Climate Action and Sustainability speakers

Why organisations work with Fehinti Balogun He brings a working screen actor’s craft to climate communication, with credits across HBO, Netflix, BBC and Paramount+ that buy attention from audiences who tune out conventional sustainability talks. His one-man show Can I Live?, produced by Complicite with the Barbican, is the rare piece of climate work that has been taken seriously by both theatre critics and climate organisers, giving him a methodology he can adapt for corporate audiences. He has spoken to policy and scientific audiences at UN COP26, the Scottish Parliament and Cambridge University, which means his climate content stands up in rooms beyond entertainment. His TED talk on finding your voice for climate action gives organisations a direct entry point for staff who want to act but do not know how to begin. Biography highlights Graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), 2016. Screen credits include I May Destroy You, Dune, A Gentleman in Moscow, The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself, and Down Cemetery Road. BAFTA nomination for Supporting Actor for Down Cemetery Road. Writer and lead performer of Can I Live?, produced by Complicite with the Barbican, directed by Daniel Bailey and Simon McBurney. TED speaker: “How to find your voice for climate action” (2022). Climate platforms include UN COP26, the Scottish Parliament, Cambridge University and the YouTube Creator Summit. Biography Climate communication inside organisations runs into the same wall again and again. The science is settled, the targets are public, and the workforce still does not have a shared language for any of it. Fehinti Balogun has spent his second career building that language through performance rather than policy. Trained at RADA, Balogun is a working actor with screen credits across HBO, Netflix, BBC and Paramount+, including I May Destroy You, Dune, A Gentleman in Moscow and Down Cemetery Road, the last of which earned him a BAFTA nomination for Supporting Actor. The technical command he brings to a stage or a camera is what gives his climate work its unusual reach. Can I Live?, written and performed by Balogun and produced by the theatre company Complicite with the Barbican, is the centre of that work. It combines spoken word, hip-hop, theatre, animation and scientific fact, and it became one of the few climate pieces taken seriously inside both the UK theatre scene and the climate movement. The same instinct shapes his TED talk, “How to find your voice for climate action.” His climate platforms include UN COP26, the Scottish Parliament, Cambridge University and the YouTube Creator Summit. He is most useful to organisations that have a credible climate position on paper and a workforce that has not yet found a way to talk about it. Key speaking topics Climate communication and storytelling Sustainability and employee engagement Diversity and inclusion in the climate movement Purpose and voice for early-career talent Creative practice as a tool for organisational change Ideal for Sustainability and ESG leads who need internal communications that move staff, not just stakeholders. CHROs and employee engagement leads building purpose-led programmes for early-career and creative talent. Internal D&I and ERG sponsors working at the intersection of climate and inclusion. Communications and brand leads in consumer-facing organisations who need a credible cultural voice on climate. Audience outcomes A clearer sense of why staff disengage from climate messaging that reads as compliance. Language and examples leaders can use to talk about sustainability without sliding into jargon. A working model for how creative practice can carry organisational messages that policy memos cannot. A more honest picture of how race, class and access shape who feels invited into climate conversations at work.

Why organisations work with Gabrielle Walker Her perspective on carbon removal comes from inside the market. She co-built CUR8, which sources and vets removal credits for corporate buyers, and Rethinking Removals, which shapes standards alongside the UNFCCC – giving her direct sight of which approaches are credible, durable, and scalable, and which are not. She addresses the most contested part of any corporate net zero strategy: the removal of residual emissions that cannot be cut, and how to handle it without regulatory or reputational exposure. Where most climate speakers argue for urgency, she argues for precision – helping senior teams distinguish between carbon removal approaches that will survive investor and legal scrutiny and those that carry long-term risk. Her four books on climate science include The Hot Topic, co-authored with Sir David King, UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, described by Al Gore on the TED.com platform as “a beacon of clarity” – a scientific credibility that goes beyond most ESG commentators. She has facilitated sessions at COP26 and COP27 in partnership with the UNFCCC, and delivered keynote addresses to organisations including AstraZeneca, BP, KPMG, and Lazard – giving her an uncommon understanding of where corporate intent meets policy reality. Biography highlights PhD in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University; has taught at Cambridge and Princeton Co-founder of CUR8 (for-profit carbon removal market maker) and Rethinking Removals (non-profit in partnership with UNFCCC Climate Champions) TED speaker; main talk “What You Need to Know About Carbon Removal” (TED.com, 2022) Author of four books including The Hot Topic, co-authored with Sir David King, UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser Former Climate Change Editor at Nature; former Features Editor at New Scientist Contributor to The Economist, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times; BBC radio and television presenter Biography Every credible net zero pathway now requires carbon removal – not as an optional extra, but as a scientific necessity. Most corporate climate strategies have yet to reckon with what that means in practice. The gap between what the science requires and what organisations are actually building is where Gabrielle Walker works. Walker has a PhD from Cambridge University. She spent more than a decade at the editorial centre of climate science – first as Climate Change Editor at Nature, then as Features Editor at New Scientist. Her four books – including The Hot Topic, co-authored with UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King – have brought the science of climate to boardroom-level audiences. Her 2022 TED talk on carbon removal extended that reach to a mainstream global audience. She co-founded two organisations that sit inside the carbon removal ecosystem rather than describing it from the outside. Rethinking Removals works in partnership with the UNFCCC Climate Champions to put carbon dioxide removal on the policy agenda. CUR8 helps corporations source vetted removal credits and build portfolios that are scientifically sound and commercially realistic. The combination – active policy work, scientific credibility, and commercial market-building in one practitioner – is unusual in this space. At board level, the questions she addresses are precise: which removal approaches are durable enough to withstand regulatory scrutiny, which carry reputational risk, and how a corporate climate commitment should be structured to remain defensible over time. Her work is not about inspiring broad action on climate. It is about helping organisations close the gap between a pledge and a plan that will hold. Key speaking topics Carbon removal and net zero strategy Corporate climate commitments and credibility ESG strategy and carbon markets Energy transition Climate risk and regulatory scrutiny Science communication for business leaders Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and heads of ESG developing or defending net zero commitments CFOs and investment officers evaluating climate-related financial risk and carbon credit exposure Boards and executive leadership teams navigating regulatory change in corporate climate strategy Conference organisers seeking a credible moderator for high-level climate, energy, or sustainability debates Audience outcomes A working understanding of what carbon removal is, why it is necessary for net zero, and which approaches are scientifically credible The ability to distinguish between carbon removal strategies that will hold investor and regulatory scrutiny and those that carry reputational risk A clearer framework for evaluating the strength of corporate climate commitments – their own and those of suppliers, partners, and competitors More precise questions to ask of climate advisers, carbon credit providers, and internal sustainability teams A more accurate view of where the carbon removal market stands today and what organisations need to do to stay ahead of it

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 Gonzalo Delacamara He sits inside the rule-making, not outside it. As a member of the European Commission’s Platform on Sustainable Finance, he helps shape the EU Taxonomy that is now reshaping how capital is allocated across European markets. He translates natural-resource economics into CFO and investor language. Water, climate and biodiversity stop being policy topics and become inputs into valuation, cost of capital and scenario models. Operational reach across more than 80 countries, with advisory work for the European Commission, the World Bank Group, the OECD, the Inter-American Development Bank and UN agencies, gives a grounded view of how sustainability rules land in different jurisdictions. He leads Europe’s water policy conversation from the inside. First Vice President of Water Europe and Director of the IE Center for Water and Climate Adaptation, he is one of the few voices connecting EU water policy, desalination economics and climate resilience in the same argument. He convenes serious economic thought, not applause lines. He co-founded the Water Economics Forum with Nobel laureates including George A. Akerlof, Jean Tirole and Mohan Munasinghe. Biography highlights Director, IE Center for Water and Climate Adaptation, IE University First Vice President, Water Europe (former EU Water Platform WssTP) Member, European Commission Platform on Sustainable Finance Senior advisor and member, OECD Water Governance Initiative Elected Board Director, International Desalination Association Professor at Universidad de Alcala; contributor to The Conversation and Smart Water Magazine; co-founder of the Water Economics Forum convening Nobel laureates in economics and peace Biography Water and climate adaptation used to be treated as environmental policy. They are now capital-allocation problems, and Gonzalo Delacamara is one of the few economists working at both ends of that shift. He directs the IE Center for Water and Climate Adaptation at IE University, and sits on the European Commission’s Platform on Sustainable Finance, the body advising on the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. His career has been built at the intersection of natural-resource economics and policy design. For more than two decades he has advised the European Commission, the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, the OECD and UN agencies including UN Water, UNESCO, FAO, WHO-PAHO and UNDP. That work spans more than 80 countries, across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, which shapes how he thinks about rules, implementation and the distance between the two. As First Vice President of Water Europe and an elected Director of the International Desalination Association, he is embedded in the operational and infrastructure side of water policy, not just the academic side. He has taught at Universidad de Alcala for over fifteen years, writes for The Conversation and Smart Water Magazine, and co-founded the Water Economics Forum, a public debate initiative that has convened Nobel laureates including George A. Akerlof, Jean Tirole and Mohan Munasinghe. The argument he brings to a boardroom is specific. Climate adaptation is no longer a compliance line; it is a repricing event. The EU Taxonomy, physical water stress and the cost of capital are already moving together, and organisations that treat sustainability as reporting rather than strategy are setting themselves up to misprice assets and underwrite the wrong risks. Key speaking topics Water economics and climate adaptation EU Taxonomy and sustainable finance Governance of natural resources Economics of biodiversity and ecosystem services Geoeconomics and geopolitics of energy and water ESG strategy and capital allocation Sustainability under complexity and uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting ESG, sustainability and climate-adaptation strategy Banks, asset managers and insurers exposed to the EU Taxonomy and physical climate risk Utilities, infrastructure and industrial operators facing water stress and regulatory repricing Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on sustainable finance, water policy and climate resilience Audience outcomes A clearer view of how the EU Taxonomy and the broader sustainable-finance architecture will reshape capital allocation in their sector A grounded read on where water, climate and biodiversity risks actually sit inside their business model, not just their disclosures Language that lets strategy, finance and sustainability teams argue the same case in the same terms Specific reference points from live policy processes in Brussels, OECD water governance, and multilateral finance Sharper questions to put to management and investment committees on climate adaptation and natural-resource risk

Why organisations work with Gordon Buchanan A working BBC broadcaster, not a retired one. Three decades of presenter-led natural history series mean he holds an audience the moment he steps on stage, before the substantive content begins. A credible male voice on mental health, grounded in In the Hide: How the Natural World Saved My Life, a Sunday Times bestseller. The story is his own, which is why audiences listen. A genuine conservationist with institutional backing: MBE for services to conservation and wildlife film-making, patronages of Trees for Life and The Gorilla Organization, ambassadorship of the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Stories from inside hides in Svalbard, Ellesmere, Mumbai and Mongolia, used to make points about composure, patience and decision-making under sustained physical pressure rather than as travelogue. Range across the brief: keynote, after-dinner, fireside, awards host. The presenter craft is the asset that makes the substantive content land in a corporate room. Biography highlights Scottish wildlife cameraman, filmmaker and presenter; over thirty years with the BBC and other major broadcasters. BBC series include The Bear Family and Me, The Polar Bear Family and Me, Snow Wolf Family and Me, Gorilla Family and Me, Elephant Family and Me, Tribes, Predators and Me, Life in the Snow, Our Changing Planet and Big Cats 24/7. MBE, 2020 New Year Honours, for services to conservation and wildlife film-making. Honorary Doctorate, University of Stirling; Honorary Fellowship, Royal Scottish Geographical Society; Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award (Environment), 2013. Author of In the Hide: How the Natural World Saved My Life (Penguin, 2025), instant Sunday Times bestseller. Patron of Trees for Life and The Gorilla Organization; Ambassador of the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Biography Most conversations about resilience in organisations stall at vocabulary. People know what they are supposed to say. They struggle to say anything useful about how a person actually stays functional through sustained pressure, repeated setback and long stretches of discomfort. A voice that has lived the question, in concrete and unglamorous detail, lands differently in the room. Three decades of BBC natural history work have put Gordon Buchanan inside cramped camera hides in Svalbard, Ellesmere, Mumbai and Mongolia, often for weeks at a time, in extreme cold, sleep deprivation and physical risk. Series including The Bear Family and Me, Snow Wolf Family and Me, Gorilla Family and Me, Tribes, Predators and Me and Big Cats 24/7 have made him one of the most widely watched presenters in British wildlife television. The published work behind the keynote is In the Hide: How the Natural World Saved My Life, an instant Sunday Times bestseller from Penguin in 2025. It is an honest account of a hard childhood in Glasgow and on Mull, the mental-health pressures that followed a public career, and the role of routine, family, exercise and the natural world in staying well. The book is the reason corporate audiences hear him as a credible voice on men’s mental health rather than a wildlife presenter making a side argument. Institutional recognition tracks the conservation half of the same career: an MBE in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to conservation and wildlife film-making, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Stirling, an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and active patronages of Trees for Life, The Gorilla Organization and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. Key speaking topics Mental health, resilience and the restorative role of the natural world Men’s mental health and the cost of silence Storytelling as a leadership and engagement tool Patience, composure and decision-making under sustained pressure Wildlife conservation and the climate-nature agenda Connection to nature as a workplace wellbeing input After-dinner storytelling drawn from three decades of BBC filming Ideal for HR, people and wellbeing leads designing mental-health programmes that need a credible male voice Leadership offsites and senior partner retreats where the conversation needs to go beyond resilience language Sustainability, ESG and conservation-linked events anchored by a recognised BBC presenter After-dinner and awards-night programmes where presenter craft matters as much as topic Audience outcomes A more honest internal vocabulary for mental health, particularly among men who do not usually engage with the topic A specific picture of what sustained composure under pressure looks like in practice, drawn from filming conditions in extreme environments A renewed case for nature, routine and physical activity as legitimate wellbeing inputs rather than soft extras A clearer link between the conservation agenda the organisation talks about and the human story behind it Footage and stories that audiences remember long after the session, useful for downstream internal communication

Why organisations work with Graham Weale Nine years as Chief Economist of RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, through the sharpest phase of the Energiewende. Few speakers have read the transition from inside a utility of that scale. An active voice in the current European energy debate, with recent commentary in Tagesspiegel Background, Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Euractiv on the hydrogen ramp-up, industrial decarbonisation, and the realism of German power demand forecasts. Cross-border fluency in European energy policy through the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine, the German-French Office for Energy Transition, and advisory work for the Energy Transitions Commission. Expert witness in gas and power contract disputes, price-review arbitrations, PPA disagreements, and capacity-market and state-aid matters, giving testimony in English or German. Comfortable translating between the energy-intensive industry lens (through VIK) and the utility and investor lens. Useful when a room contains both sides of the decarbonisation cost argument. A contrarian read grounded in economics. Weale argues in Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Tagesspiegel that policy underestimates the gap between renewable supply and industrial demand, and that the cost burden risks the industrial base the transition is meant to protect. His 2021 FT essay made the same case for the EU Green Deal. Biography highlights Honorary Professor of Energy Economics, Ruhr University Bochum. Chief Economist, RWE AG, 2007 to 2016. Consultant on power market design, PwC Deutschland, developing a new electricity market model to lower the consumer cost base (2016 to 2018). Senior Advisor, Energy Transitions Commission, 2017 to 2018. Former Director of European Energy Services, Global Insight (now S&P Global), 2000 to 2007. Steering Committee member, Chaire European Electricity Markets, Universite Paris-Dauphine. Published in Energy Policy, Intereconomics, Oxford Energy Forum, EnWZ, and the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law. Biography European heavy industry is being asked to decarbonise and stay competitive at the same time, and the two goals are pulling apart. Renewable supply is not scaling fast enough to meet industrial demand at a price that keeps production in Europe. Graham Weale argues, in Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Tagesspiegel, that policy underestimates this gap, and that the cost burden threatens the industrial base the transition is meant to protect. He has worked the economics of European energy for four decades, first as a practitioner and now as an academic. The operator vantage point is specific. Weale spent nine years as Chief Economist at RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, from 2007 to 2016, the years the Energiewende reshaped the economics of thermal generation. Before that he ran European energy services at Global Insight, now S&P Global Commodity Insights, where he testified as an expert witness in gas price-review arbitrations. He began his career at ExxonMobil in supply and refining, and trained in physics at Oxford, with an MSc in Systems Engineering and an MBA. The academic record runs in parallel. As Honorary Professor of Energy Economics at Ruhr University Bochum, Weale publishes on power market remuneration in Energy Policy, on hydrogen contract design in EnWZ, and on European market reform in Intereconomics. He advised the Energy Transitions Commission under Adair Turner, and has since advised the European Commission and European governments on energy policy. He sits on the Steering Committee of the CEEM chair at Université Paris-Dauphine. Today Weale runs an independent energy economics practice, advising law firms, industrial associations, and policy institutions, and acting as an expert witness in gas and power contract disputes. That work keeps him close to the live questions boards face: whether to sign a long-term hydrogen offtake, how to price capacity market risk, and where the next iteration of European electricity market design will land. He gives testimony, and delivers keynotes, in English and German. Key speaking topics Power market design and capacity remuneration Industrial decarbonisation and the economics of electrification Hydrogen contracts, supply chains, and the European hydrogen ramp-up German Energiewende and EU Green Deal implementation Natural gas markets and price review arbitration Energy geopolitics after the Ukraine invasion Nuclear, renewables, and the zero-carbon generation mix Ideal for Utility, grid, and generation boards setting capital allocation under decarbonisation targets. Infrastructure funds and institutional investors pricing European power and hydrogen assets. Energy-intensive industrial leaders (steel, chemicals, cement) planning decarbonisation roadmaps. Policymakers and regulators working on market design, capacity mechanisms, and hydrogen frameworks. Audience outcomes A clear view of where European power market design is heading and what that means for long-term generation investment. A realistic read on hydrogen: which use cases will scale, which contracts are bankable, and what the European ramp-up actually requires. Sharper framing of the political-economic risk attached to Energiewende-style transitions, drawn from inside a major utility. Specific vocabulary for talking to boards and investors about carbon pricing, capacity mechanisms, and industrial decarbonisation. A defensible basis for stress-testing internal energy transition plans against the economics, not only the targets.

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 Helen Clark Eight years running a 17,000-staff UN agency across 170 countries gives her a working view of how multilateral institutions actually function under pressure, not a commentator’s view from outside. She co-chaired the WHO Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the most authoritative post-mortem of the COVID response, presented directly to the World Health Assembly. As President of Chatham House and incoming Chair of the Gavi Board, she sits inside the live debates on global governance, vaccine financing and rules-based order that boards are now exposed to. She brings a head-of-government perspective on climate, gender equality and sustainable development that translates into how governments will actually behave on those files, not how they say they will. Biography highlights Prime Minister of New Zealand, 1999 to 2008, three successive terms; first woman elected to the office. Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the UN Development Group, 2009 to 2017. Co-Chair, WHO Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, 2020 to 2021. President, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), since 2021. Chair of the Gavi Board, the Vaccine Alliance, from January 2026. Member of The Elders and the Global Commission on Drug Policy; author of “Women, Equality, Power” (2018). Biography The institutions that govern the global system, the UN, the WHO, the WTO, the climate negotiations, the development banks, were built for a different world. They are now under pressure from great-power competition, populist politics, and constrained public finances at the same time. Helen Clark has run two of them from the inside. She served three terms as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, the first woman elected to the office, then eight years as Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, where she also chaired the UN Development Group. UNDP under her leadership operated in around 170 countries with a budget of roughly five billion dollars and was repeatedly assessed as one of the better-performing parts of the UN system on transparency and reform. In 2020 the WHO Director-General asked her to co-chair the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The panel’s report, “COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic”, went to the World Health Assembly in May 2021 and remains the central reference document on what the global health system got wrong and what would need to change. She is now President of Chatham House and, from January 2026, Chair of the Gavi Board. Her current portfolio of roles, Chatham House, Gavi, The Elders, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, sits at the operational core of the rules-based order that boards now treat as a risk variable. That is what she brings into a leadership room: not a commentary on geopolitics, but a working sense of how the institutions inside it actually move. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the multilateral system Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 agenda Pandemic preparedness and global health governance Climate action and the politics of energy transition Women, equality and leadership in public life Open government and anti-corruption The Asia-Pacific in a contested global order Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing geopolitical and multilateral risk into strategy CEOs and CSOs leading on climate, ESG and sustainable development commitments Heads of public affairs, government relations and global policy Leadership programmes for senior women and emerging public-interest leaders Audience outcomes A grounded read on where the multilateral system retains authority and where it has lost it A clearer view of how pandemic preparedness, climate and development files will move at the UN, WHO and G20 levels A working sense of what executive leadership inside a UN agency or a national government actually requires A serious frame for the politics of gender, equality and inclusion in senior leadership

Why organisations work with Helen Czerski She is an active research physicist inside the climate system, not a commentator on it. Her UCL work on bubbles at the ocean surface sits at the heart of how the atmosphere and ocean exchange heat and carbon, which gives her climate framing a physical basis that reads differently to a board than general sustainability narrative. Blue Machine gives her a defensible thesis audiences can hold onto: the ocean as a single connected engine that drives weather, food, trade and energy. That framing turns abstract climate discussion into something leaders can map to their own exposure. The Institute of Physics awarded her the 2018 Kelvin Medal specifically for translating physics to a mass audience. Few speakers pair that level of academic recognition with a track record on primetime BBC science. She has reached general business and policy audiences as the Wall Street Journal’s “Everyday Physics” columnist and as co-host of BBC Radio 4’s Rare Earth, which means she is used to explaining physics to readers and listeners who did not choose the subject. She treats curiosity as a leadership input. Her Storm in a Teacup thesis, that the rules governing the universe are visible in ordinary objects, lands as a practical argument for how technical organisations should see, question and investigate. Biography highlights Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, leading research on oceanic bubble physics, air-sea gas transfer and bubble acoustics. Natural Sciences (Physics) at Churchill College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD in experimental explosives physics; postdoctoral work at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Author of Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life and Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World (Penguin / W.W. Norton). 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation for Blue Machine. 2018 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for public communication of physics. BBC science presenter across Orbit, Operation Iceberg, Super Senses, Colour: The Spectrum of Science and Sound Waves; co-host of Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4; former “Everyday Physics” columnist at The Wall Street Journal. Biography The ocean is a physical engine that routes most of the planet’s heat, carbon and weather, and it is almost entirely absent from the way boards discuss climate. Helen Czerski’s work at University College London, where she leads research on breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface, sits precisely at the interface where that engine does its work. The research is technical. The implications are strategic. Blue Machine, her 2024 Wainwright Prize-winning book, is the public form of that argument. It treats the ocean as one connected system that moves nutrients, ships, storms and carbon, and explains why every industry with a coastline, a fleet or a climate commitment is already inside it. For leaders wrestling with transition plans, physical risk disclosures or supply chain exposure, Czerski offers a vocabulary that is physical rather than political. Her earlier book, Storm in a Teacup, established the method: start with something visible, coffee stains, popcorn, a magnet on a fridge, and work outward to the physics that governs how the world operates. That method earned her the 2018 Kelvin Medal from the Institute of Physics for public communication, and it carried through ten years of primetime BBC science including Orbit, Operation Iceberg and Super Senses, alongside her “Everyday Physics” column at The Wall Street Journal and co-hosting Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4. What she brings into a room is the rare combination of a working research scientist and a public explainer who has spent a decade translating physics for audiences that did not sign up to hear it. For an organisation trying to move from sustainability language to physical reality, that translation is the point. Key speaking topics Ocean physics and the climate system The ocean economy and physical risk Science of the energy transition Everyday physics for decision-makers Curiosity and scientific thinking in organisations Communicating technical complexity to non-technical audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, sustainability or transition strategy Energy, shipping, insurance and infrastructure leaders exposed to ocean and weather systems CTOs, heads of R&D and engineering leaders investing in technical capability Conferences where a serious science keynote needs to land with a mixed commercial audience Audience outcomes A working mental model of the ocean as a single physical system that connects weather, carbon, food and trade A sharper read on where climate and transition narratives rest on solid physics and where they do not Language for talking about physical risk and scientific uncertainty without defaulting to jargon or slogans A renewed case for curiosity as a disciplined practice inside technical and commercial teams

Why organisations work with Henry Bonsu Thirty years of live broadcast experience, from BBC Radio 4’s Today to Times Radio, produce a chair who can steer a twelve-person panel in real time without losing either the agenda or the audience. He is the annual host of the African Banker Awards since 2008 and a repeat moderator for the UNDP, WHO Africa Region, UNHCR, and the African Union. When an institution has a reputational stake in the room, it books him back. He has introduced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Kim on the same stage at the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, and chaired sessions at COP21 in Paris. He handles heads-of-state protocol without friction. Oxford-trained in German and French, fluent across African political economy, Westminster politics, and US affairs, which matters when a panel crosses jurisdictions and language registers in the same hour. Corporate conveners including Maersk, KPMG, and Cartier International use him for sustainability, diversity, and development briefs where a sharp, well-briefed chair is more valuable than a keynote. Biography highlights Magdalen College, Oxford graduate in German and French (1986 to 1990). Former producer on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and Black Britain on BBC Two. Co-founder and presenter at Colourful Radio, London, from 2006. Current Times Radio presenter, Thursday and Friday 10pm to 1am slots since 2022. Host of the African Banker Awards every year since 2008. Regular moderator for UNDP, WHO Africa Region, UNHCR, and the African Union; chaired sessions at COP21 Paris, the UN General Assembly in New York, and the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa. Biography Some conference chairs open a panel, read the bios, and hand the microphone around. Others run the room. Henry Bonsu is in the second group, and the reason is thirty years of live broadcasting behind the craft. He came to moderation through journalism. After reading Modern Languages at Magdalen College, Oxford, he produced BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, fronted Black Britain on BBC Two, and presented the Drivetime show on BBC London 94.9. In 2006 he co-founded Colourful Radio, one of the first London stations built for a Black audience. He is now a regular evening presenter on Times Radio, where he covers UK and US politics, education, and mental health. That broadcast discipline translates directly into how he chairs. He has hosted the African Banker Awards every year since 2008, moderated at COP21 in Paris, and chaired eight sessions at the Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa, where he introduced UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Kim. The UNDP, WHO Africa Region, UNHCR, and the African Union use him repeatedly. Corporate conveners including Maersk, KPMG, AfrAsia Bank, and Cartier International bring him in for sustainability, diversity, and development briefs. What the buyer gets is a chair fluent in the policy terrain, calm under heads-of-state protocol, and willing to ask the question a nervous room is avoiding. On a stage where the brief is serious and the speakers are senior, that is what holds the discussion together. Key speaking topics Moderation and chairing for international summits African finance and economic development Climate policy and sustainable development goals UK and US political affairs Race, culture, and public debate Media training and executive broadcast coaching Ideal for Heads of communications and event directors at UN agencies, multilateral institutions, and development banks convening ministerial or heads-of-state panels. Corporate sustainability and ESG leads at multinationals hosting external stakeholder summits on Africa, climate, or development finance. Awards programme organisers in the African business, finance, and diaspora space. Executive teams preparing for high-stakes broadcast interviews or crisis media scenarios. Audience outcomes Panels that reach a defined position within the allocated time, rather than drifting into generalities. Senior speakers drawn out with sharper follow-up questions than a generalist host would ask. A chair who can hold protocol for heads of state and principals without dropping the editorial pace. For media training clients, executives who sound clearer and steadier under hostile questioning.

Why organisations work with Horst Köhler Direct experience at the top of the IMF during the Brazil and Turkey debt crises, with operational responsibility for the response and for expanding debt relief to the poorest countries. Negotiator of the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union, giving boards a primary-source perspective on how the architecture of the eurozone was built and where its stress points lie. Sustained authority on Africa-Europe relations through the AU-EU High-Level Panel and the Partnership with Africa initiative he convened as Federal President. Rare combination of central-bank-adjacent technical credibility (EBRD presidency, IMF) with elected political legitimacy at head-of-state level. Biography highlights President of Germany, 2004 to 2010. Managing Director and Chairman of the Executive Board, International Monetary Fund, 2000 to 2004. President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1998 to 2000. State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Finance, and Germany’s chief negotiator of the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union. UN Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, 2017 to 2019. Co-founder, Eva Luise and Horst Köhler Foundation for rare disease research, established 2006. Recipient of the Global Economy Prize, Kiel Institute, 2017. Biography The institutions that defined the post-1990 economic order were built in a specific moment. The Maastricht Treaty, the IMF’s debt-relief frameworks, the G7’s coordination architecture were all designed for a world that assumed open trade, declining inflation, and the gradual integration of emerging economies. Köhler spent his career inside those institutions at the moments they were being built and stress-tested. As State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Finance he was Germany’s chief negotiator on the Maastricht Treaty and on the German-German monetary union, before moving to the presidency of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1998. From 2000 to 2004 he led the IMF through the Brazilian and Turkish debt crises and expanded debt relief for the world’s poorest economies. The technical brief and the political brief were the same brief. His presidency of Germany, 2004 to 2010, made the Africa-Europe relationship the centre of his public agenda. He convened the Partnership with Africa initiative as a sustained dialogue between heads of state, entrepreneurs, and intellectuals from both continents, and after leaving office co-chaired the African Union High-Level Panel on Africa-Europe relations and served as UN Personal Envoy for Western Sahara. The intellectual position underneath the work is that Europe still does not treat Africa as an independent political subject with its own agency and options. That argument, developed across two decades of speeches, is what made him a distinctive voice rather than a former office-holder on a circuit. Key speaking topics International monetary system and sovereign debt The Africa-Europe partnership The eurozone, Maastricht, and the architecture of EMU Global poverty reduction and development finance Multilateralism and the reform of international institutions Sustainability and climate finance Ideal for Boards and executive committees in financial services, multinational industrials, and infrastructure with material exposure to emerging markets, especially African economies. Government, multilateral, and development-finance audiences working on debt, climate finance, or institutional reform. Foundations, family offices, and impact-investment platforms with an Africa or Global South thesis. Audience outcomes A primary-source account of how the IMF actually handles a sovereign debt crisis at executive-board level. An informed view on what the AU-EU relationship looks like from inside the panels that have shaped it. A grounded reading of where the post-1990 multilateral order is brittle and where it still functions. Direct exposure to the strategic case for treating Africa as a peer political and economic counterpart, not an aid recipient.

Why organisations work with Ida Kymmer Brings a working knowledge of how the same technologies are deployed in commercial, defence, and peacebuilding contexts, so leaders see the full surface area of a decision rather than one face of it. Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery technology, which gives clients access to a network most strategy advisors cannot reach. Has shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido during her tenure at Journee, so the perspective is built on real brand deployment, not theory. Active across MENA, Korea, and the Nordics through Infinite Reality, Hub71, and Vinnova, giving organisations a read on emerging technology adoption beyond the usual US and Western European frame. Publishes Tech for War and Peace weekly, so the analysis a client receives is built from continuous primary research, not refreshed every booking cycle. Biography highlights Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality Founder of House of PeaceTech, the ecosystem platform for technology in conflict prevention and recovery Former Director of Global Affairs at Journee, working with BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido Author of Tech for War and Peace, a weekly newsletter on defence, conflict, and peacebuilding technology Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies Startup judge for Vinnova (Sweden) and Hub71 (Abu Dhabi); speaking record at World Economic Forum, SXSW, Gitex, TechBBQ, and Deloitte Innovation Day Biography Emerging technology rarely arrives with a clean use case. The same systems that power immersive retail can be repurposed for surveillance, defence, or disinformation. Most advisors look at one face of that surface. Few look at all of them. Ida Kymmer’s work sits across the commercial, defence, and peacebuilding applications of the same technologies. She holds a Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies and founded House of PeaceTech, an ecosystem platform connecting investors, startups, governments, and NGOs working on conflict prevention and recovery. Her weekly newsletter, Tech for War and Peace, tracks how defence-adjacent technologies move between sectors. Her commercial credibility is built on deployment, not theory. As Director of Global Affairs at Journee from 2021 to 2023, she shaped immersive technology programmes for BMW, H&M, Clinique, and Shiseido. She now serves as Director of Business, MENA at Infinite Reality, and judges startups for Sweden’s Vinnova and Abu Dhabi’s Hub71. The geographic and linguistic range matters here. She has lived in nine countries, speaks five languages, and reads emerging technology adoption from Seoul, the Gulf, and the Nordics as fluently as from Silicon Valley. Boards in any of those markets get a perspective that the usual American or Western European advisory pool does not provide. Key speaking topics Emerging technology and innovation strategy Defence and peace technology Immersive technology and commerce Disinformation and information integrity Sustainability and the green transition Korean innovation systems and soft power MENA technology ecosystems Ideal for Boards and executive teams making frontier technology investment or deployment decisions Chief innovation, strategy, and digital officers in consumer brands, automotive, and luxury Government, defence, and policy audiences engaging with dual-use technology Sustainability and ESG leads scrutinising green-transition supply chains Audience outcomes A clearer map of how a single technology operates across commercial, defence, and humanitarian use cases Specific examples of immersive technology deployment from named global brands A working view of innovation ecosystems in Korea, MENA, and the Nordics Sharper questions to put to internal teams on dual-use exposure, supply chain ethics, and emerging technology partnerships