Economic Trends & Global Markets

Why organisations work with Kjell A. Nordstrom The «Karaoke Capitalism» framework names a specific competitive failure – the institutional imitation produced by benchmarking and best practice – that most strategy teams recognise but lack precise language to challenge or dismantle. His «multi-urban corporation» thesis, developed in Urban Express, gives multinationals a practical alternative to national market segmentation: a model for deciding where to compete based on urban density, talent pools, and city-level economic power rather than country borders. His argument that urbanisation and the feminisation of skilled workforces are structural economic forces – not social policy questions – translates demographic change into a direct input for strategic planning and talent decisions. Three decades of advisory work with large multinationals and the UK government, grounded in academic research into the internationalisation of firms, means his structural arguments have been pressure-tested against real strategic decisions at board level. Funky Business, translated into 33 languages and ranked among the greatest business books ever published, demonstrates that his frameworks have been tested and adopted in every major market – giving leadership teams confidence the thinking travels beyond any single regional or cultural context. Biography highlights PhD in International Business, Stockholm School of Economics (1991); former Assistant Professor at the Institute of International Business (IIB), same institution Co-author of Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance, translated into 33 languages and ranked 16th greatest business book of all time; co-author of Karaoke Capitalism and Funky Business Forever with Jonas Ridderstrale Co-author of Urban Express and Momentum with Per Schlingmann; sole author of The Monkey and the Money: A History of Capitalism (Bokförlaget Stolpe, 2023) Ranked #9 in the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers (2005); featured in multiple subsequent editions of the ranking Advisory and consulting work with large multinational corporations and the UK government Media appearances across CNN, CNBC, Fortune, Fast Company, Time Magazine, and the Financial Times; keynote presentations delivered in over 100 countries Biography The rules of competitive strategy seemed settled for most of the twentieth century. Identify a national market. Deploy capital and scale. Benchmark against rivals. Kjell A. Nordstrom, a Swedish economist with a PhD from the Stockholm School of Economics, has spent three decades building the case that those rules are losing their purchase – and that the structural forces displacing them are more powerful than most boards have yet absorbed. His 2000 book Funky Business, co-authored with Jonas Ridderstrale, argued that talent, not capital, had become the decisive competitive input. The book became an international bestseller in 33 languages and was ranked among the 16 greatest business books ever published. The follow-up, Karaoke Capitalism (2003), named a specific organisational failure: benchmarking and best practice had trained entire industries to imitate rather than differentiate, producing what the authors called a karaoke economy of second-rate cover versions. Both books remain in active circulation in serious management conversations. His subsequent work extended the analytical frame outward. Urban Express (2014), co-authored with Per Schlingmann, argued that multinationals are becoming multi-urban corporations. Cities, not nations, are the primary economic units of the coming decades, and an educated, urban, female workforce is the dominant skilled labour pool of the near future. Momentum (2023) examined how pandemic, geopolitical rupture, and climate pressure are accelerating this structural shift and what it demands from the next generation of leaders. Ranked #9 in the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers (2005), and a regular presence in Fortune, the Financial Times, and on CNN, Nordstrom has advised large multinationals and the UK government on strategy and globalisation. His value in a boardroom conversation is specific: not scenario planning or trend forecasting, but structural argument about which forces are deterministic, and which are merely plausible. Key speaking topics Globalisation and competitive strategy Urbanisation and the rise of the multi-urban corporation The karaoke economy: imitation as competitive liability Talent as the primary driver of competitive advantage Demographic change as structural economic force The long-run trajectory of capitalism Crisis, geopolitical rupture, and strategic response Ideal for Executive and board-level strategy sessions at multinational organisations Government and public policy leaders navigating structural economic transformation Strategy, corporate development, and planning functions reviewing long-term competitive positioning International leadership forums and global business summits Audience outcomes A structural framework for identifying which macro forces are actually reshaping competition in their sector Language for naming and challenging institutional imitation within their own organisation A working understanding of the multi-urban corporation thesis and its implications for market entry and talent strategy Clearer thinking on how urbanisation and demographic change translate into actionable strategic planning inputs A longer-range perspective on the current moment in capitalism’s evolution and what it demands from senior leadership

Why organisations work with Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg He has held two of the most consequential portfolios in a G7 cabinet, Economics and Technology then Defence, and can speak to how policy is actually made inside those rooms rather than how it is reported. He led the largest structural reform of the Bundeswehr since 1955, including the suspension of conscription, which gives him a working view of how political decisions translate into institutional change at scale. His advisory firm Spitzberg Partners places him in continuous dialogue with European and US corporates, investors and policymakers, so the read he brings to a board is current rather than historical. His CSIS affiliation in Washington and his German political base give him a genuinely transatlantic vantage point, which matters for companies whose risk now sits across both jurisdictions. He addresses his 2011 resignation and the plagiarism scandal openly when relevant, which removes a question buyers would otherwise have and lets the commercial conversation proceed without ambiguity. Biography highlights Federal Minister of Defence of Germany, 2009 to 2011, under Chancellor Angela Merkel. Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Technology, 2009. Member of the Bundestag for Kulmbach, 2002 to 2011, re-elected in 2009 with 68.1 percent, the highest national share that cycle. Chairman and Founder of Spitzberg Partners LLC, a New York advisory and investment firm. Distinguished Statesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. Author of “Vorerst gescheitert” (2011), “3 Sekunden” (2023), “3 Worte” (2025), and co-host of the “Gysi gegen Guttenberg” podcast with Gregor Gysi since 2023. Biography Two cabinet posts in one year is unusual in any G7 government. Guttenberg took Economic Affairs and Technology in February 2009 and Defence in October 2009, becoming the youngest German Defence Minister of the post-war era at 37. The Defence role placed him at the centre of Germany’s most contested security questions, from the Afghanistan deployment to the long-delayed restructuring of the Bundeswehr. The reform he led suspended conscription and moved Germany toward a smaller professional force of around 165,000 active personnel, the most significant structural change to the armed forces since their founding in 1955. He also broke a long-standing political convention by describing the Afghanistan operation as a war rather than a stabilisation mission, and established the Combat Action Medal of the Bundeswehr in November 2010. He resigned all political offices on 1 March 2011 after the University of Bayreuth revoked his 2007 doctorate over extensive plagiarism in his dissertation on European constitutional law. He addressed the episode in book-length form with Die Zeit editor-in-chief Giovanni di Lorenzo later that year. In 2019 he completed a PhD at the University of Southampton on correspondent banking, supervised by the economist Richard Werner. The second career is built on transatlantic policy and capital. Spitzberg Partners, which he founded in 2013, advises corporates and investors on European and international political, economic, technology and security issues. He has been a Distinguished Statesman at CSIS in Washington since 2011, and holds advisory positions including Barrick Gold and Ripple Labs. In Germany his public voice now travels through Focus columns, n-tv documentaries, and the weekly Gysi gegen Guttenberg podcast with the veteran left-wing politician Gregor Gysi, launched in 2023. Key speaking topics Transatlantic relations and the US-Europe policy agenda Geopolitical risk for boards and investors Defence, security and the future of NATO Technology policy, cybersecurity and digital sovereignty European economic and political outlook Political risk in financial services and fintech Ideal for Boards and investment committees pricing geopolitical and policy risk into capital allocation CEOs and corporate strategy leads with material exposure across the US, Germany and the wider EU Defence, security and aerospace industry leadership groups Financial services and fintech executives navigating regulation, sanctions and digital asset policy Audience outcomes A clearer read on how Washington, Berlin and Brussels are likely to move on the security, trade and technology files that affect their business A working framework for assessing political risk alongside commercial risk, drawn from inside ministerial decision-making A sharper view of the transatlantic relationship and where it is likely to fracture or hold A direct, on-the-record response to the questions boards usually ask privately about his 2011 resignation, when relevant to the brief

Why organisations work with Joseph Stiglitz His Nobel Prize work demonstrated that markets systematically mis-price when participants have unequal access to information – a finding that maps directly onto corporate governance failures, credit risk models, and regulatory blind spots that boards encounter in practice. He is among the very few economists to have held operational control over both US domestic economic policy (Council of Economic Advisers) and global financial architecture (World Bank Chief Economist) – his critique of institutions carries authority because it comes from inside them. The commission he chaired for President Sarkozy in 2008 produced the framework now being advanced by the OECD as a formal alternative to GDP. Organisations engaged in ESG reporting, long-term value creation, and sustainability governance are already operating within the measurement landscape he helped design. The Price of Inequality (2012) and The Road to Freedom (2024) make the specific, evidence-based case that inequality is a structural drag on growth, market stability, and democratic governance – giving senior leaders a rigorous foundation for treating social outcomes as financial risk, not reputational noise. His analysis of globalisation – grounded in direct experience of how the IMF and World Bank made their most consequential decisions – gives organisations operating across emerging markets a more accurate model of where global financial governance fails and why. Biography highlights Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001), shared with Akerlof and Spence, for the theory of markets with asymmetric information – a finding that reshaped economics and became standard in policy analysis University Professor at Columbia University, the institution’s highest academic rank, with appointments in Economics, SIPA, and Columbia Business School Chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers (1995-97) under President Clinton; Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank (1997-2000) Chaired the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (2008-09) at President Sarkozy’s request; published as Mismeasuring Our Lives; continues to chair the successor High-Level Expert Group at the OECD John Bates Clark Medal (1979); more than 40 honorary doctorates, including from Cambridge and Oxford; named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world (2011) Author of more than 10 books for general audiences, including Globalization and Its Discontents (2002), The Price of Inequality (2012), and The Road to Freedom (2024) Lead author of the 1995 IPCC Report, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize; regular contributor to Project Syndicate; regular coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Guardian Biography The strategic blind spot in most boardrooms is not a lack of data – it is a set of inherited economic assumptions that have been treated as fact. Markets clear. Prices reflect value. Deregulation improves outcomes. Joseph Stiglitz has spent five decades building the evidence against each of these claims, from the insurance market to the credit system to the global financial architecture. His Nobel Prize in 2001 recognised the foundational work. In markets where some participants know more than others, the outcomes that standard models predict do not materialise. Credit gets rationed below efficient levels. Insurance markets produce worse aggregate outcomes than pooling would allow. Labour markets generate unemployment that wage adjustments alone cannot resolve. These are not edge cases – they are the structural features of every market senior leaders navigate. Beyond the academy, Stiglitz has held the positions where those theories met consequences. He served as Chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers under Clinton and as Chief Economist of the World Bank. His subsequent criticism of those institutions – in Globalization and Its Discontents (2002) and The Price of Inequality (2012) – carries weight precisely because it was written by someone who watched the decisions being made. His more recent work extends the argument into measurement and institutional design. The commission he chaired for President Sarkozy produced Mismeasuring Our Lives (2009), a formal challenge to GDP as a reliable indicator of economic and social progress. That work now underpins the OECD’s ongoing effort to develop performance metrics beyond output. His 2024 book, The Road to Freedom, argues that the economic assumptions embedded in most policy and business planning are deliberate choices – with identifiable costs. For organisations navigating inequality risk, regulatory exposure, and ESG pressure, the distinction matters. Key speaking topics Information economics and market failure Economic inequality and structural risk Globalisation and its institutional consequences Beyond-GDP measurement and performance metrics Progressive capitalism and regulatory design Global financial architecture and reform Political economy of growth and distribution Ideal for Boards, CFOs, and chief economists assessing macroeconomic risk and long-term structural exposure Policy-facing organisations, government affairs functions, and institutions engaged in regulatory strategy Organisations navigating ESG, sustainability reporting, and long-term value measurement Financial services and investment institutions operating across global and emerging markets Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of why standard economic metrics – GDP, market efficiency assumptions, deregulation as growth driver – systematically obscure real performance and risk Insight into how information failures produce predictable market outcomes that corporate governance frameworks routinely miss A framework for interpreting the structural forces – inequality, regulatory shift, political backlash against globalisation – now reshaping the operating environment for large organisations Familiarity with the alternative performance metrics emerging from the OECD and the international standards community, and how they apply to strategic decision-making A more accurate model of where global financial governance fails and why – grounded in direct institutional experience at the World Bank and within the US government

Why organisations work with Jonathan Charles A working understanding of multilateral finance from twelve years inside the EBRD’s Executive Committee, where the Bank invests around twelve billion euros a year across three continents, not commentary from the outside BBC foreign correspondent experience covering the Iraq wars, Afghanistan, the Balkans and Chechnya, which gives a board-level briefing the texture of someone who has been in the rooms and on the ground Specialist depth on Russia, the EU and the single currency built across his BBC postings in Brussels and Frankfurt, the two cities where he established BBC television operations An experienced broadcaster’s command of the stage, used to chair principal interviews, moderate panels and host awards as well as deliver keynote analysis Oxford PPE training, fluent French and German, and current advisory work for governments and private sector clients on geopolitical communications Biography highlights Managing Director, Communications and Executive Committee member at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2011 to 2022 Former BBC Foreign and War Correspondent and BBC News presenter on BBC1, BBC World News and BBC News Channel Established BBC television operations in Brussels and Frankfurt; specialist areas economics, Russia, the EU and international diplomacy Reported from conflicts including the 1991 and 2003 Iraq wars, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Chechnya and Northern Ireland Member of the ODI Europe Board of Directors and current strategic communications and geopolitics adviser to governments and corporates MA (Oxon) and BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, Oriel College, Oxford; fluent in French and German Biography The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invests around twelve billion euros a year across Europe, Central Asia and the southern and eastern Mediterranean, in countries where capital flows track political risk in real time. For more than a decade, Charles sat on its Executive Committee as Managing Director of Communications, alongside the President, Vice Presidents and Chief Economist who set that capital to work. He arrived at the EBRD in 2011 from the BBC, where he had spent most of his career as a foreign and war correspondent and, latterly, a news presenter. The reporting covered the wars that defined the post-Cold War period, including the 1991 and 2003 Iraq conflicts, Afghanistan, the Balkans and Chechnya, alongside the slower-moving stories of European integration and the launch of the single currency, reported from BBC bureaux he established in Brussels and Frankfurt. That combination, frontline geopolitical reporting and senior multilateral experience, is what audiences hear in his keynote work. He reads Russia and the EU not as a commentator but as someone who has interviewed the principals and helped negotiate the institutional response. Since leaving the EBRD in 2022, he has advised governments and private sector clients on strategic communications and sits on the ODI Europe Board of Directors. For corporate audiences, he works in two registers. He delivers keynote analysis on geopolitics, Russia, the EU and the global economic system, drawn from his reporting and his time at the EBRD. He also chairs principal interviews, moderates panels and hosts awards, applying broadcasting craft built across thirty years on the BBC. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and international diplomacy Russia and the EU The single currency and European economic integration Multilateral finance and the EBRD region Global economic trends and markets Conference moderation and principal interviews Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning a geopolitical and macro briefing for a strategy offsite, particularly with Russia, EU or emerging market exposure CEOs and CCOs needing an experienced broadcaster to chair a flagship external forum or moderate a principal interview Investor and client events that need a sharp reader of European political and economic risk on stage Awards dinners and leadership conferences, where a recognised broadcaster sets the tone for the room Audience outcomes A current read of the political and economic dynamics across Russia, the EU and the EBRD’s wider operating region from someone who has worked inside the institutions A clearer view of which geopolitical and macro signals materially affect strategy in cross-border businesses Specific details from inside the rooms where multilateral finance and foreign policy are decided A professionally chaired session where the panel, interview or awards programme lands as intended

Why organisations work with Jonah Goldberg A primary-source read on the modern American right from the journalist who spent two decades inside National Review and now runs his own conservative newsroom. Author of Liberal Fascism, a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, and Suicide of the West, which argues that liberal democracy is sustained only by deliberate effort and is the through-line of his policy work. Holds the Asness Chair in Applied Liberty at the American Enterprise Institute, giving briefings rooted in scholarship rather than punditry. Built and runs The Dispatch as a subscription business, so he speaks about the media economy and political information markets from inside the operating chair, not as an observer. A reliable read for audiences that want intellectual honesty over partisan reassurance, including rooms that disagree with him. Biography highlights Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Dispatch, the center-right subscription publication launched in October 2019 with Stephen F. Hayes and Toby Stock. Asness Chair in Applied Liberty and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Author of Liberal Fascism (No. 1 New York Times bestseller), The Tyranny of Cliches, and Suicide of the West (New York Times bestseller). Weekly opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times and nationally syndicated columnist. Host of The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, one of the most listened-to conservative-leaning interview podcasts. Twenty-one years at National Review, where he was a senior editor and founding editor of National Review Online; political commentator for CNN. Biography The American right has fractured into camps that no longer share a definition of conservatism, and most analysis of it gets the factions wrong. Goldberg has spent thirty years inside the argument, first at National Review and now at The Dispatch, and writes about it with the access of an insider and the distance of someone who has lost friends in the fight. Suicide of the West sets out the through-line of his work. Liberal democracy and free markets are recent and unnatural achievements, sustained only by institutions and habits that are easy to lose and hard to rebuild. Liberal Fascism, his No. 1 New York Times bestseller, traced how progressive politics borrowed from European movements that were anything but liberal in the classical sense. The Tyranny of Cliches went after the lazy phrases that pass for political thought. The Asness Chair at the American Enterprise Institute gives that work an institutional base. The Dispatch gives it a newsroom. Co-founded with Stephen F. Hayes after the closure of The Weekly Standard, it now runs on subscriptions, which means Goldberg is also the operator of a media business and can speak credibly about how information markets shape American politics. For corporate audiences his usefulness is specific: a candid, non-partisan read on Washington from a conservative who broke with his own side over Trump, resigned from Fox News on principle in 2021, and still speaks fluently to readers across the spectrum. Key speaking topics US political risk and the 2025 to 2028 cycle The realignment of American conservatism Liberal democracy and the defence of liberal institutions Populism, nationalism and identity politics The future of the American media economy Free markets and applied liberty Constitutional government and the administrative state Ideal for Boards, investment committees and CIO offices stress-testing US political assumptions. Public affairs, policy and government relations leaders briefing executives on Washington. Financial services and asset management forums sizing political and regulatory risk. Conferences focused on media, democracy and the health of civic institutions. Audience outcomes A clearer map of the factions inside the American right and what each one wants. A sharper sense of which Washington signals matter for business and which are noise. A working argument for why liberal democratic institutions are worth defending in commercial terms, not only moral ones. An understanding of how the subscription media economy is reshaping political information. The intellectual ammunition to push back on lazy framings from the left and the right inside their own organisations.

Why organisations work with John Sitilides He has trained the U.S. diplomats who execute American policy in southern Europe, chairing the State Department Foreign Service Institute’s Advanced Area Studies Program since 2006. That insider vantage point is rare on a corporate stage. He has consulted to the State Department under four U.S. presidential administrations across both parties, which gives boards a reading of Washington that is not tied to one political cycle. His Foreign Policy Research Institute work, including bylined analyses on NATO and the alliance’s posture toward Russia, gives investment committees a defensible framework for European and transatlantic exposure. He translates trade, energy, technology, and security flashpoints into specific commercial implications for capital allocation, supply chains, and regulatory strategy, rather than offering broad commentary. He is a working operator inside Washington as Principal of Trilogy Advisors, so his read on regulatory and political risk is sourced from current client work, not retrospective analysis. Biography highlights Principal, Trilogy Advisors LLC, Washington D.C., advising on U.S. government affairs, regulatory reform, and geopolitical risk. Senior Fellow, National Security Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute. Chair of the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute’s Advanced Area Studies Program for Southeast Europe under government contract since 2006. Founder of the Western Policy Center; negotiated its 2004 merger into the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, then chaired the Wilson Center Southeast Europe Project advisory board through 2011. Regular geopolitical commentator on Bloomberg, CNN, CNN International, FOX News, Newsmax, and NewsNation, with commentary cited in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, NPR, and South China Morning Post. Master’s degree, International and Public Affairs, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Biography The U.S. trained the diplomats running its Southern Europe portfolio inside the Foreign Service Institute. The chair of that Advanced Area Studies Program since 2006, under State Department contract, is John Sitilides. That role sits behind almost everything else he does on a public stage. His day job is Principal at Trilogy Advisors LLC in Washington, where he advises on U.S. government affairs, regulatory strategy, and geopolitical risk. He is also a Senior Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where his recent bylined work has tracked NATO’s posture and the alliance agenda heading into successive summits. Earlier, he founded the Western Policy Center, a Washington research organisation tracking U.S., NATO, and EU interests in southeastern Europe. He negotiated its 2004 merger into the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and chaired the Wilson Center Southeast Europe Project advisory board through 2011. He has testified before Congress, contributed chapters to volumes published by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Committee and the Italian think tank ISPI, and is cited regularly across the major U.S. broadcast networks and the international financial press. For a corporate audience, the value is the synthesis. He sits inside the Washington policy machine, trains the people who run U.S. diplomacy in a critical region, and writes for serious foreign policy outlets. When he speaks to a board, the analysis is sourced from that day’s working environment. Key speaking topics U.S. foreign policy and great power competition Geopolitical and geo-economic risk for global business Trade, technology, and energy security NATO, Europe, and transatlantic relations Washington political risk and U.S. government affairs The Indo-Pacific and U.S.-China strategic competition Ideal for Corporate boards and CEO advisory sessions setting global strategy under geopolitical uncertainty Investment committees, asset managers, and CIO offices pricing political and policy risk Policy, government affairs, and risk leaders briefing executive teams on Washington decisions Industry conferences in financial services, energy, defence, and technology that need a credentialled Washington voice Audience outcomes A working framework for reading U.S. foreign policy signals and translating them into commercial decisions A current view of great power competition between the United States, China, and Russia and what it means for trade, technology, and energy positioning A clearer read on Washington’s regulatory and policy direction across administrations, not tied to one political cycle Specific implications for capital allocation, market entry, and supply chain exposure in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East Confidence that the analysis is sourced from active policy and diplomatic practice, not commentary at a distance

Why organisations work with John Simpson He has been the BBC’s World Affairs Editor since 1988, which means leaders are getting analysis from the person whose job is to interpret these events for the BBC’s global audience, not a retired correspondent recounting old assignments. He has reported on the ground from the Iranian Revolution, Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rwanda, both Gulf Wars and the Taliban’s collapse in Kabul, which gives audiences a long view that no recent commentator can match. He brings working access to current sources. Unspun World, his weekly BBC2 programme, is built on direct conversations with BBC correspondents in the regions in question, and that material informs the way he frames live events for a corporate room. His credentials are verifiable and independently weighty: CBE, three BAFTAs, an International Emmy, a Peabody Award and RTS Journalist of the Year twice. A buyer can stand behind the booking without caveat. He is comfortable in formats beyond the keynote, including after-dinner, moderation and interview, which makes him useful where a leadership audience wants conversation rather than a set-piece lecture. Biography highlights BBC World Affairs Editor since 1988 Reported from more than 120 countries and over 30 war zones across a 55-year BBC career CBE (1991), three BAFTAs, International Emmy, Peabody Award, RTS Journalist of the Year (twice), Golden Nymph (Cannes) Presenter, Unspun World with John Simpson, BBC2, weekly since 2022 Author of A Mad World, My Masters (memoir, Sunday Times bestseller), Moscow, Midnight and Our Friends in Beijing Honorary Fellow, Magdalene College, Cambridge Biography The fall of Kabul in 2001 was reported live by a man in a burqa. John Simpson had walked into the city ahead of the advancing Northern Alliance, and his BBC dispatch from that morning won an International Emmy. It is one moment in a career that has put him on the ground for most of the events that shape current geopolitical thinking. He has been the BBC’s World Affairs Editor since 1988. Before that he was political editor, then diplomatic editor, having joined the BBC as a reporter in 1970. The role has not been ceremonial. He covered the Iranian Revolution alongside Ayatollah Khomeini’s return, was in Tiananmen Square in 1989, in Berlin as the Wall came down, in Rwanda during the genocide, and in northern Iraq in 2003 when a US bombing left him deaf in one ear. What this gives a senior audience is range. He can speak about Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan and the Gulf with a continuity of personal observation that few working journalists possess. Since 2022 he has presented Unspun World on BBC2, a weekly programme that filters current stories through BBC correspondents in the relevant countries, which keeps his analysis grounded in present reporting. The recognition is independently weighty. A CBE in 1991, three BAFTAs, a Peabody, RTS Journalist of the Year twice, and an Honorary Fellowship at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read English. He is also a working author of three books that travel beyond memoir into geopolitical fiction set in Moscow and Beijing. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and global flashpoints Russia, China and the new authoritarianism The Middle East and the long shadow of the Iranian Revolution US foreign policy and its global consequences The state of public broadcasting and the news business Leadership lessons from interviews with 200 world leaders Ideal for Boards and executive committees making investment, supply-chain or talent decisions exposed to geopolitical shock CEO conferences, partner events and after-dinner programmes for professional services and financial firms Strategy offsites and scenario-planning sessions where a long historical view sharpens current debate Audience outcomes A clearer read on which current geopolitical headlines carry strategic weight and which are noise First-hand context on the leaders, regimes and movements shaping today’s risk environment A working sense of how authoritarian states behave under pressure, drawn from direct reporting in Russia, China and Iran A sharper question set for executives reviewing country exposure and political risk

Why organisations work with John Sergeant Thirty years inside Westminster reporting for the BBC and ITN, including the 1990 Thatcher leadership broadcast that won the British Press Guild Award for most memorable broadcast of the year. He reads a political moment the way a correspondent reads it, not the way a commentator does. Hosting craft built on live political broadcasting, not entertainment. He has chaired Have I Got News for You and hosted the inaugural Royal Television Society Programme Awards for Northern Ireland, and he carries that range into corporate moderation, awards and after-dinner work. A public profile that travels beyond the political audience. Strictly Come Dancing, Have I Got News for You, QI, Parkinson and The One Show give him cross-generational name recognition that most political journalists of his vintage do not have. Published authority on the Thatcher era and the modern British political class through Give Me Ten Seconds and Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy, both reviewed in the national press. Biography highlights Chief political correspondent, BBC News, 1992 to 2000 Political editor, ITN, 2000 to 2002 British Press Guild Award, Most Memorable Broadcast of the Year, 1990 (Thatcher in Paris) Author, Give Me Ten Seconds (Pan Macmillan, 2002) and Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy (2005) Co-starred with Alan Bennett in On the Margin, RTS Comedy of the Year Twice chaired Have I Got News for You; finalist on Strictly Come Dancing series six Biography Margaret Thatcher pushed past a BBC reporter outside the British Embassy in Paris in November 1990 to announce she would fight a second ballot for the Conservative leadership. The reporter held the microphone, kept his composure, and finished the broadcast. That reporter was John Sergeant, and the broadcast won the British Press Guild Award for the most memorable broadcast of the year. It is also the moment that explains what he brings to a room: a journalist’s reflexes, applied live. He joined the BBC as a radio reporter in 1970 after a spell on the Liverpool Echo, and spent the next three decades inside its newsroom. Foreign assignments in Vietnam, Israel and across more than two dozen countries gave way to Westminster in 1981, then to the role of chief political correspondent from 1992 to 2000, then to political editor at ITN until 2002. He covered every major shift in British political life across that period, from the end of Thatcherism through Blair and the early years of devolution. His published work matters because it is built on access, not analysis at distance. Give Me Ten Seconds, his memoir, sits inside the lobby and the broadcast van. Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy is a working journalist’s reading of how Thatcher’s premiership shaped the politics that followed, and it was reviewed in The Independent and the Sunday Times on those terms. Both are still in print with Pan Macmillan. The second half of his career has been about range. Comedy with Alan Bennett at the start, sketch writing, then a return to entertainment as a chair of Have I Got News for You, a Strictly Come Dancing finalist who walked away on his own terms, and a fixture on Question Time, QI and Parkinson. That mix is the reason he works as a corporate host and moderator: a senior audience that has spent two days listening to executives speaks more honestly to a journalist who has spent a career making politicians do the same. Key speaking topics British politics and Westminster Political leadership and the prime ministerial role Media, journalism and political communication Conference and awards hosting Panel moderation and political interviewing After-dinner speaking on a political life Ideal for Annual conferences and dinners with senior corporate audiences Awards ceremonies and gala evenings Board offsites and leadership dinners seeking political and current-affairs context Panel discussions on politics, media and public affairs requiring an authoritative chair Audience outcomes A first-hand read of how British politics actually works inside Westminster, drawn from three decades reporting it Stories from the Thatcher, Major and Blair years told by a journalist who was in the room A panel or interview chaired by someone trained to ask the next question, not the prepared one An evening anchored by a recognisable broadcaster whose presence settles the room rather than competes with it

Why organisations work with John Pienaar Reads UK politics with lobby-level judgement built across nearly three decades at the BBC and a continuing daily Times Radio platform. Brings the seniority of a former BBC Deputy Political Editor and host of Pienaar’s Politics on Radio 5 Live into the room with leadership teams and clients. Operates as an interviewer first, which makes him a strong moderator for boards, panels and high-stakes Q and A formats where the audience expects pressure and clarity in equal measure. Sits on the judging panel for the Orwell Prize for Journalism, a peer signal that his analysis carries weight with the field he covers. Biography highlights Deputy Political Editor of BBC News, 2015 to 2020. Chief Political Correspondent at BBC Radio 5 Live from 2002, and presenter of the weekly Westminster round-up Pienaar’s Politics. Drive-time presenter on Times Radio since the station’s launch in June 2020, and host of Pienaar and Friends. Co-host of Question Time Extra Time with Stephen Nolan and stand-in presenter on BBC Two’s Daily Politics. Earlier political reporting at The Independent and the Press Association, with court reporting at the South London Press and the Old Bailey. Judge for the Orwell Prize for Journalism, awarded by the Orwell Foundation. Biography UK politics has stopped being a side-room topic for senior leadership. Tax, trade, regulation, energy and labour now move on the timetable of the Commons and the lobby. Pienaar has reported that lobby for the BBC and Times Radio for more than thirty years. He joined the BBC as a political reporter in 1992, became Chief Political Correspondent at Radio 5 Live in 2002, and served as Deputy Political Editor of BBC News from 2015 to 2020. Pienaar’s Politics, his weekly Westminster round-up on Radio 5 Live, became one of the recognisable fixtures of the political week. Since June 2020 he has presented Times Radio’s drivetime programme, the slot the station built at launch, alongside Pienaar and Friends. He earlier reported for The Independent, the Press Association and the South London Press, including a stint as Old Bailey correspondent. The Orwell Foundation has appointed him a judge of the Orwell Prize for Journalism. What an audience gets is not commentary at one remove. It is a read of the people, the rooms, the timetable and the next move from someone the political class talks to, and from someone whose primary craft is the live interview. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster Government, Whitehall and the lobby Political risk and policy Election analysis Media and political communication Live political interviewing and moderation Current affairs Ideal for Boards and executive teams briefing on UK political risk Public affairs, government relations and corporate communications leads Conference organisers seeking a senior moderator or interviewer for political and policy sessions After-dinner audiences in financial, professional services and membership-body settings Audience outcomes A clearer read of the live state of UK politics from someone with current daily access to it. A sense of which Westminster signals matter for business decisions and which do not. Sharper questions for their own public affairs, regulatory and government relations work. An interview, panel or Q and A handled with the discipline of a senior broadcaster.

Why organisations work with John Kampfner Three and a half decades of first-hand reporting on the events that now define geopolitical risk: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet collapse from Moscow, the Blair government’s wars, Merkel-era Germany, and Putin’s Russia from Reuters and Telegraph postings through to FT and BBC platforms. A genuinely granular reading of Germany, the EU’s largest economy and a country most UK and US commentators treat as a footnote. Why The Germans Do It Better sold over 150,000 copies and was Book of the Year in the Guardian, Economist and New Statesman. Institutional weight inside the UK foreign policy establishment: founding Executive Director of Chatham House’s UK in the World programme and Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, the country’s oldest defence and security think tank. A practitioner’s eye for how political risk lands inside organisations, sharpened by running Index on Censorship as Chief Executive and founding the Creative Industries Federation, not just from the press gallery. A broadcaster’s command of a room. Kampfner is regularly booked to moderate, host awards, and chair board-level discussions where the brief demands a serious geopolitical mind on stage rather than a generalist host. Biography highlights Foreign correspondent for Reuters in Moscow and Bonn, then Daily Telegraph in East Berlin during the fall of the Wall and Moscow Bureau Chief during the Soviet collapse. Chief Political Correspondent, Financial Times (1995 to 1998); political journalist for BBC Today and Newsnight (1998 to 2000). Editor, The New Statesman (2005 to 2008); British Society of Magazine Editors Current Affairs Editor of the Year, 2006. Chief Executive, Index on Censorship (2008 to 2012); founder Chair of Turner Contemporary, Margate (2008 to 2016); founding CEO of the Creative Industries Federation (2014 to 2018). Author of eight books with Atlantic and others, including Why The Germans Do It Better (Sunday Times bestseller, 2020), In Search of Berlin (RSL Ondaatje Prize longlist, 2024), and Braver New World (April 2026). Senior Associate Fellow, RUSI (since 2019); founding Executive Director of Chatham House’s UK in the World programme (2021 to 2023); Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin (2024 to 2025). Biography Most Anglophone reporting on Germany stops at clichés about engineering, debt brakes, and lederhosen. Kampfner spent the decisive thirty years inside the country and the region instead: East Berlin as the Wall came down for the Daily Telegraph, Moscow as the Soviet Union dissolved, then Bonn and Berlin again as the Federal Republic absorbed the East and built the economy that now anchors the European Union. That reporting trajectory continued through Westminster. As Chief Political Correspondent at the Financial Times in the late 1990s and a political journalist on BBC Newsnight and Today, he covered the Blair government from the inside. Blair’s Wars, published in 2003, became one of the first authoritative accounts of the Iraq decision and was cited in subsequent Whitehall enquiries. The books since have built a coherent body of work on power, freedom and statecraft. Freedom For Sale was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. Why The Germans Do It Better sold over 150,000 copies and ran through several editions. In Search of Berlin was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, and Braver New World, out in April 2026, examines ten countries solving hard problems other governments are failing to address. The institutional credentials follow the reporting. Kampfner was the founding Executive Director of Chatham House’s UK in the World programme, set up in 2021 to critically examine Britain’s foreign policy posture after Brexit. He has been a Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI since 2019 and was a Fellow at Berlin’s Institute for Advanced Study in 2024 to 2025. He chairs Young Königswinter and deputy-chairs the Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft, the bilateral institutions that quietly shape UK-German policy traffic. Key speaking topics Germany, the EU and the European economy Russia, Ukraine and the post-Soviet order UK foreign policy after Brexit The transatlantic alliance and the future of NATO Political risk for global business Elections and political volatility in Europe and the US Media, freedom of expression and democratic resilience Ideal for Board and executive sessions briefing on geopolitical exposure across Europe, Russia and the transatlantic alliance CFOs, Chief Strategy Officers and Heads of Risk pricing political variables into capital allocation Annual conferences for financial services, defence, energy and industrial groups with material German or Central European exposure Awards ceremonies and senior moderation briefs requiring a broadcast-credible chair with substantive policy command Audience outcomes A sharper, named read of where Germany, Russia and the EU are heading, grounded in primary reporting rather than headline summary A clearer view of how political risk is actually priced inside Whitehall, Brussels and Berlin policy circles A working sense of the durability, or fragility, of the institutions audiences assume are constants: NATO, the EU single market, the WTO order Specific reference points and named sources audiences can take back into their own briefings and board papers

Why organisations work with Jim Rogers He co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in 1973 and helped run one of the most successful early hedge funds in history, which gives institutional audiences a primary source on how a global macro book is actually built. He created the Rogers International Commodity Index, still used as a benchmark for broad commodity exposure, so his views on energy, agriculture, and metals carry a structural weight that pure commentators do not have. He has driven and ridden through more than 100 countries on documented multi-year journeys, including a Guinness-recognised car trip across six continents, which means his country views are informed by direct contact rather than desk research. He has been calling the shift of capital toward Asia since relocating to Singapore in 2007, and audiences get a long-running, internally consistent thesis rather than a quarter-by-quarter pivot. His books, from Investment Biker to Hot Commodities to Street Smarts, give boards and investment committees a pre-read that frames the conversation before he is even in the room. Biography highlights Co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros, 1973 Creator of the Rogers International Commodity Index (RICI), 1998 Former guest professor of finance, Columbia Business School Author of Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist, Hot Commodities, A Bull in China, A Gift to My Children, and Street Smarts Guinness World Record holder for most countries visited in a continuous journey by car, with Paige Parker, 1999 to 2002 Yale (BA, history, cum laude, 1964) and Balliol College, Oxford (BA, PPE, 1966); chairman of Beeland Interests; based in Singapore Biography The Quantum Fund returned roughly 4,200% in its first decade while the S&P moved about 47%. Jim Rogers co-founded that fund with George Soros in 1973, and the partnership remains one of the reference points for how a global macro book can compound when the manager is willing to look beyond the home market. He retired from active fund management at 37 and turned to teaching, writing, and travelling. A guest professorship at Columbia Business School followed, alongside two long-form journeys: a motorcycle trip across six continents in the early 1990s, and a Guinness-recognised car trip with Paige Parker from 1999 to 2002 covering 111 countries and three territories. The travel is not decoration. It is how he tests his macro thesis against border posts, fuel stations, and local exchange rates. In 1998 he built the Rogers International Commodity Index, a broad-basket benchmark still referenced by commodity-tracking products. The index is the structural expression of a view he has held for decades: that real assets, food, energy, metals, and the countries that produce them, are systematically underweight in most portfolios. Since moving from New York to Singapore in 2007, his argument has sharpened around the eastward shift of capital and growth. His books, from Investment Biker to Hot Commodities and Street Smarts, set out the same case in detail. For an investment committee, a board, or a treasury team, the value is access to a thesis that has been held, traded, and revised over fifty years on three continents. Key speaking topics Global macro investing Commodity cycles and the case for real assets Asia, China, and the eastward shift of capital Long-term economic and currency outlook Emerging and frontier markets Investing through political and policy risk Ideal for Institutional investors, asset managers, family offices, and sovereign funds setting long-horizon allocation Banks, treasury teams, and CFO communities exposed to commodity, currency, and rate cycles Boards and executive committees of multinationals with significant Asia or emerging-market exposure Wealth management and private bank client events where the audience expects a contrarian macro voice Audience outcomes A clear, fifty-year-tested thesis on how capital is shifting between West and East and what that means for portfolio construction A working framework for thinking about commodity cycles and where real assets sit in a long-only book Specific country and sector views on China, the broader Asia region, and frontier markets, drawn from direct travel and current allocation Sharper questions to bring back to investment committees and boards about consensus assumptions on the dollar, US equities, and global growth A reading list, anchored on Hot Commodities, Investment Biker, and Street Smarts, that lets attendees keep working with the argument afterwards

Why organisations work with Jeroen Dijsselbloem He chaired the Eurogroup through the Cyprus bail-in, the third Greek programme, and the build-out of the banking union, so the explanation of how the euro area actually behaves under stress is first-hand, not analytical. As current Mayor of Eindhoven and President of Brainport Eindhoven, he sits at the centre of Europe’s most concentrated semiconductor and high-tech manufacturing cluster, with direct line of sight on industrial policy and chip supply. He led the Dutch Safety Board’s public investigation into the Netherlands’ COVID-19 crisis response, giving him a working framework for how governments and institutions actually decide under shock. His book “The Euro Crisis: The inside story” is one of very few first-person accounts of eurozone crisis management written by a sitting chair of the Eurogroup, used as a reference text by financial sector audiences. He speaks credibly to two audiences most macro speakers cannot bridge at once, finance ministers and central bank counterparts on one side, and industrial and technology leaders on the other. Biography highlights President of the Eurogroup, 2013 to 2018, serving two consecutive terms elected by euro area finance ministers. Minister of Finance of the Netherlands, 2012 to 2017, in the second Rutte cabinet. President of the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism, 2013 to 2018. Author of “The Euro Crisis: The inside story,” Prometheus, 2018, with editions in Dutch and English. Chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, 2019 to 2022, leading the official investigation into the Dutch COVID-19 response. Mayor of Eindhoven since 2022 and President of the Brainport Eindhoven Region, home to ASML and the Dutch semiconductor cluster. Biography The Cyprus bail-in in March 2013 was the first time a eurozone rescue forced losses onto uninsured bank depositors. Jeroen Dijsselbloem chaired the Eurogroup meeting where that decision was taken. Two years later he chaired the room again when Greece’s third programme was negotiated against a referendum, a missed IMF payment, and an expiring bailout. Those two episodes did more to define how the euro area would behave under stress than any treaty change. Before Brussels, he served as Minister of Finance of the Netherlands from 2012 to 2017 in the second Rutte cabinet, and before that as a long-serving Labour member of the House of Representatives. As President of the Eurogroup from 2013 to 2018 he also chaired the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism. His own account of that period, “The Euro Crisis: The inside story,” is one of the few first-person records of those negotiations written by the person who chaired them. Since leaving Brussels he has done two unusual things for a former finance minister. He chaired the Dutch Safety Board from 2019 to 2022, leading the official public investigation into how the Netherlands handled COVID-19, including its decision-making structure and crisis governance. Then in 2022 he became Mayor of Eindhoven and President of the Brainport Eindhoven Region, which means he now has political responsibility for the area that hosts ASML and a large share of Europe’s advanced chip manufacturing capability. That sequence, eurozone crisis manager, then crisis-response investigator, then operating leader of a strategic European tech cluster, gives him a working view of where European competitiveness, capital and security policy now intersect. He speaks regularly on European competitiveness, the proposed Savings and Investment Union, and the future of the EU’s industrial base. Key speaking topics Eurozone crisis management and sovereign debt European banking union and financial stability European competitiveness and industrial policy Semiconductor supply chains and the Brainport ecosystem The Savings and Investment Union and capital markets in Europe Government decision-making under shock Future of the European Union Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material euro area exposure CFOs and treasurers managing European sovereign and bank risk Technology and industrial leaders tracking EU chip policy and Brainport Public-affairs, policy and government-relations leads working on Brussels Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how eurozone decisions are actually taken when a member state is in crisis A working sense of what the banking union does and does not yet cover A grounded view of European industrial policy and the chip supply question through the Brainport lens A first-person account of leading a national crisis investigation, useful for risk and resilience audiences