Climate Action and Sustainability

Why organisations work with Ben Saunders He holds the record for the longest human-powered polar journey in history, a 108-day, 1,795-mile round trip to the South Pole that gives every lesson he draws a specific factual anchor. His three TED main-stage talks have been viewed more than five million times, and TED describes him as a master storyteller; senior audiences leave with arguments they can repeat, not motivational impressions. His material on composure, energy management and team honesty comes from completing expeditions that defeated Scott and Shackleton, not from secondary reading or coaching frameworks. He pairs the expedition record with a working life in climate-tech investment, including Sequoia Scout status and the founding of Kintanna Ventures, so the parallels he draws to business are not theoretical. Biography highlights Led The Scott Expedition (2013 to 2014), the longest human-powered polar journey on record at 1,795 miles, completing the route that defeated both Captain Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. Youngest person to ski solo to the geographic North Pole, spending 72 days alone on the Arctic Ocean (2004). Three TED main-stage talks (2005, 2012, 2014) with over five million combined views. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; Honorary Fellow, University of Northampton; Patron of British Exploring; Ambassador for the Scouts and The Prince’s Trust. Author of Shackleton in the Ladybird Expert series (Penguin Random House, 2017); contributor to TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson. Founder of Kintanna Ventures, a climate-technology investment vehicle, and a Sequoia Scout angel investor. Biography The Scott Expedition set out from Ross Island on 26 October 2013 and finished 108 days later, on 7 February 2014, after 1,795 miles on foot to the South Pole and back. It is the longest human-powered polar journey on record, and the first completion of the route attempted by Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton more than a century earlier. Ben Saunders led it. Saunders skied solo to the geographic North Pole in 2004 at the age of 26, the youngest person ever to do so, spending 72 days alone on the Arctic Ocean. Across two decades he has led 14 expeditions in the polar regions and covered more than 4,500 miles on foot in conditions that strip away every soft variable in performance. The material he brings to senior audiences is built from that record, not from theory. His three TED main-stage talks have been viewed over five million times and earned the unusual designation of master storyteller from TED itself. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Honorary Fellow of the University of Northampton, Patron of British Exploring and an Ambassador for the Scouts and The Prince’s Trust. His Ladybird Expert volume on Shackleton was published by Penguin Random House in 2017. The commercial life sits alongside the expedition record. Saunders raised more than $10m in sponsorship across his career, brokering multi-year partnerships with Intel, Land Rover, Canada Goose and Bremont, and now founds and runs Kintanna Ventures, a climate-technology investment vehicle, alongside angel investing as a Sequoia Scout. That working knowledge of capital allocation and venture-stage operations is what stops the polar material reading as parable when he places it in front of a board. Key speaking topics Decision-making under sustained physical and psychological pressure Composure and energy management at the limits of human capacity Team honesty and trust in small, high-stakes groups Adaptation to volatile and unforgiving operating environments Recovery and persistence after setback Climate-technology investment and the commercial reality of decarbonisation Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing prolonged operational stress or restructure CEOs, COOs and transformation leads commissioning leadership offsites on resilience and decision quality Senior teams in regulated, safety-critical or capital-intensive industries Sales kick-offs and partner conferences where the brief calls for substance over spectacle Audience outcomes A specific account of what composure looks like as a working discipline, not a personality trait A frame for separating controllable inputs from external noise when conditions deteriorate Practical examples of how small teams maintain honesty and trust through extended pressure A more credible vocabulary for talking about failure, recovery and the gap between plan and execution A fresh reference point for board-level conversations on risk, endurance and the limits of preparation

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

Why organisations work with Alicia Asín She runs Libelium, the Spanish IoT company behind the Waspmote wireless sensor platform, deployed across smart cities, precision agriculture and environmental monitoring projects worldwide. Audiences get a working founder-CEO view, not a technology commentator. She was the first woman to receive Spain’s National Young Entrepreneurs Award (2014) and received the Rey Jaime I Award for Entrepreneurship in 2017, a prize whose jury includes Nobel laureates. These are sovereign-level, externally adjudicated credentials. Second position in the 2018 European Commission Prize for Women Innovators reinforces the EU-level recognition. Her “Datacracy” argument, that data should strengthen democratic accountability rather than erode it, gives public-sector, smart-city and ESG audiences a specific vocabulary for the governance layer of IoT and AI deployment. She works in English and Spanish, which makes her directly useful for pan-European, Iberian and Latin American corporate and public-sector events. Biography highlights Co-founder and CEO, Libelium; creator of the Waspmote IoT sensor platform First woman to receive Spain’s National Young Entrepreneurs Award (2014) Rey Jaime I Award for Entrepreneurship, 2017 Runner-up, European Commission Prize for Women Innovators, 2018 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Named “Spanish with Talent” by Marca España; 2016 National Computer Science Prize Biography Sensors are the quietest part of the technology stack and the one that will most shape the next decade of public-sector decision-making. Alicia Asín co-founded Libelium in Zaragoza and has spent the intervening period building Waspmote, the company’s open-source IoT hardware platform, into a reference product for smart cities, precision agriculture and environmental monitoring deployments worldwide. The recognition record is sovereign-level. She was the first woman to receive Spain’s National Young Entrepreneurs Award (2014). In 2017 she received the Rey Jaime I Award for Entrepreneurship, one of the most prestigious prizes in Spain, whose jury includes Nobel laureates. In 2018 she was named runner-up in the European Commission Prize for Women Innovators. She is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. The argument she brings to senior audiences is governance, not hardware. “Datacracy” is her shorthand for the idea that IoT and AI should strengthen institutional accountability, in cities, in food systems and in public services, rather than weaken it. That framing gives public-sector, smart-city and ESG audiences a specific lens on procurement, data ownership and the design of monitoring systems that people will actually trust. For technology leadership, smart cities, sustainability and European public-sector audiences, Asín offers the working view of a multi-award-winning founder who is still running the company. She speaks in English and Spanish, which makes her directly useful across Iberian, pan-European and Latin American programming. Key speaking topics Internet of Things and the Waspmote platform in practice Smart cities, precision agriculture and environmental monitoring at scale Datacracy: data, transparency and institutional accountability Women in technology and STEM education under AI Founder-CEO experience of scaling a European hardware company Ideal for Technology leadership, innovation and R&D audiences at European corporates Smart-city, public-sector and urban-policy conferences Sustainability, agri-food and environmental programmes evaluating IoT deployments Women-in-tech and leadership events at pan-European and Latin American programmes Audience outcomes A working founder-CEO view of IoT deployment in cities and food systems A vocabulary (“Datacracy”) for the governance layer of IoT and AI adoption Specific examples drawn from Libelium deployments in smart cities and precision agriculture A pan-European perspective on the policy and procurement context for sensor-led programmes

Why organisations work with Paul Polman A ten-year CEO run at Unilever with documented results. Shareholder returns rose 290 percent during his tenure while the company held the top global sustainability ranking. Operator credibility on long-term strategy under activist pressure. Polman ended quarterly earnings guidance on day one as CEO and defended Unilever against Kraft Heinz’s 2017 hostile takeover bid. Co-architect of the UN Sustainable Development Goals as one of 27 members of Ban Ki-moon’s High Level Panel. He helped build the framework boards now report against. Direct line into how sophisticated long-term capital thinks about sustainability. Polman co-chairs EQT’s Future Mission Board alongside Jacob Wallenberg and advises boards at Temasek, Allianz and SMBC. Net Positive, co-authored with Andrew Winston, was named a Financial Times Business Book of the Year. The pair ranked first in the 2025 Thinkers50 list of the world’s most influential management thinkers. Biography highlights CEO of Unilever, 2009 to 2019. Succeeded Patrick Cescau and was succeeded by Alan Jope. 27 years at Procter & Gamble in senior roles including Group President, P&G Europe. Chief Financial Officer at Nestlé from 2006, then VP and Head of Americas. Member of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s High Level Panel that developed the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Continues as a UN SDG Advocate. Co-founder and Chair Emeritus of IMAGINE. Chair of Oxford Saïd Business School, The Valuable 500 and One Young World. Vice-Chair of the UN Global Compact. Co-author of Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take (2021), a Financial Times Business Book of the Year and Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award winner. Ranked first in the 2025 Thinkers50 list with Andrew Winston. Recipient of a UK Knighthood, France’s Légion d’honneur and the UN’s highest environmental honour. Biography Between 2009 and 2019, Unilever delivered a 290 percent shareholder return while holding the top global sustainability ranking and the title of one of the world’s best places to work. The period included the defeat of a $143 billion hostile bid from Kraft Heinz in 2017. The decade is the empirical case sitting underneath everything Paul Polman argues about business today. He wrote the case up with Andrew Winston. Net Positive, published in 2021, argues that companies should improve the wellbeing of everyone they affect, including the planet, and build financial strength in the process. The Financial Times named it a Business Book of the Year, and Thinkers50 gave it the Breakthrough Idea Award the same year. Polman’s operator background predates Unilever. He spent 27 years at Procter & Gamble, rising to Group President for Europe, before joining Nestlé as Chief Financial Officer in 2006. That background matters to the argument. The book comes from someone who ran the P&L while making the sustainability case. Today he chairs Oxford Saïd Business School, The Valuable 500 and One Young World. He co-chairs EQT’s Future Mission Board alongside Jacob Wallenberg and sits on advisory boards at Temasek, Allianz and SMBC. A UK knighthood and France’s Légion d’honneur sit alongside the UN’s highest environmental honour. In 2025, Thinkers50 placed him and Andrew Winston first in its biennial ranking of the world’s most influential management thinkers. Key speaking topics Sustainable business and the Net Positive framework Purpose-driven leadership and long-term value creation ESG strategy and commercial performance Climate change and the role of business The UN Sustainable Development Goals Corporate governance and stakeholder capitalism Systems change and industry coalitions Ideal for Boards and executive teams deciding whether to hardwire sustainability into growth strategy, as a commercial question rather than a reputation function. CEOs, CFOs and strategy leads under pressure to reconcile long-term ESG commitments with quarterly capital markets expectations. CHROs, Chief Sustainability Officers and purpose leads building the internal case for investment in systems-level change. Investors and IR functions working on how to communicate sustainability as a commercial argument. Audience outcomes The empirical case, with the Unilever numbers, for why purpose-driven models outperform shareholder-primacy ones over a decade. A sharper line between sustainability as compliance cost and sustainability as commercial strategy, and how boards tell the difference in practice. The Net Positive architecture: how to build a company that profits by solving the world’s problems instead of creating them. A working reframe of the UN Sustainable Development Goals as commercial opportunity, grounded in the industry coalitions Polman has helped build. The operator’s view on defending long-term strategy to activist investors, drawn from the defeat of the Kraft Heinz takeover and the decision to end quarterly earnings guidance.

Why organisations work with Narendra Taneja Reads global energy from an Indian and Global South vantage point that Western commentary routinely misses, particularly on the gap between developed-world decarbonisation timelines and emerging-economy growth needs. Holds standing in both academic and policy worlds: Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Chairman of the Independent Energy Policy Institute in New Delhi. Speaks directly into the operator and investor audience he has worked alongside for over two decades, having served as Founder President of the World Oil & Gas Assembly between 2001 and 2011. Carries advisory weight across multilateral energy forums, with seats on the ONS International Advisory Board in Norway and the Energy Intelligence Group’s Advisory Board in the United States. Tested in the highest-pressure broadcast formats, including BBC HARDtalk and CNN’s Amanpour, where energy claims have to survive cross-examination. Biography highlights Chairman, Independent Energy Policy Institute, New Delhi Distinguished Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies Founder President, World Energy Policy Summit; former Founder President, World Oil & Gas Assembly (2001 to 2011) International Advisory Board member, ONS Foundation (Norway) and Energy Intelligence Group (United States) Former National Convener of the BJP Energy Cell and former National Spokesperson for the BJP Regular contributor to BBC HARDtalk, CNN’s Amanpour and major Indian and international media Biography India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and third-largest electricity producer. It is also among the most climate-exposed major economies, with historical cumulative emissions far below those of the United States or China. The global energy transition will not be solved by Western timelines alone, and the implications run through New Delhi. Narendra Taneja works the seam between rich-world and emerging-economy energy systems. He is Chairman of the Independent Energy Policy Institute in New Delhi and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. That dual standing puts him inside the academic debate on transition and inside the policy machinery that has to act on it. His operator credibility is older. He was Founder President of the World Oil & Gas Assembly from 2001 to 2011, the decade energy moved from sector concern to the centre of foreign policy. He now leads the World Energy Policy Summit and holds advisory seats on the ONS International Advisory Board in Norway and the Energy Intelligence Group in the United States. His public reach is unusual for a policy specialist. He served as National Convenor of the BJP Energy Cell and as National Spokesperson for India’s governing party, with direct line of sight into one of the world’s largest energy markets. He appears regularly on BBC HARDtalk and CNN’s Amanpour. He is widely cited as a powerful voice on the energy question between rich and developing economies, a position most international commentary still struggles to hold. Key speaking topics Energy geopolitics and global energy systems Energy security and supply dynamics Energy transition policy across Global North and Global South Oil and gas markets in a decarbonising world India’s energy strategy and global role Geopolitics of climate policy Political risk in emerging market energy Ideal for Energy and utilities boards weighing transition strategy and capital allocation Investors and asset managers with cross-border exposure to oil, gas and renewables Government and policy audiences engaging with India and the wider Global South International business forums analysing geopolitical risk in energy markets Audience outcomes How Global North decarbonisation timelines collide with Global South growth imperatives, and what that means for capital allocation Where political risk actually sits inside the energy transition, by region and asset class A working view of India’s energy strategy and its implications for global supply and capital flows Sharper questions to ask before approving long-horizon energy investment or partnership decisions

Why organisations work with Johan Rockstrom He is the originator, not the explainer, of the framework that now sits beneath the TNFD, Science Based Targets and a growing share of corporate climate disclosure. Organisations come to him for the source, not the summary. He connects nine specific Earth systems, from climate to freshwater to biogeochemical flows, to commercial decisions on capital, supply chain and product. Boards leave with a map of which limits actually constrain their business. He carries scientific authority that holds in regulator and investor rooms. The 2024 Tyler Prize, the 2009 Nature paper and the directorship of the Potsdam Institute mean his framing survives external scrutiny. He has spent two decades inside the policy process at Davos, the Club of Rome and UN climate negotiations. He speaks to executives in their language about decisions, trade-offs and time horizons, not in the language of an academic seminar. Biography highlights Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), since 2018 Professor of Earth System Science, University of Potsdam Lead author, “A safe operating space for humanity,” Nature, 2009 Co-founder and former Director, Stockholm Resilience Centre (2004 to 2018) 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement; German Environmental Prize (2015); International Cosmos Prize (2015); Hillary Laureate (2017); Knight of the Legion of Honour (2016) Co-author, Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity (2022), the report to the Club of Rome marking 50 years since Limits to Growth Biography In 2009, a paper in Nature titled “A safe operating space for humanity” set out nine biophysical systems that keep the planet in the conditions civilisation grew up in. Johan Rockstrom led the team of 28 international scientists behind it. The framework, planetary boundaries, has since become the scientific foundation for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, the Science Based Targets Network and a widening set of corporate and regulatory climate frameworks. That work is now the working definition of environmental risk in serious institutions. Boards, central banks and investors increasingly need a defensible answer to the question of where the limits actually lie, and his framework supplies it. The 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, often called the Nobel for the environment, recognised the framework as the field-defining contribution. He directs the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the leading climate science institutions in Europe, and holds the chair in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam. Before Potsdam, he co-founded and ran the Stockholm Resilience Centre for fourteen years. He is a co-author of Earth for All, the 2022 report to the Club of Rome that revisits Limits to Growth fifty years on with concrete economic and policy turnarounds. The room he tends to be most useful in is the one where strategy meets disclosure: where leadership has to decide which targets to commit to, which trade-offs to accept and how to justify both to investors and regulators. He is unusually direct about the scale of action required and equally direct about what is still possible inside that window. Key speaking topics Planetary boundaries and Earth system risk Climate tipping points and resilience The science behind ESG, TNFD and Science Based Targets Food, land and water systems within planetary limits Net zero and the energy transition Sustainable economic transformation and the Earth for All agenda Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting climate, nature and ESG strategy under tightening disclosure regimes CSOs, Chief Risk Officers and Chief Sustainability Officers building defensible science-based targets Investors, banks and asset managers integrating climate and nature risk into capital allocation Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on energy, food and land system transitions Audience outcomes A working understanding of the nine planetary boundaries and which ones materially affect their sector A clearer view of how regulatory frameworks (TNFD, SBTN, EU disclosure) trace back to the underlying science A direct read on where global climate and nature trajectories sit relative to scientific safe limits Sharper questions for their own strategy and risk teams about which limits the business actually operates inside A grounded sense of what credible action looks like at the scale and pace the science requires

Why organisations work with K D Adamson She has named and framed the shift. Her concept of “nobleization” – the argument that the next phase of business is not globalisation but morally accountable, purpose-led value creation – gives leadership teams a precise, shareable thesis rather than a trend briefing. She challenges the techno-optimist default from a position of intellectual rigour. When AI, automation and digital transformation dominate the conversation, Adamson’s argument that tomorrow is a value problem, not a technology problem reframes the strategic question at board level. This is a harder case to make but her broadcast record on BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN and the Financial Times confirms it holds up under interrogation. Her “Seismotectonic” model gives leaders a practical foresight tool, not just a perspective. The three-movement framework of what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, what appears not to change at all is actionable in strategic planning contexts and transfers directly from a keynote into workshop and executive briefing formats. Her client base spans sectors where the future-of-value argument has immediate strategic urgency including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, and PwC, which gives her the commercial credibility to speak to mixed leadership audiences without being narrowed to a single industry vertical. Her ecocentrist positioning is analytically distinct. Placing ecological systems rather than human enterprise at the centre of value creation is not rhetorical positioning. It is the foundation of her ESG and circular economy arguments, and it produces conclusions that differ meaningfully from those of speakers whose sustainability work begins and ends with reporting frameworks. Biography highlights Founder and former CEO, Futurenautics Group; former Futurist, The Futures Agency Author of Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), the foundational foresight text on digital transformation in the shipping and maritime industry Broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, Financial Times, Al Jazeera, Channel News Asia, and BBC R4 Today Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts; stated member of Chatham House, The Aristotelian Society, the Society of Antiquaries, CERN Open Quantum Institute, and the International Society for the Circular Economy Global client roster includes Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, PwC, Deloitte, Capgemini, Rolls-Royce, Vodafone, Oracle, and Pfizer Biography The thesis K D Adamson has built over two decades is a direct challenge to the most widely held corporate assumption about the future: that it is, above all, a technology problem. In a landscape where most foresight is organised around what AI, automation, or quantum computing will do to a given industry, Adamson argues that what actually determines where organisations end up is what they believe about value, about purpose, and about who business is ultimately for. Her concept of “nobleization” names this argument precisely. Where globalisation provided the operating logic of the late twentieth century, Adamson contends that the defining shift of the current era is from a global business to a noble one, where ESG, the circular economy, and purpose-led strategy are not peripheral compliance exercises but the competitive architecture of the world arriving. The implication for leadership is significant: the strategic planning tools built for the previous era are no longer sufficient guides. Adamson founded and led Futurenautics Group, where her work on the digital transformation of the shipping and maritime industry made her the sector’s authoritative futurist – a standing substantiated by Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), which set the analytical agenda for how one of the world’s most conservative global industries understood its own disruption. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a regular broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, the Financial Times, and Al Jazeera, which means her frameworks are tested in real time against the hardest current questions, not only in controlled conference settings. Her “Seismotectonic” model of change, mapping three simultaneous rates of disruption: what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, and what appears not to change at all, gives senior teams a working tool for strategy under deep uncertainty. It is this combination of named intellectual frameworks, commercial range across clients including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, and CHANEL, and the ecocentrist perspective that places ecology rather than enterprise at the centre of value analysis, that separates Adamson from speakers covering adjacent territory. Key speaking topics Future of business value and sustainable transformation The limits of techno-optimism ESG as competitive strategy, not compliance Geopolitics and the end of globalisation AI: belief, systemic risk, and organisational response Leadership beyond control Strategic foresight and scenario planning Ideal for C-suite and board audiences navigating how to reframe business strategy as stakeholder expectations, geopolitical pressures, and ecological imperatives converge Chief Sustainability Officers and strategy leads responsible for translating ESG from reporting obligation into organisational design Global leadership conferences convening senior executives across multiple sectors and geographies, where a macro-systemic perspective is required rather than a sector-specific one Executive leadership teams of multinationals at significant inflection points – where the question is not only operational but concerns organisational identity and the long-term logic of value creation Audience outcomes A named conceptual framework, “nobleization”, for articulating why business strategy must move beyond profit primacy, framed as competitive logic rather than ideology Clarity on why the next wave of disruption is a value problem rather than a technology problem, and what that distinction means for strategic planning and capital allocation A working model for reading simultaneous, differently-paced change: the Seismotectonic framework, applicable in strategy sessions and scenario planning processes A more rigorous way to frame AI risk: focused on collective belief and systemic dependency rather than technical capability alone Greater confidence in articulating an alternative vision of organisational purpose to boards, investors, and internal leadership audiences

Why organisations work with Luiz Barroso He has held three seats that almost no one else holds together: national energy planner (CEO of Brazil’s EPE), market designer and consultant across 30 countries, and partner in Latin America’s largest investment bank. That gives him a view of energy decisions from the policy desk, the operator’s desk and the capital allocator’s desk simultaneously. His work answers the question most energy speakers avoid: how does decarbonisation actually get financed and priced in markets that do not look like Western Europe? Investors and regulators in Latin America, Asia and Africa book him for that reason. He sits inside the IEA conversation on emerging-economy transition, having been a visiting researcher in Paris on exactly that question. That places him close to where international finance and national policy intersect. IEEE Fellow status, granted for contributions to electricity market design, signals a rare technical depth for an industry speaker. Most transition commentators cannot model what they recommend. Biography highlights CEO of PSR Energy Consulting and Analytics, the BTG Pactual-owned firm Former CEO of Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica (EPE), Brazil’s national energy planning agency Visiting researcher, International Energy Agency, Paris Associate researcher, Institute for Research in Technology, Comillas University, Madrid IEEE Fellow; IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award recipient Author of one book, three book chapters and more than 70 peer-reviewed papers on electricity and gas market design Biography The energy transition has stopped being a question of ambition and become a question of capital. Boards have set decarbonisation targets; the harder problem is financing them through power markets that work differently in every country an investor touches. Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia do not have the same grid, the same regulation or the same risk pricing. Luiz Barroso has spent his career inside that problem. As CEO of PSR Energy Consulting and Analytics, a BTG Pactual-owned firm, he advises private investors, public lenders, governments and regulators in around 30 countries on market design, financing and risk in electricity and gas. Before that, he ran Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica, the Brazilian government body responsible for national energy planning, a role equivalent to deputy minister. His research credentials are unusual for someone operating in industry. He is an IEEE Fellow, recognised specifically for contributions to electricity market regulation and design, and an associate researcher at the Institute for Research in Technology at Comillas University in Madrid. In 2018 he spent a year at the International Energy Agency in Paris, working on the question of how energy transition unfolds in emerging economies. That combination matters because most senior leaders hearing about energy transition are hearing from policy commentators, academic modellers or industry executives. Barroso has held all three roles. His work helps capital allocators, board directors and regulators see where the transition narrative meets the actual structure of power and gas markets, and where the money has to go for it to function. Key speaking topics Energy transition in emerging economies Electricity and gas market design Investment and financing under decarbonisation Regulation and policy in liberalised power markets Risk management in energy infrastructure Power system economics Ideal for Board directors and investment committees with energy exposure outside Western Europe and North America Infrastructure investors, development banks and sovereign wealth funds allocating to the transition Energy regulators, system operators and policy bodies in emerging markets Senior leaders in utilities, oil and gas, and large industrial energy buyers Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how energy transition is actually financed and priced in emerging-economy power and gas markets A working understanding of why decarbonisation pathways diverge across jurisdictions, and what that means for cross-border capital Practical exposure to the trade-offs regulators face when designing markets that must attract investment and deliver reliability simultaneously A grounded view of which transition assumptions hold up when tested against grid reality and which do not

Why organisations work with Isaac Kenyon He carries three credentials in one room: working energy-transition geoscientist, trustee of Mind, and record-setting endurance athlete. That triangulation lets him speak to wellbeing, sustainability and performance without losing the audience on any of them. His lived mental health story is paired with a formal governance role at a national mental health charity, which raises the credibility floor for sessions on burnout and men’s mental health well above the standard adventurer-speaker offer. The Climate Explorers CIC platform gives him a real operating context for sustainability content. He is talking about ESG and nature-based solutions as a founder running campaigns, not as a commentator. Kenyon’s expedition material (Atlantic row, waterbike crossing, weighted Ironman) is used as evidence for specific arguments about teaming, recovery and decision-making, rather than as standalone motivation. Biography highlights Co-founder of Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company campaigning on nature-based climate solutions. Trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of national mental health charity Mind. BSc (Hons) Geology and MSc Geoscience, Royal Holloway, University of London; works as an energy transition geoscientist. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London, and member of the Scientific Exploration Society. Completed the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge in 40 days, finishing sixth in 2019. World-record London Marathon run in a brain costume, raising funds and awareness for men’s mental health. Biography Most workforces are not short of wellbeing content. They are short of credible voices who can connect resilience, purpose and sustainability without sliding into slogans. That is the gap Isaac Kenyon fills, with a portfolio that holds together because every claim is backed by a role he actually performs. He is a working energy-transition geoscientist trained at Royal Holloway, University of London, with a BSc in Geology and an MSc in Geoscience. He co-founded Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company that builds campaigns around nature-based climate solutions and eco-adventure. The sustainability content in his keynotes is grounded in that operating reality, not in commentary. The wellbeing line is anchored just as concretely. Kenyon is a trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of the national mental health charity, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London and Scientific Exploration Society. His own experience of burnout sits alongside a governance role at a mental health charity, which is what raises the credibility floor on his men’s mental health and resilience material. The expeditions are where the arguments land. A 40-day row across the Atlantic, finishing sixth in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. A London Marathon was completed in a brain costume to set a record for men’s mental health. A waterbike crossing of the UK from Orkney to the Isles of Scilly. Kenyon uses each one to make a specific point about decision-making under fatigue, team behaviour at the limit, and what sustainable performance actually costs. Key speaking topics Resilience and burnout recovery Sustainable high performance Mental health and men’s wellbeing Climate action and nature-based sustainability Purpose-driven culture Team performance under pressure Energy transition and ESG storytelling Ideal for CHROs, heads of people and wellbeing leads dealing with workforce burnout and engagement. ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility teams are looking for a credible voice that links climate to culture. Leadership offsites and conferences where resilience and purpose need to land in the same session. Organisations running men’s mental health, Mental Health Awareness Week or sustainability campaigns that need a named, accredited voice. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how burnout shows up in teams and what leaders can actually do about it. A working language for talking about sustainability and wellbeing as a single agenda, not two parallel ones. Specific decision-making lessons drawn from extreme endurance contexts and applied to workplace pressure. Practical entry points for men’s mental health conversations that often stall in corporate settings. A reframing of purpose that connects individual resilience with organisational and environmental responsibility.

Why organisations work with Rick Kelsey A working broadcaster, not a hired host. Kelsey is currently on air at Times Radio and BBC Business, which means he interviews real cabinet ministers and CEOs in his day job and brings the same posture to a corporate stage. Twelve years inside BBC newsrooms, including World Service and Newsbeat, plus editorial leadership of the Newscast podcast through the pandemic where audience grew by over 30 percent. Genuine subject command in personal finance and energy. He has written hundreds of BBC articles on mortgages, pensions, interest rates and the green-energy transition, so he can host a finance or sustainability brief without notes. Audience-building credibility outside corporate stages. As a presenter on The Running Channel, a YouTube channel of over 700,000 subscribers, he understands how to keep a non-captive audience listening, which translates directly to internal events. A track record across awards formats that punish weak hosts: the LEAF Awards, RFIx Financial Awards and European Hospitality Awards. Biography highlights Presenter at Times Radio, BBC Business and Spotify, covering personal finance, politics and energy. Twelve years at the BBC across television, radio and online, including World Service and Newsbeat. Edited the BBC’s Newscast podcast through the COVID-19 pandemic, with audience growth of over 30 percent. Co-host of The Running Channel on YouTube, with more than 700,000 subscribers. Author of hundreds of BBC personal-finance articles on mortgages, savings, pensions and energy bills. Hosted the LEAF Awards, RFIx Financial Awards and Gala Dinner, and the European Hospitality Awards. Biography Most corporate stages fail in the same way. The host is too cautious to push, the panel runs to the brief, and the audience leaves with a cleaner version of what they already believed. The fix is rarely a more polished MC. It is someone who interviews for a living and treats the stage as a newsroom. Rick Kelsey is that profile. He presents at Times Radio, BBC Business and Spotify, and spent twelve years on BBC staff across World Service and Newsbeat before leaving in 2022. Through the pandemic he edited Newscast, the BBC’s flagship politics podcast, and is credited with audience growth of more than 30 percent during that period. His specialist territory is personal finance and energy. He has written hundreds of BBC articles on mortgages, savings, pensions, interest rates and the green transition, and has interviewed UK prime ministers across multiple cycles. That base means a financial-services or utilities brief does not need scripting; he can take the room into the substance and out again. Outside the BBC he co-hosts The Running Channel, a YouTube property of more than 700,000 subscribers. Combined with awards-night work for the LEAF Awards, the RFIx Financial Awards and the European Hospitality Awards, the result is a host who can carry a 90-minute live show, keep an executive panel honest, and read when the room needs the next question rather than a longer answer. Key speaking topics Event hosting and panel moderation Awards-night presenting Personal finance and cost of living Mortgages, savings and interest rates Energy transition and renewable energy UK politics and policy Broadcast journalism and media Ideal for Internal communications and brand teams running town halls, leadership offsites and customer events. Financial services and consumer-finance audiences where a host needs to speak the subject fluently. Energy, utilities and sustainability conferences requiring a moderator across solar, wind and hydrogen briefs. Industry awards nights where the host carries the room from open to close. Audience outcomes A live event that holds executive attention from open to close, with crisp transitions and on-time running. Panels that produce something the audience did not already know, because the moderator pushes past the prepared answer. A finance or energy session translated into language a mixed corporate audience can act on. A presenter the audience associates with the BBC and Times brands, lifting the perceived production value of the event.

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. Active academic output on the questions boards are asking now, including a 2023 Energy Policy paper on whether energy-only markets can remunerate investment and a 2024 EnWZ piece on hydrogen supply contract design. 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. Used as an expert witness in natural gas and power arbitration, which sharpens the precision he brings to contract structure, price review, and regulatory risk. 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. Biography highlights Honorary Professor of Energy Economics and Politics, Ruhr University Bochum (Centre for Environmental Management, Resources and Energy). Chief Economist, RWE AG, 2007 to 2016. 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 power markets were designed in a world of predictable demand and marginal-cost dispatch. That world has gone. The question now is how to remunerate the flexible capacity a decarbonised system needs, and whether the current market design can fund it without another round of state intervention. This is the terrain Graham Weale has worked in for four decades, first as a practitioner and now as an academic. The operator credentials are specific. Weale was Chief Economist at RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, from 2007 to 2016, the years in which the Energiewende reshaped the economics of thermal generation. Before that he ran European Energy Services at Global Insight, and earlier worked at ExxonMobil in supply and refining. His training spans physics at Oxford, an MSc in Systems Engineering, and an MBA. The academic record sits alongside the operator one. As Honorary Professor at Ruhr University Bochum, he has published on power market remuneration in Energy Policy, on hydrogen contract design in EnWZ, and on European power market reform in Intereconomics. He advised the Energy Transitions Commission under Adair Turner between 2017 and 2018, and sits on the Steering Committee of the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine. That combination is useful in specific rooms. Boards deciding whether to sign a long-term hydrogen offtake, investors pricing capacity market risk, or policymakers weighing the next iteration of electricity market design get someone who has sat on both sides of the problem and still writes about it for a living. 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 Peter Altmaier Direct cabinet-level authorship of the Energiewende, with first-hand accountability for grid build-out, nuclear exit, and renewables expansion under Merkel-era Germany. Two ministerial portfolios at the centre of European crisis response: economic affairs and energy through the COVID industrial intervention period, and the Chancellery during the 2015 refugee coordination. Insider read on Berlin, Brussels, and Paris political mechanics, sharpened by 27 years in the Bundestag and senior CDU leadership roles. Substantive position on European technological sovereignty and platform regulation, formed while economics minister and visible in his work with the IEA and the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council. Speaks German, English, French, and Dutch, which makes him operable across European boardrooms without translation drag. Biography highlights Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany, 2018 to 2021 Head of the Federal Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Tasks, 2013 to 2018; Acting Federal Minister of Finance, 2017 to 2018 Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, 2012 to 2013 Member of the German Bundestag, 1994 to 2021 Knight of the French Legion of Honour (2004); Honorary President, Europa-Union Deutschland Featured speaker, PETRONAS International Energy Speaker Series, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary (2022) Biography Germany’s energy transition was redrawn while Peter Altmaier was in the room. As Federal Minister for the Environment in 2012 and later as Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2018 to 2021, he held direct departmental responsibility for the Energiewende, the nuclear exit, and the integration of renewables into Europe’s largest industrial economy. Between those portfolios he ran the Federal Chancellery for five years under Angela Merkel. That post placed him at the centre of cabinet coordination during the 2015 refugee response, the eurozone debt sequence, and the early industrial-policy calls that would later define Germany’s posture on technological sovereignty and platform regulation. He served as Acting Federal Minister of Finance through the 2017 to 2018 transition. His parliamentary career ran for 27 years, representing Saarlouis from 1994 and serving as Chief Whip of the CDU/CSU group from 2009 to 2012. He chaired the Parliamentary Oversight Panel for Germany’s intelligence services. Earlier work as a European Commission official and rapporteur on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights gave him a working command of the institutional machinery in Brussels. Since leaving office in 2021 he has continued through Europa-Union Deutschland as Honorary President, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, and the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council. France made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2004, a recognition of his role in Franco-German policy coordination that has remained central to his work on European energy and industrial strategy. Key speaking topics European energy transition and security German and EU industrial strategy Geopolitics and the transatlantic relationship Climate and decarbonisation policy European technological sovereignty Macroeconomic outlook for Europe Franco-German political economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with significant European exposure on energy, industrial, or supply chain decisions CSOs, heads of public affairs, and government relations leads briefing on EU and German policy direction Energy, utilities, automotive, and heavy industry leadership teams setting capital allocation against the Energiewende Investor and asset manager forums covering European macro and geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A working read on how Berlin and Brussels actually decide on energy and industrial policy A clearer view of where the Energiewende is binding capital and where it is creating openings Sharper anticipation of European responses to US, China, and Russia policy moves Insight into the political economy of technological sovereignty and platform regulation in Europe Anecdote-grounded perspective on Merkel-era cabinet decision-making, useful for boards working alongside German counterparties