage operations. Twenty-five years of operational work sits behind the keynote. He now co-runs The OSINT Group, an intelligence-led cyber consultancy, and serves as Co-Director EMEA at Fortalice Solutions, the firm founded by former White House CIO Theresa Payton. Current client work, on high net worth principals, corporate executives, and institutional risk, supplies the material for his speaking. Television audiences know him as a recurring hunter across the UK, US, and Australian versions of Hunted; corporate audiences see the same skill set turned on their own organisation. On stage he runs live demonstrations. A volunteer’s name and employer are usually enough to build a profile in front of the room. The point is not theatre. It is to compress the gap between abstract cyber briefings and the operational reality a board now has to govern. Key speaking topics Cyber security as a board-level risk Open-source intelligence and digital footprint exposure The human element of modern cyber threats Executive and principal protection in a digital environment Counter-fraud and social engineering Operational leadership under pressure Surveillance, evasion, and the Hunted methodology Ideal for Boards, CISOs, and CROs commissioning a non-technical reset on cyber risk Executive offboarding, principal protection, and family office audiences Sales kick-offs and client events where a recognisable name needs to land a serious message Industry conferences on financial services, energy, transport, and professional services Audience outcomes A working picture of what a determined adversary can learn about a named executive from open sources alone Specific changes to personal digital hygiene that materially reduce exposure within a week A vocabulary for boards to interrogate their cyber and intelligence functions without retreating into IT jargon A sharper sense of where social engineering and OSINT meet, and why the human layer is now the primary breach vector

Why organisations work with Gloria Garcia She has made high-stakes decisions for a living, protecting ultra-high-net-worth families across Chicago, Mexico City, New York, London and Paris. The lessons she brings on presence and judgement come from work where the cost of error is not a missed quarter. Her background is operator-grade, not adjacent: Cook County Sheriff’s Department, Special Operations Response Team training, corrections leadership in the RTU Men’s Division, SIA-licensed close protection. Buyers get someone who has done the job, not someone who has studied it. She is one of a very small number of senior female close protection specialists on the international circuit, which gives her a credible platform for audiences working on women’s progression in operational, security and male-dominated environments. Her acting practice, including a role cast personally by J.J. Abrams in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, gives her a second language for presence, performance and audience reading that translates directly into executive communication. She speaks from a personal story, a survived kidnapping attempt at age 11, without making the story the product. The story sets up the work; the work is what she teaches. Biography highlights Cook County Sheriff’s Department officer, trained under the Special Operations Response Team (S.O.R.T.) and posted to Cook County Prison’s RTU Men’s Division. SIA-licensed close protection operative with over twenty years of experience protecting ultra-high-net-worth clients internationally. Known professionally as “La Mirla” (“The Blackbird”) within the private protection circuit. Actress cast personally by J.J. Abrams as the “Jakku Defender” in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Recent screen credits include Dr. Sofia Guijarro in Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue (2025) and Agent Niki Delgado in Malice (2025-26). Represented for speaking by Kruger Cowne; life rights reported in development as a feature film with producer Lucas Foster. Biography Most executives will never work a live protection detail. The people who do will tell you the job is not physical force. It is attention: who is in the room, what has changed in the last thirty seconds, which person is a threat and which is a distraction. Gloria Garcia has spent two decades doing that job at the top of the market, for ultra-high-net-worth principals across Chicago, Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, London and Paris. Her training is operator-grade. She came through the Cook County Sheriff’s Department under the Special Operations Response Team, ran a post in Cook County Prison’s RTU Men’s Division, then moved into international close protection as an SIA-licensed specialist. Inside the circuit she is known as “La Mirla”, “The Blackbird”. It is not a nickname she uses on stage. It is the one her peers use for her. She is also a working actress. J.J. Abrams cast her personally as the “Jakku Defender” in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. More recent roles include Dr. Sofia Guijarro in Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue and Agent Niki Delgado in the series Malice. The overlap matters: acting and protection both turn on reading people, holding presence, and adapting in real time. When she talks to leadership audiences about composure and communication, both practices are visible in the room. The personal starting point is a survived kidnapping attempt at age 11, in Cicero, Illinois. She tells that story because it explains the choice of career, not because it is the lesson. The lesson is what she built afterwards: a discipline of attention, trust and communication that senior leaders recognise the moment they hear it. Key speaking topics Decision-making under physical and reputational threat Situational awareness and presence in high-stakes rooms Communication tactics in protective and adversarial settings Women in operational and male-dominated roles Trauma, recovery and the choice to protect others Trust and composure in executive teams Ideal for Senior leaders and boards wanting a visceral perspective on judgement under pressure Security, risk and resilience functions looking beyond technical content Women’s leadership programmes in operational, industrial or security-heavy sectors Culture and communication events where presence and credibility are the brief Audience outcomes A sharper mental model for what composure actually looks like, from someone who uses it professionally Practical ways to read a room faster, including who to listen to and who to watch A clearer sense of how to communicate authority without raising volume A human account of turning a formative threat into a working discipline Renewed appetite for putting trusted operators, not only specialists, in front of senior teams

Why organisations work with Fabrice Pothier He helped architect NATO policy from the inside – including the Readiness Action Plan and Smart Defence – which means he reads alliance decisions not as headlines but as the output of processes he built and operated within. As current pro-bono advisor to President Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s long-term security guarantees, he brings live, first-hand insight into the most consequential European security negotiation of the past decade. Through Rasmussen Global, he advises multinational businesses and sovereign governments in parallel – giving him an unusually precise map of where geopolitical risk meets commercial and operational exposure. He co-founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity – working alongside Joe Biden, Michael Chertoff, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen – giving him demonstrable authority on the intersection of democratic stability, technology, and political risk. He publishes strategic analysis through the IISS and is regularly featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Politico Europe – his public work is tested against the institutions that sophisticated senior audiences use as benchmarks. Biography highlights CEO of Rasmussen Global, the political consultancy founded by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen; advises multinational businesses and sovereign governments on geopolitics, European policy, and strategic risk Former NATO Director of Policy Planning (2010-2016) under two successive Secretary Generals; credited with the Readiness Action Plan, the Defence Capacity Building Initiative, and Smart Defence, and with drafting Secretary General speeches for the Munich Security Conference and articles for Foreign Affairs Founding Director of Carnegie Europe, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Brussels centre, which became one of Europe’s leading foreign policy think-tanks Consulting Senior Fellow for Defence Policy and Strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS); regular contributor to the IISS journal Survival Co-founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity alongside Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Michael Chertoff, and Joe Biden Pro-bono advisor to President Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s security guarantees and Euro-Atlantic integration; central to the Kyiv Security Compact, endorsed by G7 and formalised as the Ukraine Compact at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington Testified before the UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee; featured in Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Politico Europe, and Washington Post; advisory board member, LSE Ideas Transatlantic Programme Biography Fabrice Pothier spent six years at the centre of NATO’s policy architecture as Director of Policy Planning, serving under both Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jens Stoltenberg. The Readiness Action Plan, the Defence Capacity Building Initiative, and Smart Defence all bear his influence. He also drafted landmark speeches and articles for the Secretary General at the Munich Security Conference and in Foreign Affairs – a role that placed him at the intersection of alliance strategy and its public communication. That operational depth sets him apart from analysts who study alliance dynamics from the outside. He worked on the policy levers directly – advising successive Secretary Generals through NATO’s response to the Libya crisis, the 2014 Ukraine crisis, and a period of fundamental re-evaluation of European security. When he discusses how NATO makes decisions, he is describing a process he ran. Since 2015, he has led Rasmussen Global – the advisory firm founded by Anders Fogh Rasmussen – becoming CEO in 2022. He currently serves as pro-bono advisor to President Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s long-term security guarantees and Euro-Atlantic integration. That role made him central to the Kyiv Security Compact, which became the foundation of a G7 joint declaration at the 2023 Vilnius Summit and was formalised as the Ukraine Compact at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington. He also co-founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity alongside Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Michael Chertoff, and Joe Biden. Before NATO, he founded Carnegie Europe, establishing it as one of Europe’s leading foreign policy think-tanks. He holds a Consulting Senior Fellowship at the IISS, publishes in Survival, and is regularly featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Politico Europe. He has testified before the UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee and holds an advisory board position at the LSE Ideas Transatlantic Programme. Key speaking topics European security and defence architecture NATO strategy and transatlantic relations Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy The Russia-Ukraine war and Euro-Atlantic integration Election integrity, disinformation, and democratic resilience Scenario planning for geopolitical disruption EU politics and the reshaping of the European order Ideal for Boards and C-suites of multinationals with European or transatlantic market exposure Chief Risk Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, and public affairs leaders in global organisations Government, defence, and public policy conferences on European security and alliance strategy Financial and professional services firms with exposure to geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A working understanding of NATO’s decision-making architecture and how alliance dynamics translate into business and political risk Clarity on the trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine war and its medium-term implications for European security and market conditions A framework for distinguishing high-signal geopolitical risk from noise when making strategic investment or operational decisions Context on the structural state of transatlantic relations and how shifts in US-European alignment affect organisations operating across both Practical insight into the threat landscape around election interference and disinformation, and what democratic resilience means for organisations operating in politically volatile environments

Why organisations work with Robert Mazur Twenty-seven years across IRS Criminal Investigation, US Customs and the DEA gives him a breadth of federal financial-crime experience that is rare in the speaker circuit and specifically relevant to banking and regulated audiences. Operation C-Chase, his two-year undercover infiltration of Pablo Escobar’s money-laundering network and BCCI, one of the largest private banks in the world at the time, is one of the most studied financial-crime cases in history, and it is his case to tell. The Infiltrator, his New York Times bestseller, was adapted into a 2016 feature film starring Bryan Cranston, which gives audiences a shared cultural reference point before the session begins. His court certification as a money-laundering expert in the US and Canada means his material holds up in front of compliance, legal and risk audiences who will test it against their own casework. He combines war-story delivery with technical specificity, which is useful for organisations that need to energise a compliance programme without sacrificing the substance. Biography highlights Former US federal agent, 27-year career across IRS Criminal Investigation, US Customs Service and DEA Led Operation C-Chase, the mid-1980s undercover investigation of Pablo Escobar’s money-laundering network and BCCI Undercover alias «Robert Musella» for two years inside a $20 billion global banking fraud Court-certified money-laundering expert in the United States and Canada Author of The Infiltrator, New York Times bestseller, adapted into a 2016 feature film starring Bryan Cranston Author of second memoir The Betrayal Biography The Bank of Credit and Commerce International had $20 billion in assets and operations across more than 70 countries when Robert Mazur, posing as New Jersey businessman «Robert Musella», spent two years inside its money-laundering operations. Operation C-Chase, the US government infiltration he led, ultimately produced one of the most consequential financial-crime prosecutions of the twentieth century and the collapse of BCCI itself. The same investigation reached Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, which was using the bank to move drug proceeds through the global financial system. His route to that case was a 27-year federal career that ran through IRS Criminal Investigation, the US Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Mazur is court-certified as a money-laundering expert in both the United States and Canada, which gives his analysis the standing to be cited in compliance programmes rather than simply admired in a keynote. The public record of the work is extensive. The Infiltrator, his bestselling memoir, was adapted into the 2016 feature film of the same name starring Bryan Cranston. His second memoir, The Betrayal, continues the inside account of how undercover operations against narcotics and money launderers are actually run, and where institutional complicity makes them possible. For global banks, compliance functions, regulators, law-enforcement audiences and corporate risk teams, the value proposition is direct. Mazur does not speak about financial crime; he speaks as someone whose work closed one of the largest laundering operations in financial history. The sessions combine the specific mechanics of how criminal networks move money with a clear-eyed view of what banks consistently fail to catch, and why. Key speaking topics Money laundering and the anatomy of financial crime Undercover investigations and infiltration methodology Banking compliance, AML and the weaknesses professional launderers exploit Drug cartels, organised crime and the global financial system Lessons from the BCCI and Pablo Escobar investigations Risk, governance and executive accountability for financial crime Ideal for Global banks, payment firms and fintech leadership teams strengthening financial-crime programmes Compliance, risk, audit and governance functions running internal training or board briefings Financial services regulators, supervisors and law-enforcement audiences Corporate risk leadership teams and boards exposed to financial-crime reputational risk Audience outcomes A detailed, first-hand view of how professional money launderers assess and exploit banking institutions Specific mechanisms used in the BCCI and Pablo Escobar cases, framed for modern compliance audiences A clearer read of where current AML and KYC approaches still fall short Practical prompts for internal programme design drawn from undercover investigative experience A reference point in The Infiltrator that leadership teams can share with wider compliance staff

Why organisations work with Jacquie Davis Direct operational authority on decisions made under live threat, including hostage rescue work in Pakistan and Iraq, that no academic or consultant voice can claim. Four years as personal protection officer to JK Rowling at the height of Harry Potter publicity, with a wider client list including Nicole Kidman, the Beckhams, and Middle Eastern royalty, which gives her credibility with audiences used to operating in a public eye. A reference point that few keynote speakers can offer: a Netflix feature film, Close (2019), built around her professional life, on which she served as the operational consultant. A perspective on team performance and trust forged inside small units where a wrong call has physical consequences, rather than abstracted from a leadership framework. An unusually credible voice on women operating at the senior end of a male-dominated profession, drawn from her own working life rather than a research project. Biography highlights Author of The Circuit, first published by Penguin and reprinted in 2020, an autobiographical account of her work from Metropolitan Police service to international close protection. Personal bodyguard to JK Rowling for four years during the peak of the Harry Potter phenomenon. The protagonist of the 2019 Netflix film Close, directed by Vicky Jewson and starring Noomi Rapace, is based on her career. Operational record includes hostage rescue work freeing a British woman held in Pakistan, and rescuing men held by Uday Hussein in Iraq. Trained in counter-surveillance, firearms, restraint tactics, bomb search, defensive driving, and hostage survival. Consults for television and film production companies and appears regularly as a security commentator on UK and US broadcast media. Biography Penguin published The Circuit in 1998 and reprinted it in 2020. The memoir is an operational account of close protection work, from a 1970s start in the Metropolitan Police through hostage rescues abroad and protection of named celebrity principals, by one of the few female operators to write the story down. Her career began in the Metropolitan Police in the 1970s and moved into close protection at a point when the field had almost no women in it. Over the following three decades she protected JK Rowling for four years at the peak of Harry Potter publicity, worked principals including Nicole Kidman, Diana Ross, and the Beckhams, and conducted hostage rescue operations in Pakistan and Iraq. The reason a boardroom listens is not the celebrity client list. It is that Davis has had to make consequential decisions, fast, in environments where information was partial and the cost of error was physical. She speaks about how composure is built, how small teams hold together when conditions deteriorate, and what trust actually looks like when it is being tested in real time. In 2019 Netflix released Close, a feature film directed by Vicky Jewson and starring Noomi Rapace, with a protagonist based on Davis’s working life and with Davis herself consulting on the production. The result is a speaker who arrives with operational evidence, a published account of the work, and a cultural artefact that anchors the story for an audience. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure Risk assessment and crisis planning Small-team performance in hostile environments Leadership composure and self-management Women in male-dominated professions Personal and organisational security awareness Ideal for Boards and executive committees building crisis decision-making capability Security, risk, and resilience leadership functions Women’s leadership programmes and senior development audiences Conferences with a substantive focus on personal and organisational composure under threat Audience outcomes A working sense of how field operators reach decisions when information is incomplete and consequences are immediate A more practical reference point for what crisis planning and small-team trust look like outside the training-room version A concrete account of how women operate at the senior end of a profession that resisted them, useful for leadership programmes that handle that subject substantively A reset on what risk awareness means in personal and organisational settings, drawn from operational experience rather than checklists

Why organisations work with Udo Lielischkies First-hand interpretation of Putin’s regime from a journalist who reported on it continuously from 1999 to 2018, including six years running ARD’s Moscow studio. A reading of Russia grounded in the provinces, not Moscow press briefings, drawn from years travelling beyond the capital and documented in “Im Schatten des Kreml”, reprinted four times since 2019. Editorial credibility recognised by the Deutscher Fernsehpreis, with a win for Best Reportage in 2004 and a Monte Carlo nomination in 2015 for reporting from eastern Ukraine. A senior journalist’s instinct for separating Kremlin signal from Kremlin noise, useful when boards are deciding what a Putin statement, sanction round, or escalation actually means for exposure and planning. Biography highlights Head of ARD studio Moscow, 2014 to 2018, for Germany’s largest public broadcaster. ARD correspondent in Moscow (1999 to 2006), Washington D.C. (2006 to 2012) and Moscow again (2012 to 2018), with an earlier Brussels and NATO posting from 1994. Author of “Im Schatten des Kreml: Unterwegs in Putins Russland”, Droemer Knaur, 2019, English rights title “In the Shadow of the Kremlin”. Winner of the German Television Award (Deutscher Fernsehpreis) 2004 for Best Reportage, “Kremlin, Prison and Corruption” (ARD/WDR). Further recognitions include the Golden Gong (1999), the Ernst Schneider Prize (1989), a Moscow festival special prize (2005) and a Monte Carlo Television Festival nomination (2015) for reporting on the war in Ukraine. Regular guest on German political programming (NDR, phoenix, ARD talk shows) on Russia, Ukraine and the Kremlin’s foreign policy. Biography The Kremlin is now a fixed entry on most board risk registers, alongside China, energy and supply chains. What boards struggle to source is interpretation of the regime that goes beyond headlines and beyond Western analyst convention. That is the gap Udo Lielischkies fills. For nearly 25 years he reported for ARD, Germany’s largest public broadcaster, across the three capitals that have defined the post-Cold War order: Brussels and NATO from 1994, Moscow from 1999, Washington D.C. from 2006, and Moscow again from 2012, where he ran ARD’s studio from 2014 until his retirement in 2018. He watched Putin’s arrival as an unknown FSB veteran and reported continuously through every phase that followed. His book “Im Schatten des Kreml: Unterwegs in Putins Russland” (Droemer Knaur, 2019) is the durable record of that work. It is now in its fourth edition and is widely read as having anticipated the trajectory that led to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The English-language edition, “In the Shadow of the Kremlin”, is offered through Droemer Knaur’s rights catalogue. The reporting that underpins the book also produced his 2004 German Television Award for Best Reportage and a 2015 Monte Carlo Television Festival nomination for “The Murderous War in Ukraine – Escape From Ilovajsk”. What this gives a serious audience is rare. Not a geopolitical taxonomy delivered in the abstract, but the texture of a system explained by someone who lived inside it: how Kremlin power actually moves, how Russian provinces read the war, where the regime is brittle and where it is not. For organisations exposed to Russia, Ukraine, sanctions regimes, or the wider authoritarian bloc, that texture matters more than another forecast. Key speaking topics Putin’s Russia and the architecture of the regime The war in Ukraine and Kremlin strategy Geopolitical risk for Western boards Authoritarian regimes and the rules-based order Russia, Europe and the United States: shifting alliances Inside the Kremlin: power, succession, propaganda Ideal for Boards and executive committees with direct or indirect exposure to Russia, Ukraine, the CIS or sanctions regimes CROs, heads of geopolitical risk, and corporate affairs leads briefing senior leadership on Kremlin scenarios Industry conferences in energy, defence, financial services and logistics where Russia exposure remains material Public-sector and policy audiences working on European security, transatlantic relations and the war in Ukraine Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how Kremlin decision-making actually works, beyond Western media framing A grounded sense of where the regime is fragile, where it is not, and what that means for the next phase of the war Sharper questions to put to internal Russia and CIS exposure analysis A view of the Russian provinces, not only Moscow, and why that distinction shapes outcomes Context for reading future Kremlin statements, sanction rounds and escalation signals with less noise

Why organisations work with Lene Gammelgaard A first-person account of one of the most studied leadership failures in modern climbing, told by someone who summited and returned alive. This is primary-source material on what happens to teams when a plan meets a real crisis. A defined methodology, The Everest Way, that she has refined over more than two decades of corporate work into a structured framework for risk willingness, decision-making and team conduct under uncertainty. A published memoir, Climbing High, translated into thirteen languages, that gives her credibility a body of work behind it rather than a single anecdote. Working languages of English, Danish and German, which makes her practical for Nordic and DACH leadership programmes where the cultural register matters as much as the content. Biography highlights First Scandinavian woman to summit Mount Everest, 10 May 1996, on Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness expedition. 35th woman in history to reach the Everest summit. Author of Climbing High: A Woman’s Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy, translated into 13 languages. Portrayed by Charlotte Boving in the 2015 feature film Everest. Founder of Lene Gammelgaard Consult, a leadership and human-innovation practice based in Copenhagen. Speaks English, Danish and German for keynotes and workshops. Biography The 1996 Everest season is now a standard reference in business school case discussions of decision-making under pressure. Eight climbers died in the storm of 10 May. Lene Gammelgaard summited that day and came down alive, and she has spent the years since translating what happened on the mountain into language that senior leaders can use. She was the first Scandinavian woman to reach the summit, and the 35th woman in history. The expedition was Scott Fischer’s Mountain Madness team, which lost Fischer himself in the storm. Her memoir Climbing High, published in 1999 and translated into thirteen languages, is one of the few first-person survivor accounts in print. What turns the story into corporate work is her practice. From Copenhagen she runs a leadership consultancy built around a method she calls The Everest Way: a structured way of thinking about risk willingness, mental discipline and conduct toward team-mates when conditions are deteriorating. The reference points are mountaineering, but the application is boards and executive teams who recognise the dynamics in their own environments. She works in English, Danish and German, and is a regular contributor to Danish and German press on leadership and resilience. The 2015 feature film Everest, in which she is portrayed by Charlotte Boving, has kept the underlying story in front of new audiences and given her keynote work an unusually long shelf life. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under extreme pressure Crisis survival and post-crisis recovery Resilience and mental discipline Risk willingness as a condition for innovation Values-based leadership Team conduct in high-stakes environments Ideal for CEOs, executive committees and boards preparing for crisis conditions Leadership development programmes for senior and high-potential leaders Sales kick-offs, partner conferences and offsites where the brief calls for substance behind the inspiration Nordic and DACH audiences where a native-language register is preferred Audience outcomes A first-person frame of reference for what leadership actually looks like when a plan fails. A clearer view of the link between individual composure and team survival under pressure. A working vocabulary for talking about risk willingness inside their own organisation. A sharper read on the difference between bravado and considered courage in senior decision-making.

Why organisations work with Ingrid Betancourt Lived authority on operating under conditions no executive training can simulate: six and a half years in captivity, then a return to public life, politics, and scholarship. A first-hand account of how identity, values, and decision-making hold up when external structure is stripped away, told without sentimentality. Credibility across two worlds senior audiences rarely hear combined: frontline political leadership in a fragile democracy and sustained reflection on human dignity from inside a research fellowship at Oxford. The Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and the French Legion of Honour signal an argument about freedom and human rights that serious international audiences already recognise. A voice on resilience that does not traffic in motivational language: the material is concrete, specific, and consequential. Biography highlights Former Colombian senator (1998-2002) and two-time presidential candidate, first in 2002 and again in 2022. Held hostage by FARC for more than six years after her abduction on 23 February 2002; released on 2 July 2008 in Operation Jaque. Laureate of the 2008 Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, awarded by the Princess of Asturias Foundation. Appointed to the French Legion of Honour following her release. Author of Even Silence Has an End (2010), a New York Times bestselling memoir, and The Blue Line (Penguin Press, 2016), a novel set during Argentina’s Dirty War. Research Fellow in Theology at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford; DPhil in Theology awarded by the University of Oxford in 2023. Biography On 23 February 2002, a presidential candidate walked into FARC-controlled territory in southern Colombia and did not come out for six and a half years. That candidate was Ingrid Betancourt, then a sitting Colombian senator who had built her political career on a direct challenge to institutional corruption. Her release in July 2008, through the Colombian military intelligence operation known as Operation Jaque, returned her to a public life she had to rebuild in full view of an international audience. The 2008 Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and her appointment to the French Legion of Honour recognised not the ordeal, but the argument she had begun to make about democracy, dignity, and the conditions under which human freedom survives. What she has produced since is a body of work that takes that argument seriously. Her memoir Even Silence Has an End became a New York Times bestseller. Her novel The Blue Line, published by Penguin Press, examined political violence in Argentina. In 2023 the University of Oxford awarded her a DPhil in Theology for a thesis on the concept of the non-person in the writings of the liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, and she now holds a research fellowship at Harris Manchester College. For senior audiences, the relevance is practical. Leadership in normal conditions rewards competence and pattern recognition. Leadership when the structure breaks, when the information is hostile, when the horizon is no longer yours to set, rewards something else: a clear sense of what will not be traded, and the discipline to hold it. That is the ground Betancourt speaks from, and very few working speakers can speak from it with her authority. Key speaking topics Resilience and decision-making under extreme pressure Leadership when institutions and information fail Human dignity and democratic values Ethical conduct in high-stakes environments Freedom, captivity, and the inner life of leaders Political courage and anti-corruption Reconciliation after violent conflict Ideal for Board, CEO, and executive committee offsites focused on resilience and crisis leadership Leadership development programmes addressing judgement under sustained pressure International affairs, human rights, and public policy forums Values-led leadership summits at universities and foundations Audience outcomes A sharper sense of which commitments a leader needs to name before a crisis, not during one A concrete account of what resilience looks like when it is not a slogan A more honest reading of how authority, dignity, and ethical conduct interact when external structure disappears A frame for thinking about freedom and human rights that senior audiences can take into policy and strategy conversations Material for their own reflection on leadership character that does not rely on motivational abstraction