Economic Forecasting

Why organisations work with Andrew Verity He is the reporter who broke the evidence of central bank involvement in LIBOR rate-rigging on Panorama and in the Radio 4 podcast The Lowball Tapes, and then laid out the full case in his book Rigged. Few speakers in this field can claim that level of original work on a scandal they covered end to end. As BBC Economics Correspondent he explains interest rates, inflation and growth on air to a national audience every week. That training shows up on stage: dense economic material rendered in language a board can use. His investigative track record, from The Truth About Property ahead of the 2008 housing crash to on-the-ground reporting on money laundering in Ukraine, gives him a sharper instinct than most commentators for where institutional risk is actually building. He is a practised live broadcaster, which makes him a natural moderator and interviewer at internal leadership events, client summits and regulated-industry conferences where the stakes of the conversation are high. For financial services, risk and compliance audiences in particular, he offers a perspective that is informed by named regulators, named trials and named evidence, not generic commentary. Biography highlights Economics Correspondent, BBC News, reporting across television, radio and online since 2014. Author of Rigged (The History Press, 2023), a detailed account of the LIBOR scandal serialised in The Times. Presenter of The Lowball Tapes, the 2022 BBC Radio 4 investigative podcast series shortlisted for the British Journalism Awards and the Foreign Press Association Awards. Reporter and presenter for Panorama, including the investigation into the Bank of England’s role in LIBOR rate-rigging, with further contributions to Newsnight and File on Four. Former host of Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live for eight years, a daily programme on markets, the economy and personal finance. Previously Personal Finance Correspondent at The Independent, recognised with industry awards for personal finance journalism and broadcasting. Biography The LIBOR scandal was presented to the public as a story about rogue traders. The evidence Andrew Verity assembled, on Panorama, in The Lowball Tapes and then in his book Rigged, tells a different story about the role of central banks and the safety of the convictions that followed. That body of work is why senior financial audiences take him seriously when he speaks about misconduct, regulation and market structure. His day job is to translate macroeconomics for a national audience. As BBC Economics Correspondent since 2014 he has covered Brexit, the pandemic shock and post-pandemic inflation across television, radio and online. The discipline of explaining a rate decision or an inflation print in clear language, live, week after week, is what makes him effective in front of a leadership team. The investigative thread runs through the rest of his career. He presented BBC Two’s The Truth About Property before the 2008 housing crash, hosted Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live for eight years, and has reported from Ukraine on suspected money laundering. His book Rigged, published by The History Press in 2023 and serialised in The Times, has since been optioned for television. For boards, risk committees and regulated-industry audiences, the practical value is specific. He can moderate a results conference, interview a chief executive on the record, or deliver a keynote that takes the latest central bank move and shows what it changes for the people in the room. Key speaking topics The LIBOR scandal and financial misconduct Inflation, interest rates and monetary policy UK and global economic outlook Regulation and enforcement in financial services Investigative journalism and corporate accountability Housing, property markets and household finance Economics event moderation and on-stage interviewing Ideal for Financial services, banking and asset management leadership events Risk, compliance and internal audit conferences in regulated industries Board and executive offsites seeking a clear read on the macro environment Corporate and client summits needing a senior broadcast-grade moderator or interviewer Audience outcomes A clearer read on where inflation, interest rates and growth are heading and what actually drives the next move. A grounded view of the LIBOR scandal from the journalist who reported the cover-up, with direct relevance to conduct and culture questions today. A sharper sense of where regulatory and reputational risk tends to build inside large financial institutions. Confidence that the on-stage conversation with their own leaders or guests will be handled with the discipline of a live BBC broadcast.

Why organisations work with Ruchir Sharma He runs live capital at Rockefeller International and Breakout Capital. The frameworks he presents are tested against the same allocation decisions his audience is making. His Breakout Nations and Rise and Fall of Nations theses give boards a structured set of rules for ranking countries on growth durability, not a country-of-the-month view. What Went Wrong with Capitalism, named a 2024 Book of the Year by both the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, gives him a current, contested argument on debt, state expansion and inequality that lands directly on capital allocation decisions in developed markets. Two decades of on-the-ground reporting across Indian and emerging-market elections give him a political-risk read that desk-bound macro speakers cannot match. A working FT column and prior NYT column mean his arguments are already road-tested against serious editorial scrutiny. Biography highlights Chairman of Rockefeller International; founder and CIO of Breakout Capital. 25 years at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, latterly as Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist. Author of five books, including Breakout Nations, The Rise and Fall of Nations and What Went Wrong with Capitalism, named a 2024 Book of the Year by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Contributing editor and columnist at the Financial Times; former New York Times opinion columnist. Recognised as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2007), a Foreign Policy top global thinker (2012) and one of Bloomberg’s 50 Most Influential People (2015). Has covered every Indian national election since 1998, and travels widely across emerging economies meeting policymakers, CEOs and local leaders. Biography Most countries that look like the next economic miracle do not become one. The work that made Sharma’s reputation, Breakout Nations and The Rise and Fall of Nations, is built on that observation. Both books set out a structured, rule-based way of judging which economies are likely to sustain growth and which are running on borrowed time. He brings that lens to the room as a working investor, not a commentator. As Chairman of Rockefeller International and CIO of Breakout Capital, he is allocating capital across the same emerging and developed markets he writes about. Before that he spent 25 years at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, ending as Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist. His most recent book, What Went Wrong with Capitalism, was named a 2024 Book of the Year by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. It argues that a century of expanding government, bailouts, entitlements and financial rescues, has distorted Western markets and entrenched inequality. The thesis travels directly into capital allocation conversations about debt, valuation and the limits of policy support. The reporting work underneath all of this is unusual. Sharma has covered every Indian national election since 1998 and travels regularly through emerging economies meeting politicians, CEOs and local operators. That fieldwork is what gives his macro calls their texture, and what separates a Sharma keynote from a desk-research presentation. Key speaking topics Emerging markets and the rules of national economic success Macro-economic and capital allocation outlook The long-cycle critique of state-led capitalism India’s economic and political trajectory Geopolitics, populism and political risk Globalisation and the post-crisis world economy Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting country and currency exposure CEOs and CFOs of multinationals reassessing emerging-market footprint Asset managers, pension funds and family offices on capital allocation Senior policy and strategy audiences in financial services Audience outcomes A structured set of indicators for ranking countries on growth durability A read on which emerging markets are likely to break out and which are likely to stall A specific, contestable argument on how state expansion is shaping returns in developed markets A political-risk perspective on India and the wider EM landscape grounded in on-the-ground reporting A clearer view of the macro-economic regime shift facing capital allocators

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 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 Ewald Nowotny A first-hand account of ECB Governing Council decision-making across the sovereign debt crisis, the negative-rate era, and the start of unconventional policy unwind, by someone who voted in the room. Cross-institutional perspective most central bankers cannot match: ECB Governing Council, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, CEO of BAWAG P.S.K., and a chair of the Austrian Parliament’s Finance Committee. An economist’s framework, not a commentator’s view. Three decades as a full professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business, with nine books and a standard public finance textbook in its fifth edition. A direct read on European political economy and the durability of the euro, from a participant who was inside the German-Austrian bloc on the Council during its most contested years. Biography highlights Governor, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, and member of the ECB Governing Council, 2008 to 2019. Vice President, European Investment Bank, 1999 to 2003. CEO, BAWAG P.S.K. Group, 2006 to 2008. Full Professor of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, 1981 to 2008; Vice Rector for Finance, 2003 to 2005. Member of the Austrian National Council, 1978 to 1999; Chair of the Finance Committee, 1985 to 1999. Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur (2017); Honorary Member, SUERF. Biography The eurozone has spent fifteen years inside policy regimes most boards were not built to read. Sovereign debt crisis, negative rates, asset purchase programmes, and the start of policy normalisation each redrew the cost of capital and the political settlement around it. Ewald Nowotny was inside the room where those decisions were taken. As Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank from 2008 to 2019, he sat on the ECB Governing Council through every one of those phases. He voted on the response to the Greek crisis, on the launch of large-scale asset purchases, and on the policy stance that defined European credit conditions for a decade. His public commentary, captured across BIS speech archives and central banking media, tracked the substantive arguments inside the Council rather than the headlines outside it. Before the central bank, his career covered the institutions that shape European capital flows from different angles. He served as Vice President of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg from 1999 to 2003, then as CEO of BAWAG P.S.K. Group during a period of acute restructuring at the Austrian bank. Earlier, he chaired the Finance Committee of the Austrian Parliament for fourteen years. The academic standing is the second axis. He held a full professorship at Vienna University of Economics and Business for almost three decades and co-authored the standard German-language textbook on public sector finance, now in its fifth edition. He was made Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur in 2017 and is an honorary member of SUERF, the European Money and Finance Forum. Key speaking topics Eurozone monetary policy and the future of the euro ECB decision-making and central bank independence European banking regulation after the financial crisis Sovereign debt and fiscal policy in the EU Macroeconomic outlook and global capital markets Public sector finance Ideal for Boards and audit committees stress-testing capital and treasury assumptions against European monetary policy CFOs, group treasurers, and CIOs in banking, insurance, and asset management Public-sector and supranational audiences working on EU economic governance Senior policy and corporate-affairs leaders engaging with European institutions Audience outcomes A working account of how the ECB Governing Council weighs price stability against financial stability, from someone who voted on those trade-offs. A clearer view of what is structural versus cyclical in eurozone politics, including the German-Austrian fiscal stance and its likely persistence. Specific reference points for reading future ECB decisions: which arguments tend to win on the Council, and which signals matter. Context on the European Investment Bank and the EU’s supranational lending architecture as a tool of policy and capital allocation.

Why organisations work with Marek Marian Belka He has actually held the levers. Decisions on interest rates, sovereign borrowing, banking supervision and crisis response were his to sign, not to commentate on, across Polish government and the National Bank of Poland. He ran the IMF’s European Department through the early eurozone crisis, giving him a working view of how Brussels, Frankfurt and national capitals negotiate when the system is under pressure. He rebuilt a currency and a banking system from zero in post-invasion Iraq, which translates directly when leaders ask what happens to economies under shock conditions. He sits inside current EU economic legislation as an MEP on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, including as rapporteur on the revision of EU payment-services rules. His read on Brussels is not historical. He moves comfortably between academic economics and operational policy, which is rare in this pillar and is what makes his sessions useful to CFOs and investment committees rather than only to public-affairs teams. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Poland, 2004-2005. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Poland, 1997 and 2001-2002. President of the National Bank of Poland, 2010-2016. Director of the European Department, International Monetary Fund, 2008-2010. Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (Geneva), 2006-2008. Director of Economic Policy, Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, 2003-2004. Member of the European Parliament, 2019-2024, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. Professor of Economics; long-running affiliation with the Institute of Economics at the Polish Academy of Sciences; visiting periods at Columbia, Chicago and the London School of Economics. Biography The eurozone crisis ran through the desk of the IMF’s European Department, and from 2008 to 2010 that desk belonged to Marek Belka. The job was not to predict the crisis. It was to negotiate with finance ministries, central banks and political leaders while the system was visibly stressed and to keep capital and credibility moving across borders. That role only made sense because of what came before it. He had already been Poland’s Minister of Finance, Deputy Prime Minister and, from 2004 to 2005, Prime Minister. He had also rebuilt a currency and a banking system in post-invasion Iraq as Director of Economic Policy at the Coalition Provisional Authority. By the time he reached the IMF, he had operated economic policy in a stable European democracy, in a transition economy and in a war zone. In 2010 he returned to Warsaw as President of the National Bank of Poland, a six-year term that covered the eurozone aftermath, the Russian annexation of Crimea and the early phase of populist pressure on European central-bank independence. Before and after that, he held the Executive Secretary post at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva and built a long academic record at the Polish Academy of Sciences and as a visiting scholar at Columbia, the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. Today he sits in the European Parliament on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, where he was rapporteur on the revision of EU payment-services rules adopted in February 2024. For boards and investors, that combination matters in a specific way. He can speak to monetary policy, fiscal stress and EU economic legislation as someone who has signed the decisions, not just modelled them. Key speaking topics European monetary policy and the role of central banks Eurozone stability, sovereign debt and banking supervision EU economic legislation and the political economy of Brussels Geopolitical risk in Central and Eastern Europe Inflation, currency and post-crisis economic policy Economic transition and reconstruction in fragile economies The future of the euro and European economic integration Ideal for Boards, CFOs and investment committees making allocation decisions exposed to European monetary and fiscal risk. Banks, asset managers and insurers needing a senior read on ECB direction, sovereign credit and EU financial regulation. Leadership teams of multinationals with significant Central and Eastern European exposure. Public-policy, government-affairs and economic-research functions briefing executives on EU institutions. Audience outcomes A clearer read on how ECB, European Commission and national-capital decisions interact under stress. A working sense of where European political risk is most likely to translate into market and regulatory consequence. Specific examples of how policymakers actually decide during crises, drawn from inside the IMF, NBP and Polish government. A sharper view of EU financial-services and payments regulation as it moves through the legislative process. Confidence to challenge consensus assumptions about eurozone stability, inflation and Central European growth.

Why organisations work with Janusz Antoni Lewandowski Direct first-person insight into how the EU’s multiannual budget is built, negotiated, and defended. He led that process for the 2014 to 2020 framework. One of the few European speakers who designed a national privatisation programme, the Polish Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, and co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Useful for boards reading Central and Eastern European exposure. A Solidarity-era economic adviser turned cabinet minister turned Commissioner. The arc gives him standing on how political will translates into economic structure, and where it fails. Active commentary in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, and Newsweek Polska. He is a working public voice on EU and Polish policy, not a retired official. Biography highlights European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, 2010 to 2014, under President José Manuel Barroso. Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Budgets from 2004; later First Vice-Chair (2019 to 2024). Member of the European Parliament across the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th terms. Minister of Ownership Transformations in two Polish governments (1991; 1992 to 1993); co-founder of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Co-founder and Chair of the Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD), 1988. Economic adviser to Solidarity, 1980 to 1989. Chairman of the Economic Council under Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, 2015. Doctorate in economics, University of Gdańsk. Founder of the Institute for Market Economy Research, Gdańsk. Biography Poland’s transition from a state-planned economy to a market economy was not an academic exercise. It was designed and run, in real time, by a small group of economists who had been advising Solidarity through the 1980s. Janusz Lewandowski was one of them. As Minister of Ownership Transformations in the Bielecki and Suchocka governments, he co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange and built the Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, the mass privatisation programme that reshaped Polish corporate ownership. That experience travelled with him into Brussels. He served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004, chaired the Committee on Budgets, and was appointed European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget under José Manuel Barroso between 2010 and 2014. The Commissioner role placed him at the centre of negotiations for the 2014 to 2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, the trillion-euro budget settlement that defined EU fiscal priorities through the post-crisis decade. He returned to the European Parliament in 2014, served as First Vice-Chair of the Budgets Committee in the 2019 to 2024 term, and has continued as a working voice on European economic policy. In 2015 Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz appointed him Chairman of the Economic Council. He writes regularly for Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Parkiet, Wprost, and Newsweek Polska. The combined record gives him a vantage point that few European speakers can match. He has built market institutions from a standing start, written a national privatisation programme, and held senior fiscal responsibility for the entire Union. When he reads EU budget politics, Central European exposure, or the durability of the European project, he is reading instruments he has helped to build. Key speaking topics EU budget architecture and the Multiannual Financial Framework The political economy of European integration Post-communist economic transition and privatisation Central and Eastern Europe in the EU Polish economic and political outlook Geopolitical risk for European capital The future of EU fiscal policy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to Central and Eastern Europe CFOs, treasury, and policy teams tracking EU regulatory and fiscal direction Investor and banking audiences reading European political risk Senior public-sector and institutional audiences on EU policy and enlargement Audience outcomes A clear read of how EU budget priorities are set and where they are heading Direct insight into the political economy of Central and Eastern Europe from someone who shaped it Sharper interpretation of European policy signals affecting capital allocation A working framework for thinking about EU enlargement, sanctions, and the durability of the European project

Why organisations work with Jens Weidmann A decade inside the ECB Governing Council during the sovereign debt crisis, the Draghi “whatever it takes” period, and the pandemic response. Few speakers can describe those decisions from inside the room. The hawkish dissent on the ECB council was not branding. It was a substantive position on bond purchases, fiscal dominance, and the limits of central bank independence, and it informs how he reads today’s inflation and debt dynamics. Active commercial bank chairman (Commerzbank) and reinsurance supervisor (Munich Re). His view on rates, regulation, and risk is grounded in current board exposure, not a retired official’s recollections. Chief G8 and G20 sherpa for Germany under Chancellor Merkel. He brings a working knowledge of how monetary, fiscal, and geopolitical decisions are negotiated between major economies. Chaired the BIS board and led the IMF’s 2022 panel on institutional safeguards. The credentials matter because they signal access to the small group of people who set the rules of cross-border finance. Biography highlights President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, 2011 to 2021 Member of the ECB Governing Council and Chairman of the Board of the Bank for International Settlements during his Bundesbank presidency Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank since 2023 Member of the Supervisory Board of Munich Re Professor of Practice in Central Banking and Co-Director of the Centre for Central Banking, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management Former Head of Division IV (Economic and Financial Policy) at the German Federal Chancellery and chief German sherpa for G8 and G20 summits Chair of the IMF External and Independent Panel of High-Level Experts on Institutional Safeguards, 2022 Biography The Bundesbank seat on the ECB Governing Council carries a particular weight. It represents the largest economy in the eurozone and a tradition of monetary discipline that predates the single currency. For a decade, that seat was occupied by Jens Weidmann, and during the Draghi era he was the Council’s most consistent dissenter on sovereign bond purchases and on the boundary between monetary and fiscal policy. Before the Bundesbank, Weidmann was the German Chancellery’s chief economic adviser and the country’s sherpa at the G8 and G20. The negotiations after Lehman, the Greek programme, and the early architecture of European banking union all crossed his desk. Earlier still he served the German Council of Economic Experts, where his work fed into the Agenda 2010 reforms that reshaped the German labour market. Since stepping down from the Bundesbank in 2021, his focus has shifted from rule-setting to rule-applying. As Chairman of Commerzbank’s Supervisory Board he oversees one of Germany’s two large commercial banks through a higher-rate environment and a renewed debate over European banking consolidation. At Munich Re he sits inside the supervisory governance of a major reinsurer, where climate and geopolitical risk meet capital adequacy. He teaches and writes from the Frankfurt School Centre for Central Banking, which he co-directs. The IMF’s 2022 decision to appoint him chair of its independent panel on institutional safeguards, after the data scandal involving its managing director, signalled that his judgement on institutional integrity carries weight beyond Germany. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank independence Eurozone economic and financial stability Inflation, public debt, and fiscal dominance Banking supervision and financial regulation G7, G20, and international policy coordination Geopolitical risk and the global financial system Ideal for Bank, asset manager, and insurer boards setting strategy under shifting rate and regulatory regimes CEOs, CFOs, and CROs of multinationals exposed to euro-area policy and currency risk Government, regulator, and policy audiences working on financial stability and reform Audience outcomes A grounded reading of where eurozone monetary policy is heading and what would shift it A clearer sense of how political and fiscal pressure now interacts with central bank decisions A working view of the constraints and choices facing European banks and insurers An informed perspective on G20-level coordination, sanctions, and the financial architecture around geopolitical risk

Why organisations work with Linda Yueh A published framework for spotting and mitigating financial crashes, drawn from her book The Great Crashes and applied directly to board-level risk and capital allocation conversations. Sitting non-executive director on three FTSE 100 boards (Rentokil Initial, SEGRO, Standard Chartered), which means she reads the macro picture the way a director has to read it, not the way a commentator does. Direct working experience with the World Bank, European Commission, Asian Development Bank and the UK Treasury review panel, which lets her translate policy direction into commercial implication. A China specialism with academic depth: D.Phil. economics at Oxford, former Visiting Professor of Economics at Peking University, and author of China’s Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower (Oxford University Press). Broadcaster’s instinct for clarity, sharpened by years as Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News and Economics Editor at Bloomberg Television, so the analysis lands with a non-specialist audience. Biography highlights Fellow in Economics, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of Economics, London Business School. CBE for Services to Economics, King’s New Year’s Honours List 2023. Author/editor of 11 books, including The Great Crashes (Penguin Business), selected by the Financial Times as one of the Best New Books in Economics. Non-Executive Director of Rentokil Initial, SEGRO, and Standard Chartered; Chair of Baillie Gifford’s Schiehallion Fund. Former Chief Business Correspondent, BBC News, presenting Talking Business with Linda Yueh; former Economics Editor, Bloomberg Television. Associate Fellow, Chatham House; columnist for The Times, the Financial Times and The New York Times; advisor to the World Economic Forum, World Bank, European Commission and Asian Development Bank. Biography The financial crashes of the past forty years all rhyme. Currency crises in the 1980s, Japan’s housing bust, the dot-com unwind, 2008 and the pandemic each followed a recognisable arc, and in The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them, Linda Yueh sets out a three-step framework that boards and policymakers can use to read the early signals. Penguin Business published it in 2023 and the Financial Times selected it as one of its Best New Books in Economics. The analysis is grounded in serious academic work. Yueh holds a D.Phil. in economics from the University of Oxford, where she is Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, and she is Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School. Her earlier book The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today was named one of The Times’s Business Books of the Year, and the US edition was a Newsweek Best Book of the Year. China’s Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower was published by Oxford University Press. What separates her from most academic economists is the directness of her commercial vantage point. She sits as a non-executive director on the boards of Rentokil Initial, SEGRO and Standard Chartered, and chairs Baillie Gifford’s Schiehallion Fund Ltd. She has advised the World Bank, the European Commission, the Asian Development Bank, the World Economic Forum and the UK Treasury review panel, and she is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. She communicates for a living. As Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News she hosted Talking Business with Linda Yueh, and before that she was Economics Editor at Bloomberg Television. She writes regularly for The Times, the Financial Times and The New York Times. In 2023 she was appointed CBE for Services to Economics. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook and macroeconomic risk Financial crashes and crisis prevention China’s economic rise and US-China-Europe relations Geopolitics, trade and the global rules-based order Currency markets and financial stability Economic ideas and policy innovation Ideal for Board and audit committee sessions on macro risk, capital allocation and crisis preparedness Executive offsites for FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and large privately held firms with material China or emerging-market exposure Investor conferences and asset management forums needing a credible economist on global outlook CFO, treasury and risk leadership audiences working through currency, rate cycle and political risk decisions Audience outcomes A working read on where the global economy is in the cycle and which signals matter for the next twelve to thirty-six months A structured way to think about the early indicators of financial crises, drawn from a published historical framework A clearer view of China’s growth trajectory and the commercial consequences of US, EU and UK policy responses Confidence to take that view back into a board or investment committee and defend it

Why organisations work with Zhang Jun He reads China’s economy from inside its policy apparatus, sitting on the Shanghai Municipal Government’s Special Advisory Committee and having briefed Premier Li Keqiang directly in 2015. His thesis in End of Hyper Growth in China? (Palgrave, 2016) is a specific, defensible counter-position on Chinese consumption data and structural imbalance, not a directional take. He won the 2018 Bergson Prize from the Association for Comparative Economic Studies, the field’s recognised award for serious comparative work on transition economies. He has held visiting positions at LSE, Harvard, Yale, SOAS and UNU-WIDER, so he writes and speaks for Western analytic audiences without losing the China interior view. He has written 70 commentaries for Project Syndicate since 2005 and contributes regularly to the South China Morning Post and the World Economic Forum agenda, which means his framing is already legible to senior international readers. Biography highlights Dean, School of Economics, Fudan University; Cheung-Jiang Professor of Economics. Founding Director, China Center for Economic Studies (CCES), Fudan. Member, Special Advisory Committee to the Shanghai Municipal Government. Bergson Prize (2018), Association for Comparative Economic Studies; China Economics Innovation Prize (2015) with Justin Yifu Lin and Fan Gang. Author of End of Hyper Growth in China? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Unfinished Reforms of the Chinese Economy (World Scientific, 2013). Project Syndicate columnist since 2005; contributor to SCMP and the World Economic Forum. Biography Most foreign reads of the Chinese economy are constructed from data releases, export figures, and a handful of much-quoted Western analysts. Zhang Jun’s view is constructed from inside the room. He sits on the Shanghai Municipal Government’s Special Advisory Committee and was one of three economists chosen in 2015 for a direct dialogue with Premier Li Keqiang on macroeconomic policy. As Dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University and founding Director of the China Center for Economic Studies, he runs one of mainland China’s most serious institutional platforms for analysing the country’s growth model. His 2016 Palgrave book End of Hyper Growth in China? made a specific counter-argument against the consensus that China’s reliance on investment and low consumption made its growth unsustainable. The 2018 Bergson Prize from the Association for Comparative Economic Studies recognised his comparative work in the same field. Zhang publishes for international readers as well as Chinese ones. He has been a Project Syndicate columnist since 2005, with more than 70 commentaries, and writes for the South China Morning Post and the World Economic Forum. Visiting positions at LSE, Harvard, Yale, SOAS and UNU-WIDER over the past two decades mean he speaks the analytic language of Western investment committees while reading Beijing’s policy moves at source. What this gives a boardroom is rare: a voice on China who is neither cheerleading nor catastrophising, who has skin in the policy debate, and who can tell a foreign audience which structural reform signals from Beijing are real and which are rhetorical. Key speaking topics China’s growth model and the post-hyper-growth economy Structural reform and the policy direction of Beijing Chinese consumption, savings, and household demand Supply-side reform and industrial competitiveness China and the global economy: trade, capital, supply chains Shanghai and the role of regional governance in Chinese reform Ideal for Boards and investment committees weighing China exposure or repositioning regional strategy CFOs and Chief Strategy Officers in firms with significant China-linked supply chains or revenue Banks, asset managers and sovereign investors with active China allocations Senior policy and government audiences engaging with Chinese counterparts Audience outcomes A specific read on what Beijing’s current reform signals actually mean for capital allocation in China A sharper sense of which Western narratives about Chinese consumption, debt and growth are overstated and which hold up Direct context on how Shanghai’s policy apparatus thinks about reform priorities and foreign investment Better questions to take into the next China-strategy conversation at executive committee or board level

Why organisations work with Xiao Geng Sustained insider access to Chinese policy and regulatory thinking, built across roles at the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, HSBC Bank China, and senior positions at Brookings, Fung Global Institute, and Columbia Global Centers East Asia. A live, monthly published view on the US-China economic relationship through more than a decade of Project Syndicate commentary co-authored with Andrew Sheng. Founding leadership of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, one of the few institutional bridges between Western policy research and Chinese government economic thinking. Research depth across the technical questions that drive China exposure for foreign capital: exchange rate policy, capital market reform, enterprise productivity, and urbanisation. A working position inside the Greater Bay Area policy network through CUHK Shenzhen and the Shenzhen Finance Institute, giving leaders a sightline into where China’s innovation and finance corridors are heading. Biography highlights President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance. Professor of Practice at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Director of the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute. Director of the Research Institute of Maritime Silk-Road at Peking University HSBC Business School. Founding Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy and former Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Former Vice President for China at the Fung Global Institute and Director of Columbia Global Centers East Asia. Project Syndicate columnist since 2012, with more than 140 published commentaries on China and the global economy. Biography Most foreign boards still treat China as a single risk vector. The economy is more fragmented than that, and the policy logic shaping it does not move on the cycles Western investors are used to reading. A serious view of capital allocation in Asia depends on understanding how monetary policy, financial reform, and political economy interact inside Beijing’s system, not just what is announced. Xiao Geng has spent his career sitting inside that system. He is President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance and Professor of Practice at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, where he directs the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute. He also leads the Research Institute of Maritime Silk-Road at Peking University HSBC Business School. His earlier roles built the institutional reach. He was Founding Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Vice President for China at the Fung Global Institute, and Director of Columbia Global Centers East Asia. Inside the Hong Kong system he served as Head of Research at the Securities and Futures Commission. He has advised HSBC Bank China, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme. Since 2012 he has written a monthly Project Syndicate column with Andrew Sheng, covering Chinese monetary policy, technology competition, energy transition, and the financial architecture of the US-China relationship. The column is one of the few sustained English-language readings of Chinese economic policy written from inside it. Key speaking topics China’s macroeconomic outlook US-China economic and financial relations Chinese financial sector reform and regulation Capital markets and exchange rate policy in Asia Urbanisation, enterprise productivity, and the Greater Bay Area Geopolitical risk for foreign investors in China Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material China or Asia exposure CFOs, treasurers, and heads of corporate strategy reviewing supply chain or capital allocation in Asia Financial services leadership briefings on regulatory and macro direction Government, multilateral, and policy audiences working on US-China economic questions Audience outcomes A clearer read of where Chinese monetary, fiscal, and financial reform is actually heading, not what headlines suggest A working framework for the structural drivers of US-China economic tension and where they sit on the cycle Specific signals to watch on capital flows, exchange rate policy, and Chinese capital market opening A more accurate map of the policy actors and institutions that shape China’s economic decisions An informed basis for stress-testing investment, supply chain, and partnership decisions tied to Greater China

Why organisations work with Will Hutton Three decades of macro-economic analysis tested in public, from The State We’re In in 1995 through This Time No Mistakes in 2024, so the framework is not a recent rebrand. A working seat inside the institutions that shape British policy: the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector, the Commission on Creative Industries, the EU Kok Commission, and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. A genuinely structural argument on corporate purpose through The Purposeful Company, used by boards rethinking governance, executive pay and stakeholder accountability. Editorial and broadcast judgement built over years as Editor-in-Chief of The Observer and Economics Editor at Newsnight, which makes him unusually clear on which economic stories matter and which do not. Equally credible on China, Europe and the United States, so a board worrying about exposure across all three gets one coherent analysis rather than three partial ones. Biography highlights President of the Academy of Social Sciences. Principal of Hertford College, Oxford, 2011 to 2020. Co-chair of The Purposeful Company; co-founder and chair of the Big Innovation Centre. Former Chief Executive of The Work Foundation; former Editor-in-Chief of The Observer; former Economics Editor of BBC Newsnight and The Guardian. Author of seven books on political economy, including The State We’re In (1995) and This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain (2024). Chair of the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector (2010 to 2011) and the Commission on Creative Industries (2007); rapporteur to the EU Kok Commission (2004). Biography The State We’re In sold more copies than any British political-economy book since 1945. It set the terms of a debate, on short-termism, on the costs of financialised capitalism, on what serious institutional reform would look like, that the country has been having ever since. Thirty years later, This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain returns to the same argument under new conditions and was reviewed in the Financial Times, the LSE Review of Books and the Literary Review. What sits behind both books is an unusually wide working footprint. Hutton has been Editor-in-Chief of The Observer, Economics Editor at Newsnight and The Guardian, Chief Executive of The Work Foundation, and Principal of Hertford College, Oxford. He chaired the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector for the Coalition government and the Commission on Creative Industries for the Labour government, and was rapporteur to the EU Kok Commission. The current focus is institutional. As co-chair of The Purposeful Company he works with boards and asset managers on what corporate purpose, governance and executive pay should look like if shareholder primacy is no longer the working assumption. As President of the Academy of Social Sciences and chair of the Big Innovation Centre, he sits across the British social science and innovation policy systems. For senior audiences, the value is in the synthesis. Hutton reads China, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom as one connected system, and his Observer column is the long-running test bed. A board trying to make capital, governance and political-risk decisions in that environment gets a single coherent reading from a single voice with thirty years of public track record. Key speaking topics The British and European political economy Corporate purpose, governance and executive pay China, the United States and the future of the global economy Stakeholder capitalism and institutional reform The future of work and the social contract Innovation policy and industrial strategy Fairness, inequality and public sector reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of UK and European corporates assessing geopolitical and macro exposure Asset managers, pension funds and institutional investors recalibrating governance and stewardship expectations Government, regulator and think-tank audiences working on industrial strategy, public sector reform or corporate governance Senior leadership programmes at business schools and professional services firms Audience outcomes A working map of how the British, European, Chinese and US economies now connect, and where the pressure points sit A clear view of what corporate purpose and stakeholder governance mean in practice for board agendas, pay and stewardship An informed reading of how UK political and policy shifts feed through to corporate operating conditions A sharper sense of which economic news is structural and which is noise