Climate Action and Sustainability

Why organisations work with Mark Gallagher Fifteen years on the management boards of Jordan Grand Prix and Red Bull Racing, plus leadership of Cosworth’s F1 engine business. He has actually run the functions he describes. Author of The Business of Winning (Kogan Page) and co-author of The Future Business Formula with Sullivan & Stanley’s Adrian Stalham. His frameworks exist in print, with a track record in front of senior audiences since 1998. Direct experience on FIA technical working groups covering safety and sustainability, including the development of F1’s 2014 hybrid power unit. When he talks about decarbonisation or safety culture, he is describing rules he helped write. Close working relationships with current F1 drivers and teams through Performance Insights and Status Grand Prix, the A1 Grand Prix World Cup-winning outfit he co-owns. The paddock material he draws on is current. Biography highlights Former management board member of Jordan Grand Prix (1998 onwards) and senior figure in the commercial build-out of what became Red Bull Racing Former head of Cosworth’s Formula 1 engine business, which supplied roughly one-third of the grid under his leadership Founder and Managing Director of Performance Insights, his F1 consulting firm, and co-founder of Status Grand Prix, winner of the 2009 A1 Grand Prix World Cup of Motorsport Author of The Business of Winning (Kogan Page, 2014; 2nd edition 2021) and co-author of The Future Business Formula (Rethink Press, 2023) Member of FIA technical working groups on safety and sustainability, including the development of F1’s 2014 hybrid power-unit regulations Media contributor to BBC, Sky Sports, ESPN, CNN, Channel 4 News and Al Jazeera; columnist for GP Racing Magazine; lecturer at Cranfield University Biography Formula 1 is one of the few industries where an operational failure on Sunday becomes a balance-sheet issue by Monday. Regulations shift every season. Deadlines cannot be moved. Mistakes are broadcast to hundreds of millions, and the competitive gap between first and last is measured in hundredths of a second. That is the environment Mark Gallagher spent forty years inside. He sat on the management board of Jordan Grand Prix through its most competitive era, helped build the commercial arm of what became Red Bull Racing, and later ran Cosworth’s F1 engine business as it supplied around a third of the grid. His consultancy, Performance Insights, works with F1 teams and commercial partners today. His books give the method a shape outside the paddock. The Business of Winning, published by Kogan Page, sets out his lessons on leadership, safety, performance management and communication. The Future Business Formula, co-written with Adrian Stalham of the change consultancy Sullivan & Stanley, translates F1’s operating principles into twelve design rules for organisations built to change at speed. Mika Häkkinen wrote the foreword. He has also served on FIA technical working groups on safety and sustainability, including the shift to hybrid power units in 2014, and lectures at Cranfield University. For a senior audience, the value is specific: a practitioner who has run the commercial, engineering and regulatory sides of one of the world’s most publicly scrutinised high-performance businesses, and can describe what each of those jobs actually demanded. Key speaking topics High-performance team culture in elite sport Leadership under non-negotiable deadlines Data, telemetry and decision-making at the operational edge Safety, risk management and regulatory change Sustainability and the energy transition in global sport Technology partnerships and digital transformation Change management in regulated industries Ideal for Senior leadership teams, boards and C-suite audiences responsible for high-stakes operational performance Engineering, manufacturing and technology organisations facing regulatory change or digital transformation Commercial, sponsorship and partnership teams working across technology-heavy sectors Safety, risk and sustainability leaders looking for a real-world reference point on culture and governance Audience outcomes A working sense of how F1 teams hit immovable deadlines without compromising safety or commercial discipline Specific examples of how telemetry, simulation and real-time analytics translate into faster decisions at the operational edge A credible reference point for treating safety culture as a performance lever inside the business Examples and language from elite motorsport that senior leaders can carry into their own strategy and change conversations

Why organisations work with Lewis Pugh He has helped secure formal protection for more than two million square kilometres of ocean, including the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, the largest in the world. That is a track record on environmental policy outcomes very few private-sector advisors or speakers can match. He brings a working maritime lawyer’s grasp of treaty, sovereign negotiation, and multilateral process. His framing of climate and ocean commitments is grounded in how rules actually move, which lands with boards wrestling with regulatory and ESG risk. As the UN’s first Patron of the Oceans, he carries institutional weight inside the system most companies are now being judged against, including UNEP, COP processes, and national governments. He converts physical expeditions into specific decisions about preparation, team selection, and changing course under hostile conditions. Audiences leave with a usable account of how leaders behave when the plan stops working, sourced from the North Pole, Mount Everest, the Red Sea, and Antarctica. Biography highlights UN Patron of the Oceans, appointed by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2013. Founder of The Lewis Pugh Foundation, established in 2015 to drive the creation of Marine Protected Areas worldwide. First person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world; first across the North Pole, the length of the English Channel, the Red Sea, and around Martha’s Vineyard. Maritime lawyer trained at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town; former practitioner at Ince and Co in the City of London; former Reservist in the British SAS. Author of Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster, 2010) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo (2014); twice a TEDGlobal speaker. Awarded South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga (Gold Class); named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame; named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. Biography The Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, off Antarctica, is the largest protected ocean reserve on the planet, larger than the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy combined. Lewis Pugh swam in its near-freezing waters in a Speedo to push 25 nations, including Russia, into signing the agreement that created it. Few advocates working on the ocean and climate file have that kind of policy outcome attached to their name. Pugh trained as a maritime lawyer at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town, and practised at Ince and Co in the City of London. During those years he served as a Reservist in the British SAS. The combination matters for the work he now does. The legal training shapes how he reads treaties, jurisdiction, and sovereign behaviour. The military background shapes how he plans expeditions and assembles teams. The endurance swimming is the public-facing instrument that pulls governments to the table. In 2013 the UN appointed him as its first Patron of the Oceans. In 2015 he founded The Lewis Pugh Foundation, dedicated to Marine Protected Areas, the ocean equivalent of national parks. Through that work he has helped secure protection for more than two million square kilometres of marine ecosystem, an area the size of Western Europe, and is campaigning for 30 percent of the world’s oceans to be formally protected by 2030. His books, Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo, sit alongside two TEDGlobal talks that TED’s editors describe as the work of a “master story-teller”. For corporate audiences, the substance is not the swimming. It is the working method behind it: how a small team prepares for hostile conditions, how an advocate moves sovereign signatories, and how leaders decide when to keep going and when to change course. Key speaking topics Ocean and climate policy Sustainability and ESG commitments at board level Marine Protected Areas and treaty negotiation Resilience and leadership in hostile conditions Team preparation and decision-making under pressure Purpose-driven leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, ocean, and ESG strategy Sustainability leaders, chief sustainability officers, and ESG committees Senior leadership offsites focused on resilience, preparation, and decision-making under pressure Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on environment and oceans policy Audience outcomes A clearer view of how high-level environmental commitments are converted into binding agreements and protected areas. A working account of how small teams plan for, and recover from, conditions where the original plan fails. A direct line of sight into the UN, COP, and Marine Protected Area processes that increasingly shape corporate disclosure and risk. A sharper sense of what credible, evidenced advocacy looks like, drawn from named expeditions and named outcomes.

Why organisations work with Jonathon Porritt Three decades inside the rooms where government, business, and civil society negotiate climate policy, including nine years chairing the UK Sustainable Development Commission for three prime ministers. Co-founder of Forum for the Future, the consultancy that has worked with Marks & Spencer, Unilever, and other FTSE boards on serious sustainability strategy rather than reporting compliance. Author of Capitalism as if the World Matters, a book that argues capitalism is the only viable vehicle for sustainability and sets out what reshaping it actually demands; cited as a foundational text in corporate sustainability curricula. Independence from any single corporate paymaster; willingness to tell senior teams what their own sustainability advisors will not. A long view that connects climate, biodiversity, inequality, and population; useful for boards trying to understand how environmental risks compound across a strategic horizon. Biography highlights Co-founder and Founder Director of Forum for the Future (1996-2023), one of the world’s leading sustainability charities, with offices in the UK, US, India, and Southeast Asia. Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, 2000-2009, advising the Blair and Brown governments on environmental policy. Director of Friends of the Earth (UK), 1984-1990; former Co-Chair of the UK Green Party. Co-founder of The Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme, delivered through the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Author of Hope in Hell (Simon & Schuster, 2020), The World We Made (Phaidon, 2013), and Capitalism as if the World Matters (Earthscan, 2005). CBE for services to environmental protection (2000); Chancellor of Keele University, 2012-2022. Biography The corporate climate agenda has run into its first credibility test. A decade of net-zero pledges, ESG reporting, and sustainability committees has not closed the gap between what boards say and what their capital plans deliver. Porritt has spent his working life inside that gap. He co-founded Forum for the Future in 1996 with Sara Parkin and Paul Ekins, and ran it as Founder Director for nearly thirty years. Forum has worked with Marks & Spencer, Unilever, and other FTSE-100 boards on the harder questions of business model change, not the softer ones of disclosure. Before that, he ran Friends of the Earth (UK) through the late 1980s and co-chaired the Green Party. For nine years he chaired the UK Sustainable Development Commission, advising Tony Blair and Gordon Brown directly. He also co-founded the Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme, now part of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, where senior executives go to interrogate their own sustainability strategies. Few people have spent as much time on both sides of that table. His books map the argument. Capitalism as if the World Matters made the case that capitalism is the only viable engine for a sustainable future, and set out the reforms that case requires. The World We Made imagined 2050 as if those reforms had landed. Hope in Hell, written into the climate emergency, is sharper and more impatient. Read together, they explain why he is taken seriously by chief executives and climate activists alike, even when he is telling each of them something they would rather not hear. Key speaking topics Sustainability strategy and ESG governance Climate risk and the energy transition Reforming capitalism for environmental limits Net-zero credibility and corporate accountability Long-term scenario planning and systems change Biodiversity, nature, and business Intergenerational responsibility and the next decade Ideal for Board directors and CEOs reviewing the credibility of their net-zero and ESG commitments Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads building serious, board-ready strategy Investor relations and capital allocation teams under increasing scrutiny on transition planning Strategy and risk leaders trying to integrate climate and biodiversity into long-range planning Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where their own organisation’s climate strategy is exposed to investor, regulator, and employee scrutiny A working understanding of what credible, board-level sustainability looks like beyond reporting compliance A sharper sense of how climate, biodiversity, inequality, and capital allocation compound as connected risks Direct, unflattering challenge from someone with no commercial interest in their answer

Why organisations work with Jim McNeill He has led teams through more than 40 years of expedition work in the polar regions, including two attempts on the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility, one of the few significant places on Earth never reached on foot. That is a depth of operational pressure most leadership speakers cannot draw from. His career runs across four high-stakes domains: environmental science, the British Army, fire and rescue, where he specialised in road traffic collisions and spent ten years as fire officer to the Royal Household, and professional exploration. Each contributes a distinct lens on how teams hold up when stakes rise. Through the Ice Warrior Project he has trained more than 500 people from non-expedition backgrounds to become polar-competent. That methodology travels directly into corporate teams facing unfamiliar terrain. He is the BBC’s go-to safety consultant and expedition leader on flagship productions including Frozen Planet, Human Planet and The Last Explorers. The credibility cuts through with senior audiences. Climate change is not a topic he has read into; it is four decades of continuous observation from inside the Arctic, which gives the climate-frontline conversation a different weight. Biography highlights Founder of the Ice Warrior Project (2001) and the expanded Global Warrior Project (2022), covering ocean, desert, mountain and jungle environments alongside the polar work. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society since 1992; Member of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Fifteen years in fire and rescue, specialising in road traffic collisions, including ten years as fire officer to the Royal Household. Two expeditions targeting the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility (2003, 2006), both ending in extreme circumstances that he uses directly in his leadership material. Safety consultant and expedition leader for BBC Frozen Planet, BBC Human Planet, BBC Natural World, Channel 4 Predators in Paradise, and Marvel’s Captain America. Hosted the Icons Interviewed series in conversation with Sir David Attenborough, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Sir Chris Bonington, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, and Tracy Edwards MBE, at venues including the Royal Geographical Society and the Natural History Museum. Biography The Northern Pole of Inaccessibility is the point in the Arctic Ocean furthest from any coastline. It has never been reached on foot. McNeill has tried twice, in 2003 and 2006, and on both occasions the expedition ended in conditions that test what leadership actually means when there is no fallback. The 2003 attempt was stopped by necrotising fasciitis. The 2006 attempt ended when the sea ice degraded past the point of safe progress. Most of his keynote material starts in places like this. His route into exploration is unusual. He trained as an environmental scientist at the Grassland Research Institute, served in the British Army, worked in marketing communications, and then spent fifteen years in fire and rescue, specialising in road traffic collisions and including ten years as fire officer to the Royal Household. Each of those careers ran on a different model of risk and command, and he draws on all four when working with senior teams. In 2001 he founded the Ice Warrior Project, built around the idea that ordinary people, properly trained, can perform in environments that almost no professional has access to. From bases in Resolute Bay and later Longyearbyen, he has trained over 500 people and led seven flagship expeditions, gathering citizen-science data on Arctic conditions. In 2022 the model expanded into the Global Warrior Project, taking the same methodology into ocean, desert, mountain and jungle work, with a ten-year ocean programme launched in 2023. The BBC, Channel 4 and Marvel have used him as safety consultant and expedition leader on productions including Frozen Planet, Human Planet and Captain America, and he led BBC Scotland’s The Last Explorers across the Drake Passage with Neil Oliver. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and has hosted in-conversation events at the RGS and the Natural History Museum with Attenborough, Fiennes and Bonington. The point is not the credentials. The point is that almost nobody else can speak about leadership under pressure with four decades of continuous evidence to draw on. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure Risk and decision-making in critical incidents Team performance in extreme environments Climate change from the Arctic frontline Citizen science and purpose-led teams Resilience and survival Expedition leadership Ideal for Boards, executive committees and CEOs working on how their leadership behaves under genuine pressure rather than in workshop conditions. Operations, safety and risk leaders in industries where decision-making degrades when information thins. Senior teams running large change programmes who need a sharper conversation about trust and command in unfamiliar terrain. Leadership development and offsite audiences who have heard the standard speaker line-up and want a different register. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how command, communication and trust actually behave when conditions move outside the plan. A sharper sense of how risk is read in real time, drawn from incidents where the cost of misreading was severe. A different way to think about preparation: what is rehearsed, what is delegated, what is held by the leader. A direct, evidence-based account of climate change from inside the Arctic, useful for ESG conversations that have grown abstract. A reset on what a team is capable of when it is selected and trained against a real objective rather than a corporate one.

Why organisations work with Jeremy Rifkin He is the architect of an economic framework that the European Parliament adopted by formal declaration in 2007 and that has been translated into multi-hundred-page regional deployment roadmaps in Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam-The Hague, and Luxembourg. He has advised four European Commission presidents in sequence (Prodi, Barroso, Juncker, von der Leyen) and held that advisory line through three political cycles, which is rare for any external economic thinker. His thesis connects energy, communication, and mobility infrastructure into a single capital story, so boards leave with a way to sequence decarbonisation, digital, and supply chain decisions instead of treating them as separate budget lines. His twenty-plus books, including The End of Work, The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua, give him a body of work that named institutional buyers already know, which shortens the credibility conversation inside large organisations. He taught CEOs and senior leadership at Wharton Executive Education from 1995 to 2016, so the register is built for senior corporate audiences, not policy seminars. Biography highlights Principal architect of the Third Industrial Revolution economic plan, formally endorsed by the European Parliament in May 2007. Advisor to the European Commission under presidents Romano Prodi, Jose Manuel Barroso, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Ursula von der Leyen. President of TIR Consulting Group LLC, which has produced full Third Industrial Revolution roadmaps for the Hauts-de-France region, the Metropolitan Region of Rotterdam and The Hague, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Author of 20+ books translated into more than thirty languages, including The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua. Senior lecturer, Wharton School Executive Education Program, University of Pennsylvania, 1995 to 2016. Recipient of the 13th German Sustainability Award (2020) and honorary doctorates from Hasselt University and the University of Liege (2015). Biography The European Parliament formally endorsed the Third Industrial Revolution as a long-term economic road map in May 2007. Jeremy Rifkin wrote it. Since then, the framework has been the reference document behind successive Commission decisions on energy, digital, and mobility infrastructure, and behind regional deployment plans in Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam and The Hague, and Luxembourg. The argument is that every major economic shift in history is a convergence of three infrastructures: communication, energy, and transport. When those three move together, the productive base of the economy is rebuilt. Rifkin’s contribution is to specify what that convergence looks like now, with a digital communication internet, a renewable energy internet, and an automated mobility internet, and to put numbers, sequencing, and policy choices around it. That is the work he has carried into advisory rooms across four European Commission presidencies, from Prodi to von der Leyen, and into engagements with the Chinese leadership during the run-up to the 13th Five-Year Plan. His TIR Consulting Group brings utilities, ICT firms, and engineering and construction companies into the same room as regional governments to design the roadmaps in detail. The body of work behind the advisory practice is unusually large. Twenty-plus books, translated into more than thirty languages, running from The End of Work through The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua (2024), selected by Nature among its five best science picks of the year. The German Sustainability Award followed in 2020. Few speakers in the energy and economy field can point to a framework that a parliament has formally adopted and that is being built, region by region, on the ground. Key speaking topics The Third Industrial Revolution Energy transition and the renewable energy internet The economics of decarbonisation Smart infrastructure and the Internet of Things economy The future of work in a zero marginal cost economy Climate resilience and the age of rewilding Water, food, and the planetary economy Geopolitics of the green transition Ideal for Boards and executive committees building multi-decade capital plans for the energy transition. CEOs, CSOs, and heads of strategy in energy, utilities, infrastructure, mobility, real estate, and heavy industry. Policy and public affairs leaders working across the EU, national governments, and city regions. Investor audiences allocating to climate, infrastructure, and transition capital. Audience outcomes A common framework for connecting energy, digital, and mobility investment decisions into one capital story. A clearer view of how EU and major regional climate policy is likely to evolve, and what that means for sector-by-sector capital allocation. Specific reference points from the Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam-The Hague, and Luxembourg roadmaps that can be applied to a company’s own transition plan. A sharper sense of where the platform, ownership, and competitive economics of energy and mobility are heading as marginal costs fall. Language and argument that translate well to a board, to investors, and to regulators.

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

Why organisations work with Javier Goyeneche He built a profitable circular fashion brand from waste streams that most of the industry still treats as someone else’s problem: discarded fishing nets, post-consumer PET, used tyres, and post-industrial cotton. He runs Upcycling the Oceans, a working supply chain of almost 5,000 fishermen across 83 Mediterranean ports that has recovered around 2,000 tonnes of marine waste since 2015. It is a named operational system, not a campaign. ECOALF became the first Spanish fashion company to certify as a B Corp in 2018 and sits in the top 5% globally in the environment category. Boards questioning the credibility of their own ESG claims recognise the standard. He gives leaders a direct account of the commercial trade-offs of circularity: why ECOALF refuses Black Friday, why 74% of its latest collection is single-material, and how the business still reached profitability. Thinkers50 Radar listing (2019) and the Schwab Foundation Social Innovator of the Year award (2020) place him in the small group of sustainability founders whose work has been independently examined, including in a published IMD case study. Biography highlights Founder and President of ECOALF, launched in Madrid in 2009. Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2019. Schwab Foundation Social Innovator of the Year, 2020. Leads the ECOALF Foundation and its Upcycling the Oceans programme, operating across 83 Mediterranean ports. Previously founded Fun and Basics in 1995, growing it to 350 points of sale and 70 branded stores before exiting. Subject of the IMD case study “ECOALF: Because there is no Planet B” by Benoit Leleux and Thomas Brochier. Biography Most fashion brands describe sustainability as a value. ECOALF treats it as an input constraint. The brand that Javier Goyeneche founded in Madrid in 2009 was built around a single operating question: can a fashion business be assembled entirely from recovered waste and still make money. It is now stocked in more than 1,500 stores worldwide and has been profitable since 2021. The raw materials tell most of the story. ECOALF manufactures from post-consumer PET bottles, discarded fishing nets, used tyres, coffee grounds, and post-industrial cotton and wool. The Upcycling the Oceans programme, run through the ECOALF Foundation, works with close to 5,000 fishermen across 83 Mediterranean ports and has recovered around 2,000 tonnes of marine waste since 2015. The supply chain is physical, named, and audited. The commercial discipline is the part boards tend to notice. ECOALF does not run seasonal sales, does not participate in Black Friday, and has pushed 74% of its latest collection into single-material garments so that items can be recycled at end of life. In 2018 it became the first Spanish fashion brand to certify as a B Corp, and in 2022 was named “Best for the World” in the environment category, placing it in the top 5% of the 5,000 B Corps globally. The recognition follows the work rather than leading it. Thinkers50 put Goyeneche on its Radar in 2019, the Schwab Foundation named him Social Innovator of the Year in 2020, and IMD has published a business-school case study on the model. For leadership teams trying to close the distance between their ESG commitments and their operating decisions, his value is specific. He has already made those trade-offs and can show where the numbers broke and where they held. Key speaking topics Circular business models in practice Sustainable and regenerative supply chains B Corp certification and corporate accountability Ocean plastic and waste recovery at scale Sustainable fashion and textile innovation Purpose-led entrepreneurship ESG credibility and greenwashing Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting sustainability strategy who need an operator’s view of what circularity costs and delivers. Consumer, retail, and industrial leadership teams under pressure to translate ESG commitments into supply-chain decisions. Founders and commercial leaders building purpose-led businesses who want the honest commercial arithmetic behind a Thinkers50-recognised model. Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a circular business model functions end to end, from waste sourcing to single-material garment design to retail policy. A sharper test for their own sustainability claims against B Corp-grade standards. Language for the trade-offs involved in refusing discount-driven growth channels while remaining commercially viable. An operator’s account of how a multi-stakeholder supply chain, in this case with fishing communities across 83 Mediterranean ports, actually gets built.

Why organisations work with James Chau He runs the room when the speakers are Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma or Bill Gates. Very few moderators on the circuit have repeated reps at that level of principal. As President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, he sits inside the working architecture of US-China dialogue rather than commenting on it from the sidelines. His credential stack on global health is institutional, not rhetorical: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the SDGs, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador. The China Current gives him a live interview record with Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Christine Lagarde, Ban Ki-moon and Jane Goodall. The editorial muscle is current, not historic. He reads a room built from heads of state, Nobel laureates and corporate chiefs the way a senior editor reads copy. The diplomatic temperature of a session is managed in real time. Biography highlights President, China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), Hong Kong. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goals and Health (appointed 2016). First UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador for China (appointed 2009). Host of The China Current, a global-affairs interview and storytelling platform. Former main English-language news anchor at China Central Television; guest presenter, BBC World News. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; U.S. National Press Foundation Fellow; Harvard Kennedy School executive education. Biography The room was Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma, Laura Bush. James Chau was chairing. That is the kind of session he has been asked to run for more than a decade, and the reason organisations book him is not broadcast gloss. It is the ability to keep a hard conversation productive when the participants are principals with careful positions. Chau is President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong-based NGO that convenes official-track and track-two dialogue between the two countries. The role places him inside the working machinery of one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world, not adjacent to it. That access shapes how he chairs: he knows where the lines are, and when to press. Before CUSEF, he spent years as the main English-language news anchor at China Central Television and a guest presenter on BBC World News. The interview record from The China Current, his own platform, runs through Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, Jane Goodall and Ban Ki-moon. His work on global health is formal: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals and Health since 2016, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador from 2009. He was educated at Cambridge, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Music, with executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. For a corporate summit, a multilateral plenary, an awards evening or a closed-room dialogue where the speakers are sensitive and the questions matter, Chau is a moderator whose standing is set by the company he keeps on stage. Key speaking topics US-China relations Global health and the Sustainable Development Goals China and the global economy International development and multilateralism Media, storytelling and public diplomacy High-level event hosting and moderation Ideal for Global summits and multilateral convenings where the principals on stage are heads of state, Nobel laureates or Fortune 100 chief executives CEO and board dialogues on China strategy, US-China risk and global health policy Awards ceremonies and flagship corporate events where a broadcast-grade host is required Foundations, NGOs and policy institutes working on the SDGs, HIV/AIDS and global public health Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the US-China relationship actually sits, from someone inside the dialogue A working framing of how global health policy, the SDGs and corporate strategy intersect A session that keeps pace and holds weight when the speakers are senior and the brief is sensitive A clearer view of how China is reported, mis-reported, and understood in international media

Why organisations work with Jacques Attali He built one of the institutions that defined the post-Cold War economic settlement. As founding president of the EBRD, he carries direct experience of structuring capital flows into a continent in political transition, the kind of frame few living economists can offer. A decade as special adviser to President Mitterrand and Sherpa for two G7 summits gives him an inside view of how heads of state actually make decisions under pressure, useful to any board navigating government exposure. His futures work, particularly A Brief History of the Future, sets out a coherent scenario framework (hyperempire, hyperconflict, hyperdemocracy) that boards can use as a long-range planning lens rather than as a single forecast. He has chaired two French government commissions on growth, one for Sarkozy and a positive economy report for Hollande, with proposals that fed directly into national reform agendas. The work is operational, not theoretical. Founder of Action Against Hunger, the EUREKA technology programme and Positive Planet. He has built and run institutions, not only written about them. Biography highlights Founding President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1991 to 1993. Special adviser to President Francois Mitterrand, 1981 to 1991; G7 Sherpa for the Paris (1982) and Arche de la Defense (1989) summits. Chair, Commission for the Liberation of French Growth (Sarkozy, 2007 to 2008); author of the Positive Economy report (Hollande, 2013). Author of more than 80 books, including Noise: The Political Economy of Music, A Brief History of the Future and Verbatim, in 22 languages. Founder of Action Against Hunger (1979), the EUREKA European technology programme (1984) and Positive Planet (1998). Named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers (2009); graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Sciences Po, the Ecole des Mines and ENA; doctorate in economics. Biography The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development opened its doors in London in April 1991 with a mandate no institution had attempted before: channel Western capital into countries leaving state socialism without recreating the conditions that had broken them. Jacques Attali designed it and ran it for its first two years. The institution is still operating, with more than seventy countries of operations and shareholders today, which is the most useful evidence of the architecture he chose. Before the EBRD, ten years inside the Elysee under Francois Mitterrand. Attali was special adviser to the president from 1981 to 1991, sat in the cabinet meetings and the bilateral meetings with foreign heads of state, and served as France’s Sherpa at the G7 summits in Paris in 1982 and at the Arche de la Defense in 1989. The work he has done since, two growth commissions for two French presidents and consulting with governments and large companies through Attali & Associates, is built on that operating exposure to how state and economy actually intersect. The intellectual output runs alongside. Eighty-plus books, translated into twenty-two languages, with Noise: The Political Economy of Music (1977) and A Brief History of the Future (2006) the most widely cited. The futures work matters commercially because it gives boards a framework. The hyperempire, hyperconflict and hyperdemocracy scenarios in A Brief History of the Future are now nearly twenty years old, which is the right test of long-range writing. The frame still holds against the geopolitics of the present decade. He has also built things outside government. Action Against Hunger (1979), still one of the major humanitarian organisations operating in famine zones. The EUREKA technology programme (1984), the European R&D collaboration that, among other outputs, produced the standards work behind the MP3 format. Positive Planet (1998), the microfinance non-profit now active across more than 80 countries. Foreign Policy magazine named him among its Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the next world order The future of Europe and European competitiveness Long-range scenarios and strategic foresight Global economic transformation The future of finance and microfinance Positive economy and intergenerational responsibility Globalisation and its commercial consequences Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to European and emerging-market policy shifts Chief strategy officers and corporate development teams working on long-range scenario planning Bank and asset management leadership groups exposed to sovereign and geopolitical risk Government and intergovernmental audiences working on growth, innovation and reform agendas Audience outcomes A longer historical frame for the current geopolitical realignment, anchored in firsthand experience of the post-1989 settlement. A working scenario lens, hyperempire, hyperconflict and hyperdemocracy, that senior teams can apply to their own strategy review. A sharper read on Europe’s commercial position relative to the US and China, from someone who has helped design European institutions. A serious account of how heads of state actually reach decisions, useful for executives operating across government interfaces.

Why organisations work with Gunter Pauli He has run the experiment himself. As CEO of Ecover he built the first fully ecological factory in Malle, Belgium in 1992, and grew the business into a category-defining consumer brand before turning to systems work. The Blue Economy is a named, published framework, not a talk. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome catalogues 100 nature-inspired innovations with business cases attached, and has been translated into more than 30 languages. He sits inside the conversation that shapes long-range policy. Elected member of the Club of Rome and former executive committee member, with advisory roles for governments in Spain, Argentina, Italy and Bhutan. He converts sustainability from a cost line into a portfolio of revenue opportunities. The argument boards respond to: waste streams and local resources are unbooked revenue if you redesign around them. He founded and still leads ZERI, a working network of scientists and entrepreneurs testing zero-emissions business models in the field, which keeps the content grounded in what has actually been built. Biography highlights Founder of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives), established in 1994 at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Former Chairman and CEO of Ecover, Belgium; led the design and launch of the Malle ecological factory in 1992. Author of The Blue Economy: 10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs, commissioned as a report to the Club of Rome. Elected member of the Club of Rome; served on its executive committee. Recipient of the 2022 Goi Peace Award; honorary doctorate from the University of Pecs, Hungary. MBA, INSEAD Fontainebleau; economics, University of Antwerp. Biography Ecover was a detergent company when Gunter Pauli took it over in 1991. Four years later it was a global reference point for sustainable manufacturing, operating out of a wooden factory with a planted roof in Malle, Belgium, the first of its kind. The experience also taught him that a clean product built on palm oil was still destroying rainforest, and that the green movement of the early 1990s had not yet confronted the problem. That recognition is what produced the Blue Economy. Working from the United Nations University in Tokyo, Pauli founded ZERI in 1994 to test a different premise: that natural systems already solve most of the problems industry struggles with, and that redesigning around local resources and cascading waste streams produces better economics, not worse. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome set out 100 worked examples, from coffee-to-mushroom cultivation to stone paper, each with a business case. The framework has travelled. The Blue Economy has been translated into more than 30 languages, taught on MBA and policy programmes, and picked up by governments in Europe, Latin America and Asia as a basis for regional development strategy. Pauli was elected to the Club of Rome and served on its executive committee from 2017, and received the Goi Peace Award in 2022. What he brings to a senior audience is a practitioner’s account of how environmental and financial returns can be made to move together, with a portfolio of cases that have been built, sold and scaled. The argument is not that sustainability is a duty. It is that most industrial processes are inefficient on their own terms, and the companies that notice first will take the margin. Key speaking topics The Blue Economy Nature-inspired business model design Zero emissions manufacturing and circular supply chains Sustainable entrepreneurship Regional development and resource strategy ESG strategy and corporate sustainability Systems thinking for leaders Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors setting sustainability and capital allocation strategy Heads of innovation, R&D and operations rethinking product and factory design Government and public-sector leaders shaping regional development and industrial policy Investor audiences evaluating circular and regenerative business models Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Blue Economy framework and how it differs from recycling, offsetting and conventional CSR Named examples of companies and regions that have used nature-inspired design to cut cost and emissions at the same time A sharper lens for spotting waste streams and local resources that can be turned into revenue Language to use with boards and investors when sustainability investments have to compete for capital A reading of where sustainability policy and markets are heading over the next decade, drawn from Club of Rome and government advisory work

Why organisations work with Gary Cohen He has demonstrably moved an entire sector. Under his leadership, U.S. medical waste incinerators fell from around 5,600 to fewer than 70, and mercury was effectively removed from U.S. medical devices, contributing to the global Minamata phase-out. He brings a network, not just a perspective. Health Care Without Harm operates with hospitals and health partners in more than 50 countries and convenes ministries of health, group purchasing organisations and major hospital systems. His credibility is recognised by the bodies that matter to senior buyers: MacArthur Fellow (2015), Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2006), and White House Champion of Change for Climate Change and Public Health (2013). He talks to executives in their own operating language. Procurement, capital projects, energy contracts, waste contracts, supply chain risk, not abstract sustainability narrative. He has spent nearly four decades inside the toxics and environmental health field, including running the National Toxics Campaign Fund and co-founding the Military Toxics Project, so he understands regulation, litigation and corporate response from multiple sides. Biography highlights Co-founder and president, Health Care Without Harm, since 1996. President, Practice Greenhealth, the U.S. membership organisation for sustainable healthcare. MacArthur Fellow, 2015. Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, 2006; Frank Hatch Award for Enlightened Public Service, 2007. White House Champion of Change for Climate Change and Public Health, 2013. Co-author, “Fighting Toxics” (Island Press, 1990); former executive director, National Toxics Campaign Fund. Biography Hospitals exist to heal, yet the global health sector is responsible for around 4.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and remains a significant source of toxic chemical exposure. Reconciling that contradiction has been Gary Cohen’s working life for almost four decades. He co-founded Health Care Without Harm in 1996 after a period running the National Toxics Campaign Fund and co-founding the Military Toxics Project. The organisation began as a response to the use of dioxin-emitting incineration, mercury thermometers and toxic plasticisers in routine medical care. It now works with hospital systems, ministries of health and purchasing organisations in more than 50 countries. The track record is concrete. Mercury has been substantially eliminated from U.S. medical devices, with the work feeding into the Minamata Convention. Medical waste incinerators in the United States fell from roughly 5,600 in the late 1990s to fewer than 70 by 2006. Practice Greenhealth, the U.S. membership arm Cohen leads, gives hospital executives a structured way to act on procurement, energy and waste rather than restate intentions. Recognition has followed the substance: a MacArthur Fellowship in 2015, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2006, the Frank Hatch Award in 2007, and a White House Champion of Change designation for climate change and public health in 2013. What that record gives a senior audience is unusual: someone who can speak to climate, toxics and supply chain risk as an operator who has already redesigned a regulated sector at scale. Key speaking topics Climate change as a public health issue Decarbonising the healthcare sector Toxic chemicals and supply chain redesign Sustainable procurement in regulated industries Hospital infrastructure, energy and waste Environmental health and community resilience Coalition building across regulators, providers and purchasers Ideal for Boards and executive teams of health systems, hospital networks and pharmaceutical companies setting climate and chemical safety strategy Chief sustainability officers, chief procurement officers and capital planning leads in regulated, asset-heavy sectors Public sector health leaders, ministries of health and group purchasing organisations ESG, impact and philanthropic investors looking at health and climate intersections Audience outcomes A clear view of where healthcare’s environmental footprint actually sits, by procurement category, energy use and waste stream A working model of how a sector moves from commitment to operating change, drawn from a redesign that has already happened Specific reference points on mercury elimination, incineration reduction and supply chain detoxification that translate to other regulated industries A more honest conversation about ESG substance versus ESG narrative, grounded in measurable sector outcomes

Why organisations work with David Hughes Hughes reads the whole value chain – from farm inputs and life science companies through manufacturers, retailers and food service – and identifies the commercial implications of change at each stage, giving organisations a perspective they cannot assemble internally. His 1994 book «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» established the intellectual case for vertical supply chain collaboration – a thesis that remains central to competitive advantage in the sector today. He does not only analyse food businesses; he built one. As co-founder of a branded fresh produce company that he grew and sold into US supermarkets, and as a 20-year Non-Executive Director of Berry Gardens Ltd – the UK’s largest farmer-owned berry business – his commercial judgement is grounded in direct business experience. Organisations working in any geography get genuine cross-continental intelligence. Hughes works across Africa, Asia, Australasia, North and South America and Europe, making his read on consumer trends and retail dynamics global in scope rather than extrapolated from one market. As Honorary Nuffield Scholar and the inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at what is now Imperial College London, his academic standing gives food and agribusiness organisations a credible, research-grounded voice for external-facing events, policy engagements and board-level discussions. Biography highlights Emeritus Professor of Food Marketing, Imperial College London; inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at Wye College (now Imperial College London) from 1991 Visiting Professor, Royal Agricultural University, UK Ph.D. Food Marketing, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; M.Sc. Agricultural Marketing; B.Sc. (Hons.) Agricultural Economics Non-Executive Director, Berry Gardens Ltd – UK’s largest farmer-owned berry business – for 20 years; co-founder of a branded fresh produce business sold into US supermarket chains Author/editor: «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» (Wye College Press, 1994); published in British Food Journal, Supply Chain Management, and Business Ethics: A European Review Honorary Nuffield Scholar; keynote speaker at major food industry conferences across Africa, Asia, Australasia, the Americas and Europe, with named clients including Nestlé HQ (Switzerland) and William Reed Ltd (The Grocer) Biography Consumer preferences for health, sustainability and convenience are not moving in straight lines – and the food businesses that are best placed to respond are those that see how each shift propagates across the whole value chain, from the genetics company at one end to the food service operator at the other. David Hughes has spent more than fifty years building exactly that whole-chain, whole-world view, working with senior management in food and agribusiness on every continent. Hughes became the inaugural Sainsbury Professor of Food Marketing at Wye College in 1991, later Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London, where he established and directed the Food Industry Management Group. His 1994 edited volume «Breaking with Tradition: Building Partnerships and Alliances in the European Food Industry» set out the commercial logic of vertical supply chain collaboration – an argument that has only become more relevant as retail power has concentrated and sustainability scrutiny has intensified. He is also Visiting Professor at the Royal Agricultural University and an Honorary Nuffield Scholar. What distinguishes Hughes from the academic analyst category is that he has operated commercially inside the industries he studies. He co-founded and sold a branded fresh produce business serving US supermarkets, and served as Non-Executive Director of Berry Gardens Ltd – Britain’s largest farmer-owned berry business – for two decades. That combination of institutional credibility and business experience is what makes his reads on market shifts actionable rather than observational. Known internationally as «Dr. Food,» Hughes speaks to boards, trade associations, producer groups and government bodies across Africa, Asia, Australasia, North and South America and Europe. His work is sector-wide – meat, dairy, fresh produce, packaged foods, food service and the input industries that serve them – and consistently oriented toward the commercial question: given what is shifting, what should an organisation do on Monday morning? Key speaking topics Global consumer food trends and retail dynamics Food and agribusiness commercial strategy Supply chain partnerships and vertical alliance models Sustainability, environment and the food industry Health, nutrition and food market development Fresh produce and grocery retail innovation Food entrepreneurship and business model change Ideal for C-suite and board-level audiences in food manufacturing, grocery retail, food service and agribusiness Trade associations and producer organisations seeking to brief members on market direction Government and policy bodies working on food security, trade and sustainability Financial services and investor audiences with food sector exposure Audience outcomes A clearer distinction between structural shifts in food consumer behaviour and short-term trends – and the commercial implications of each Understanding of how change in one part of the food value chain creates threats and opportunities in adjacent segments A cross-continental frame of reference for food market developments that is difficult to assemble from within a single geography or sector Practical direction on how food businesses can build the supply chain partnerships and consumer connections that underpin competitive advantage Greater confidence in communicating strategic rationale to boards, investors or government stakeholders on food industry direction