Economic Trends & Global Markets

Why organisations work with Michael Portillo He has held three Cabinet posts, including the Treasury and Defence briefs, and can describe how spending decisions, security policy, and party-political pressure intersect from inside the room. He brings 25 years of close observation of Westminster as a broadcaster on The Moral Maze, This Week with Andrew Neil, and his GB News weekend programme, which keeps his political reading current rather than historical. He carries one of the most recognisable names and voices in British public life through Great British Railway Journeys and its international spin-offs, which gives a corporate event genuine cultural weight. He has served on the BAE Systems board and the International Commission on Missing Persons, so he can speak to defence industry dynamics and post-conflict governance with first-hand reference points. He chairs panels and prize juries from the Man Booker to UK arts endowments, which makes him an effective moderator and after-dinner host as well as a keynote voice. Biography highlights Cabinet Minister under John Major: Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Employment, Secretary of State for Defence. MP for Enfield Southgate (1984-1997) and Kensington and Chelsea (1999-2005); Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (2000-2001). Presenter of Great British Railway Journeys and its Continental, American, Indian, Asian, Australian, Alaskan and Canadian, and Coastal series for the BBC since 2010. Long-running panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze; Conservative voice on BBC’s This Week with Andrew Neil from 2003 to 2019. Non-executive director of BAE Systems (2002-2006); Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons since 1998; President of DEBRA. First-class degree in history from Peterhouse, Cambridge; author of Portillo’s Hidden History of Britain and the Railway Journeys books with Michael O’Mara. Biography The 1997 general election produced the most quoted result in modern British political history. Stephen Twigg unseated Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate with a 17.4% swing, and the “Portillo moment” entered the language. What is less remembered is that Portillo had, by that point, already run the Treasury’s spending side, the Employment department, and the Ministry of Defence, all before turning forty-five. That CV gives him an unusual vantage on how British government actually works. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury he ran the public spending negotiations that set Whitehall priorities. As Defence Secretary in the mid-1990s he handled procurement, NATO posture, and the Bosnia and Northern Ireland files. As Shadow Chancellor under William Hague he saw the modern Conservative Party’s internal debates from the inside. A broadcaster’s career followed Parliament rather than a corporate one. He has been a regular on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze for over two decades, was the Conservative seat on This Week with Andrew Neil for its full 16-year run, and now hosts a weekend politics show on GB News. The Great British Railway Journeys franchise, in eight country variants since 2010, made him one of the BBC’s most recognisable presenters. The combination matters for a corporate audience. Portillo can talk about UK fiscal pressure with reference to the spending review process he once ran, about defence and procurement with reference to a Cabinet brief and a BAE Systems boardroom, and about how political risk feels day to day from inside a 25-year broadcasting beat. He chaired the 2008 Man Booker Prize, sits as President of the DEBRA charity, and served as a Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons. He is, in practice, a senior public figure with a working knowledge of how British and European institutions hold together under stress. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster decision-making Public spending, the Treasury, and fiscal pressure Defence policy and the UK’s security posture Party leadership and political risk European and Anglo-Spanish relations British media, broadcasting, and public life After-dinner political commentary Ideal for Boards and executive teams looking for an informed read on UK political and fiscal risk Financial services, defence, and public-affairs audiences planning against shifting government priorities Senior client and partner dinners where a recognisable broadcaster as host or speaker adds weight Conferences requiring a political moderator or panel chair with Cabinet-level reference points Audience outcomes A clearer view of how decisions inside the UK Treasury and Cabinet actually get made A current reading of the political pressures shaping spending, regulation, and defence priorities Frank, on-the-record perspective on party leadership and the state of British public life A memorable, well-paced session from a presenter used to live broadcasting and large audiences

Why organisations work with Sir Michael Arthur He has sat on both sides of the table that boards now worry about: thirty-eight years inside the British Foreign Office at the most senior level, then eight years inside Boeing as a vice president and council member. He led the Maastricht Treaty negotiating team and the EU Single Market legislation team. When he speaks about how European policy is actually made, he is describing rooms he was in. As President of Boeing International he was the first non-American on the Executive Council, with operational responsibility for Boeing in 65 countries. That is rare ground for a former diplomat to occupy. His four years as High Commissioner in New Delhi give boards a Europe specialist who is also fluent on India, at a moment when very few people credibly cover both. He speaks German and French and held the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. On Berlin, he is read inside Berlin. Biography highlights British Ambassador to Germany, 2007 to 2010. British High Commissioner to India, 2003 to 2007. Director General for Europe and Economic Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Led the Maastricht Treaty negotiating team and the EU Single Market legislation team. Senior Vice President of Boeing and President of Boeing International, 2019 to 2023; first non-American member of the Boeing Executive Council. Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG); recipient of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Board of Directors, Stimson Center; Non-Executive Director of a Tata Consultancy Services UK subsidiary; co-founder of The Ambassador Partnership LLP. Biography Most boards are now exposed to political decisions they cannot price. Tariffs, sanctions, industrial policy, export controls, the next German coalition, the next Indian budget. The standard inputs (bank research, consultant briefings, the FT) tell you what happened. They rarely tell you what the people who made the decision were trying to achieve, and what they will do next. Sir Michael Arthur has spent his career on the inside of those rooms. As British Ambassador to Germany from 2007 to 2010 and High Commissioner to India from 2003 to 2007, he ran two of the UK’s most consequential bilateral relationships at a moment when both countries were redefining their place in the global economy. Earlier he led the Maastricht Treaty negotiating team and the team that wrote the EU Single Market legislation. The European architecture that companies now operate inside is partly his handiwork. What sets him apart from the diplomatic-speaker norm is what came next. In 2014 he joined Boeing as President of Boeing UK and Ireland; in 2019 he became Senior Vice President of Boeing and President of Boeing International, the first non-American on the Boeing Executive Council. For four years he carried operational responsibility for the company in 65 countries and 18 regional offices. He left the diplomatic register and learned the executive one. The result is a speaker who can move between a board’s geopolitical question and its commercial answer without losing precision in either direction. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Stimson Center, on the board of a Tata Consultancy Services UK subsidiary, and co-founded The Ambassador Partnership LLP. He is a fluent German and French speaker and holds the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Key speaking topics Germany, the Eurozone and the European political economy UK and EU relations after Brexit India as a strategic partner for Western business Transatlantic relations and the US-Europe-China triangle International negotiation and corporate diplomacy Political risk inside global supply chains Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to Europe, India, or transatlantic policy. Heads of strategy, government affairs, and corporate affairs at multinationals. Industrial, aerospace, defence, and financial services leadership teams managing political risk. Investor and partner gatherings where senior decision makers want a credible read on Berlin, Brussels, New Delhi, and Washington in the same room. Audience outcomes A grounded read on what Berlin and Brussels are likely to do next, from someone who has been on both sides of those negotiations. A clearer view of India as a commercial partner, drawn from four years running the UK’s mission in New Delhi. A useful frame for thinking about political risk as an operational variable, not a footnote in the strategy deck. A sharper sense of how diplomatic and commercial logic interact inside large international firms.

Why organisations work with Maurice Obstfeld He has sat at the top of the global policy table. As IMF Chief Economist from 2015 to 2018 and a member of the US Council of Economic Advisers from 2014 to 2015, he has been inside the rooms where currency, trade and crisis decisions were made. His scholarship is the textbook on his subject. International Economics: Theory and Policy, co-authored with Paul Krugman and Marc Melitz, is the standard text in the field; Foundations of International Macroeconomics, with Kenneth Rogoff, is the doctoral reference. Audiences are hearing from the person who wrote the book. He links the three dossiers most boards keep separate. Tariffs, the dollar and fiscal deficits are usually discussed in isolation. Obstfeld treats them as one operating system and shows how a move on one alters the others. The American Economic Association named him a Distinguished Fellow in 2023, a recognition reserved for the discipline’s most consequential contributors. The credential signals serious intellectual standing in a room where that matters. He is currently writing on the dollar’s standing. His 2025 work for Project Syndicate, Brookings and CEPR examines how trade policy and fiscal choices are stress-testing the dollar’s reserve role. Audiences get a current, not a retrospective, reading. Biography highlights C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, since 2019; named to the chair in 2023. Chief Economist (Economic Counsellor) and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund, 2015 to 2018. Member, US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 2014 to 2015. Class of 1958 Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley. Co-author, International Economics: Theory and Policy (Pearson, with Krugman and Melitz) and Foundations of International Macroeconomics (MIT Press, with Rogoff). AEA Distinguished Fellow (2023); Fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; recipient of the Tjalling Koopmans Asset Award, the John von Neumann Award, and the Bernhard Harms Prize. Biography The dollar’s reserve role, the global tariff regime and the independence of central banks were treated for three decades as settled architecture. They are now contested, and boards making capital allocation decisions need to understand the system, not just the cycle. Few economists are better placed to read it than Maurice Obstfeld. Obstfeld served as Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2015 to 2018, directing the institution’s Research Department through a period of trade tension, capital flow volatility and rising fiscal pressure across advanced economies. He joined the IMF directly from the US Council of Economic Advisers, where he served as a member under President Obama. Before that he held the Class of 1958 Chair in Economics at UC Berkeley, where he taught from 1989 to 2023 and is now emeritus. His scholarly contribution sits behind much of how the discipline now teaches and practises open economy macroeconomics. International Economics: Theory and Policy, co-authored with Paul Krugman and Marc Melitz, is the standard textbook in the field. Foundations of International Macroeconomics, with Kenneth Rogoff, has been the doctoral reference since 1996. The American Economic Association recognised this body of work in 2023 with the Distinguished Fellow honour. Today he is C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, writing actively on how tariffs, fiscal deficits and pressure on central bank independence are reshaping the international monetary system. His 2025 essay “King Dollar’s Shaky Crown” for Project Syndicate, his Brookings paper on the US trade deficit, and CEPR Discussion Paper 20104 set out the case directly. The argument is that trust in the system can be destroyed quickly and rebuilt only slowly, and that capital allocators should be reading these signals now. Key speaking topics The international monetary system and the future of dollar dominance Tariffs, trade policy and the global economy Exchange rates, capital flows and currency risk Fiscal deficits, public debt and macroeconomic policy Central bank independence and monetary policy Financial crises and global financial stability China, the euro area and the architecture of the global economy Ideal for Boards, CIOs and treasury teams setting capital allocation policy under currency and trade uncertainty CFOs and investment committees in financial services, asset management and multinational corporates Senior policy audiences in central banks, finance ministries and sovereign wealth funds Economic and strategy briefings for executive committees with material cross-border exposure Audience outcomes A current reading of how tariffs, fiscal policy and currency dynamics are connected as one operating system A clear view of the specific risks to the dollar’s reserve role and what would have to change for them to materialise A framework for thinking about capital allocation when the rules of the international monetary system are under political pressure Reference points from inside the IMF and the US Council of Economic Advisers on how policy actually moves Citable language and named arguments senior leaders can carry back into their own board discussions

Why organisations work with Matthew Amroliwala A working chair, not a celebrity name on the agenda. He runs panels the way he runs a live news hour, with structure, pace and a clean line of questioning. Three decades of BBC reporting across Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Westminster, Washington and New York gives him an instinct for how to land questions on senior political and corporate figures without the room going flat. Anchors Global on BBC World News, the BBC’s flagship international news programme, daily since 2014. He brings the same register to conference stages. Equally comfortable on a black-tie awards stage, a CEO fireside, and a multi-stakeholder policy panel. The audience reads him as the BBC, which sets a useful tone of seriousness from the first minute. Biography highlights Chief presenter on the BBC News Channel since April 2023. Presenter of Global on BBC World News, the BBC’s international news flagship, since 8 September 2014. Presenter of World News Today across BBC World News and BBC Four since 27 June 2016. Co-presented Crimewatch with Kirsty Young, January 2008 to March 2015. Eight years as a BBC news, political and foreign correspondent reporting from Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Westminster, Washington and New York. Read Law and Politics at Durham University; joined the BBC in 1989. Biography The chair is the variable that decides whether a panel earns the room or wastes it. Matthew Amroliwala has spent more than three decades inside the BBC operating on exactly that variable, first as a correspondent, then as a presenter on UK rolling news for sixteen years, and since 2014 as the anchor of Global on BBC World News. The reporting years are the foundation. He covered the run-up to the Northern Ireland ceasefires, reported from Bosnia during the Balkans conflict, and worked Westminster, Washington and New York on political and foreign assignments. Live news at that level teaches a specific discipline: how to keep a senior figure honest in real time, how to shape a conversation on the clock, how to read a room without losing the line of questioning. That discipline is what conference and event organisers commission. Amroliwala chairs panels and hosts awards where the brief calls for a credible BBC voice on international affairs and a presenter who can hold the structure when a session over-runs or a speaker drifts. He has co-presented Crimewatch with Kirsty Young, presents World News Today across BBC World News and BBC Four, and was promoted to chief presenter on the BBC News Channel in April 2023. For senior audiences, the value is unambiguous. He is the BBC in the room, which sets the tone. He has interviewed the kind of figures the audience expects to hear pressed. And he treats the chair as a working role rather than a ceremonial one. Key speaking topics Conference chairing and moderation Panel facilitation on geopolitics and global affairs Awards hosting and emceeing Fireside interviews with senior leaders International news and current affairs Live broadcast hosting for corporate events Ideal for Conferences and summits on global affairs, geopolitics or international business needing a credible chair Corporate awards ceremonies and gala dinners CEO and leadership fireside conversations where the interviewer needs to press without antagonising Multi-stakeholder policy panels with senior political, regulatory or corporate figures Audience outcomes A panel that surfaces the questions the audience actually came for, not the ones the speakers came prepared to answer. A coherent agenda held to time, with transitions that read as editorial judgement rather than logistics. Senior speakers handled with the register and discipline of live BBC interviewing. An evening or session that lands with the seriousness of a BBC broadcast, not a hosted entertainment slot.

Why organisations work with Matteo Renzi His grasp of European political risk comes from having run a G7 government, chaired the EU Council Presidency, and participated in three G7 and three G20 summits – not from studying these institutions but from operating inside them at the highest level. His current role as Strategic Counsellor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change connects his analysis to live government reform agendas across more than 40 countries, making his perspective current rather than retrospective. The Renzi government’s Jobs Act labour market overhaul, Madia Reform of public administration, and gender-equal cabinet were each delivered against significant institutional resistance – giving him specific, hard-won insight into what it actually takes to move reform through complex political systems. His co-authorship of the 2025 Tony Blair Institute paper “Europe in the Age of AI” – alongside Tony Blair and former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin – positions him as a substantive current voice on technology governance and European competitiveness, not only on political history. For boards assessing exposure in Italy or the broader Southern European bloc, he provides a counterweight to the Germany-and-France framing that tends to dominate European political risk analysis in international advisory markets. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Italy, 2014 to 2016 – youngest ever Italian PM and youngest G7 leader at appointment Mayor of Florence 2009-2014; President of the Province of Florence 2004-2009; Senator for Florence since 2018 Founder and leader of Italia Viva (since 2019); previously Secretary of the Democratic Party, 2013-2018 Ranked #3 on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 (2014); included in Foreign Policy’s 100 Global Thinkers Strategic Counsellor, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (since 2024); co-author of “Europe in the Age of AI” (2025) with Tony Blair and Sanna Marin Author of 15+ published books on Italian politics and governance; teaches “The Challenges of Europe” at Stanford University’s Florence programme Biography EU Council negotiations, coalition formation, and regulatory direction are shaped by decisions made under intense political pressure by a small number of insiders. Matteo Renzi was one of them. He served as Prime Minister of Italy from 2014 to 2016, becoming at 39 the youngest person ever to hold that office and the youngest leader in the G7. His government moved fast. The Jobs Act overhauled Italy’s labour market. The Madia Reform digitised public administration and introduced digital ID as a central pillar of state infrastructure. His cabinet became the first in Italian history to achieve gender equality between women and men. He chaired the EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2014 and represented Italy at three G20 and three G7 summits. Italy’s signature on the Paris Agreement on climate change was made under his government. Since leaving government, Renzi has stayed operationally active. He serves in the Italian Senate and leads the centrist party Italia Viva. Since 2024, he has been a Strategic Counsellor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, advising political leaders on reform strategy across more than 40 countries. His course “The Challenges of Europe” at Stanford University’s Florence programme brings that accumulated experience directly into academic debate. For organisations that need to understand how European coalitions form, how reform agendas succeed or fail under institutional pressure, and where geopolitical risk translates into policy, Renzi provides the granular, first-hand intelligence that covers the full range – from city government to the G7 table. Key speaking topics European political risk and governance EU institutional mechanics and reform Coalition politics and government formation Italian and Southern European political economy G7 and multilateral decision-making Digital transformation in government and public administration Political leadership under institutional pressure Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives with significant EU or Italian market exposure Government affairs and public policy functions within multinational organisations International business forums focused on European geopolitical and regulatory risk Senior leadership programmes and policy institutes requiring first-hand governmental perspective Audience outcomes A clearer working model of how EU institutions make decisions and where the real pressure points are – moving beyond election-watching to structural analysis Specific insight into how reform agendas succeed or collapse inside complex political systems, drawn from the Renzi government’s own record A realistic account of what political risk in Italy and the Southern European bloc means for organisations with exposure in those markets Context on how European governments are approaching digital transformation, labour market flexibility, and AI governance A framework for separating structural political change from short-term electoral noise in European markets

Why organisations work with Martin Baily He has held the chair that briefs a US president on the economy. Few speakers can describe how macro policy, financial regulation and productivity actually intersect from inside that seat. His current Brookings work with Federal Reserve Board economists on generative AI as a general-purpose technology gives boards a sober, evidence-led read on the productivity case, distinct from vendor and consultancy framing. Twenty years inside the McKinsey Global Institute on cross-country productivity research means he can tell a European board how its growth problem differs from the US one, with the data to back it. As co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative and a member of the Squam Lake Group, he reads the financial regulation agenda the way an operator does, not the way a lobbyist does. His written record, from “Innovation and the Productivity Crisis” to “Transforming the European Economy”, gives clients a referenceable thesis, not a deck. Biography highlights Chairman, President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 1999 to 2001, and Cabinet member under President Bill Clinton. Senior Fellow Emeritus, Brookings Institution; Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development. Co-author, “Transforming the European Economy” (Peterson Institute, 2004), Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2005. Co-author, “Innovation and the Productivity Crisis” (Brookings Institution Press, 1988). Principal, McKinsey & Company’s Global Institute (1996 to 1999); senior advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute since 2002. Co-chair, Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative, Bipartisan Policy Center; senior advisor, Albright Stonebridge Group. Biography Productivity growth is the variable that decides whether wages can rise, debt is sustainable, and capital earns a return. It has been weak across most advanced economies for two decades, and the explanation is contested. Martin Baily has spent his career inside that contest, from the White House, from McKinsey’s Global Institute, and from Brookings. He chaired President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1999 to 2001 and sat on the Council from 1994. He holds the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Development at Brookings and is a senior advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute, where he was a principal in the late 1990s during the Institute’s foundational comparative productivity work. His co-authored books, “Innovation and the Productivity Crisis” with Alok Chakrabarti and “Transforming the European Economy” with Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, set out a consistent thesis: productivity weakness is rarely a single mechanical problem; it is the cumulative drag of weak innovation diffusion, protected incumbents and policy that subsidises stasis. The European book was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2005. Recent work at Brookings, with Federal Reserve Board economists David Byrne and Eugenio Soto and Brookings colleague Aidan Kane, examines whether generative AI qualifies as a general-purpose technology and where, in finance and other sectors, the productivity dividend will actually land. He co-chairs the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative and sits in the Squam Lake Group of financial economists who write on systemic risk and reform. Key speaking topics US and global productivity growth Financial regulation and systemic risk The macroeconomic case for generative AI US economic policy and the Federal budget outlook European competitiveness and structural reform Social Security and pension reform Ideal for Boards and audit committees pricing financial regulation and macro risk into strategy CFOs and chief economists at banks, insurers and asset managers Senior policy and government affairs leadership tracking US economic policy Strategy and transformation leaders building the AI productivity business case Audience outcomes A clear read on where productivity growth is actually coming from, and where it is not A grounded view on which generative AI productivity claims are supported by evidence and which are not An informed perspective on the live US financial regulatory agenda and its implications for capital and risk A comparative frame for European versus US growth performance and the policies that move it

Why organisations work with Mark Roe His published research identifies the specific political forces – interest groups, legislative bargaining, regulatory path-dependence – that determine how corporations are governed in different national systems, giving boards and investors a structural map that economic analysis alone does not provide. Missing the Target (Oxford, 2022) dismantled the dominant short-termism narrative with economy-wide data, offering executives and policymakers a corrected diagnosis of why corporate investment patterns have changed – and where the real policy levers sit. His analysis of too-big-to-fail dynamics explains how implicit government guarantees distort corporate structure and shield management from market discipline, a framework directly relevant to financial institutions, their regulators, and the firms exposed to systemic counterparty risk. Two decades of commentary in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Project Syndicate means his arguments have been tested in public, not just in academic journals – the positions he takes in a boardroom are the same ones he defends in the financial press. His current research on the transformation of US public firms (fewer companies, greater concentration of profit and market power) reframes a debate that directly affects M&A strategy, capital allocation, and regulatory risk. Biography highlights David Berg Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, since 2001 Author of four books published by Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, and Foundation Press, including Missing the Target (2022) and Strong Managers, Weak Owners (1994) Ranked among SSRN’s top 50 most-cited law professors, with a career high of #10 Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy; Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute Recipient of the ECGI Allen & Overy Working Paper Prize (2015) for research on structural corporate degradation in too-big-to-fail finance Regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 2004, with commentary published in the Financial Times, Forbes, and Wall Street Journal Biography Corporate governance is usually treated as a design problem: get the incentives right, align the board with shareholder interests, and the structure should optimise itself. Mark J. Roe’s research at Harvard Law School has spent three decades demonstrating that this view is incomplete. His books Strong Managers, Weak Owners (Princeton, 1994) and Political Determinants of Corporate Governance (Oxford, 2003) established a now widely cited argument: governance structures in the United States and across major economies are shaped as much by political forces as by market logic. The practical implications are specific. In the US, fragmented share ownership is not merely an outcome of deep capital markets. It reflects a century of political decisions that prevented financial institutions from accumulating concentrated ownership stakes. In continental Europe, the postwar political settlement empowered labour and entrenched blockholding structures that persist long after the conditions that created them. Roe’s work traces these connections with data and institutional detail, giving corporate leaders and policymakers a framework for understanding why governance reform so often stalls or produces unintended consequences. His most recent book, Missing the Target (Oxford, 2022), challenged the prevailing consensus that stock market short-termism is crippling corporate investment and R&D. Using economy-wide data, Roe showed that corporate R&D spending has been rising, not falling, and that the real culprits behind declining investment are political uncertainty, accelerating technological change, and a collapse in government research funding. The Wall Street Journal called it essential reading for anyone concerned with markets and policy. Before entering academia, Roe worked at the Federal Reserve System and at Cahill Gordon & Reindel on Wall Street. He held faculty positions at Rutgers, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia before joining Harvard in 2001. His paper on too-big-to-fail finance won the ECGI Allen & Overy Prize in 2015. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has published over 160 scholarly papers, with more than 10,000 citations tracked by ResearchGate. Key speaking topics Political economy of corporate governance Financial regulation and systemic risk Corporate short-termism and long-term investment Too-big-to-fail finance and structural corporate degradation Shareholder activism and corporate purpose Bankruptcy, restructuring, and creditor bargaining The transformation of US public markets Ideal for Boards, chairs, and non-executive directors assessing governance structures in a politicised regulatory environment CFOs, general counsel, and heads of corporate strategy at firms navigating financial regulation, M&A, or capital structure decisions Institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, and asset managers evaluating governance risk across jurisdictions Policy audiences, regulators, and central bankers examining the intersection of political economy and financial stability Audience outcomes A structural explanation of why corporate governance rules differ across major economies and why convergence has been slower than predicted A data-grounded reframing of the short-termism debate that separates genuine investment constraints from politically convenient narratives An understanding of how too-big-to-fail dynamics distort corporate structure and create hidden risks for counterparties and investors A framework for assessing how political uncertainty, interest-group pressure, and regulatory path-dependence affect capital allocation and strategic planning Specific examples from US and European corporate history that make abstract governance debates concrete and applicable to current board-level decisions

Why organisations work with Mark Esposito He brings a named foresight framework, DRIVE, that gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for the five megatrends shaping their markets, rather than a generic “future of” briefing. His positions sit on both sides of the AI conversation. He advises the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Alliance on policy while working as Chief Economist at micro1, a Silicon Valley AI lab, so the board hears how regulation and deployment actually meet. He has built the institutional access most academic speakers cannot. Harvard Kennedy School, Northeastern, Cambridge Judge, Georgetown, and government advisory roles across the GCC and Eurasia. The work is current and published. Fourteen books, two Amazon bestsellers, The Great Remobilization with MIT Press, and forthcoming titles with Routledge and Penguin Random House give a senior buyer a reading list to brief their team from. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Technology Policy at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, with Harvard affiliations at the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development, the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society Chief Economist at micro1, a Silicon Valley AI lab, and co-founder of Nexus FrontierTech, the AI Native Foundation, the Circular Economy Alliance, and The Chart ThinkTank Co-developer of the DRIVE megatrends framework with Terence Tse Author or co-author of 14 books and over 150 publications, including two Amazon bestsellers, plus The Great Remobilization (MIT Press, 2023) and Digitizing the Emerging Economies (Cambridge University Press, 2024) Named to the Thinkers50 Radar of 30 thinkers most likely to shape the future; recognised by MIT Technology Review and Thinkers360 for AI influence Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Alliance and policy advisor to governments across the GCC and Eurasia Biography The hard part of governing AI is not writing the principles. It is keeping a strategy coherent while the technology, the regulation, and the workforce implications all change inside the same planning cycle. That is the gap Mark Esposito’s work has occupied for the past decade, first through strategic foresight, now through applied AI policy and deployment. The intellectual anchor is DRIVE, the megatrends framework he developed with Terence Tse and laid out in Understanding How the Future Unfolds. DRIVE gives leadership teams five named forces, from demographic change through enterprising dynamics, that organise the noise of long-range planning into something a board can actually use. The framework underpins his teaching as Professor of Strategy and Technology Policy at Northeastern University, and his research affiliations at Harvard Kennedy School, the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and the Berkman Klein Center. He pairs that academic base with an operator’s vantage point. As Chief Economist at micro1, a Silicon Valley AI lab, he works inside the commercial reality of building and deploying AI at scale. The AI Native Foundation, which he co-founded, extends that into capability building for institutions trying to become genuinely AI-native rather than AI-curious. His seat on the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Alliance connects both sides to the policy conversation. The body of work is now substantial. Fourteen books and over 150 publications, two Amazon bestsellers, The Great Remobilization with MIT Press, and forthcoming titles with Routledge and Penguin Random House. Thinkers50 named him to its Radar of thinkers most likely to shape the future; MIT Technology Review and Thinkers360 have recognised his AI influence. For boards trying to make defensible decisions on AI while the ground moves under them, that combination of foresight discipline, policy access, and a frontier-AI operating role is rare in a single voice. Key speaking topics AI strategy and AI-native organisations Strategic foresight and megatrends The DRIVE framework AI policy and governance Fourth Industrial Revolution and emerging economies Circular economy and resource strategy Geopolitics of technology Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI strategy and governance posture CSOs, transformation leads, and chief strategy officers running long-range planning under technological uncertainty Government and public sector leaders shaping AI policy and industrial strategy Senior leadership teams in emerging markets navigating the Fourth Industrial Revolution Audience outcomes A shared, named vocabulary (DRIVE) for the five megatrends reshaping their sector A clearer view of where their AI agenda is running ahead of, or behind, their operating model Specific examples of how governments and large enterprises are translating AI policy into deployment A reading map across his published work for follow-up briefing inside the organisation

Why organisations work with Mark Barton The instinct to know when a speaker is avoiding the question comes from 10,000+ live interviews with central bankers, finance ministers, and CEOs. That is not something a professional facilitator acquires through facilitation training. A moderator who anchored Bloomberg Television’s coverage of six US elections, six UK general elections, the global financial crisis, and Brexit can challenge an economist or minister with authority rather than deference. For executives facing media scrutiny, Barton is among a very small group of coaches who can genuinely recreate the pressure of a live news anchor interrogation: because he spent 23 years on that side of the camera. He has chaired forums for Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute; organisations that expect substantive interrogation of the room’s most senior participants, not event management. As one of the five journalists who built Bloomberg Television’s European operations from the ground up in 1995, he brings an institutional relationship with the world of global finance and markets that most conference professionals simply do not have. Biography highlights One of five founding journalists, Bloomberg Television’s European operations, London, 1995 23-year Bloomberg TV anchor; hosted Countdown, First Word On Money, European Market Report, Bloomberg Markets, and The European Close Covered six UK general elections, six US elections, the global financial crisis, and Brexit across Bloomberg’s flagship prime-time programming Radio broadcaster: Daybreak Europe (Bloomberg Radio); financial bulletins on NPR, LBC Radio, Jazz FM, and Riviera Radio Conference host at the World Media Awards and The AIBs; moderator at the Horasis Global Meeting and Zurich Global Risk Management Summit Post-Bloomberg clients include Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute University of London, history Biography Bloomberg Television launched its European operations in London in 1995 with five journalists. Mark Barton was one of them. Over the next 23 years, he anchored the channel’s flagship programming: Countdown, European Market Report, Bloomberg Markets, The European Close. Those two decades built the editorial instincts and financial market depth that define his work today. His coverage record is specific. Six UK general elections. Six US elections. The global financial crisis. Brexit. More than 10,000 live interviews with world leaders, finance ministers, central bankers, and chief executives, including Bill Gates, Jean-Claude Trichet, and Shimon Peres. The experience of managing live, unscripted conversations with the world’s most guarded public figures is not one that transfers through conventional facilitation training. Beyond television, Barton presented Daybreak Europe on Bloomberg Radio and delivered financial market bulletins on NPR, LBC Radio, Jazz FM, and Riviera Radio. He also trained dozens of Bloomberg journalists in on-air communication: work that forms the basis of the media coaching he now delivers to business leaders preparing for public scrutiny. Since leaving Bloomberg in 2018, he has moderated for organisations including Amundi, Societe Generale, TIME, the Doha Forum, and The FII Institute. At the 2019 Horasis Global Meeting, he chaired a plenary on global governance featuring the former Prime Ministers of Romania and Belgium and the former President of Slovenia. The consistent thread: rooms that require a moderator with the credibility to hold their most senior participants to account. Key speaking topics Global financial markets and economic trends Geopolitical risk and international affairs Conference hosting and high-stakes panel moderation Executive media and communications coaching Live broadcast journalism and interviewing Business and financial crisis coverage Presentation skills under pressure Ideal for Boards and senior leadership teams commissioning high-profile forums on global economic risk, geopolitics, or financial markets Conference producers and event directors requiring a moderator with genuine domain authority, not just facilitation skills Chief Communications Officers and communications teams preparing executives for live media exposure C-suite leaders undergoing media training ahead of investor events, public testimony, or broadcast interviews Audience outcomes A moderated panel or forum with the editorial discipline and intellectual challenge of a live news broadcast Executives with a clearer understanding of how to communicate complex positions under real media pressure – not simulated conditions A more productive leadership dialogue: one that surfaces genuine disagreement rather than managing it toward pre-approved consensus Practical techniques for live interview performance, grounded in the experience of 10,000+ actual broadcast interviews Increased confidence in high-stakes public settings, drawn from observing how the world’s most scrutinised figures handle live questioning

Why organisations work with Manfred Weber He sits at the centre of the institution that writes European law. As Chair of the EPP Group since 2014 and President of the EPP since 2022, he has been part of every major legislative bargain in Brussels for over a decade. He explains EU politics the way an operator does, not the way a commentator does. He has negotiated directives, including the EU Returns Directive on migration, and can talk about how a file actually moves through the Parliament, the Council, and the Commission. He gives boards a realistic read on European political risk: migration, the centre-right and far-right relationship, transatlantic tensions, Ukraine, and the EU’s competitiveness agenda. He is rare on the speaking circuit. Few sitting heads of a major European political family take corporate engagements; access to that vantage point is the offer. He speaks fluent German and English and is comfortable with senior international audiences in either language. Biography highlights President of the European People’s Party since 2022, re-elected for a second term in 2025. Chair of the EPP Group in the European Parliament since 2014, re-elected after the 2024 European elections for a fourth term. Member of the European Parliament for Bavaria since 2004, currently in his fifth parliamentary term. EPP Spitzenkandidat for President of the European Commission in 2019, nominated with 79 percent of the EPP congress vote. Vice-President of the CSU since 2015 and member of the CSU Party Presidency since 2009. Trained as a physical engineer at Munich University of Applied Sciences before entering politics, with prior experience running two companies. Biography The largest political family in Europe is the European People’s Party. Its group in the European Parliament holds more seats than any other, its national affiliates lead governments across the continent, and its members include the President of the European Commission. Manfred Weber leads both the party and the group, a combination of roles few politicians in Brussels have held simultaneously. He has been Chair of the EPP Group in the Parliament since 2014, when he became the youngest group leader in the institution’s history. He was re-elected after the 2024 European elections for his fourth term. In 2022 he was elected President of the EPP, succeeding Donald Tusk, and was re-elected for a second term in 2025. That arc gives him a continuous view of the legislative engine of the EU across more than a decade of crises: the eurozone, migration in 2015 and again now, Brexit, the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the energy shock, and the competitiveness debate. Before Brussels he trained as a physical engineer at Munich University of Applied Sciences and ran two companies, then entered politics through the Junge Union and the CSU. He became the youngest member of the Bavarian State Parliament in 2002 at the age of 29, and was elected to the European Parliament two years later. He has represented Bavaria continuously since, sitting on the committees that shape constitutional affairs, civil liberties, and home affairs. He negotiated the EU Returns Directive, the first Home Affairs directive adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure. For a corporate audience, the relevant point is not the biography but the vantage point. He is in the room when European policy is decided, and he can explain to a board, in plain terms, what is changing in Brussels, where the political centre is moving, and what that means for the rules companies will be operating under for the next five years. Key speaking topics European political direction and the EU policy agenda EU competitiveness and the regulatory environment Migration policy and border security Transatlantic relations and the war in Ukraine The future of the EU after enlargement Centre-right politics in Europe and the rise of the far right Germany, the CSU, and Berlin’s role in the EU Ideal for CEOs, boards, and government affairs leaders setting Europe strategy Strategy and policy leaders at financial institutions, energy, defence, and industrial firms with material EU exposure Senior leadership teams at multinationals navigating EU regulation on AI, competition, sustainability, and trade Conference programmes and closed-door briefings on European political risk Audience outcomes A clearer read on where the EU is heading on competitiveness, migration, defence, and the green transition A sense of the political map across European capitals and how it constrains or enables the Commission’s agenda A realistic view of the centre-right and far-right dynamic and what it means for stability of EU policy An inside account of how legislation actually moves through Brussels, from someone who has done the deals Sharper questions to put to in-house government affairs and European strategy teams

Why organisations work with Lucas Papademos A direct, first-hand account of ECB Governing Council decision-making through the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the pre-crisis debates over the Stability and Growth Pact – insight not available from any published report, and accessible only through testimony from those who were in the room. Co-originator of the NAIRU framework (Modigliani & Papademos, 1975, 1978), which remains embedded in how central banks approach the inflation–unemployment trade-off – giving him standing to explain that framework from the inside, not as an interpreter of others’ work. Managed Greece’s euro transition as central bank governor, then led the country’s sovereign debt restructuring negotiations as its prime minister – a full-cycle perspective on monetary union fragility, institutional failure, and crisis resolution that no commentator or external analyst holds. As a member of the G20 Financial Stability Board, the EU Economic and Financial Committee, and the BIS Central Bank Governance Group, he can illuminate how global financial governance actually operates under systemic stress – not as it is documented, but as it is practised. Biography highlights ECB Vice President, 2002–2010, serving under both Wim Duisenberg and Jean-Claude Trichet; member of the ECB Executive Board and Governing Council Governor, Bank of Greece, 1994–2002; architected Greece’s monetary transition from the drachma to the euro Prime Minister of Greece, November 2011–May 2012; led national unity government through the sovereign debt crisis and the largest debt restructuring in EU and OECD history at that time PhD in Economics, MIT, 1978; doctoral supervisor Franco Modigliani (Nobel laureate); co-authored the Modigliani-Papademos NAIRU papers (1975, 1978), foundational to modern monetary policy Faculty positions at Columbia University, University of Athens, and Harvard Kennedy School; Senior Fellow, Center for Financial Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt Member: Academy of Athens (President 2017–2018); G20 Financial Stability Board and Steering Committee; BIS Central Bank Governance Group; EU Economic and Financial Committee Biography Greece’s entry into the eurozone was not a ceremonial event. It required a decade of monetary tightening, institutional credibility-building, and disciplined policy execution. As Governor of the Bank of Greece from 1994 to 2002, Lucas Papademos was the architect of that process, managing the currency transition and imposing the monetary discipline that euro membership demanded. His academic work reaches to the foundations of modern monetary theory. A PhD from MIT under Nobel laureate Franco Modigliani produced the Modigliani-Papademos papers of 1975 and 1978, which introduced the NAIRU concept: the unemployment rate consistent with stable, non-accelerating inflation. The framework shaped how central banks think about price stability trade-offs and continues to be cited in current monetary policy literature. At the ECB, where Papademos served as Vice President from 2002 to 2010, he sat at the centre of European monetary decision-making through the global financial crisis. He was a consistent advocate for the integrity of the Stability and Growth Pact, arguing (before the crisis) that weakening fiscal rules would generate the sovereign debt imbalances that later threatened the currency union’s existence. In 2011, those warnings proved prescient. Papademos returned to Athens as Prime Minister – appointed without parliamentary affiliation to lead a national unity government – and negotiated directly with the IMF, European Commission, and ECB on what became, at the time, the EU and OECD’s largest sovereign debt restructuring. The combination of original macroeconomic theory, eight years inside the ECB’s governing architecture, and crisis governance under extreme political pressure defines a perspective with no close equivalent. Key speaking topics Eurozone sovereign debt and crisis management Monetary policy architecture and central bank strategy European financial stability and macroprudential frameworks Fiscal discipline and European economic governance The political economy of monetary union Sovereign debt restructuring and creditor negotiations Global financial risk and institutional design Ideal for CFOs, chief risk officers, and sovereign debt investors assessing European financial and monetary risk Central bank and treasury audiences engaging with monetary policy frameworks and eurozone governance Board members and senior executives in financial services with exposure to European sovereign or systemic risk Conference conveners and senior programme curators framing high-level discussions on global financial governance or geopolitical economic risk Audience outcomes A grounded understanding of how ECB decision-making operates in practice – including the tensions between fiscal rules, monetary mandates, and political reality that standard accounts do not capture First-hand perspective on the sequence of decisions and institutional failures that produced the 2011 eurozone sovereign debt crisis, and what the resolution process actually involved A framework for distinguishing between sovereign debt fragility, monetary transmission risk, and structural economic weakness – distinctions that matter for investment positioning and policy planning Practical context for evaluating European economic governance reform proposals against the precedents of the most recent crisis – including what was agreed, what was deferred, and why Insight into how technocratic governance functions under democratic pressure, and the institutional limits it encounters

Why organisations work with Lars P Feld He helped design the constitutional framework leaders are now operating under. As an expert to Federalism Commission II in 2007, he contributed directly to the architecture of Germany’s debt brake, and his subsequent empirical work is the standard reference on its effects. He sat at the centre of German economic policymaking for a decade. Ten years on the German Council of Economic Experts, ending as chairman, and then three years as personal advisor to Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner, give him a working knowledge of how German fiscal decisions actually get made. He brings ordoliberal economics to questions where most macro commentary is purely Keynesian or markets-driven. His co-authored work on ordoliberalism and the eurozone crisis is the reference text for understanding why Berlin negotiates the way it does. His authority is institutional, not media-built. Gustav-Stolper-Prize, Leopoldina membership, Kronberger Kreis, an honorary doctorate from Lucerne and the Friedrich-List-Medal place him in a small group of economists whose published positions move German policy debate. Biography highlights Chair for Economic Policy and Constitutional Economics, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, since 2010. President of the Walter Eucken Institute, Freiburg. Member of the German Council of Economic Experts, 2011 to 2021, and chairman in 2020 to 2021. Personal economic policy advisor to Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner, February 2022 to November 2024. Scientific Advisory Board, Federal Ministry of Finance, since 2003; Minimum Wage Commission member since 2020. Gustav-Stolper-Prize (2021); honorary doctorate, University of Lucerne (2017); Friedrich-List-Medal (2023); member of Leopoldina, Kronberger Kreis and Mont Pelerin Society. Biography Germany rewrote its constitution in 2009 to limit federal borrowing. Feld was one of the academic experts who fed that reform, sitting on Federalism Commission II and arguing the case for a binding fiscal rule. His later empirical work, including a synthetic-control evaluation co-authored with researchers at the Walter Eucken Institute, is now the reference analysis of what the debt brake actually did to German public finances in the decade that followed. That mix of constitutional design and quantitative evaluation runs through his career. From the Chair for Economic Policy and Constitutional Economics in Freiburg, and as President of the Walter Eucken Institute, he works inside the ordoliberal tradition that has shaped how Berlin negotiates inside the eurozone. His co-authored paper on ordoliberalism, pragmatism and the eurozone crisis is one of the more cited explanations of why German positions on Greek debt, Italian deficits and ECB intervention took the shape they did. He has spent a decade in the centre of German policymaking. Ten years on the German Council of Economic Experts, ending as chairman in 2020 to 2021, gave him a direct hand in the Council’s annual reports to the federal government. From February 2022 to November 2024, he served as personal economic policy advisor to Finance Minister Christian Lindner, a role that sits at the intersection of the ministry, the coalition and the Bundesbank. The institutional recognition has followed. The Gustav-Stolper-Prize in 2021, regarded inside the Verein fuer Socialpolitik as the most prestigious German economics award, sits alongside Leopoldina membership, the Kronberger Kreis, the Friedrich-List-Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Lucerne. For a boardroom audience trying to understand where German and European fiscal policy is going, he is one of the small number of economists whose published positions still move the debate. Key speaking topics The German debt brake and European fiscal rules Sovereign debt sustainability in the eurozone Ordoliberalism and German economic policy Macroeconomic outlook for Germany and the EU Public finance and federalism Minimum wage policy and labour market regulation The political economy of EU reform Ideal for CFOs, group treasurers and chief economists making capital allocation decisions exposed to eurozone sovereign risk. Bank and asset manager boards with material German or EU government bond exposure. CEOs and strategy leads of industrial groups whose investment cases turn on German fiscal trajectory and energy and infrastructure spending. Policy and government relations leads tracking the German coalition, the EU Stability and Growth Pact, and ECB policy. Audience outcomes A clear read on where the German debt brake debate is heading and what changes are politically feasible. A working model of how Berlin will negotiate inside the EU on fiscal rules, common debt and ECB policy. A sharper view of which sovereign and quasi-sovereign exposures are most sensitive to the next phase of European fiscal reform. An informed account of the ordoliberal tradition behind German policy positions, useful for anyone modelling counterparty or political risk in the eurozone.