Economic Trends & Global Markets

Why organisations work with Stephen Foerster Co-author with MIT Sloan’s Andrew Lo of In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio (Princeton University Press), a working intellectual map of modern finance built from direct interviews with ten of its pioneers, including six Nobel laureates. He can take a board through how its current investment frameworks were actually constructed, with the people who built them on the page. Federal Court qualified expert witness on investment management, portfolio management, and corporate finance, with more than fifty papers in outlets including the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Financial Economics. The analysis is the kind that has to hold up to cross-examination. Has built and delivered executive finance programmes for Bank of Montreal, BMO Nesbitt-Burns, the Canadian Securities Institute, and Alcan, specifically for senior leaders without a finance background. A sitting member of Western University’s joint pension board and former chair of Foundation Western’s Investment Committee. The fiduciary discipline he teaches is one he has exercised. Biography highlights Professor of Finance at Ivey Business School, Western University, since 1987 PhD from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; CFA designation since 1997 Co-author with Andrew Lo (MIT Sloan) of In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio (Princeton University Press); featured in The Wall Street Journal Bookshelf column; Axiom Business Awards silver medal in Personal Finance and Investing Author of Trailblazers, Heroes, and Crooks: Stories to Make You a Smarter Investor (Wiley, 2024); Axiom Book Awards bronze medal in Investing More than fifty published articles, including in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Finance, and the Financial Analysts Journal Federal Court qualified expert witness on investment management, portfolio management, and corporate finance; sitting member of Western University’s joint pension board Biography Most boards and investment committees making consequential capital decisions are not staffed by finance specialists. They sign off on portfolio risk and long-horizon investment choices with frameworks they have not built and a century of market history they have not had time to absorb. In Pursuit of the Perfect Portfolio, co-authored with MIT Sloan’s Andrew Lo and published by Princeton University Press, takes ten of modern finance’s most consequential figures, including six Nobel laureates. The book traces how investors actually came to be taught to think about risk and return. The Wall Street Journal Bookshelf column featured the book; Axiom Business Awards gave it the silver medal in Personal Finance and Investing. The 2024 follow-up, Trailblazers, Heroes, and Crooks (Wiley), uses episodes drawn from a thousand years of market history to make the same lessons stick for senior decision-makers. That historical method runs through Foerster’s work with institutions. He has taught at Ivey Business School, Western University, since 1987. He holds a PhD from Wharton and the CFA designation, and has won Ivey’s Teaching Innovation Award and the Dean Carol Stephenson Excellence in EMBA Teaching Award. He has designed and delivered executive education for Bank of Montreal, BMO Nesbitt-Burns, the Canadian Securities Institute, and other major Canadian institutions. The focus is consistent: translating finance for senior leaders who do not come from a finance background. He has also sat on the other side of the table. He sits on Western University’s joint pension board and previously chaired the Investment Committee of Foundation Western. He is Federal Court qualified as an expert witness on investment management, portfolio management, and corporate finance. His more than fifty published papers appear in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Finance, and the Financial Analysts Journal. He is currently writing the authorised biography of William F. Sharpe, the 1990 Nobel laureate whose Capital Asset Pricing Model still underpins how most institutions measure investment risk. Key speaking topics Portfolio management and asset allocation Capital markets and long-term investing Investment decision-making and risk management Modern portfolio theory in practice Behavioural traps in investing Lessons from market history Corporate finance for non-financial executives Ideal for Boards and investment committees with fiduciary responsibility for pensions, endowments, or corporate treasury CFOs, treasurers, and finance leaders responsible for portfolio and capital allocation decisions Senior executives without a finance background who oversee investment risk Asset managers and investment professionals interested in the intellectual lineage of their field Audience outcomes Where modern portfolio theory came from, and where its assumptions break down in real markets Sharper questions to put to investment managers and finance teams Which investment lessons from market history are durable, and which are products of their era Enough working knowledge to engage substantively with capital allocation and investment risk without a finance background

Federica Mogherini — European Diplomat, Academic Leader, and Former EU High Representative Federica Mogherini is the Rector of the College of Europe (since September 2020) and Director of the European Union Diplomatic Academy, implemented by the College of Europe (since August 2022). Previously, she has served as the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission (2014-19). Prior to joining the EU, she was Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (2014), and a Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies (2008-14). In her parliamentary capacity, she was Head of the Italian Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Vice-President of its Political Committee (2013-14); member of the Italian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2008-13); Secretary of the Defence Committee (2008-13); and member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. She also coordinated the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Development Cooperation. She has co-chaired the United Nations High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement from January 2020 to September 2021. Federica Mogherini is a member of the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (ADBM), of the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group and of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Fellow of the German Marshall Fund, member of the Board of Directors of the Italian Institute for Foreign Affairs (IAI) and member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She was a member of the High Level Reflection Group of the Council of Europe. She has a degree in Political Science from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. She was born in Rome in 1973, lives in Belgium and has two daughters.

Why organisations work with Kim Darroch A first-hand reading of US, EU, and UK political dynamics from someone who has sat opposite the people now setting policy, not a commentator interpreting from the outside. A decade at the operational core of UK national security and European policy, covering Brexit, the Trump administration, Russian aggression in Ukraine, the rise of Daesh, and the Libya collapse. Author of Collateral Damage, the most senior insider account of the UK-US relationship under the first Trump presidency, published by HarperCollins and reviewed in Foreign Affairs. A career-long perspective on the transatlantic alliance at the moment it is under the most pressure since the Cold War, useful for boards exposed to US, European, and China risk in the same quarter. Biography highlights British Ambassador to the United States, 2016 to 2019. National Security Adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron, 2012 to 2015. UK Permanent Representative to the European Union, 2007 to 2011. Head of the Cabinet Office European Secretariat and EU adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2004 to 2007. Crossbench life peer, House of Lords; Chairperson, Best for Britain. Author, Collateral Damage: Britain, America and Europe in the Age of Trump (HarperCollins, 2020). KCMG (2008). Biography The British Ambassador to Washington is meant to be the cable channel between Downing Street and the White House. In July 2019, Kim Darroch’s frank diplomatic cables about the Trump administration were leaked to the British press, and the post became untenable. He resigned, closing a forty-year career in HM Diplomatic Service from inside the most public diplomatic incident in modern British memory. That career was built at the centre of UK foreign policy. As National Security Adviser to David Cameron from 2012 to 2015, he chaired the brief covering Daesh in Iraq and Syria, Russian operations in Ukraine, and the collapse of state authority in Libya. Before that he was UK Permanent Representative to the European Union, and before that Tony Blair’s senior EU adviser inside the Cabinet Office. Few living British diplomats have held that range of senior posts in sequence. His memoir, Collateral Damage, is the closest thing to a Washington-side account of how the UK read the Trump administration through Brexit and the early trade negotiations. Foreign Affairs reviewed it; HarperCollins published it in the UK and PublicAffairs in the US. He served as a Resident Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics in spring 2020 and now sits as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, chairing Best for Britain. What boards get from him is unusual at the senior diplomatic level. He speaks operationally about how Washington, Brussels, and Whitehall actually decide, who holds the file, what moves the principal, where the brittle points are. That is the reading senior executives need when they are asked to price political risk into a five-year plan. Key speaking topics US politics and the Washington decision-making system The transatlantic alliance under strain The war in Ukraine and European security China, the US, and strategic competition UK foreign policy after Brexit Geopolitical risk for boards and investors Ideal for Boards and audit committees pricing political and sanctions exposure into strategy CEOs and CFOs of multinationals with significant US, European, or China revenue General counsel, government affairs, and strategy heads reading regulatory and trade risk Investor and asset management audiences exposed to sovereign and policy risk Audience outcomes A grounded reading of the current US administration’s foreign policy trajectory from someone who has worked with the principals. A clearer view of where the transatlantic alliance is brittle and where it still holds. The questions a senior leadership team should be asking its risk function about geopolitics, not the headlines. A sharper sense of how Washington, Brussels, and London actually negotiate, useful when planning lobbying, market entry, or sanctions response.

Why organisations work with Marcelo Carvalho He has run a global economics function at a major European universal bank, which means his read on rates, currencies and country risk is the same view senior fund managers and corporate treasurers are paying for. He has been Chief Economist for Brazil at three global investment banks (J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America), giving him a depth on Latin America and emerging markets that very few generalist macro speakers can match. He bridges markets and policy: two years at the IMF, two decades on the sell side, now a Senior Research Associate at ODI Global, the London-based development and policy think tank. He briefs CFOs and finance ministers with equal fluency. He has been recognised repeatedly by Institutional Investor and Latin Finance for Brazil macro coverage, signalling that his calls have been judged credible by the buy-side audience that uses his research commercially. He briefs in English, Spanish and Portuguese, which matters for organisations whose leadership team or investor base sits across the Americas and Europe. Biography highlights Senior Research Associate, ODI Global, London Former Global Head of Economics at BNP Paribas, after leading the bank’s Global Emerging Markets Research and Latin America Research desks Former Chief Economist for Brazil at J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Two years as an economist at the International Monetary Fund PhD in Economics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; MSc and BA in Economics, University of Sao Paulo Multiple Institutional Investor and Latin Finance awards for Brazil macro research; regular contributor to Bloomberg, CNBC, Reuters, Financial Times, The Economist and Wall Street Journal Biography The macro environment that institutional investors and corporate boards built their playbooks around between 1990 and 2020 is no longer the environment they are operating in. Trade is fragmenting, monetary policy is diverging across the major blocs, and emerging markets are once again a source of structural opportunity and structural risk at the same time. Reading that map well is now a board-level skill, not a back-office function. That is the territory Marcelo Carvalho has worked in for three decades, now as Senior Research Associate at ODI Global, the London-based development and policy think tank where he contributes to its macroeconomic research series. He was previously Global Head of Economics at BNP Paribas in London, leading the bank’s economics function across developed and emerging markets, having earlier run its Global Emerging Markets Research and Latin America Research desks from Sao Paulo. His earlier career sits squarely on the trading floor of global investment banking. He was Chief Economist for Brazil at J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, the kind of seat where the call has to be defensible to portfolio managers within the hour. Two years as an economist at the IMF before joining BNP Paribas in 2010 give him a public-sector perspective that most sell-side economists do not have. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Masters and Bachelor degrees from the University of Sao Paulo. His research on Brazil has been recognised in successive Institutional Investor and Latin Finance polls. He briefs boards and investor audiences in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and is a regular voice on Bloomberg, CNBC, Reuters, Financial Times, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal. Key speaking topics Global macroeconomic outlook Geopolitics and global markets Emerging markets strategy Latin America macroeconomics Monetary policy and inflation Trade policy and supply-chain fragmentation Currency dynamics and capital flows Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting medium-term capital allocation against a shifting macro backdrop CFOs, treasurers and CIOs at corporates and asset managers with exposure to emerging markets or currency risk Banking, insurance and financial services leadership teams briefing clients on global outlook Policy forums, sovereign investor conferences and economic summits with a Latin America or emerging-markets agenda Audience outcomes A clearer read on which macro shifts are cyclical noise and which are structural enough to change planning assumptions A working view of where rates, inflation and currencies are likely to diverge across major economies and what that means for cross-border decisions A specific assessment of emerging market risk and opportunity, with Brazil and wider Latin America treated in detail rather than as a sidebar An understanding of how trade policy, supply-chain fragmentation and political risk are being repriced by global investors Macroeconomic content delivered as a narrative a leadership audience can repeat back to its own board, not a research deck

Why organisations work with Elena Boheme She has run the full development lifecycle, from hotel operator design management and fit-out contracting through to property M&A and family office advisory. That breadth is rare; most advisors sit on one side of the design, build, or operate split. She co-founded Metrix Projects and Metrix Advisory in the Kingdom, and sits on the advisory board of RED Summit KSA and the Modern Building Summit KSA. That places her inside the rooms where Saudi development decisions are made, not adjacent to them. She works credibly across the capital stack, advising AETOS MFO on luxury asset and yacht financing and Triversa Holding at executive board level. International family offices use her to translate Gulf real estate exposure into something they can actually govern. She operates in English, French, and Russian fluently, with working Arabic and Mandarin, and has executed projects in China, Macau, Korea, Monaco, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Cross-cultural deal structuring is a practised skill, not a claim. Biography highlights Co-founder and Development Director, Metrix Projects; co-founder, Metrix Advisory and AETOS MFO. Executive Board Member, Triversa Holding. Strategic Advisor on Project Management, Coldwell Banker Commercial Saudi Arabia. Advisory Board member, RED Summit KSA, and Advisory Board member plus moderator, Modern Building Summit KSA 2025. Speaker and moderator across AlMashtal Knowledge of Design 2024, Cityscape Saudi Arabia 2024, Hospitality Leadership and F&B Forum UAE 2025, Furtech Show Dubai 2025, and Women in Private Equity Forum London 2025. Host of LinkedIn Live series Development Dialogues and author of the LinkedIn newsletter Project Within. Biography Saudi Arabia’s development pipeline is the largest in the world and the least forgiving. International capital arrives expecting Dubai and discovers a market with its own regulatory architecture, its own localisation requirements, and its own definition of what delivered means. Elena Boheme’s work sits inside that translation problem. She co-founded Metrix Projects and Metrix Advisory in Riyadh to do one specific job: take hospitality and residential developments from concept through to operational handover without the gaps that quietly consume budget. Before that, she spent a decade on hotel operator design management, fit-out contracting, and property development across China, Macau, Korea, Monaco, and the UAE, including hospitality projects valued at over two billion US dollars in Korea and Macau. A second strand of her work runs through capital. She co-founded AETOS MFO, a multi-family office advising on luxury real estate and yacht financing, and sits as an executive board member at Triversa Holding and strategic advisor on project management to Coldwell Banker Commercial Saudi Arabia. The combination matters: developers usually understand bricks, family offices usually understand money, and Saudi-bound investors need someone who can hold both sides of the conversation at once. She moderates and chairs across the Kingdom’s main industry platforms, including the RED Summit KSA advisory board, the Modern Building Summit KSA, Cityscape Saudi Arabia, and AlMashtal Knowledge of Design, and hosts the LinkedIn Live series Development Dialogues. The track record is operational rather than academic. For a leadership team weighing a Vision 2030 entry, that is the more useful kind of credibility. Key speaking topics Project deliverability in Saudi Arabia Localisation and market entry strategy for the Kingdom Real estate development lifecycle, from design through operations Cross-cultural deal structuring in the Gulf Women in real estate development and leadership Family office exposure to Gulf real estate Ideal for International hospitality operators and developers planning entry into Saudi Arabia Family offices and private investors building Gulf real estate exposure Boards of project management, design, and construction firms expanding into the Kingdom C-suite teams at firms shifting from regional MENA presence to substantive KSA delivery Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of what separates a signed Saudi deal from a delivered asset The localisation choices that decide whether a foreign operator can actually execute in the Kingdom A working map of how design, build, operate, and capital decisions interact across a Gulf development Specific failure modes she has seen at the hand-off between international design teams and local execution A perspective on Saudi development from someone embedded in it, not commenting from outside

Why organisations work with Jean Asselborn Nineteen years of continuous EU foreign ministerial decision-making, spanning the 2008 financial crisis, the eurozone crisis, the 2015 migration shock, Brexit, and Russia’s war on Ukraine. A board hearing him is hearing from the room, not about it. Led Luxembourg into its first ever UN Security Council seat in 2013 to 2014, including chairing the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and steering humanitarian resolutions on Syria. A working brief on how small-state diplomacy moves a multilateral system. A public record of confronting democratic backsliding inside the EU, including a documented call for Hungary’s expulsion in 2016. Useful for any leadership audience wrestling with values, compliance, and political risk in European markets. Decorated by both the German and French states (Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, 2010; Commander of the Legion of Honour, 2013) and recognised with the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize, 2016. A credible Franco-German interlocutor at a moment when the Paris-Berlin axis is again the structural question. Biography highlights Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2023; the longest-serving foreign minister in EU history. Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2013, under Jean-Claude Juncker. Presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005. Architect of Luxembourg’s elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2010); Commander of the French Legion of Honour (2013); Grand Media Prize, Franco-German Journalism Prize (2016). Subject of two published political biographies, “Merde alors!” by Margaretha Kopeinig (Czernin Verlag, 2021) and “Die Tour seines Lebens” by Michael Merten. Biography For nineteen years, every major European foreign policy crisis crossed the desk of Luxembourg’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the 2015 migration emergency, Brexit, the rule-of-law fights with Warsaw and Budapest, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Jean Asselborn was in the room for all of them, from 2004 to 2023, longer than any foreign minister in EU history. The seat mattered. Luxembourg is small enough to be heard without threatening anyone, and Asselborn used that position to push the EU on values when larger member states preferred to look away. He called publicly for Hungary’s expulsion from the bloc in 2016 over the treatment of asylum seekers, and remained one of the most consistent ministerial voices on democratic backsliding inside the Union. He also built institutional weight beyond Brussels. As Deputy Prime Minister from 2004 to 2013, he presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005, and engineered Luxembourg’s first elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. During that term Luxembourg chaired the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and helped pass the Syria humanitarian resolutions that defined the Council’s response that year. France and Germany have both recognised him at the highest civic level: the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in 2010, the Legion of Honour as Commander in 2013, and the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize in 2016. For organisations trying to read what the Paris-Berlin axis, the European Commission, and a more brittle multilateral order will actually do next, Asselborn is one of the few accessible voices who spent two decades inside those decisions. Key speaking topics European integration and the future of the EU The rules-based international order and multilateralism Democracy and rule of law inside the European Union Franco-German relations and the EU institutional axis UN Security Council diplomacy and small-state influence Migration, asylum, and European border policy Transatlantic relations and EU strategic autonomy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material European exposure assessing political and regulatory risk Public affairs, government relations, and ESG leads working at EU-institution level Banking, asset management, and defence audiences pricing geopolitical and sanctions risk in Europe Foundations, NGOs, and policy convenings on democracy, human rights, and multilateralism Audience outcomes A first-hand reading of how decisions actually get taken inside the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council A sharper view of where rule-of-law tensions inside the EU are heading, and what that means for operating in those member states A clear sense of how the Franco-German axis and the European Commission are likely to align on the next phase of sanctions, enlargement, and defence An informed perspective on the limits and uses of multilateral institutions, drawn from a UN Security Council term A serious, non-partisan frame for discussing democracy, migration, and European values without recourse to talking points

Arunjay Katakam: Reimagining Prosperity for a Fairer World Arunjay Katakam is the author of Generation Hope: How Inclusive Economics Can Help Us All Thrive. He is a writer, speaker, thinker, serial entrepreneur and recovering wealth-chaser, having realized in May 2020 that by wanting to be super rich, he was part of the problem. Arunjay left a career in investment banking and has spent over a decade in international development, working with the GSMA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among other development agencies, to increase financial inclusion through cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure. In a previous life, he mentored over 20 inclusive fintech startups with DFS Lab and was a venture builder with Catalyst Fund. He diligently advocates for a zero-fee customer payment model in his first book, The Power of Micro Money Transfers. In 2020, Arunjay created the Inclusive Action Lab, a nonprofit startup that is incubating moonshot ideas focused on ending poverty for the last billion people by 2030.

Why organisations work with Margarida Matos Rosa She has run a national competition regulator from the inside. Decisions on banking, telecoms, energy, health, digital services and advertising cartels passed across her desk between 2016 and 2023, giving her a working view of how cases are built, prioritised and defended. She has sat at the policy table that shapes EU and global competition rules, as ICN Vice-Chair for Growth and Recovery and as a Bureau member of the OECD Competition Committee. Few speakers can read the regulatory direction of travel from inside both bodies. Her background bridges competition policy and capital markets. Earlier roles at the Portuguese Securities Market Commission and at BNP Paribas, Santander Investment and UBS Bank mean she speaks credibly on the Savings and Investments Union, financial regulation and the cost of capital, not only antitrust. She translates regulation into board language. Boards leave with a sharper view of how competition enforcement, digital rules and capital markets integration affect their pricing, M&A pipeline and growth assumptions. Biography highlights President of the Portuguese Competition Authority, 2016 to 2023. Vice-Chair, International Competition Network (Growth and Recovery), 2022 to 2023. Bureau member, OECD Competition Committee, elected by peer authorities. Senior Consultant, Compass Lexecon International practice. Former Managing Director, Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM), investment management supervision. Earlier career at BNP Paribas, Santander Investment and UBS Bank in economic research, investment banking and asset management. MPA, Princeton University. Economics degree, Université Catholique de Louvain. Fulbright scholar at MIT. Biography Competition policy used to sit in a corner of corporate strategy: a compliance file, occasionally a deal-breaker, rarely a board-level lens. That has changed. Digital markets rules, merger thresholds and cartel enforcement now move pricing, investment and M&A decisions across whole sectors, and the EU is moving on capital markets integration in parallel. Margarida Matos Rosa led Portugal’s competition regulator through that shift. As President of the Autoridade da Concorrência from 2016 to 2023, she oversaw enforcement decisions across banking, telecoms, energy, health, digital services and advertising, and built up the authority’s technical capability in AI and IT forensics for cartel detection. Her tenure is widely credited with raising the authority’s international standing. That national role sat alongside two international ones. She was elected by peers to the Bureau of the OECD Competition Committee, and was appointed Vice-Chair of the International Competition Network for Growth and Recovery in 2022, a portfolio focused on the interface between antitrust and macro-economic policy after the pandemic. She now advises clients of Compass Lexecon’s International practice as a Senior Consultant. Her earlier career gives her an unusually wide read of the regulatory landscape. Before competition policy, she ran investment management supervision at Portugal’s Securities Market Commission, and held roles at BNP Paribas, Santander Investment and UBS Bank covering economic research, investment banking and asset management. That financial markets grounding is what makes her credible on the Savings and Investments Union and on how capital allocation responds to a tighter EU regulatory perimeter. Key speaking topics Competition policy and antitrust enforcement EU single market and strategic autonomy Digital markets regulation Productivity and AI in regulated markets Savings and Investments Union and capital markets integration Financial regulation and capital markets oversight Institution building in economic regulators Ideal for Boards and executive committees of regulated firms in banking, telecoms, energy, digital and consumer markets General counsels, heads of strategy, heads of M&A and chief economists managing competition and digital regulation exposure CFOs and treasurers reading EU capital markets and Savings and Investments Union signals Policy and government affairs leaders shaping engagement with national and EU competition authorities Audience outcomes A clearer read on how EU and national competition enforcement is moving, and where it is likely to bite next A working understanding of how digital markets rules interact with innovation, pricing and platform strategy A view from inside a regulator on how cases are prioritised, built and resolved A sharper sense of how the Savings and Investments Union and capital markets integration affect cost of capital and cross-border deals A practical framework for engaging credibly with competition authorities, the European Commission and the OECD

Why organisations work with Juliet Mann Two decades anchoring live business news on CNN, CNBC, Sky News, Reuters, TRT World and CGTN Europe, which means she can chair a senior panel without rehearsal scaffolding and recover any conversation that starts to slide. A working interviewer’s instinct built on direct exchanges with EU policymakers, with CEOs at Nestle, L’Oreal, Geox and Lafarge, and with figures including Sir James Dyson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Comfortable across the editorial range a serious corporate programme actually demands: macroeconomics, geopolitics, sustainability, digital and entrepreneurship, rather than a single specialism that limits the brief. Current host of CGTN Europe’s The Agenda, a weekly current affairs talk show, which keeps her in daily practice with the format most conferences are trying to emulate on stage. Bilingual in English and French, which matters for pan-European audiences, multinational client events and continental press engagements. Biography highlights Host of The Agenda, CGTN Europe’s weekly current affairs talk show. Former anchor and correspondent for CNN’s Marketplace Europe, the network’s weekly European business programme. Newsroom postings with CNBC, Sky News, TRT World and Reuters in London, Paris, New York and Frankfurt. Interview credits include Sir James Dyson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu (for the BBC), David Beckham (during London’s successful 2012 Olympic bid), and CEOs of Nestle, L’Oreal, Geox and Lafarge. Corporate broadcast credits with EY TV and HSBC TV; podcast A Week in my Flexible Working Life; freelance features for The Daily Telegraph and Economia. Politics degree, University of Bristol; works in English and French. Biography Live business television is the most exposed form of moderation there is. The anchor has to read an executive in real time, hold a line through interruptions, and translate a balance sheet, a geopolitical risk and a customer story into one coherent conversation, on air, with no edit. That is the practice Juliet Mann has been in for more than two decades. She has anchored from the London, Paris, New York and Frankfurt newsrooms of CNBC, CNN, Sky News, TRT World and Reuters. At CNN’s Marketplace Europe she sat opposite EU policymakers and the chief executives of Nestle, L’Oreal, Geox and Lafarge. At Sky News she interviewed David Beckham the morning London won the 2012 Olympics and rode the last transatlantic Concorde. For the BBC she interviewed Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Today she hosts The Agenda, CGTN Europe’s weekly current affairs programme, where the brief is to take a single international story, build a panel around it and keep the conversation tight enough to publish. That is the working repertoire she brings to the corporate stage: chairing a CEO interview, moderating a board-level panel on growth or sustainability, anchoring an awards ceremony, hosting a Brussels policy roundtable. She works in English and French. She prepares like a journalist, not like a host-for-hire, which is the difference clients notice in the room. Key speaking topics Conference hosting and moderation Executive interviews and on-stage CEO conversations Awards ceremonies and corporate compering Panel moderation on business, sustainability and entrepreneurship European policy and EU-facing discussion forums Bilingual English and French event hosting Ideal for Corporate conferences, AGMs and customer summits that need an experienced live business anchor in the chair. Awards ceremonies and gala dinners where presence and pace decide the evening. Board-level panels and CEO fireside formats on sustainability, growth, geopolitics or digital. Pan-European events and Brussels policy forums requiring bilingual English and French hosting. Audience outcomes A programme that runs to time and lands its key messages. Executive interviews that produce substantive, quotable answers rather than rehearsed lines. Panels that stay on the topic the audience came to hear, with each contributor properly drawn in. A professional broadcast register on stage, suitable for filmed content and post-event clips.

Why organisations work with Katie Prescott She covers the AI infrastructure, capital and policy story as her day job for The Times, which means clients get a current read rather than a recycled keynote deck. Her book on Mike Lynch and the Autonomy sale to Hewlett-Packard is a working case study in how technology valuations, governance and cross-border legal exposure actually collide; few speakers can talk through that material with original reporting behind it. A decade at the BBC, including business news on Radio 4’s Today programme, gives her a rare ability to host and interview senior executives on stage without scripted stiffness. Tech Commentator of the Year at the 2024 UK Tech Awards confirms what bookers already use her for: trusted, named commentary at the level a board will quote back internally. She co-hosts The Times Tech Podcast with Danny Fortson, which keeps her sourced inside both London and Silicon Valley rather than reliant on second-hand briefings. Biography highlights Technology Business Editor, The Times, and weekly business columnist. Co-host, The Times Tech Podcast, with Danny Fortson, Sunday Times West Coast Correspondent. Author, The Curious Case of Mike Lynch (Macmillan Business, 2025); named a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. Tech Commentator of the Year, UK Tech Awards, 2024. Approximately a decade at the BBC, including presenting business news on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the BBC New York Bureau. Degree in Modern Languages, University of Oxford. Biography The 2011 sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard for more than 11 billion pounds turned into a thirteen-year legal fight, two transatlantic trials and, in August 2024, the sinking of the Bayesian yacht off Sicily. The Curious Case of Mike Lynch, published by Macmillan Business in 2025, is the most detailed account of that story to date, and Katie Prescott reported and wrote it while running The Times’ technology business desk. That dual role is the point. Prescott covers AI capital flows, hyperscaler infrastructure, government and Big Tech relations, and UK technology policy as her standing brief, with a weekly column and The Times Tech Podcast co-hosted with the paper’s West Coast correspondent Danny Fortson. The reporting is current. It is also sourced; she is on the phone to founders, investors and regulators in the week she walks on stage. Before The Times, she spent roughly a decade at the BBC, presenting business on Radio 4’s Today programme and reporting from the corporation’s New York Bureau. That background shows on stage. She moderates senior panels, interviews chief executives in front of their own customers, and chairs board-level discussions with the timing of a working broadcaster rather than a guest speaker. The 2024 UK Tech Awards named her Tech Commentator of the Year, and her Mike Lynch book was selected as a Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2025. The combined record is what serious organisations are buying: a working journalist with the access to call the technology story accurately, and the platform to be quoted doing it. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence, capital and infrastructure The technology business in 2026 Founders, fraud and governance lessons from the Autonomy case Government, regulators and Big Tech The UK and European technology sector Hosting, moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting AI investment and vendor strategy CTOs, CIOs and chief digital officers needing an outside read on the sector Investor days, partner summits and customer conferences requiring a credible interviewer Communications and policy leadership preparing for greater regulatory and media scrutiny Audience outcomes A clearer view of where AI capital is actually flowing and which infrastructure dependencies matter A working sense of how technology valuations, governance and litigation interact, drawn from the Autonomy and Hewlett-Packard case Named, current examples from The Times’ technology coverage rather than recycled trend material For hosted formats, executive interviews that get past prepared answers without becoming hostile

Why organisations work with Omar Christidis He has spent a decade mapping the MENA digital economy at a depth no global consultancy replicates: 30+ Arabnet conferences, 15+ original research reports and direct visibility into more than 650 regional startups. He sits inside the deal flow as Partner and Board Member at Flat6Labs Beirut, so his read on what is actually getting funded in the region is operational, not commentary. His advisory work with the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Foresights Program and the Aspen Institute UK gives him a policy-grade frame on technology that translates well to boards weighing geopolitical exposure alongside digital strategy. He is one of the few speakers who can hold a serious technology conversation in both English and Arabic for a regional C-suite audience, with the Yale and Booz analytical pedigree to back it up. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Arabnet, the MENA-focused digital events, media and research company, founded in Beirut in 2009. Partner and Board Member, Flat6Labs Beirut, a $20m accelerator with 33 investments in Lebanese startups. Advisory Board Member, Strategic Foresights Program, Middle East Institute, Washington DC. Faculty Member and Moderator, Aspen Institute UK. BA and MBA, Yale University; former consultant at Booz & Co. MENA. Named Global Finance Magazine Top Innovator for the Middle East (2018); featured in Forbes, CNN, CNBC Arabia and Sky News Arabia. Biography The MENA digital economy is no longer an emerging-market footnote. Over the past decade it has produced unicorns, regulatory frameworks for fintech and e-commerce, and a regional venture industry that now writes cheques large enough to keep founders at home. Few people have shaped that shift more practically than the founder of Arabnet. Arabnet was launched in Beirut in 2009, after Omar Christidis left a role in private wealth management in New York during the financial crisis and a stint at Booz & Co. in the MENA. The company has since organised more than thirty regional tech conferences, published over fifteen original research reports on the Arab digital ecosystem, and supported 650+ startups, becoming the standing forum where founders, corporates and investors meet. His credibility is built on access, not opinion. As Partner and Board Member at Flat6Labs Beirut, a $20m accelerator with 33 Lebanese investments, he sees what is being funded. As an Advisory Board Member of the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Foresights Program in Washington and a Faculty Member at Aspen Institute UK, he sees how regional technology decisions are being read in policy circles. The result is a speaker who can tell a Gulf board what the next wave of digital challengers actually looks like, where capital is moving, and which corporate innovation playbooks travel and which do not. Global Finance Magazine named him Top Innovator for the Middle East in 2018; the World Economic Forum named Arabnet a Top 100 Arab World Startup the year before. Key speaking topics MENA digital economy and startup ecosystem Corporate innovation strategy Digital disruption and emerging business models Tech investment and venture capital in the Arab world Future of media and advertising Fourth industrial revolution Banking and fintech in the Middle East Ideal for Boards and C-suites of regional incumbents in banking, telco, media and retail facing digital challengers Global corporates entering or scaling in MENA who need a regional read on customer behaviour and competitive risk Investors, family offices and sovereign funds allocating to MENA technology and venture Government and policy audiences shaping digital, fintech and innovation regulation in the region Audience outcomes A current, named view of where MENA digital capital is flowing and which sub-sectors are concentrating A working frame for distinguishing genuine regional disruptors from imported business models that will not survive local conditions Specific examples of how incumbents in banking, retail and media have responded to digital challengers in MENA, and what worked A sharper read on how Gulf and Levant regulators are shaping the operating environment for technology businesses

Why organisations work with Dan Walters Five decades inside the Sacramento Capitol press corps, from Jerry Brown’s first governorship to the current administration, with relationships that predate most of the elected officials he covers. Founding editor of the California Political Almanac and co-author of The Third House, the standard reference on lobbying inside the California legislature. One of the few commentators who reads the state budget, the floor calendar and the ballot initiative pipeline as a single connected system, then explains it in language a board can act on. Over 9,000 columns syndicated across dozens of California papers, with a track record of calling political and fiscal shifts before they reach the national press. Biography highlights Opinion columnist, CalMatters (2017 to present), writing four times weekly on California politics and policy. Daily column previously ran in The Sacramento Bee for 33 years and The Sacramento Union for three. Author, The New California: Facing the 21st Century, used as a college text on California socioeconomic and political trends. Co-author, The Third House: Lobbyists, Money and Power in Sacramento (University of California Press). Founding editor, California Political Almanac. Frequent on-air commentator on California policy for CNN, Fox and PBS SoCal. Biography California’s legislature, governor’s office and ballot system together set policy that reshapes regulation, labour costs and capital allocation across the country. Reading that system from the outside is hard. Reading it from inside the Capitol press corps for fifty years is a different proposition. Walters joined the Sacramento Union’s Capitol bureau in 1975, became its bureau chief, and in 1981 launched the only daily newspaper column dedicated to California state politics. He moved the column to The Sacramento Bee in 1984, where it ran for 33 years, then to CalMatters in 2017, where it continues four times a week. The total now exceeds 9,000 columns syndicated across dozens of California papers. The body of work behind the column matters. The New California: Facing the 21st Century, drawn from a 9,000-mile drive through all 58 counties, became a college text on the state’s socioeconomic direction. The Third House, co-authored and published by the University of California Press, remains a standard reference on how lobbying actually functions inside the California legislature. He is also the founding editor of the California Political Almanac. For an audience trying to anticipate California’s next move, that history is the value. Walters can name which committees decide what, which lobbies are ascendant, which budget assumptions are about to fail and which initiatives have the signatures to reach the ballot. CNN, Fox and PBS SoCal use him as a California policy commentator for the same reason boards do: he has been inside the room while the rules were being written. Key speaking topics California political and policy outlook Sacramento legislative and budget process Lobbying and interest-group power in California California ballot initiatives and direct democracy California’s economic and demographic trajectory Public works planning and finance under polarised politics Election-year political climate Ideal for Boards, general counsel and government-affairs leaders with material California exposure Industry associations, infrastructure and public-works bodies operating in the state Investors and operators tracking California regulatory and fiscal direction Public agencies, joint-powers authorities and policy convenings Audience outcomes A clearer read of where California policy is heading on tax, regulation and spending Specific names and committee dynamics behind the issues most relevant to their sector A working sense of which interest groups are winning and losing inside Sacramento Sharper questions for their own government-affairs and risk teams Distinction between political theatre and the decisions that will actually move