Economic Trends & Global Markets

Why organisations work with Jeremy Siegel He wrote the book the industry uses as its reference point on long-run equity returns. “Stocks for the Long Run”, now in its sixth edition, is on The Washington Post’s list of the ten best investment books ever written, and his dataset on equities versus bonds since 1802 remains the standard citation in the field. His MIT training under Samuelson, Solow, and Modigliani gives him an unusual depth of macroeconomic reasoning behind every market call. He reads Fed minutes and inflation data the way they were intended to be read, not as headlines. He has been interpreting Federal Reserve policy in public for more than fifty years, and his CNBC commentary is treated by professional investors as a primary signal rather than punditry. His role as Senior Economist to WisdomTree means his thinking is already operationalised in live model portfolios, so audiences engage with a practitioner whose views translate directly into asset allocation decisions. Most macro speakers offer either history or forecasts. Siegel does both, anchored to a dataset that pre-dates the Civil War, which is why investment committees keep bringing him back through every cycle. Biography highlights Russell E. Palmer Professor Emeritus of Finance, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. PhD in economics from MIT, where he studied under Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, and Franco Modigliani. Author of “Stocks for the Long Run” (six editions) and “The Future for Investors”, both Crown Business titles. Senior Economist to WisdomTree, with a co-branded family of model portfolios used by financial advisers. Regular contributor on CNBC, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, and Yahoo Finance. Recipient of the Nicholas Molodovsky Award from the CFA Institute and the Graham and Dodd Award from the Financial Analysts Journal. Biography Most public commentary on markets is built on a few quarters of memory. “Stocks for the Long Run” is built on two centuries of data. The book first appeared in 1994, is now in its sixth edition, and remains the standard reference for the question that anchors every investment committee meeting: across full cycles, what do equities actually return, and what does the historical record say about the next allocation decision? The work has authority because of where it comes from. Jeremy Siegel earned his PhD in economics at MIT under Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, and Franco Modigliani, three of the defining macroeconomists of the twentieth century. He taught at the University of Chicago before joining Wharton, where he held the Russell E. Palmer chair in finance for more than four decades and is now Professor Emeritus. His second book, “The Future for Investors”, made a more contrarian argument: that the fastest-growing companies and sectors tend to disappoint long-term investors, while disciplined dividend-paying stalwarts compound returns more reliably. The thesis, which he called the “growth trap”, has aged well through the dot-com cycle, the FAANG decade, and the current AI boom. Siegel has been reading Federal Reserve policy in public for over fifty years and now serves as Senior Economist to WisdomTree, where his analysis sits inside a family of co-branded model portfolios. The Washington Post named “Stocks for the Long Run” one of the ten best investment books ever written; the CFA Institute awarded him the Nicholas Molodovsky Award in 2005, recognising work that has changed how the profession thinks. Key speaking topics Long-run equity returns and historical asset class performance Federal Reserve policy and interest rate paths Inflation, monetary policy, and capital markets Portfolio construction and asset allocation Dividend investing and the growth trap US economic outlook and market cycles The role of valuation in long-term investing Ideal for Investment committees, asset allocators, and CIOs of institutional funds Boards and CFOs making capital allocation decisions under rate uncertainty Wealth managers, financial advisers, and private bank client events CFA society events and capital markets conferences Audience outcomes A historically grounded view of what equities have returned across cycles and what that implies for current allocation A sharper read on Federal Reserve policy direction and the data points that actually move it A framework for distinguishing durable dividend-compounding businesses from over-priced growth stories Practical anchors for portfolio discussions when short-term volatility is dominating the conversation

Why organisations work with Jeremy Rifkin He is the architect of an economic framework that the European Parliament adopted by formal declaration in 2007 and that has been translated into multi-hundred-page regional deployment roadmaps in Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam-The Hague, and Luxembourg. He has advised four European Commission presidents in sequence (Prodi, Barroso, Juncker, von der Leyen) and held that advisory line through three political cycles, which is rare for any external economic thinker. His thesis connects energy, communication, and mobility infrastructure into a single capital story, so boards leave with a way to sequence decarbonisation, digital, and supply chain decisions instead of treating them as separate budget lines. His twenty-plus books, including The End of Work, The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua, give him a body of work that named institutional buyers already know, which shortens the credibility conversation inside large organisations. He taught CEOs and senior leadership at Wharton Executive Education from 1995 to 2016, so the register is built for senior corporate audiences, not policy seminars. Biography highlights Principal architect of the Third Industrial Revolution economic plan, formally endorsed by the European Parliament in May 2007. Advisor to the European Commission under presidents Romano Prodi, Jose Manuel Barroso, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Ursula von der Leyen. President of TIR Consulting Group LLC, which has produced full Third Industrial Revolution roadmaps for the Hauts-de-France region, the Metropolitan Region of Rotterdam and The Hague, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Author of 20+ books translated into more than thirty languages, including The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua. Senior lecturer, Wharton School Executive Education Program, University of Pennsylvania, 1995 to 2016. Recipient of the 13th German Sustainability Award (2020) and honorary doctorates from Hasselt University and the University of Liege (2015). Biography The European Parliament formally endorsed the Third Industrial Revolution as a long-term economic road map in May 2007. Jeremy Rifkin wrote it. Since then, the framework has been the reference document behind successive Commission decisions on energy, digital, and mobility infrastructure, and behind regional deployment plans in Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam and The Hague, and Luxembourg. The argument is that every major economic shift in history is a convergence of three infrastructures: communication, energy, and transport. When those three move together, the productive base of the economy is rebuilt. Rifkin’s contribution is to specify what that convergence looks like now, with a digital communication internet, a renewable energy internet, and an automated mobility internet, and to put numbers, sequencing, and policy choices around it. That is the work he has carried into advisory rooms across four European Commission presidencies, from Prodi to von der Leyen, and into engagements with the Chinese leadership during the run-up to the 13th Five-Year Plan. His TIR Consulting Group brings utilities, ICT firms, and engineering and construction companies into the same room as regional governments to design the roadmaps in detail. The body of work behind the advisory practice is unusually large. Twenty-plus books, translated into more than thirty languages, running from The End of Work through The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua (2024), selected by Nature among its five best science picks of the year. The German Sustainability Award followed in 2020. Few speakers in the energy and economy field can point to a framework that a parliament has formally adopted and that is being built, region by region, on the ground. Key speaking topics The Third Industrial Revolution Energy transition and the renewable energy internet The economics of decarbonisation Smart infrastructure and the Internet of Things economy The future of work in a zero marginal cost economy Climate resilience and the age of rewilding Water, food, and the planetary economy Geopolitics of the green transition Ideal for Boards and executive committees building multi-decade capital plans for the energy transition. CEOs, CSOs, and heads of strategy in energy, utilities, infrastructure, mobility, real estate, and heavy industry. Policy and public affairs leaders working across the EU, national governments, and city regions. Investor audiences allocating to climate, infrastructure, and transition capital. Audience outcomes A common framework for connecting energy, digital, and mobility investment decisions into one capital story. A clearer view of how EU and major regional climate policy is likely to evolve, and what that means for sector-by-sector capital allocation. Specific reference points from the Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam-The Hague, and Luxembourg roadmaps that can be applied to a company’s own transition plan. A sharper sense of where the platform, ownership, and competitive economics of energy and mobility are heading as marginal costs fall. Language and argument that translate well to a board, to investors, and to regulators.

Why organisations work with Jeffrey Sachs He co-designed the global development frameworks that most large organisations now report against. As Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to three successive UN Secretaries-General, Sachs helped shape both the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals – meaning he can explain what those frameworks were designed to achieve, where they are falling short, and why. His “clinical economics” methodology, introduced in The End of Poverty (2005), replaced one-size-fits-all policy prescription with country-specific diagnosis of binding constraints. Organisations operating across different markets gain a principled framework for understanding why development conditions diverge – not just the observation that they do. His credentials run through direct policy intervention rather than academic modelling. He advised the Bolivian government on halting acute hyperinflation in 1985 and the Polish Solidarity government on its market transition in 1989-90, and has subsequently advised the WHO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the OECD. What he brings is experience operating inside crises, not only analysing them. The Economist ranked him among the three most influential living economists. Time magazine named him twice to its 100 Most Influential World Leaders. Few speakers working at the intersection of sustainability, geopolitics, and global economics carry simultaneously a peer-reviewed academic reputation and independent recognition at this scale. He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, distributed across more than 145 countries, and contributes regularly to CNN Opinion and the Financial Times. For organisations that need macro-economic and geopolitical complexity made accessible to boards and senior leadership, his practice in public communication is part of what he brings. Biography highlights University Professor at Columbia University – the institution’s highest academic rank – and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development; formerly Director of the Earth Institute (2002-2016) Special Advisor to three UN Secretaries-General: Kofi Annan, Ban Ki-moon, and António Guterres (2001-2018); currently SDG Advocate under Guterres and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Director of the UN Millennium Project (2002-2006); co-founder and director of the Millennium Villages Project (2005-2015) Author of three New York Times bestsellers: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth (2008), The Price of Civilization (2011); monthly Project Syndicate columnist reaching over 145 countries 2022 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development; co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize; France’s Legion of Honor; India’s Padma Bhushan; over 40 honorary doctorates Ranked by The Economist among the three most influential living economists; twice named to Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential World Leaders; prior faculty at Harvard University for more than 20 years Biography Most large organisations now set sustainability commitments and report against the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Making those commitments credible requires an understanding of the geopolitical and macroeconomic forces that will determine whether they hold. That layer of analysis is rarely available in standard corporate planning. Jeffrey Sachs, University Professor at Columbia University and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development, helped design those goals. He served as Special Advisor to three successive UN Secretaries-General and directed the UN Millennium Project that established the predecessor MDG framework. The End of Poverty (2005) – a New York Times bestseller – introduced what Sachs termed “clinical economics.” The framework argues that sustainable development requires specific diagnosis of each country’s binding constraints rather than universal prescription, just as medicine requires examination before treatment. The approach has since shaped how international development institutions analyse economic stagnation. For organisations operating across multiple markets, it offers a principled basis for understanding why economic and development conditions differ. Before his work at Columbia, Sachs spent over two decades at Harvard. He advised the Bolivian government on halting acute hyperinflation in 1985, and the Polish Solidarity government on its transition to a market economy in 1989-90. He has since advised the WHO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the OECD on development policy and macroeconomic reform. His standing is independently documented from multiple sources. The Economist ranked him among the three most influential living economists. Time magazine named him twice to its 100 Most Influential World Leaders. He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, distributed across more than 145 countries, and contributes to CNN Opinion and the Financial Times. He is the 2022 recipient of the Tang Prize in Sustainable Development and co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize. Key speaking topics Global sustainable development strategy and the SDG framework Geopolitics and international economic cooperation Climate economics and the energy transition Macroeconomic reform and development finance Poverty reduction and global health policy “Clinical economics” and country-specific development diagnosis Long-term global risk and the international system Ideal for Boards and C-suite leaders with sustainability commitments who need geopolitical and macroeconomic grounding Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads working to align corporate strategy with the global development agenda Government ministers and public sector leaders engaged with the SDG framework International development institutions and multilateral organisations Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of the geopolitical and macroeconomic forces that will determine whether climate and sustainability commitments prove viable Familiarity with the design and strategic intent of the UN Sustainable Development Goals – beyond compliance reporting An analytical framework – “clinical economics” – for understanding why development and economic conditions differ across markets and regions Informed perspective on the relationship between geopolitics, international cooperation, and long-term economic and climate outcomes Context for assessing global economic risks – sovereign debt, financial instability, energy transition, and North-South cooperation – relevant to long-term strategy

Why organisations work with Jeff Moody A working CGTN anchor based in Beijing, which is a rare credential for a UK-available conference host and immediately useful for any agenda that touches China, trade, or cross-border media. Three decades of live broadcast experience across ITN, BBC, Channel Five, ITV Meridian, and now GB News, meaning he can hold a room when an agenda slips, a speaker drops out, or a Q&A goes off script. Equally credible on consumer affairs, business, and current affairs material, having reported across all three at network level in the UK. Comfortable with the format demands of corporate work, including after-dinner sets, on-stage interviews, awards hosting, and tightly produced multi-camera shows. Biography highlights News anchor at CGTN, Beijing, hosting the network’s flagship English-language discussion programming and co-presenter of the Chinese Terminology series. Began at Independent Television News (ITN) in London and went on to present Channel Five News (Breakfast and Entertainment) and BBC’s Liquid News. Consumer Correspondent at ITV Meridian Tonight. Currently reports for GB News from the South West of England. Wrote and directed a UK touring theatrical production in 2013. Earlier career includes radio in San Francisco and ownership of a hotel, restaurant, and wedding venue before returning to broadcasting. Biography Most non-Chinese journalists describe China from outside it. Jeff Moody describes it from a desk in Beijing. He is the only non-Chinese anchor hosting CGTN’s flagship discussion shows and co-presents Chinese Terminology, the network’s regular explainer of language, policy, and cultural concepts. For an event that needs a chair able to handle a China-related agenda without reaching for cliche, that working position matters. The broader career is a thirty-year arc through British broadcast news. ITN in London first, then Channel Five News as a Breakfast and Entertainment presenter, BBC’s Liquid News and Wish You Were Here, and ITV Meridian as Consumer Correspondent. He still reports in the UK, currently for GB News covering the South West of England. The mix means he can switch register: hard news at one end, consumer and lifestyle at the other. There is also a non-broadcast chapter. He stepped out of the media for several years to run a hotel, restaurant, and wedding venue, and returned in 2013, the same year he wrote and directed a touring theatre production. That history sits behind the on-stage manner: someone who has run a room as an operator, not only presented from one. For a corporate buyer, the practical case is straightforward. He chairs panels, moderates discussions, presents awards, and hosts after-dinner sessions, with the bench depth that comes from live news experience and a current vantage point inside Chinese state broadcasting that few peers can offer. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and on-stage interviewing Awards hosting and after-dinner presenting China and the UK media perspective Brexit and international news context Consumer affairs Corporate event hosting Ideal for Communications, public affairs, and external relations leads briefing audiences on China-related topics Conference organisers seeking a senior broadcaster to chair multi-session agendas Awards programmes and gala dinners requiring a polished on-stage host Internal leadership events that need a broadcast-grade interviewer for executive Q&A Audience outcomes A conference that runs to time, with sessions threaded into a coherent narrative rather than running as isolated talks. Panels that produce sharper material because the chair pushes back, redirects, and follows up. An after-dinner or awards segment that lands tonally for a senior corporate room. For China-adjacent agendas, framing from a host who works daily inside the Chinese broadcasting system rather than commenting on it from outside.

Why organisations work with Jean-Claude Trichet Organisations gain access to the actual reasoning behind the ECB’s decisions during the 2008 global financial crisis and the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis – including what monetary policy can and cannot do when sovereign risk becomes systemic. His career spans the full architecture of international financial governance: sovereign debt rescheduling at the Paris Club, European monetary union design as Governor of the Banque de France, and macroprudential oversight as founding Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board. No other available speaker holds that range from a single career. In the late 1990s, he introduced the “Principles for stable capital flows and fair debt restructuring” into international debt strategy – a specific policy contribution to the rules governing sovereign exposure that remains directly relevant to current debates about emerging market risk and debt sustainability. He remains active in the forums where the next financial crisis is being anticipated: honorary Chairman of the G30 in Washington, Special Advisor to the Systemic Risk Council, and twice appointed to G20 expert panels on financial governance and pandemic risk financing. His analysis of central bank behaviour, inflation trajectories, and sovereign risk appears regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC – he is not a retrospective commentator on events that closed in 2011, but a current voice in the financial policy conversation. Biography highlights President of the European Central Bank (2003-2011) and Governor of the Banque de France (1993-2003), serving across two consecutive financial crises Chair of the European Systemic Risk Board (2010-2011); Chairman of the Group of Ten Central Bank Governors; President of the Global Economy Meeting in Basel Director of the French Treasury (1987-1993); Chairman of the Paris Club of sovereign debt creditors (1985-1993) Financial Times “Person of the Year” (2007); Euromoney “Central Bank Governor of the Year” (2008); Charlemagne Prize for contribution to European unity (2011); NABE Lifetime Achievement Award for Economic Policy (2014); inaugural class of the European Order of Merit, conferred by the European Parliament (2026) Honorary Chairman, Group of Thirty (G30), Washington; former European Chairman, Trilateral Commission; Honorary Chairman, Bruegel Institute, Brussels Member, Institut de France (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques); President of the Académie (2023); regular contributor to Bloomberg and CNBC Biography Few financial decisions carry higher stakes than the ones that determine whether a currency union holds together. Jean-Claude Trichet chaired the institution making those decisions for eight years. As ECB President from 2003 to 2011, he simultaneously led the Group of Ten Central Bank Governors and the European Systemic Risk Board. His presidency covered the 2008 global financial crisis and the early Eurozone sovereign debt crisis – two events that defined how governments, regulators, and boards understand systemic financial risk. The depth of that perspective was not built at the ECB alone. As Director of the French Treasury, Trichet was instrumental in the anti-inflationary franc fort policy that made European monetary union structurally viable. As Chairman of the Paris Club from 1985 to 1993, he negotiated sovereign debt restructurings across Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. He chaired the European Monetary Committee during the years in which the Maastricht Treaty’s fiscal framework was being constructed. In the late 1990s, he introduced the “Principles for stable capital flows and fair debt restructuring” into international debt strategy – a policy contribution to the governance of sovereign debt that remains relevant in current debates about emerging market exposure. After the ECB, Trichet moved into the forums where the long-term architecture of financial governance is debated and contested. He became European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission and honorary Chairman of the Group of Thirty in Washington. He has been appointed to G20 expert panels on financial governance and pandemic risk financing, and continues to appear regularly on Bloomberg and CNBC with practitioner analysis of central bank behaviour, inflation dynamics, and sovereign risk. The Financial Times named him Person of the Year in 2007. Euromoney named him Central Bank Governor of the Year in 2008. The Charlemagne Prize followed in 2011 for his contribution to European integration. The National Association of Business Economists awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award for Economic Policy in 2014. He is a member of the Institut de France and served as President of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 2023. In May 2026, the European Parliament appointed him to the inaugural class of its newly established Order of Merit, conferred at the Strasbourg plenary alongside Angela Merkel, Lech Wałęsa, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Mary Robinson. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank decision-making European economic governance and integration Sovereign debt and global financial stability Geopolitical risk and the international financial order Inflation, macroprudential policy, and systemic risk The future of the eurozone and EU institutional architecture Ideal for Boards and risk committees navigating macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty in their long-range strategy CFOs, treasury leaders, and finance committees at major international organisations Central bank, financial regulator, and supervisory authority audiences International investment conferences and economic policy forums Audience outcomes A practitioner’s account of how central banks make decisions under crisis conditions – drawn from direct decision-making authority, not retrospective analysis Clearer understanding of the relationship between monetary policy, sovereign risk, and systemic financial stability A framework for anticipating how geopolitical fragmentation affects capital flows, interest rate trajectories, and credit conditions Informed context for how the European institutional architecture and the international financial order are evolving Direct analysis of current inflation and debt dynamics from someone who managed a price stability mandate at the highest institutional level

Why organisations work with Javier Solana Very few people alive have run both NATO and the EU’s foreign policy machinery. His read on transatlantic, Russian and Chinese intent is grounded in a decade of handling the actual files, not in commentary. He was the signing hand on the 2003 European Security Strategy, the document that still frames how European governments think about security, neighbourhood and partnership. Leadership teams exposed to European regulation get the logic from the source. His current work at EsadeGeo and Brookings is forward looking, not memoir. Briefings engage with AI governance, supply chain fragmentation, climate diplomacy and the fragility of the rules based order. He is a working columnist at Project Syndicate, publishing into 2026 on US-China competition, European strategic autonomy and the future of multilateralism. Boards get a current thesis, not career recollections. He operates comfortably as a counterpart to a CEO, chair or sovereign, and speaks to leadership teams on that level. The register is peer to peer, not lecture. Biography highlights Secretary General of NATO, 1995 to 1999, including the alliance’s first post-Cold War enlargement and the 1999 Kosovo campaign. European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary General of the Council of the EU, 1999 to 2009. Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1992 to 1995, and earlier holder of the Culture and Education and Science portfolios under Felipe Gonzalez. President, EsadeGeo – Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, Barcelona and Madrid. Distinguished Fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School, Berlin. Charlemagne Prize 2007 and Carlos V European Award 2011 for services to European integration. Biography The European Security Strategy was signed in Brussels in December 2003. It was the first time the Union had put its name to a single, coherent description of what it was for in the world, what it was willing to defend, and how it intended to act with partners. Solana drafted it. Much of the architecture that European governments, and the companies that operate across them, still live inside was laid down in that document. Before Brussels, there was Kosovo. As Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999, he held together a nineteen-member alliance through the most contested military operation in its history, while also overseeing its first enlargement since the Cold War. Before NATO, he had spent thirteen years in the Spanish cabinet under Felipe Gonzalez, including three years as Foreign Minister. The arc is unusual: national politics, military alliance, civilian foreign policy, all at the top of each. He now runs EsadeGeo, the Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics he founded in Barcelona and Madrid in 2010, and is a Distinguished Fellow at Brookings and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin. He chairs Aspen Institute Espana and sits on the boards of Human Rights Watch, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Crisis Group. What he offers a leadership audience is not the memoir of the files he handled. It is a structural read of where the international order is breaking, where it is holding, and what boards and executive teams should be doing with that information before the next shock lands on the balance sheet. Key speaking topics The future of the rules based international order Transatlantic relations and European strategic autonomy US-China competition and the implications for global business Geopolitics of the energy transition and climate diplomacy NATO, European security and the war in Ukraine Multilateralism and global governance reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to Europe, the US and China CEOs, chairs and chief strategy officers setting five to ten year strategic plans under geopolitical uncertainty Senior policy, risk and government affairs leads at financial institutions, energy and industrial groups Audience outcomes A working model of which pillars of the international order are cracking, which are holding, and where corporate risk actually sits. A sharper read on European policy intent on China, industrial strategy, energy and sanctions, from the person who helped write the doctrine. Concrete framing on what transatlantic drift and US-China competition mean for supply chains, capital allocation and market access. A sense of how peers at the sovereign and multilateral level are framing the same questions your board is wrestling with.

Why organisations work with James Woudhuysen He treats forecasting as a discipline, not a performance. His work is built on decades of market intelligence at Philips and Seymour Powell, which gives his calls on technology and consumer behaviour a base of operating evidence rather than commentary. He argues against received wisdom on energy, climate and innovation in print, repeatedly. For boards reviewing capital allocation in those areas, that contrarian record is the value, not a stylistic feature. He covers innovation across energy, IT, construction, transport and the office in a single frame. That breadth lets him explain why an emerging technology will or will not change a sector, drawing on adjacent precedents most specialists miss. He writes and lectures with named sources and statistics, not slogans. The work is closer to a serious editorial brief than to a futures keynote, and it stands up to scrutiny in a room of operators. Biography highlights Visiting Professor of Forecasting and Innovation, London South Bank University Co-author, Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation (Beautiful Books, 2009) with Joe Kaplinsky Co-author, Why is Construction so Backward? (Wiley-Academy, 2004) with Ian Abley Co-author, Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation (Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2012) Former Chief of Worldwide Market Intelligence, Philips Consumer Electronics; former Director, Seymour Powell Editor of Design magazine (1979 to 1982); co-founder of Blueprint; contributor to The Economist, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian and spiked Biography Most forecasts about technology repeat the dominant narrative back to the buyer. The harder, more useful question is which parts of the consensus are wrong, and where the capital and political assumptions behind it are about to break. That has been the working question across four decades of Woudhuysen’s career, from physics at Sussex to running worldwide market intelligence at Philips Consumer Electronics in the Netherlands. His chair at London South Bank University is in Forecasting and Innovation, and the topics he writes on cover energy systems, construction, IT, infrastructure and consumer technology in a single frame. Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation, co-authored with Joe Kaplinsky in 2009, argued that the response to climate change should be heavy investment in supply-side energy technology, not moralising about consumption. The argument set the template for his later commentary in spiked, The Economist and The Times. The corporate record matters because it grounds the work. Three years as Chief of Worldwide Market Intelligence at Philips, four years as a director at Seymour Powell, decades of consulting reports for clients including Amadeus, Brother UK and UK Trade and Investment. He edited Design magazine in the early 1980s and co-founded Blueprint. That combination of operating intelligence and sustained published commentary is what makes the forecasting calls credible. His co-authored manifesto Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation was published in 2010 and republished by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press in 2012, and his earlier book Why is Construction so Backward? remains a reference point in the industry’s productivity debate. The through-line across the work is a defence of ambitious innovation against what he sees as the cultural reasons organisations and governments hesitate to pursue it. Key speaking topics The future of energy and the limits of net zero policy Forecasting technology and consumer behaviour Innovation in construction, infrastructure and transport The economics and politics of climate policy The future of work and the office Globalisation, China and the geography of R&D Market intelligence and competitive foresight Ideal for Boards and executive committees reviewing long-range capital allocation in energy, infrastructure or industrial technology Chief Strategy Officers and innovation leads briefing on technology cycles and emerging markets Senior teams in construction, manufacturing and consumer technology rethinking their productivity assumptions Investor and analyst forums looking for a contrarian read on energy transition and innovation policy Audience outcomes A clearer sense of which technology and energy forecasts the audience should trust and which it should challenge A working framework for telling structural change from cyclical noise across sectors A concrete account of why innovation slows in mature sectors and what unblocks it Named arguments and data the audience can take into their own strategy and capital decisions

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

Why organisations work with James Chau He runs the room when the speakers are Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma or Bill Gates. Very few moderators on the circuit have repeated reps at that level of principal. As President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, he sits inside the working architecture of US-China dialogue rather than commenting on it from the sidelines. His credential stack on global health is institutional, not rhetorical: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the SDGs, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador. The China Current gives him a live interview record with Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Christine Lagarde, Ban Ki-moon and Jane Goodall. The editorial muscle is current, not historic. He reads a room built from heads of state, Nobel laureates and corporate chiefs the way a senior editor reads copy. The diplomatic temperature of a session is managed in real time. Biography highlights President, China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), Hong Kong. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goals and Health (appointed 2016). First UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador for China (appointed 2009). Host of The China Current, a global-affairs interview and storytelling platform. Former main English-language news anchor at China Central Television; guest presenter, BBC World News. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; U.S. National Press Foundation Fellow; Harvard Kennedy School executive education. Biography The room was Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma, Laura Bush. James Chau was chairing. That is the kind of session he has been asked to run for more than a decade, and the reason organisations book him is not broadcast gloss. It is the ability to keep a hard conversation productive when the participants are principals with careful positions. Chau is President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong-based NGO that convenes official-track and track-two dialogue between the two countries. The role places him inside the working machinery of one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world, not adjacent to it. That access shapes how he chairs: he knows where the lines are, and when to press. Before CUSEF, he spent years as the main English-language news anchor at China Central Television and a guest presenter on BBC World News. The interview record from The China Current, his own platform, runs through Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, Jane Goodall and Ban Ki-moon. His work on global health is formal: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals and Health since 2016, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador from 2009. He was educated at Cambridge, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Music, with executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. For a corporate summit, a multilateral plenary, an awards evening or a closed-room dialogue where the speakers are sensitive and the questions matter, Chau is a moderator whose standing is set by the company he keeps on stage. Key speaking topics US-China relations Global health and the Sustainable Development Goals China and the global economy International development and multilateralism Media, storytelling and public diplomacy High-level event hosting and moderation Ideal for Global summits and multilateral convenings where the principals on stage are heads of state, Nobel laureates or Fortune 100 chief executives CEO and board dialogues on China strategy, US-China risk and global health policy Awards ceremonies and flagship corporate events where a broadcast-grade host is required Foundations, NGOs and policy institutes working on the SDGs, HIV/AIDS and global public health Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the US-China relationship actually sits, from someone inside the dialogue A working framing of how global health policy, the SDGs and corporate strategy intersect A session that keeps pace and holds weight when the speakers are senior and the brief is sensitive A clearer view of how China is reported, mis-reported, and understood in international media

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

Why organisations work with Jürgen Stark He sat on the ECB Governing Council during the eurozone sovereign debt crisis and resigned over the bond-buying programme that followed, giving audiences a first-person account of how the institution actually decides Two terms as Vice President of the Bundesbank and a State Secretary role at the German Federal Ministry of Finance put him inside the negotiations that shaped the Maastricht framework and the Stability and Growth Pact He reads ECB communications as a former author of them, useful for treasurers and CIOs trying to distinguish signalling from substance in central bank language His position is consistently hawkish on inflation and fiscal discipline, a stance organisations seek when they want a counterweight to consensus macro views Biography highlights Member of the Executive Board and Chief Economist of the European Central Bank, 2006 to 2011 Vice President of the Deutsche Bundesbank for two consecutive terms, 1998 to 2006 State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Finance and G7/G8 sherpa to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, 1995 to 1998 Doctorate in economics, University of Tübingen; honorary professor at Eberhard Karls University Tübingen Member of the Amundi Global Advisory Board and the Bertelsmann Stiftung Board of Trustees Biography The September 2011 resignation from the European Central Bank is the most economical way to understand Jürgen Stark’s intellectual position. He left the Governing Council three years before the end of his term, in disagreement with the bond purchases of Italian and Spanish sovereign debt that the ECB had begun under its Securities Markets Programme. The institution attributed his departure to personal reasons; the substantive reason was a disagreement about what a central bank’s mandate actually permits. That disagreement is the through-line of his career. Two terms as Vice President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, from 1998 to 2006, placed him at the centre of German monetary policy across the introduction of the euro and the first decade of eurozone operation. Earlier, as State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry of Finance, he served as G7 sherpa to Chancellor Helmut Kohl through the period that produced the Stability and Growth Pact. The doctorate from Tübingen and the honorary professorship that followed are the academic anchors of a career that has otherwise been operational. He continues to write and speak on eurozone fiscal architecture, monetary policy, and the institutional credibility of central banks, and sits on the Amundi Global Advisory Board and the Bertelsmann Stiftung Board of Trustees. What he offers a senior audience is not commentary at one remove from the institutions, but the position of someone who held the chief economist’s seat at the ECB during the crisis that defined the modern eurozone, and resigned from it on principle. Key speaking topics European monetary policy and the ECB mandate Eurozone fiscal architecture and the Stability and Growth Pact Inflation, interest rates, and central bank credibility Sovereign debt and the eurozone sovereign debt crisis Macroeconomic outlook for the euro area Central bank communication and market signalling Ideal for Boards, audit committees, and CFOs setting capital allocation policy under eurozone monetary uncertainty Bank treasurers, asset managers, and institutional investors reading ECB and Bundesbank policy direction Public policy and economic forums where a first-person account of ECB Governing Council decisions adds substance to the conversation Audience outcomes A direct reading of how ECB Governing Council decisions are actually arrived at, from someone who sat on it A position on whether current monetary policy is consistent with the institutional mandate set out at Maastricht A clear macro view from a recognised inflation hawk, useful as a counterweight when internal forecasts cluster on consensus The historical context that explains why eurozone fiscal rules exist in the form they do, and where the live tensions sit today

Why organisations work with J Bradford DeLong His “long twentieth century” thesis – the argument that humanity’s technological leap from 1870 produced unprecedented wealth but not stability, and that this tension is still unresolved – gives boards and strategy teams a historically grounded framework for understanding current inequality, political volatility, and stalling growth, rather than treating them as separate problems. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury under Clinton, he was directly involved in NAFTA, the Uruguay Round, and the 1993 federal budget – trade and fiscal decisions whose consequences are still shaping today’s policy environment. Few economic historians have that level of direct institutional access. Concrete Economics (co-authored with Stephen Cohen) makes a specific, evidence-based case that every major US growth episode was driven by deliberate government direction of investment, not free-market spontaneity – a framework that directly challenges assumptions many organisations have about industrial policy and the role of the state. Slouching Towards Utopia was named a Best Book of 2022 by the Financial Times, The Economist, and Fast Company, and endorsed by Paul Krugman, Martin Wolf, and the former Chief Economist of the Bank of England – giving his arguments a cross-disciplinary credibility that translates directly into senior executive and board conversations. His dual role as academic economist and active public commentator – via Project Syndicate and the “Grasping Reality” Substack – means his frameworks are continuously applied to live events, not confined to historical analysis. Biography highlights Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley – faculty since 1993, full professor 1997 Author of Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) – instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller; Best Book of 2022, Financial Times, The Economist, Fast Company Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, Clinton Administration, 1993–1995 Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Fellow, Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) Co-author, Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy (2016); co-editor, After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality (Harvard University Press, 2017) Regular contributor, Project Syndicate; author, “Grasping Reality” Substack; BA and PhD, Harvard University Biography Brad DeLong spent twenty years working on a question that most economists consider settled: why did the most sustained period of technological and material progress in human history end in political dysfunction, rising inequality, and widespread loss of confidence in the institutions that produced it? His answer, developed in Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, is that the period from 1870 to 2010 – what he calls the “long twentieth century” – delivered more economic progress than all previous human eras combined, yet consistently failed to convert that progress into stable, broadly shared prosperity. The book was an instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named a Best Book of 2022 by the Financial Times, The Economist, and Fast Company. That argument matters to organisations because it reframes current instability. The political volatility, slowing productivity growth, and distributional conflict that leaders are navigating are not surprises or aberrations – they are the unresolved inheritance of the same forces that created modern economic life. DeLong’s contribution is to show how this happened, which forces were decisive, and which policy choices made outcomes better or worse than they needed to be. His policy experience is direct. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury under the Clinton Administration, DeLong worked on the 1993 federal budget, NAFTA, the Uruguay Round, and macroeconomic policy. That institutional experience underpins Concrete Economics (2016), co-authored with Stephen Cohen, which argues that the United States has achieved its most significant growth periods through deliberate, pragmatic direction of investment – not ideological commitment to free markets. For executive audiences, the implication is concrete: industrial policy, trade architecture, and fiscal choices are not background noise; they are the environment in which long-term strategy either succeeds or fails. DeLong holds a PhD from Harvard and has been Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley since 1993. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and his “Grasping Reality” Substack, where his analysis engages with current events directly and accessibly. He is also a Fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Key speaking topics Long-run economic growth and structural inequality Macroeconomic policy and fiscal strategy Trade, globalisation, and industrial policy The political economy of the liberal economic order Economic history as a strategic framework Government, markets, and the future of growth Scenario planning under structural uncertainty Ideal for Chief Strategy Officers and boards navigating sustained political and economic volatility CFOs and finance leaders seeking a macro-level historical framework for long-term capital allocation and planning Government affairs, public policy, and regulatory teams in large organisations Executive education programmes requiring rigorous economic context for senior leadership cohorts Audience outcomes A historically grounded framework for understanding current economic volatility as a structural pattern – not a temporary disruption – enabling more durable strategic responses A clearer account of how trade policy, industrial policy, and fiscal choices are actually made, based on direct government experience at a senior level A practical corrective to standard free-market assumptions about growth, including a well-evidenced alternative drawn from Concrete Economics Sharper questions for stress-testing long-term strategy against macro scenarios – particularly around inequality, political instability, and the changing role of the state Familiarity with the “long twentieth century” thesis as a shared analytical reference point for ongoing internal strategic discussion