Economic Trends & Global Markets

Why organisations work with Paolo Surico He has shown, using household and firm micro-data, that most of the consumption response to interest rates comes from mortgaged households, which is the single most useful framing for any business modelling consumer demand under a rate cycle. His American Economic Review paper on the long-run effects of government spending was cited in the UK Chancellor’s Spring Statement, which is rare evidence that academic work has moved actual fiscal policy. His advisory portfolio with the Bank of England, European Central Bank, European Commission, and Financial Conduct Authority means he reads central bank communications from the inside, not as a commentator. His ESRC GBP 1 million grant and ERC Starting Grant put him in the top tier of European macroeconomists by independent funder validation. He translates technical macro into language a non-economist board can use, which is the reason financial services and professional services firms book him repeatedly. Biography highlights Professor of Economics, London Business School Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research; Research Associate, LSE Centre for Macroeconomics Co-author, “The Long-Run Effects of Government Spending,” American Economic Review (2025), cited in the UK Chancellor’s Spring Statement Awarded a GBP 1 million ESRC grant for “Long-Run Consequences of Business-Cycle Fluctuations”; recipient of an ERC Starting Grant Former Adviser to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee; consultant to the European Central Bank, European Commission, and Financial Conduct Authority Regular contributor and commentator in the Financial Times, The Economist, Il Sole 24 Ore, and Corriere della Sera Biography Most macroeconomic commentary stops at the aggregate. Surico’s work begins where it usually ends: with the household and the firm. Using micro-data from the US and UK, he has shown that mortgaged households drive most of the consumption response to interest rate changes, while outright owners barely move at all. That finding has reframed how central banks think about transmission, and it gives commercial leaders something more useful than a forecast. His 2025 American Economic Review paper with Juan Antolin-Diaz, “The Long-Run Effects of Government Spending,” used 125 years of US data to show that military and public R&D spending produce large, persistent growth effects through their composition, not their size. The paper was cited in the UK Chancellor’s Spring Statement, which is an unusually direct line between academic research and fiscal policy. The credentials are substantial. Fellow of CEPR, Research Associate at the LSE Centre for Macroeconomics, former Adviser to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, current consultant to the European Central Bank and European Commission. A GBP 1 million ESRC grant and an ERC Starting Grant sit behind the academic record. He writes regularly for the Financial Times, The Economist, and the major Italian financial press. What sets him apart for boardroom audiences is the bridge he builds between empirical macro and decisions a leadership team has to make this quarter. When he talks about household debt, demographic change, or the redistributive effects of monetary policy, the argument lands in concrete terms that a CFO, a head of strategy, or a wealth-management chief can act on. Key speaking topics Monetary policy transmission and household debt Public debt sustainability and fiscal outlook Government spending, innovation, and long-run growth Inequality and the macroeconomy Housing, credit, and financial markets Demographic change and macroeconomic policy Ideal for CFO, treasury, and finance leadership teams in financial services, asset management, and insurance Boards and executive committees stress-testing strategy against rate, fiscal, and policy scenarios Wealth and private banking client events where senior clients want substantive macro analysis Strategy and economic-policy functions in industrials, real estate, and consumer-facing sectors Audience outcomes A clearer view of how rate decisions actually move through mortgaged households, renters, and balance sheets, rather than aggregate models A framework for reading central bank communications from the inside of the policy process Specific implications of public debt and government spending trajectories for medium-term growth and capital allocation A grounded read on inequality as a macroeconomic amplifier, not a social commentary point

Why organisations work with Pankaj Ghemawat He is the originator of the CAGE Distance Framework, the canonical model for evaluating cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic distance between countries, taught in MBA strategy courses worldwide and used inside boards making market entry decisions. He is principal author of the DHL Global Connectedness Index, the most widely cited empirical measure of cross-border flows of trade, capital, information, and people, which gives leadership teams a defensible reading of the global environment rather than headline narrative. His Law of Semiglobalization gives boards a precise corrective to the assumption that the world is either flat or fracturing, and reframes how to size international ambition against domestic baseline. He holds chairs at IESE Business School and NYU Stern, with 25 years of prior Harvard Business School faculty work, including a McKinsey Award for the best Harvard Business Review article of the year. World 3.0 won the Thinkers50 Book Award for best business book of 2010 to 2011, and The Economist named him among the greatest management thinkers in its 2008 guide. Biography highlights Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE Business School and Global Professor of Management and Strategy at NYU Stern. Director of the Center for the Globalization of Education and Management at NYU Stern. Principal author of the DHL Global Connectedness Index, introduced in 2011. Author of The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications (Cambridge University Press) and World 3.0 (Harvard Business Review Press), winner of the Thinkers50 Book Award. Recipient of the McKinsey Award for best Harvard Business Review article and the Booz Eminent Scholar Award of the Academy of Management’s International Management Division. Named among the greatest management thinkers in The Economist’s 2008 guide and ranked in the Thinkers50. Biography The hardest strategic question in front of most boards is also the one with the weakest data inside the building: how exposed are we to a world that may be fragmenting, and where should we still be investing across borders. Pankaj Ghemawat has spent his career building the empirical apparatus that answers that question. The CAGE Distance Framework, his contribution to global strategy in the 2000s, gave executives a precise way to measure cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic distance between countries. It is now standard material in MBA strategy courses and inside corporate development teams making market entry calls. World 3.0, published by Harvard Business Review Press, won the Thinkers50 Book Award for best business book of 2010 to 2011. His later work, The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications (Cambridge University Press, 2016), formalises two findings drawn from large datasets: international interactions are smaller than domestic ones, and they are dampened by distance along the CAGE dimensions. Boards that internalise both laws stop oscillating between flat-world enthusiasm and deglobalisation panic, and start sizing international ambition against measured reality. He is principal author of the DHL Global Connectedness Index, introduced in 2011 and now the most widely cited empirical measure of trade, capital, information, and people flows across borders. He holds chairs at IESE Business School and NYU Stern, where he directs the Center for the Globalization of Education and Management. Between 1983 and 2008 he was on the full-time faculty at Harvard Business School, where he was made a full professor in 1991, the youngest in the school’s history. Key speaking topics Globalisation and deglobalisation Cross-border strategy and CAGE distance Market entry and emerging markets Geopolitical risk and corporate exposure Supply chain and global value chain restructuring Global Connectedness Index and trade flows International competitive advantage Ideal for Boards and CEOs reviewing international portfolio exposure, China strategy, or sanctions risk Chief Strategy Officers and corporate development teams evaluating market entry or exit Heads of supply chain and operations restructuring after the end of cheap globalisation Senior leadership teams in multinationals setting the next horizon of cross-border investment Audience outcomes A defensible reading of the actual state of globalisation, drawn from the DHL Global Connectedness Index, not headline narrative. The CAGE Distance Framework as a working tool for evaluating country and market decisions. A clear distinction between semiglobalisation and full integration, and what that implies for strategy. Specific implications for boards on China exposure, regional concentration, and supply chain redesign. A sharper internal vocabulary for separating measurable cross-border risk from political mood.

Why organisations work with Oliver Kamm He has lived on both sides of the analyst’s desk. Twenty years at the Bank of England, HSBC Securities and Commerzbank Securities, then sixteen years and counting writing The Times leaders on economics and foreign affairs. He reads the data the way a strategist does and frames it the way an editor does. His weekly Times economics column is a primary reference point for British policy debate, which means audiences are hearing the same analysis Westminster, the City and Whitehall are reading the next morning. Authored Accidence Will Happen, endorsed by Steven Pinker as “a unique and indispensable guide to usage”, a credential that signals the rigour he brings to argument and language as well as numbers. He moves cleanly between keynote, panel moderation and after-dinner formats, which lets a single booking cover macro briefing, on-stage interrogation of a CEO and a sharper closing address. Biography highlights Leader writer and columnist at The Times since 2008, covering economics and international affairs. Twenty-year City career: Bank of England, HSBC Securities (European Equity Strategist), Commerzbank Securities (Head of Strategic Research) and founder of WMG Advisors LLP. Author of Anti-Totalitarianism (Social Affairs Unit, 2005), Accidence Will Happen (W&N, 2015) and Mending the Mind (2021). Regular contributor on Newsnight, The Today Programme, Channel 4 News, The Daily Politics, Radio 5 Live and Sky News. Bylines in The Guardian, Prospect, The New York Times and The Jewish Chronicle. Educated at New College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, University of London. Biography The case for booking a serious economics voice for a senior audience usually comes down to translation. Boards are not short of data. They are short of a credible reader of the data who can take a position without flinching, and explain it in language a non-economist will repeat in a meeting the next day. That is the role Kamm has occupied at The Times since 2008. He writes a twice-weekly economics column and is the paper’s principal leader writer on economics and international affairs, which means his analysis sits inside the daily editorial line of one of the few British newspapers still read across Westminster, the City and Whitehall. Before journalism he spent two decades inside the markets he now writes about. Bank of England, HSBC Securities as European Equity Strategist, Commerzbank Securities as Head of Strategic Research, then WMG Advisors LLP, which he founded in 2004. The City background shapes how he reads policy. Capital flows, currency exposure and the actual mechanics of investment decisions are not abstractions when he speaks about them. He is also a working author outside economics. Accidence Will Happen, his 2015 guide to English usage drawn from his Times “Pedant” column, was praised by Steven Pinker for relying on “scholarship rather than dogma”. Mending the Mind followed in 2021. The range matters: it is the reason he holds a room as moderator or after-dinner speaker as confidently as he does in a macro keynote. Key speaking topics Global economy and macro outlook International politics and policy The British economy and public policy Markets, capital flows and the City Media, journalism and editorial judgement Language, communication and clear writing Ideal for Boards and executive committees taking capital allocation or geographic-exposure decisions under macro and geopolitical uncertainty CFOs, treasurers and risk leads briefing internal audiences on the British and global outlook Conference programme owners needing one person to keynote, moderate the CEO panel and close the dinner Audience outcomes A clear, defensible read of the current macro and geopolitical picture, framed for non-economists A working sense of which signals in financial markets and policy actually matter for the year ahead Sharper questions to ask of internal economics and strategy briefings Confidence in the editorial framing of the company’s own external communication on economics and policy

Why organisations work with Nouriel Roubini His 2006 address to the International Monetary Fund, which outlined the specific structural conditions – overleveraged housing markets, fragile credit instruments, unsustainable household debt – that caused the 2008 financial crisis before they were widely recognised, gives his risk scenarios a credibility that peer analysis rarely carries. The MegaThreats framework – the argument that ten overlapping structural forces, including sovereign debt, geopolitical rivalry, AI-driven labour displacement, and climate stress, reinforce one another – equips leadership teams to analyse compound risk rather than managing individual threats in isolation. As both an academic and an active strategist at Hudson Bay Capital and Atlas Capital Team, he connects macro-risk analysis to live capital allocation decisions, not retrospective commentary. His public-sector career spans the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Treasury Department under Timothy Geithner, giving him a direct, lived understanding of how policymakers reason under pressure – and where their responses typically fall short. His forecasting runs in both directions. The economist who warned the IMF in 2006 has since argued, against consensus, that a technology-led productivity surge will sustain US growth towards 4% by the end of the decade, a case made in the Financial Times and Bloomberg. Boards get a weighed reading of upside and downside scenarios. Biography highlights Professor Emeritus of Economics and International Business, NYU Stern School of Business; previously on faculty at Yale University Author of MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How to Survive Them (Little, Brown, 2022) and Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance (Penguin Press, 2010) 2006 address to the International Monetary Fund accurately identified the structural vulnerabilities that precipitated the 2008 global financial crisis Ranked #4 on Foreign Policy’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers” (2009); named among Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World (2009); multiple further appearances on Foreign Policy’s annual list Senior Economist for International Affairs, White House Council of Economic Advisers (1998–1999); Senior Adviser to the Undersecretary for International Affairs and Director of the Office of Policy Development and Review, U.S. Treasury Department (1999–2000) Chairman and CEO of Roubini Macro Associates; Senior Economic Strategist at Hudson Bay Capital; Chief Economist and Portfolio Manager, Atlas Capital Team Monthly columnist for Project Syndicate; profiled by the Financial Times, New York Times Magazine, and Bloomberg; PhD in Economics, Harvard University; BA, Bocconi University Biography Nouriel Roubini’s most consequential professional moment came at a 2006 address to the International Monetary Fund, where he outlined the structural conditions – overleveraged housing markets, fragile credit instruments, unsustainable household debt – that would produce the 2008 global financial crisis. The IMF’s own economists were, by contemporaneous accounts, sceptical. Within two years, the scenario had materialised almost exactly as described. That track record is the foundation of his authority. Roubini is a Professor Emeritus at NYU’s Stern School of Business and Chairman and CEO of Roubini Macro Associates, with a career spanning the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Treasury Department under Timothy Geithner, and advisory roles at the IMF, the World Bank, and the Federal Reserve. His academic foundation rests on a PhD in Economics from Harvard and more than 70 published papers on sovereign debt, financial crises, and international capital flows. His 2022 book, MegaThreats (Little, Brown), advances a named framework for compound systemic risk. The thesis is precise: ten structural forces – sovereign debt at historic highs, geopolitical fragmentation, demographic pressure, AI-driven labour displacement, and climate stress among them – are not independent variables but mutually reinforcing ones. For organisations still using single-factor risk frameworks, the argument is a direct challenge to how they model exposure. Alongside his academic and research work, Roubini serves as Senior Economic Strategist at Hudson Bay Capital and as Chief Economist and Portfolio Manager at Atlas Capital Team, roles that keep his analysis connected to live capital allocation decisions. The crisis-prediction reputation understates the range of his judgment: he has recently argued in the Financial Times that a technology-led productivity boom will sustain US exceptionalism despite tariffs and fiscal strain. He is a monthly contributor to Project Syndicate and has been ranked #4 on Foreign Policy’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.” Key speaking topics Global macroeconomic outlook and downside risk scenarios Sovereign debt, fiscal dominance, and currency risk Geopolitical fragmentation and its economic consequences US-China strategic rivalry and the restructuring of global trade Financial crises: structural causes, policy responses, and systemic aftermath Inflation, monetary policy, and central bank independence AI, automation, and structural shifts in labour markets Compound systemic risk: the MegaThreats framework Ideal for Boards and executive leadership teams stress-testing strategy against macro-economic disruption CFOs, CROs, and treasury functions making capital allocation and risk management decisions in volatile conditions Investment and financial services leadership – asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds – requiring rigorous macro-risk briefings Government, public policy, and multilateral forums addressing fiscal strategy, monetary policy, and geopolitical-economic interdependence Audience outcomes A structured understanding of how macro forces – debt, geopolitics, monetary policy – interact and compound rather than operating in isolation Specific frameworks, drawn from the MegaThreats thesis, for anticipating systemic stress before it becomes visible in headline economic indicators Clarity on the geopolitical dynamics – particularly US-China rivalry, fiscal dominance risk, and the conditions for de-dollarisation – most likely to affect long-range strategic planning A more calibrated reading of central bank and government policy responses, and the structural conditions under which those responses typically fail or arrive too late Practical language and conceptual tools for articulating compound systemic risk to boards, investors, and regulators, beyond standard scenario planning conventions

Why organisations work with Ning Zhu A specific thesis on China, not a country briefing. China’s Guaranteed Bubble argues that implicit state support is the load-bearing feature of Chinese growth, and the source of its systemic risk. Audiences leave with a frame they can actually use. One of the few China-economy voices with peer-reviewed standing in the Journal of Finance and Review of Financial Studies, which means his macro reading is built on disciplined empirical work, not commentary. Operating experience inside Lehman Brothers and Nomura in Hong Kong, so the talk is calibrated to how capital allocators and quantitative desks actually think, not to a classroom audience. Behavioural finance fluency that translates into how Chinese retail investors, regulators and state-owned enterprises behave under pressure. This is rare combined with macro authority on the same market. Faculty Fellow status at Yale’s International Center for Finance and senior faculty roles at SAIF and Tsinghua, which gives him standing across Chinese policy circles and Western financial institutions in equal measure. Biography highlights Deputy Dean and Professor of Finance, Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF), Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Faculty Fellow, Yale University International Center for Finance. Author of China’s Guaranteed Bubble (McGraw-Hill), The Investors’ Enemy and The Investors’ Friend. Sun Yefang Financial Innovation Book Award, 2018. Named among Elsevier’s “China’s Most Cited Scholars,” 2022. Former Senior Executive at Lehman Brothers and Nomura Securities, Hong Kong, leading quantitative and portfolio advisory teams. Former tenured Professor of Finance at the University of California (Davis) and Chair Professor at Tsinghua University. Biography China’s economy does not behave like a textbook market. Implicit state guarantees underpin large parts of its credit system, shaping how banks lend, how households save, and how risk migrates into shadow channels. China’s Guaranteed Bubble, published by McGraw-Hill, sets out that argument in detail and is the work that defines Ning Zhu’s public profile. Zhu sits at the intersection of academic finance and operating practice. He is Deputy Dean and Professor of Finance at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a Faculty Fellow at the Yale International Center for Finance. His peer-reviewed work has appeared in the Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies and Management Science, with a particular focus on behavioural finance and Chinese capital markets. Before returning to academia full-time, he was a Senior Executive at Lehman Brothers and then Nomura in Hong Kong, where he led quantitative strategy and portfolio advisory teams. That period gives his China commentary a useful directness: he has sat on the desk that has to act on the analysis, not only write it. He has also held tenured and chair appointments at the University of California, Davis and Tsinghua University. His work has been recognised with the Sun Yefang Financial Innovation Book Award, considered one of the highest honours in Chinese economics, and inclusion on Elsevier’s list of China’s most cited scholars. For boards and investors, the value is the combination: a researcher whose behavioural finance training shows him how investors and regulators actually behave, applied to the Chinese system he has studied and worked in for two decades. Key speaking topics China’s macroeconomy and financial system Implicit state guarantees and systemic risk Behavioural finance Shadow banking and credit risk in China Global financial order and capital flows Chinese investor and household behaviour Fiscal sustainability and financial reform Ideal for Boards, CFOs and CIOs with material China exposure assessing systemic risk Investment committees, asset managers and family offices allocating to or away from Chinese assets Banking and financial services leadership teams shaping China strategy Policy and regulatory audiences working on cross-border capital and financial reform Audience outcomes A working model for how implicit state guarantees shape Chinese credit, equity and property markets A clearer view of where systemic risk actually sits inside China’s shadow banking and SOE structures A behavioural finance lens applied to Chinese retail investors and institutional decision-makers A more disciplined reading of Chinese policy signals and what they imply for capital allocation Specific questions a board or investment committee should be asking about its China exposure

Why organisations work with Nick Watt Three decades of frontline political journalism that spans Belfast through the peace process, Brussels through EU enlargement and Westminster through Brexit and five prime ministers. Few UK political journalists combine all three settings at senior level. Sourcing inside government that produces the story before the press release. Politico‘s London Playbook columnist Jack Blanchard has called his reports “always immaculately sourced and well worth a listen”, and his Brexit coverage repeatedly broke cabinet positions ahead of the formal announcement. A working understanding of both UK and EU institutional politics. Boards with European exposure or cross-border operations get analysis from someone who has reported from both sides. Broadcast discipline as a chair and moderator. He runs a panel the way he runs an interview: tight on time and sharp on the question. He explains what Westminster decisions will mean for regulation, capital allocation and operating risk, in language a boardroom can act on. Biography highlights Political Editor, BBC Newsnight (since 2016) Presenter, The Westminster Hour, BBC Radio 4 (since 2022) Former Chief Political Correspondent and European Editor, The Guardian (Brussels and London) Former Ireland Correspondent and Political Correspondent, The Times (Belfast and London) Listed at number 14 on Press Gazette‘s Top 50 Political Reporters (2012) Coverage spanning seven UK general elections, two Scottish independence referendums and the UK’s EU membership referendum Biography The UK political environment is structurally less stable than for most of the last two decades. Five prime ministers since 2016, two referendums that redrew the country’s constitutional and trading framework, and a regulatory baseline that shifts with each new government. Boards with material UK exposure now have to read political signal as part of strategic planning. As Political Editor of BBC Newsnight, Nick Watt reports from inside that environment. His nightly analysis follows Westminster decisions and cabinet dynamics, and translates what they mean for policy. Politico‘s Jack Blanchard has called his reports immaculately sourced. T-shirts were printed in Germany after Watt relayed on air an unnamed cabinet minister’s verdict on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy: “F*** knows, I’m past caring.” The Times appointed him Ireland Correspondent in Belfast in 1993, just as the peace process began. The Guardian later made him European Editor in Brussels through EU enlargement, and then Chief Political Correspondent in Westminster. Few UK political journalists have held senior roles in all three settings. For organisations with UK exposure, that combination matters. Watt explains what a vote or fiscal event will mean for businesses planning capital allocation, hiring and M&A. He has covered seven UK general elections, two Scottish independence referendums and the Brexit referendum. His Brexit reporting included extended profiles of Michel Barnier, David Davis and Olly Robbins, drawn from sources inside the negotiation. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster The UK policy and regulatory environment UK general elections and electoral cycles UK-EU relations and post-Brexit politics Political risk for boards and businesses operating in the UK European political affairs Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material UK exposure Public affairs, government relations and corporate affairs leads Financial and professional services firms monitoring UK political risk Conferences and member events covering UK politics, policy or political economy Audience outcomes The names, factions and pressures inside the current UK government likely to shape its decisions The way parliamentary arithmetic and the electoral cycle will affect tax, regulation and major policy bills The direction of the UK-EU political relationship and what changes it can realistically absorb Which Westminster developments matter for business and which are noise A practitioner’s read on UK political risk for the next 12 to 24 months

Why organisations work with Nicholas Stern He authored the most influential economic study of climate change ever commissioned by a government. The Stern Review (2006) put the cost of inaction at 5 to 20 percent of global GDP and reframed climate as the largest market failure in economic history. Boards and treasuries still cite it as the standard reference. He is a former Chief Economist of both the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and a former Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury. The institutional authority means he speaks to investment committees and finance ministries from inside their own decision frameworks. He chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE, the centre that produces the analytical work most quoted in serious climate finance and net-zero policy debate. His talks draw on its current research. He co-chaired the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices, the bodies that shaped how governments and central banks now approach carbon pricing and transition finance. He is a crossbench life peer in the UK House of Lords and a Companion of Honour. His arguments are taken seriously across political administrations and inside major financial institutions because they sit outside any party or commercial alignment. Biography highlights IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at LSE and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Lead author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (HM Treasury, 2006) Author of The Growth Story of the 21st Century (LSE Press, 2025), updating the Review’s economic case for climate action two decades on Former Chief Economist of the World Bank and of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; former Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury and Head of the UK Government Economic Service Crossbench life peer in the UK House of Lords as Baron Stern of Brentford; Companion of Honour; Fellow of the Royal Society; former President of the British Academy Recipient of the Blue Planet Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the Leontief Prize and the Schumpeter Award Biography For two decades, the question of whether climate action makes economic sense has shaped how governments and large financial institutions make capital decisions. The Stern Review, published by HM Treasury in 2006, is the document that gave that question its first authoritative answer. It put the cost of inaction at 5 to 20 percent of global GDP and framed climate change as the largest market failure in economic history. The case it made for early action is still cited by policymakers and finance ministries today. Stern’s authority on this rests on an unusually broad institutional base. He was Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2000 to 2003, having previously held the same role at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He was also Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury and Head of the UK Government Economic Service during the period when the Review was conducted. He now chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. Its analysis is the reference most often cited in serious debate over climate finance and net-zero costs. He also co-chaired the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices and the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, the latter with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Paul Polman. He sits in the UK House of Lords as a crossbench peer and was made a Companion of Honour in 2017. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a former President of the British Academy. His most recent book, The Growth Story of the 21st Century (LSE Press, 2025), revisits the Review two decades on and frames climate action as the central growth opportunity of the next two decades. Key speaking topics Economics of climate change Climate risk and capital allocation Net-zero policy and the energy transition Climate finance for emerging economies Sustainable growth and economic development Policy design for the climate transition Ideal for Boards of financial institutions and large industrial firms with material climate exposure Finance ministries, central banks and senior government policymakers working on transition policy Chief sustainability officers and chief climate officers at multinational organisations Asset owners and fund managers with net-zero or transition mandates Audience outcomes An economic argument for climate action that holds up against board-level scepticism A clearer view of where capital is and is not flowing in the energy transition, and what that means for investment and policy decisions A working understanding of how carbon pricing now sits inside government and central bank thinking A defensible position on the economics of net zero that can be referenced and revisited inside the organisation

Why organisations work with Nicholas Owen A hard-news anchor pedigree built on News at Ten, Channel 4 News and ITV Lunchtime News, which gives him the authority to chair regulated, high-stakes and politically sensitive sessions without losing the room. A documented track record on serious scientific and medical platforms, including the European Society of Cardiology and the European Haematology Association, where clinical accuracy and pacing matter as much as presence. Royal Television Society award-winning reporting credentials from his years as ITN Royal Correspondent, which translate into a calm, considered interview style suited to senior leaders and high-profile guests. After-dinner range built over fifty years in journalism and still in active demand, drawing on the memoir Days Like This, with material that works for City audiences, charity galas and trade dinners alike. Charity-sector credibility through long-standing Ambassador roles with The Prince’s Trust and The Children’s Trust, useful when the event has a philanthropic dimension that needs handling with care. Biography highlights Anchor of ITV’s News at Ten, Channel 4 News and ITV Lunchtime News across more than two decades at ITN. ITN Royal Correspondent 1994 to 2000; central to ITN’s RTS Award-winning coverage of the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. Channel 4 News Business and Economics Correspondent, following seven years at the Financial Times and earlier roles at the Evening Standard and Daily Telegraph. BBC News presenter from 2007; main relief presenter for BBC Weekend News on BBC One and the BBC News Channel. Author of Diana: The People’s Princess (Carlton Books) and the memoir Days Like This (Blenheim Press). Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Brighton (2015); Ambassador for The Prince’s Trust and The Children’s Trust. Biography A live audience programme is harder than a news bulletin. The autocue is gone, the running order will slip, and the chair has to interview a CEO, a clinician and a winner in the same hour without losing pace. Nicholas Owen has done versions of that job, on air and on stage, for the better part of fifty years. His broadcast record runs from the Surrey Mirror in 1964 through Fleet Street (Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph, seven years at the Financial Times), into BBC North East in 1981 and then ITN from 1984. At ITN he anchored News at Ten, Channel 4 News and ITV Lunchtime News, served as Business and Economics Correspondent on Channel 4 News, and presented Midnight Special during the First Gulf War. He rejoined the BBC in 2007 as a presenter on BBC News and the BBC News Channel. The work that defined his public profile was the ITN Royal Correspondent role he held from 1994 to 2000. He was central to ITN’s coverage of the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, for which ITN received a Royal Television Society Award. He later wrote Diana: The People’s Princess for Carlton Books, and his own memoir Days Like This in 2012. Corporate buyers hire him for the craft built across those decades: chairing industry conferences and awards ceremonies, moderating international medical congresses including the European Society of Cardiology and the European Haematology Association, and handling question time sessions and after-dinner programmes for City and charity audiences. The University of Brighton awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2015 for his journalism and his charity work as Ambassador for The Prince’s Trust and The Children’s Trust. He remains on air, presenting on Classic FM and contributing to radio and television. Key speaking topics Conference hosting and chairing Awards ceremony presenting Panel moderation and question time Medical and scientific congress facilitation After-dinner speaking and corporate entertainment Broadcast journalism and the Royal story Economic trends and business news interviewing Ideal for Corporate awards organisers and trade body event leads commissioning a known broadcast face to chair the night. Conference programme directors at medical, scientific and financial industry congresses needing a chair who can handle technical content with clinical pacing. Heads of internal communications running senior leadership town halls, AGMs and results events that need a steady external presence. Charity and foundation event leads where Ambassador-level fluency in Prince’s Trust and Children’s Trust subject matter adds value. Audience outcomes A programme that runs to time, handles overruns cleanly and keeps senior speakers in their slots. Interviews with panellists and award winners that draw out something memorable rather than reading the brief back at them. A host who can move between a serious clinical session, a corporate prize-giving and an after-dinner address in the same event week. An audience that leaves with the sense that the event was professionally held, not merely populated.

Why organisations work with Myron Scholes He co-created the framework. The Black-Scholes model is his own work, used daily by traders and risk managers across global markets to value derivatives. Few academics have lived both the success and the failure of model-driven finance. Scholes was a principal at Long-Term Capital Management when it collapsed in 1998 and was rescued by a Federal Reserve-coordinated bailout. That makes him sharper on leverage and on what quantitative models miss. He still manages money. As Chief Investment Strategist at Janus Henderson Investors, Scholes contributes to real portfolios for institutional clients today. He arrives with credibility already established in senior financial and policy rooms. The 1997 Nobel Memorial Prize and co-authorship of “Taxes and Business Strategy”, a standard MBA text now in its fifth edition, mean audiences engage with the substance straight away. His central argument: risk distributions move over time, and the standard practice of treating them as fixed underestimates what can happen. That position separates his current commentary from most quantitative orthodoxy. Biography highlights Co-creator with Fischer Black of the Black-Scholes options pricing model, published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1973. Recipient of the 1997 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, shared with Robert C. Merton. Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at Stanford Graduate School of Business; previously held chairs at MIT Sloan School of Management and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Chief Investment Strategist at Janus Henderson Investors and Chairman of the Board of Economic Advisers at Stamos Partners. Co-author of “Taxes and Business Strategy”, a Pearson MBA textbook now in its fifth edition. Principal and limited partner at Long-Term Capital Management; member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Biography Most of modern finance runs on a single equation. Published in 1973 in the Journal of Political Economy, the Black-Scholes formula gave traders and corporations a systematic way to price options and other derivatives. It changed how derivatives are priced and how risk is hedged across global markets. Myron Scholes wrote it with Fischer Black. The work earned Scholes the 1997 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Robert C. Merton. The Royal Swedish Academy cited a method that had opened the way for new financial instruments and more efficient risk management. The Nobel was for the formula. The harder lesson came from what happened next. From 1994 to 1998 Scholes was a principal at Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund founded by John Meriwether and staffed with senior academics, Merton among them. Early returns ran above 40 percent a year. After Russia defaulted in 1998, leverage and correlation moved against the fund, and it had to be rescued by a $3.6 billion bailout coordinated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the years since, Scholes has refined a more cautious view of markets than his early models implied. He argues that the distribution of risk itself moves over time, and that treating it as stable is the central error of much standard practice. As Chief Investment Strategist at Janus Henderson Investors, he applies this view to real portfolios for institutional clients. He remains the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and co-author of “Taxes and Business Strategy”, now in its fifth edition. Key speaking topics Risk and uncertainty in financial markets Derivatives pricing and the Black-Scholes framework Investment decision-making and portfolio construction Asset pricing and capital markets Tax planning and corporate financial strategy Incentives and market behaviour Lessons from financial crises and model failure Ideal for Chief Investment Officers and investment committee members at institutional investors and asset managers Boards and risk committees in banking, insurance and asset management Senior policy advisers and regulators responsible for financial stability Corporate treasurers and finance executives responsible for capital allocation and hedging Audience outcomes A way of thinking about risk that treats distributions as moving rather than fixed A grounded view of what financial models do well and where they break down Sharper questions to ask about leverage and tail risk in their own portfolios The historical context of modern derivatives markets, told by someone who built the underlying framework A view of tax planning as a structural input to corporate and investment decisions, not an afterthought

Why organisations work with Muhammad Yunus He has built the model he speaks about. Grameen Bank reached millions of borrowers, 96% of them women, with repayment rates above 95%, and became the template for microfinance in more than a hundred countries. His “social business” concept is operational, not aspirational. Danone, Veolia, BASF, Uniqlo, and others have launched joint social business ventures with the Yunus group under defined commercial terms. The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games adopted his framework to open procurement to social and solidarity enterprises, with nearly 500 such companies in the supply chain. Milan-Cortina 2026 has signed a follow-on agreement. He sits at the intersection of credibility most speakers cannot reach: Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Congressional Gold Medal, and recent head of state experience as Chief Adviser of Bangladesh. His “three zeros” agenda, zero poverty, zero unemployment, zero net carbon, gives boards a single frame to connect ESG, inclusion, and youth employment work that usually live in separate decks. Biography highlights Founder of Grameen Bank, awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the bank. Recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009) and Congressional Gold Medal (2010). PhD in Economics, Vanderbilt University; former Professor of Economics, Chittagong University. Author of Banker to the Poor, Building Social Business, and A World of Three Zeros. Chairman of the Yunus Centre; partner to Danone, Veolia, BASF, Uniqlo, and others on joint social businesses. Adviser to Paris 2024 on social business and inclusive procurement; agreement signed for Milan-Cortina 2026. Served as Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’s interim government, August 2024 to February 2026. Biography Grameen Bank started lending in a Bangladeshi village in the 1970s, before microcredit had a name. The borrowers were women, the loans were tiny, and the orthodoxy at the time said neither group nor product should work. The bank grew to serve millions of clients with repayment rates above 95%, and the model was copied into more than a hundred countries. The economist who built it, Muhammad Yunus, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the bank in 2006. The work since has been about converting that proof point into an operating model that companies can actually run. Yunus calls it social business: a non-loss, non-dividend enterprise designed to solve a specific social problem, governed with the same discipline as a commercial business. Danone, Veolia, BASF, and Uniqlo have set up joint ventures with the Yunus Centre on that basis, on nutrition, clean water, and affordable clothing. His books Banker to the Poor, Building Social Business, and A World of Three Zeros are the reference texts. The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games used the framework to open Games procurement to social and solidarity enterprises. Almost 500 such companies were brought into the supply chain. A follow-on agreement has been signed for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Games. That is unusual reach for an academic concept. In August 2024, Yunus returned to Dhaka to lead Bangladesh’s interim government as Chief Adviser, following the student-led uprising that ended the Hasina administration. He stepped down in February 2026 after the general election. The detour matters here: he has now run a country as well as built an economic model, and he speaks from both sides of the policy and operating divide. Key speaking topics Social business as an operating model Microfinance and financial inclusion The “three zeros” agenda: poverty, unemployment, net carbon Inclusive procurement and supply chains Women’s economic empowerment Youth employment and entrepreneurship Corporate joint ventures with social outcomes Ideal for Boards and executive committees deciding how to structure ESG, inclusion, and impact work as operating units rather than reporting lines. Heads of strategy, sustainability, and procurement at consumer, industrial, and financial companies running joint ventures or supplier programmes with a social component. Government and multilateral audiences working on financial inclusion, youth employment, and inclusive growth policy. Foundations, family offices, and impact investors choosing between grant-making, ESG investing, and direct social business equity. Audience outcomes A working definition of social business that distinguishes it from CSR, ESG, and traditional philanthropy. Concrete examples of corporate joint ventures structured as social businesses, with the commercial terms made explicit. The Paris 2024 procurement model as a case study in opening a large supply chain to social and solidarity enterprises. A direct view from a Nobel laureate who has also recently led a country on what governments can and cannot do for inclusive growth. A frame, the three zeros, that connects climate, poverty, and unemployment work usually managed as separate programmes.

Why organisations work with Michael Wilson He has interviewed chancellors, central bank governors, FTSE chief executives and finance ministers on live television for more than three decades, which is the exact skill set a panel on macro policy or market structure needs in the chair. He was a founder of Sky News in 1989 and built its business unit from scratch, which gives him an operator’s read on how a story moves between newsroom, market and boardroom. He co-authored Fixing Britain: The Business of Reshaping Our Nation with Lord Digby Jones, so he can speak with authority on UK industrial policy, productivity and reform rather than only commenting on it. The World Economic Forum named him Business Broadcaster of the Year, recognition that travels well with international investor and corporate audiences. Inside FTSE 100 and 250 boards he has worked as a media coach and mentor, which means a moderating brief comes with an instinct for what a CEO will say, will not say, and needs help saying. Biography highlights Founder member of Sky Television, 1989, and creator of the channel’s business unit. Business Editor of Sky News for around twenty years, anchoring Budget specials and major financial events through to 2009. Co-author with Lord Digby Jones of Fixing Britain: The Business of Reshaping Our Nation (Wiley, 2011). Voted Business Broadcaster of the Year by the World Economic Forum. Made a Freeman of the City of London in 2006. Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management; currently Director of Business and Economics Editor at Arise News with regular commentary on GB News. Biography Sky News did not have a business unit when it launched in 1989. Michael Wilson built it. As a founder member of the channel, he set up the desk, the contact book and the editorial line that turned Sky into a credible voice on markets, the City and the British economy through the Lawson boom, the ERM crisis and the long period of growth that followed. He stayed for two decades as Business Editor, anchoring Budgets, rate decisions and the financial reporting cycle from the floor of the exchange to the steps of the Treasury. Before Sky he worked at Thames Television and helped found The City Programme in 1987. Since 2009 he has broadcast across BBC, ITV, Fox News, Al Jazeera and LBC, and he now serves as Director of Business and Economics Editor at Arise News with regular commentary slots on GB News. His authority on the substance, not only the craft, is documented. He co-wrote Fixing Britain: The Business of Reshaping Our Nation with Lord Digby Jones, published by Wiley in 2011, an argument for industrial reform rooted in conversations with British business leaders. He holds a Visiting Fellowship at Cranfield School of Management and was made a Freeman of the City of London in 2006. What corporate buyers tend to commission is the chairing and hosting work that sits on top of all this. He has run media training and mentoring inside FTSE 100 and 250 companies for years, which is why he can move between a serious investor Q and A, a panel of finance ministers, and a thousand-person black-tie audience without changing register, and bring each one back on time. Key speaking topics Business and economics broadcasting craft UK economic policy and the City Financial markets and monetary policy Corporate communications and media performance Conference moderation and on-stage interviewing After-dinner business commentary Industrial policy and productivity reform Ideal for Annual conferences, investor days and corporate AGMs that need a chair across macro, markets and corporate strategy. CEO and CFO communications teams looking for media coaching from a working broadcaster. Financial services and City audiences at flagship events, awards dinners and member functions. International investor and policy audiences where a recognised business broadcaster adds credibility to the chair. Audience outcomes A live read on the day’s market and policy news from someone who has spent decades interpreting it on air. A chairing performance that keeps panels on time, on subject and audible to a non-specialist room. A working briefing on how the City, the Treasury and the broadcast newsroom interact. A grounded view of UK industrial policy and reform drawn from his book with Lord Digby Jones. An after-dinner perspective that treats markets and economics as stories, not slides.

Why organisations work with Michael Spence Few people in the world can translate frontier economic theory into language a board can act on. His 1973 paper on signalling is foundational to information economics; he brings the same rigour to current questions about growth and capital allocation. He chaired the Commission on Growth and Development from 2006 to 2010. Its Growth Report directly shaped how the World Bank and major development institutions approach long-term growth strategy. That policy depth is in the room when he speaks. As Chairman of the GA Global Growth Institute at General Atlantic, he is one of very few academic economists actively engaged in live capital allocation decisions. Boards get a perspective that has been pressure-tested against real investment choices. His analysis of China, India, and the developing world draws on direct engagement, including a co-chair role at the Asia Global Institute in Hong Kong. His 2023 book Permacrisis, written with Gordon Brown and Mohamed El-Erian, gives organisations a current, public-facing argument about cascading global risks and the policy choices that could break the cycle. Biography highlights 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with George Akerlof and Joseph Stiglitz, for work on markets with asymmetric information. John Bates Clark Medal (1981) from the American Economic Association. William R. Berkley Professor in Economics and Business at NYU Stern; Dean Emeritus of Stanford Graduate School of Business; former Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Chaired the Commission on Growth and Development (2006 to 2010), the independent international body whose Growth Report shaped how the World Bank and IMF approach development strategy. Senior Advisor to General Atlantic and Chairman of the GA Global Growth Institute; Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Co-author of Permacrisis (Simon & Schuster, 2023, with Gordon Brown and Mohamed El-Erian) and author of The Next Convergence (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011); long-standing Project Syndicate columnist. Biography In 2001 the Nobel committee recognised a 1973 paper. Michael Spence’s work on signalling reshaped how economists think about markets where buyers and sellers do not have the same information. That is most of the markets corporate strategists care about. From 2006 to 2010, Spence chaired the Commission on Growth and Development. The Growth Report it produced is still cited inside the World Bank, the IMF, and finance ministries across the developing world. It remains a touchstone for how senior policymakers approach long-term growth strategy in developing economies. His current focus sits at the meeting point of macroeconomics and capital allocation. As Chairman of the GA Global Growth Institute at General Atlantic, he sits inside one of the world’s largest growth equity firms. He helps the firm think through how technology and geopolitics now shape where capital can productively flow. His 2023 book Permacrisis, written with Gordon Brown and Mohamed El-Erian, took the same argument to a wider audience. His Project Syndicate column, running since 2008, lands on the desks of senior policymakers and institutional investors. Recent essays have covered single points of failure in global supply chains, AI adoption in emerging markets, and why open markets often fail to produce homegrown tech champions outside the US and China. Key speaking topics Global economic growth and structural change Information economics and decision-making under uncertainty Emerging markets and the rise of Asia Capital allocation in a fragmented global economy Trade, supply chains, and geopolitical risk Technology, AI, and the future of productivity Climate, energy transition, and sustainable growth Ideal for CEOs, Group Strategy Officers, and CFOs setting capital allocation across global markets Boards and non-executive directors with multi-region exposure Ministers of finance and economy, central bankers, and senior policymakers in international institutions Institutional investors, asset managers, and growth equity teams setting long-horizon allocations Audience outcomes A sharper internal articulation of what has actually changed about growth, inflation, and trade since 2008. A working sense of how emerging markets and Asia are actually growing, drawing on direct engagement with policymakers and capital markets in those regions. A grounded view of where AI and the green transition will and will not reshape productivity at country and sector level. A current reading of the cascading risks set out in Permacrisis, including the policy choices that could break the cycle.