Economic Forecasting speakers

Why organisations work with George Papandreou He ran a G20 economy through the most acute phase of the eurozone crisis. His account of negotiating with the IMF, ECB and European Commission is operational, not theoretical. He has held the two roles that shape Greek and European foreign policy, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, giving him an unusual horizontal view of how European institutions actually decide. As President of the Socialist International for 16 years, he built and maintained relationships with heads of government across more than a hundred parties worldwide, which informs how he reads political risk outside Europe. His current Council of Europe role as General Rapporteur on Democracy puts him inside the live work on democratic backsliding across 46 member states, not commenting on it from outside. He brings a specific, named thesis on the eurozone, that the architecture is unfinished and that the political legitimacy of monetary union is the real binding constraint, and is willing to argue it on the record. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Greece, October 2009 to November 2011, through the first sovereign debt rescue inside the euro area. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, 1999 to 2004, the period of the Greek-Turkish diplomatic opening. President of the Socialist International, 2006 to 2022; now President Emeritus. General Rapporteur on Democracy, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, with PACE adopting his June 2024 report on participatory and deliberative democracy. Fellow, Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs (1992 to 1993) and Institute of Politics (Fall 2012); led the IOP study group “(Re)designing Europe”. Grand Cross decorations from Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Finland and Sweden; TED Global 2013 speaker on democratic deficit and trust. Biography Greece reached the edge of default inside the euro in 2010. The government that called the IMF was led by George Papandreou, who took office in October 2009 with a public finance hole that nobody on the European side had priced in. The decisions made in the following 24 months, on austerity, on bondholder participation, on whether the eurozone would let a member state fail, shaped a decade of European economic policy. Papandreou had reached that chair through a long political career. He had been Foreign Minister from 1999 to 2004, the period associated with the Greek-Turkish rapprochement, and President of PASOK from 2004. From 2006 to 2022 he was President of the Socialist International, which gave him direct working relationships with heads of government and party leaders across more than a hundred countries. His current work is at the Council of Europe, where he is General Rapporteur on Democracy for the Parliamentary Assembly. In June 2024 PACE adopted his report calling on member states to strengthen participatory and deliberative processes, a substantive technical agenda rather than rhetorical concern about democratic decline. He has paired this with academic work at Harvard, including the Institute of Politics study group “(Re)designing Europe”, and earlier as a Fellow at the Center for International Affairs. For boards and executive audiences, the value is specificity. He can describe how the Eurogroup made decisions in the early hours of a Monday morning, why the political economy of monetary union remains the binding constraint on European integration, and how participatory democratic reforms now under negotiation will change the regulatory environment that companies face across Europe. Key speaking topics The eurozone, sovereign debt and the unfinished architecture of monetary union European political risk and the future of European integration Democratic backsliding and institutional reform in Europe Greece, Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean Crisis leadership at the level of national government Participatory and deliberative democracy Global governance and multilateral cooperation Ideal for Boards and executive committees with significant European exposure assessing political and sovereign risk Heads of public affairs and government relations working on EU institutional reform Investor audiences and capital allocators with euro area sovereign and equity positions Foreign policy and security forums focused on the eastern Mediterranean and Europe’s neighbourhood Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a sovereign debt rescue inside the euro area was actually negotiated A reading of the political constraints that still sit underneath the euro and what could reopen them A view of which European democracies are most vulnerable to institutional erosion and why A clearer sense of how Council of Europe and EU-level democratic reforms will shape the operating environment A working framework for thinking about the link between economic shock, political legitimacy and policy

Why organisations work with Gerard Lyons A working chief economist’s read on the world cycle, drawn from over a decade as Global Head of Research at Standard Chartered, where his team was ranked the most accurate forecaster in the world by Bloomberg in 2010 and 2011. A record of calling turning points before consensus: the 2008 recession a month before Lehman, Japan’s lost decades a decade earlier, early warnings on the eurozone, and the rise of China when much of the City was sceptical. Inside experience of UK economic policy from the top: lead adviser to Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain and Chief Economic Adviser to Boris Johnson at the Greater London Authority. Direct authority on the politics of capital, with testimony on state capitalism and sovereign wealth to committees of the US Senate, the US House, and both Houses of the UK Parliament. A 2019 candidate for Governor of the Bank of England who now sits as Senior Independent Director at Bank of China (UK), chairs the risk committee at BGC Partners, and advises the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. Biography highlights Chief Economist, Global Head of Research and adviser to the board at Standard Chartered Bank, 1999 to 2012, running a global team of more than 180 economists ranked the most accurate forecaster in the world by Bloomberg in 2010 and 2011 Chief Economist and Executive Director at Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, 1989 to 1999, where he called Japan’s lost decades and wrote a regular column in the Nikkei Chief Economic Adviser to the Mayor of London under Boris Johnson, 2013 to 2016, and lead adviser to Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain Author of The Consolations of Economics (Faber and Faber), named one of The Telegraph’s Books of the Year, and co-author of Clean Brexit (Biteback), listed by The Economist among its best books on Brexit Chief Economic Strategist and shareholder at Netwealth; Senior Independent Director at Bank of China (UK); risk committee chair at BGC Partners; member of the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum and of the UK’s Economic Honours Committee 2019 candidate for Governor of the Bank of England, with a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London Biography The defining feature of the current cycle is that it does not rhyme with the last one. Inflation behaviour and central bank credibility have both shifted, and the geopolitics of trade now moves capital along lines the previous cycle did not teach. Reading this environment well takes someone who has run a global research desk through several earlier turns of it. The forecasting record runs back a long way. At Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, then the largest bank in the world, Lyons was chief economist through the 1990s, called Japan’s lost decades and wrote a regular column in the Nikkei. Standard Chartered was the bigger stage. As Global Head of Research, Chief Economist and adviser to the board from 1999 to 2012, he ran a team of more than 180 economists across global macro and emerging-market research, and Bloomberg ranked it the most accurate forecaster in the world in 2010 and 2011. In August 2008, a month before Lehman collapsed, he was one of only two UK economists forecasting a deep imminent recession. Public policy credibility runs alongside the markets record. Lyons was lead adviser to Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain and then Chief Economic Adviser to Boris Johnson at the Mayor of London from 2013 to 2016, work that ran from the London Living Wage to the city’s international competitiveness. He has testified on state capitalism and sovereign wealth to committees of the US Senate, the US House, and both Houses of the UK Parliament, and in 2019 was a candidate for Governor of the Bank of England. The published work pulls the threads together. The Consolations of Economics, with Faber and Faber, was named one of The Telegraph’s Books of the Year and translated into Chinese, Korean, German, and Portuguese. Clean Brexit, co-authored with Liam Halligan for Biteback, was listed by The Economist among its best books on Brexit. A Queen Mary, University of London PhD sits behind current roles that now run from Chief Economic Strategist at Netwealth to Senior Independent Director at Bank of China (UK), risk committee chair at BGC Partners, the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook UK economic policy and competitiveness China and emerging markets Monetary policy and central banks Financial markets and the City of London Energy security, climate finance and the green transition Geopolitical risk and global capital flows Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting capital allocation against the macro cycle CFOs, treasurers, and CIOs in banks, asset managers, and corporates with cross-border exposure Government, policy, and trade audiences working on UK growth, financial services, and post-Brexit strategy Leadership offsites in organisations with material exposure to China, India, and emerging markets Audience outcomes A working read on where inflation, interest rates, and growth are heading across the major economies A clearer view of how geopolitics, sanctions, and great-power competition are reshaping capital flows A defensible house view on China and emerging markets that goes past the headline narrative A sharper sense of the UK’s structural position on growth, financial services, and competitiveness Specific, named scenarios that a board can test its strategy against

Why organisations work with Graeme Leach A working forecaster, not a commentator. Two decades as Chief Economist at the Institute of Directors and earlier at the Henley Centre for Forecasting give him a record of calling macro turning points for business audiences before they show up in headlines. One of the few UK economists who connects monetary policy, geopolitics, and long-horizon demographics in a single argument. His “The RACE” keynote forces leadership teams to think about technology adoption and demographic decline as the same strategic problem. A senior policy voice, not just a market voice. Membership of the IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee and the Legatum Institute senior fellowship put him inside the UK debate on interest rates, productivity, and prosperity, which matters to boards making capital allocation calls. Built for serious audiences. Nearly 1,000 keynotes in 25 countries, including Royal Albert Hall scale, with a reputation for making complex macro intelligible to non-economists in the room. Biography highlights CEO and Chief Economist, macronomics, a macroeconomic, geopolitical and future megatrends research consultancy founded in 2016. Chief Economist and Director of Policy, Institute of Directors, 1997 to 2014, and a main board director. Senior Fellow, Legatum Institute, and former Director of Economics and Prosperity Studies. Member, IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Weekly columnist, City AM. Former Chief UK and International Economist, The Henley Centre for Forecasting. Regular contributor on BBC News, Sky News, BBC Radio 4 Today and World at One. Almost 1,000 keynotes delivered across 25 countries. Biography The macroeconomic backdrop business leaders operate against has stopped being a single curve and become a set of intersecting ones. Interest rates, inflation, geopolitical risk, demographic decline, and the productivity story behind AI now move together. Boards need a forecaster who can read them as one system. That is the job Graeme Leach has done for UK business for more than two decades. As Chief Economist and Director of Policy at the Institute of Directors from 1997 to 2014, he was the macroeconomic voice for thousands of UK directors through the dotcom cycle, the financial crisis, and the early years of the post-2008 recovery. Before that he was Chief UK and International Economist at the Henley Centre for Forecasting, one of the original commercial forecasting houses in London. In 2016 he founded macronomics, where he advises corporate and institutional clients on global outlook, geopolitical risk, and the megatrends that sit underneath them. The work is reinforced by a Senior Fellowship at the Legatum Institute, a seat on the IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, and a weekly City AM column, giving him a continuous read on UK monetary policy and prosperity debates. His signature keynote, “The RACE for economic supremacy in the 21st century”, argues that the advanced economies are racing to capture the productivity gains of technology before demographic decline erodes growth. It is the kind of argument that connects what a CFO sees on the rate curve to what a CHRO sees in the workforce data. Across nearly 1,000 engagements in 25 countries, the reputation is consistent: he makes the complicated sound simple without making it sound small. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook UK economic outlook and monetary policy Geopolitical risk Demographic change and productivity Future megatrends Brexit and UK political economy Long-run scenarios for the world economy Ideal for Board and ExCo strategy offsites setting capital allocation under macro uncertainty CFO and treasury audiences planning against rate, inflation, and currency cycles Industry conferences and corporate client events needing a senior macro voice After-dinner and keynote slots where a serious economist must hold a non-specialist room Audience outcomes A coherent reading of the global and UK macro picture, with named risks rather than a checklist A clear view of how demography, technology, and geopolitics interact over a 10 to 20 year horizon A grounded position on UK interest rates, inflation, and growth from inside the policy debate Specific implications for capital allocation, workforce planning, and international exposure

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

Why organisations work with Harold James A historian’s answer to the question leaders actually ask in a crisis: is this 1973, 2008, or something new? The framework from Seven Crashes gives boards a way to test that judgement rather than guess. Institutional access earned as the IMF’s official historian, with a chair at Princeton since 1986. Few commentators on globalization sit this close to the machinery they write about. A published thesis, not a view of the week: supply-driven crises expand markets, demand-driven crises shrink them. It changes how leaders interpret inflation, tariffs, and capital controls. Track record with serious business readers, including the Financial Times Global Business Book Award for the Deutsche Bank history and an FT Best Politics Books selection for The War of Words. Biography highlights Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies, Princeton University; Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. Official historian of the International Monetary Fund. Author of Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization (Yale University Press, 2023) and Making the European Monetary Union (Harvard University Press, 2012). Co-author of the authorised history of Deutsche Bank, winner of the Financial Times Global Business Book Award, 1996. Helmut Schmidt Prize for Economic History (2004); Ludwig Erhard Prize for writing about economics (2005); Ellen McArthur Prize for Economic History, Cambridge. Monthly columnist for Project Syndicate; associate of Princeton’s Bendheim Center for Finance. Biography Seven crashes, from the 1840s depression to Covid-19, do not all mean the same thing. In Seven Crashes (Yale, 2023), Harold James splits them into crises of supply, which tend to expand markets, and crises of demand, which tend to contract them. That distinction is the working tool he brings into boardrooms. The intellectual base is Princeton, where James has held the Claude and Lore Kelly Chair in European Studies since joining the faculty in 1986. He is Professor of History and International Affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs and an associate of the Bendheim Center for Finance. Making the European Monetary Union (Harvard, 2012) remains a standard reference on how the euro was built and what it assumed about member-state behaviour. The institutional access is unusual. James is the official historian of the International Monetary Fund, which gives him a documented inside view of how the post-war financial order actually operated through each shock. His authorised history of Deutsche Bank won the Financial Times Global Business Book Award in 1996. The War of Words, his glossary of globalization, was named to the Financial Times Best Politics Books of 2021. For corporate audiences the output is practical. A monthly Project Syndicate column tests his arguments against the news cycle. The Helmut Schmidt Prize (2004), Ludwig Erhard Prize (2005), and Cambridge’s Ellen McArthur Prize sit behind that record. When a risk committee is trying to decide whether tariffs, sanctions, or a monetary regime change is a shock or a structural shift, his Seven Crashes framework is a clean instrument for forcing that choice. Key speaking topics Globalization cycles and deglobalization Financial crises and crisis response European monetary union and the euro History of central banking Germany and the European economy International monetary and financial architecture Inflation, supply shocks, and political economy Ideal for Bank and asset manager boards setting multi-year macro and rate assumptions CROs, CFOs, and treasury leaders testing crisis playbooks against historical precedent Policy, regulatory, and central bank forums on monetary union and international finance Investor conferences and CEO summits addressing tariffs, sanctions, and the future of trade Audience outcomes A working distinction between supply-driven and demand-driven crises, with historical cases for each A sharper reading of current inflation, tariff, and capital-flow debates against the long record Perspective on the euro and European monetary policy from a historian who has written its formal history An IMF-informed view of how global financial institutions actually respond when the system is under stress

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

Why organisations work with Huang Yiping He sits on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, which puts him inside the conversation that shapes Chinese interest rate, credit, and currency decisions, not commenting on it from the outside. He runs the National School of Development at Peking University, the institution that has educated a generation of Chinese policy economists and whose research directly feeds government thinking. His digital finance research programme is the reference point for how platforms like Ant Group, WeChat Pay, and the state-run digital yuan system are reshaping Chinese banking and credit allocation. He built a career that bridges Wall Street and Beijing, with nearly a decade as Chief Asia Economist at Citigroup and a further stint at Barclays, so he reads Chinese policy with a market operator’s instinct. He is willing, as Bloomberg documented in 2024, to publicly challenge official economic strategy, which makes his private read on policy direction far more useful than the standard think tank commentary. Biography highlights Dean of the National School of Development, Peking University, and Boya Distinguished Professor. Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, reappointed in March 2024 after serving 2015 to 2018. Director of the Institute of Digital Finance at Peking University. Former Managing Director and Chief Asia Economist, Citigroup; later Chief Economist for Emerging Asia, Barclays. Co-editor, with David Dollar, of The Digital Financial Revolution in China (Brookings Press, 2022). Columnist at Project Syndicate; contributor to East Asia Forum; PhD in Economics, Australian National University. Biography China’s economic team spent the decade after the global financial crisis building a credit-driven growth model that worked until it didn’t. Huang Yiping has spent that same decade arguing, from inside the system, that the model had to change. His seat on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China gives that argument unusual weight. As Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, Huang leads the country’s most influential economic policy school. The NSD trains senior officials and publishes much of the research that informs Chinese financial and macroeconomic decisions. Before Peking University, he spent nearly a decade as Chief Asia Economist at Citigroup and Chief Economist for Emerging Asia at Barclays, which is why his reading of policy still tracks to what markets actually need to know. His research focus has shifted with the economy. The Digital Financial Revolution in China, co-edited with Brookings’s David Dollar in 2022, set the frame for how platforms, mobile payments, and the digital yuan are rewiring Chinese credit. His Project Syndicate columns through 2024 pushed Beijing to rein in local government debt and to rebalance away from investment toward household consumption. In August 2024, Bloomberg singled out his critique of official policy as one of the sharpest to come from inside the PBOC advisory structure in years. For international leaders, the value is specific. Huang can tell a board what Beijing is actually weighing on interest rates, on the property sector, on capital controls, and on the structural rebalancing that will shape Chinese demand for the next decade. He does it with the vocabulary of someone who has worked in a trading room, not only in a seminar room. Key speaking topics Chinese macroeconomic policy and PBOC decision-making Financial system reform and capital market liberalisation in China Digital finance, platform regulation, and the digital yuan Rebalancing the Chinese economy from investment to consumption Local government debt and fiscal reform in China China’s role in global trade and emerging market capital flows Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material China exposure CFOs, treasurers, and CIOs at financial institutions allocating capital across Asia Strategy and policy leads in technology and payments businesses operating in or alongside Chinese platforms Senior government, regulatory, and multilateral audiences tracking PBOC direction Audience outcomes A clearer view of how Chinese policymakers are likely to weigh monetary, fiscal, and structural choices in the next twelve to twenty-four months. An informed read on where Chinese financial reform and platform regulation are heading, from someone inside that work. A sense of the real disagreements inside the Chinese policy community, rather than the official line. Sharper questions to bring to their own China strategy, credit exposure, and supply chain decisions.

Why organisations work with Ian Goldin He predicted in The Butterfly Defect (2014) that a pandemic would be the most likely cause of the next global financial shock, six years before COVID. Boards looking for genuine foresight on systemic risk treat that record as evidence, not branding. He forecasts growth prospects across regions, including the US, Europe, China, and Asia, and across sectors such as manufacturing, banking, and AI. Asset allocators, central banks, and multinational boards use that view to stress-test capital and operating decisions over a five to fifteen year horizon. Few speakers carry both operating and academic authority on globalisation: Vice President of the World Bank, Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and Founding Director of the Oxford Martin School. His work translates directly into capital and policy decisions on geoeconomics, supply chains, urbanisation, and the impact of AI on jobs and development. These are the live questions on most international boards heading into the late 2020s. He moderates and facilitates as well as keynotes. Clients including J.P. Morgan and pharmaceutical and legal industry events have used him to open and connect multi-day programmes, shape agendas, and chair leadership conversations on top of delivering the headline keynote. Biography highlights Vice President of the World Bank (2003-2006) and Director of Development Policy (2001-2003). Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (1996-2001), advising President Nelson Mandela. Founding Director of the Oxford Martin School (2006-2016), establishing 45 research programmes and over 500 affiliated academics. Professor of Globalisation and Development, University of Oxford, and Professorial Fellow at Balliol College. Author of 25 books including The Butterfly Defect (Princeton, 2014), Age of the City (Bloomsbury, 2023, FT Best Books of 2023), and The Shortest History of Migration (Old Street, 2024). Writer and presenter of three BBC documentary series, including After the Crash and The Pandemic that Changed the World, and the BBC Analysis The Death of Globalisation (2023). Biography In 2014, The Butterfly Defect argued that the next major global financial shock was most likely to come from a pandemic running through the connective tissue of globalisation. Six years later, COVID proved the case. The book, written with Mike Mariathasan and published by Princeton, was Ian Goldin’s clearest statement of a thesis he had been building for two decades: globalisation has produced extraordinary gains and a new class of systemic risk that institutions are not yet built to manage. That argument carries weight because of where it comes from. Goldin was Vice President of the World Bank and, before that, Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, where he advised President Nelson Mandela through the early post-apartheid years. He was Principal Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a Programme Director at the OECD in Paris. The institutions sit behind the books. At Oxford, he founded the Oxford Martin School in 2006 and ran it for a decade, building 45 research programmes across more than 100 disciplines. He now leads three Oxford Martin programmes on technological and economic change, the future of work, and the future of development. His books, 25 in total, run from Exceptional People on migration to Age of the City on urban futures, with The Shortest History of Migration arriving in 2024. What boards and governments use him for is harder than topic coverage. It is the ability to connect migration, AI, climate, and supply chain stress into a coherent picture of where capital, talent, and political risk are moving over a five to fifteen year horizon, with the operational scars to know which policy moves actually land. Key speaking topics Economic growth prospects across countries, regions, and sectors Geopolitics, geoeconomics, and the fracturing rules-based order Systemic risk and globalisation AI, jobs, and the future of work The future of cities and urbanisation Long-horizon scenarios and crisis recovery Migration and demographic change Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals navigating geopolitical exposure, supply chain risk, and growth divergence across regions. Government, central bank, and multilateral audiences setting policy on development, AI, and climate. Investor and asset-allocator forums sizing long-horizon risk across regions and sectors. CSOs, heads of strategy, and CFOs responsible for capital decisions under macro and political uncertainty. Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how today’s shocks connect: pandemics, AI, migration, climate, and political fracture as one system. Specific arguments and evidence boards can use when stress-testing strategy against the next decade of global change. A sharper view of how growth prospects diverge across regions and sectors, and what that means for capital allocation, supply chains, and talent strategy. Confidence to challenge assumptions baked into long-range plans, sourced from someone who has run the institutions setting global policy.

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

Why organisations work with James K. Galbraith A measurement record that competitors cannot match: the University of Texas Inequality Project produces global pay inequality datasets used by researchers and institutions where conventional household surveys and tax data fall short. Hands-on policy experience that maps directly to corporate strategy questions on China, Europe and US industrial policy, including a four-year stint as chief technical adviser on macroeconomic reform to China’s State Planning Commission. Co-winner of the 2014 Leontief Prize alongside Angus Deaton, an award that signals first-rank standing in the economics of inequality and welfare measurement. A clear, unhedged position on where mainstream macroeconomics fails, set out in books published by Oxford University Press, Simon and Schuster, Yale University Press, and University of Chicago Press, which gives audiences something to engage with rather than a survey of consensus views. Direct line of sight into US economic policy debates through regular columns at Project Syndicate, The Nation, and American Affairs, and former service as Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Biography highlights Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. Director, University of Texas Inequality Project; Senior Scholar, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Co-winner, 2014 Leontief Prize (with Angus Deaton); Veblen-Commons Award, 2020. Elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. Former Executive Director, Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress; chief technical adviser, macroeconomic reform, China State Planning Commission, 1993 to 1997. Author of Inequality and Instability (Oxford), The End of Normal (Simon and Schuster), Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice (Yale), and Entropy Economics with Jing Chen (Chicago, 2025); The Power to Destroy forthcoming from Chicago in 2026. Biography Most macroeconomic commentary still treats inequality as a side effect of growth. The University of Texas Inequality Project, which Galbraith has directed for over two decades, treats it as a measurable feature of the system itself. Using UNIDO industrial payroll data and Theil decomposition, the project produces a global picture of pay inequality that often diverges from headline tax and survey data, and that has shaped how serious analysts read crises in Europe, the US and China. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin and is a Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. The 2014 Leontief Prize, shared with Angus Deaton, and the 2020 Veblen-Commons Award place him in the small group of economists whose work on distribution is recognised across both mainstream and heterodox traditions. Election to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences confirms the international weight of the research. The credentials sit on top of policy experience that few academic economists can claim. Galbraith ran the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress in the early 1980s and served as chief technical adviser on macroeconomic reform to China’s State Planning Commission from 1993 to 1997. He has written closely on the eurozone crisis, including Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice from Yale University Press, and on the structural drivers of slower US growth in The End of Normal. Recent work pushes harder against the foundations of the discipline. Entropy Economics, co-authored with Jing Chen and published by the University of Chicago Press in 2025, rebuilds value and production theory on physical and biological grounds rather than on equilibrium. The Power to Destroy, due from Chicago in 2026, argues that obsolete economic ideas have shaped a generation of US policy, and that what comes next depends on which ideas governments choose to operate by. Key speaking topics Global inequality and the measurement of distributional change Macroeconomic policy after the end of cheap money US industrial policy and the political economy of decline The eurozone, austerity, and the future of European integration China’s growth model and macroeconomic adjustment Financial instability and the limits of mainstream macroeconomics Post-equilibrium economics and the foundations of value Ideal for Boards and investment committees making capital allocation decisions under macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty CFOs, chief economists, and heads of strategy at financial institutions, asset managers, and multinationals with material US, Chinese, or European exposure Policy-facing audiences in central banks, finance ministries, multilateral institutions, and think tanks Senior leadership programmes seeking a substantive economist rather than a forecaster Audience outcomes A clearer view of how inequality and financial instability now shape macroeconomic outcomes, not just social ones A working frame for reading US, European and Chinese policy moves as parts of a single shifting system An informed scepticism toward conventional growth and inflation narratives, grounded in the data Galbraith’s team produces A direct argument about where mainstream economics is failing capital allocators and what alternative frameworks offer Sharper questions to bring back to internal economists, strategy teams and risk committees

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