Economic Trends & Global Markets speakers

Why organisations work with Robert Peston He is one of a very small group of UK journalists who have held the top political and economic editorial roles at both the BBC and ITV, and senior banking and political roles at the Financial Times. Few speakers can map Westminster and the City from the inside in the same conversation. He broke the Northern Rock liquidity story in September 2007; the scoop Press Gazette ranks among the greatest in British journalism. Boards get a speaker who has personally reported the front edge of the UK financial crisis, not a commentator describing it. His co-authored 2024 book, How To Run Britain, sets out a specific reform programme for the UK economy and state. He arrives with a published thesis, not a generic talk. He brings a current, weekly read on the government, the opposition and the markets, drawn from his ITV programme Peston and the podcast The Rest Is Money. Briefings are framed for what leadership teams need to decide next quarter, not for general interest. He founded Speakers for Schools, now Futures For All, which has placed thousands of senior speakers into UK state schools. Organisations working with him are working with a journalist who has built an institution. Biography highlights ITV Political Editor and presenter of Peston on ITV. Former BBC Business Editor, 2006 to 2014, and BBC Economics Editor, 2014 to 2015. Former Financial Times Political Editor, Banking Editor and founder of the FT investigations unit. Co-host with Steph McGovern of The Rest Is Money, a leading UK business and economics podcast. Author of seven books, including Who Runs Britain?, WTF?, The Whistleblower and How To Run Britain (with Kishan Koria, 2024). Founder of Speakers for Schools, rebranded Futures For All in 2025. Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year, Specialist Journalist of the Year and twice winner of Scoop of the Year; Wincott Prize winner for financial journalism. Biography The Northern Rock emergency loan from the Bank of England was reported on the BBC on 13 September 2007. The reporter on the story was Robert Peston, then Business Editor of the BBC, and Press Gazette later listed the scoop as one of the greatest in British journalism. It is the moment that defined a career already deep inside UK banking and government. Peston’s editorial track record is unusually broad for a UK journalist. He has held the top business and economics roles at the BBC, the Political Editor and Banking Editor roles at the Financial Times, and now the Political Editor role at ITV, where he also presents the weekly programme Peston. With Steph McGovern, he co-hosts The Rest Is Money, one of the most-listened-to business podcasts in the UK. The published work matters. Seven books, including Who Runs Britain?, How Do We Fix This Mess?, WTF? and the 2024 reform programme, How To Run Britain, written with Kishan Koria, set out a clear and specific argument about how the British government, banking and public finances need to change. He is one of the few national broadcast journalists who has paired live reporting with a substantive policy thesis. Outside journalism, he founded Speakers for Schools, now Futures For All, which has placed senior business, political and cultural figures into thousands of UK state-school talks since 2010. The Royal Television Society named him Journalist of the Year and Specialist Journalist of the Year for his coverage of the credit crunch; he has also won the Wincott Prize for financial journalism. He is among the very few UK speakers who can describe the British political economy from inside the BBC, ITV, the FT and the Treasury press lobby. Key speaking topics UK political and economic outlook Westminster, government and policy direction Banking, financial regulation and financial crisis Public finances, tax and fiscal policy Inequality and the social contract in Britain Geopolitics and UK exposure Leadership in political and institutional reform Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting UK capital allocation, hiring and investment plans Banking, asset management and insurance leadership audiences Public affairs, policy and government relations leads Annual conferences seeking a senior, named UK political and economic read Audience outcomes A current, named read on the UK government, the opposition and the likely policy direction A clear view of where banking, fiscal and regulatory risk sits for UK-exposed organisations An informed sense of the political and social pressures shaping the British economy Direct answers to leadership questions through Q and A with a working political editor

Why organisations work with Robert Reich He has been both architect and analyst: cabinet-level policymaker under President Bill Clinton, and one of America’s most prolific public economists since the 1980s. Few speakers can read a regulatory environment from inside the cabinet room and from outside it, backed by three decades of published work. The “symbolic analysts” framework from The Work of Nations (1991), translated into 22 languages, was one of the earliest serious accounts of how globalisation stratifies labour markets. It anticipated the political and economic divisions now reshaping developed economies. He cuts through the false binary of “free market versus big government” that paralyses most boardroom debate on inequality and regulation. He shows that the real question is who the rules serve, and how that determines long-term commercial stability. Inequality Media’s videos and his daily Substack are read and watched by millions, including the political and policy actors whose decisions reshape corporate operating environments. That places him inside the conversation that shapes the political and regulatory climate executives plan around. For close to two decades he taught Berkeley’s largest undergraduate course in public policy, Wealth and Poverty. He brings that teaching ability into senior rooms, leaving audiences with a model they can apply directly to their own commercial environment. Biography highlights 22nd US Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton (1993-1997), implementing the Family and Medical Leave Act, raising the federal minimum wage, and leading the federal fight against sweatshops and illegal child labour; one of a small number to have served in three presidential administrations across both parties Named by TIME magazine as one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century, and ranked sixth on The Wall Street Journal’s list of Most Influential Business Thinkers (both 2008) Author of 18 books, including The Work of Nations (translated into 22 languages), Saving Capitalism, The Common Good, and the #1 New York Times bestseller Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America (2025) Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; recipient of the 2003 Václav Havel Foundation VIZE 97 Prize Co-creator with filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth of Inequality for All, winner of the US Documentary Special Jury Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and the 2017 Netflix original Saving Capitalism; subject of the 2025 feature documentary The Last Class, on his final Wealth and Poverty course at UC Berkeley Columnist for The Guardian and Newsweek; co-founder of Inequality Media and the Economic Policy Institute; founding editor of The American Prospect magazine Biography Every market runs on rules: property, contract, bankruptcy, antitrust. Those rules are political artefacts, written by people with specific interests. The question of who writes them, and on whose behalf, has been the through-line of Robert Reich’s work for forty years. Reich served as the 22nd US Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton. During that period he implemented the Family and Medical Leave Act, raised the federal minimum wage, and led the federal crackdown on sweatshops and illegal child labour. TIME magazine later named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His thinking did not start there. The Work of Nations, published in 1991 and translated into twenty-two languages, set out a thesis that has aged unusually well: globalisation was stratifying labour into three groups, with a minority of “symbolic analysts” capturing most of the gains while routine production and in-person service workers fell behind. The book named the divide that now drives political volatility across developed economies. Saving Capitalism (2015), the Netflix documentary of the same name, and the books that followed pushed the analysis into the politics of regulation: who writes the rules of property, contract, bankruptcy, and antitrust, and on whose behalf. That argument now places him in active conversation with senior policymakers and commercial leaders trying to read the political environment they operate in. His 2025 memoir Coming Up Short debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Key speaking topics Inequality and the future of capitalism Globalisation and the future of work US political economy and economic policy Regulation, antitrust and corporate power Authoritarian populism and democratic reform Labour markets and workforce policy Trade, tariffs and the global economy Ideal for Boards and executive teams in regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, technology, energy) where political-economic conditions directly shape strategic options Senior policy and government affairs leaders trying to understand the political environment they are planning around Investor and asset management audiences assessing political risk in developed market economies Corporate convenings and leadership programmes setting commercial strategy against a longer political-economic horizon Audience outcomes A direct line drawn from current US political-economic conditions to the strategic decisions boards now face on regulation and long-term capital allocation An insider account of how the rules of property, contract, antitrust, and bankruptcy actually get written, and how those rules shape competitive position A historical comparison between the present moment and earlier US reform eras (the Progressive era, the New Deal), and the structural shifts each one produced The political-economic distinction between authoritarian populism and democratic reform, and what each path implies for the corporate operating environment

Why organisations work with Robert Shiller He provides Nobel-level empirical authority on asset bubbles, housing cycles, and equity valuation, the questions a board faces when deciding whether to commit capital at the top of a cycle. He named the bubbles others missed. Irrational Exuberance warned of the dot-com peak in 2000 and the housing peak before the subprime crisis, both calls now in the public record. He gives leaders the indicators they can actually use, including the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices and the CAPE ratio, both of which sit inside the standard toolkit of professional investors. His work on Narrative Economics gives boards a structured way to think about how stories move markets and consumer behaviour, which matters when sentiment shifts faster than fundamentals. He is one of the few macroeconomists who built behavioural finance into the mainstream, co-authoring Animal Spirits and Phishing for Phools with George Akerlof. Biography highlights Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University and Fellow of the International Center for Finance at Yale School of Management. 2013 Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences, shared with Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen. Co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices and the Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings ratio (CAPE / Shiller PE). Author of Irrational Exuberance, Narrative Economics, Animal Spirits, Phishing for Phools, Finance and the Good Society, and The New Financial Order. Regular Project Syndicate columnist and former New York Times “Economic View” columnist. Narrative Economics named a Financial Times Best Book of 2019. Biography Asset prices have a habit of detaching from fundamentals long before anyone calls it a bubble. The challenge for boards and investors is recognising the moment, separating durable conviction from collective story, and acting on it. That problem has defined Robert Shiller’s working life as an empirical economist. Shiller is Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale and a Fellow at the Yale School of Management International Center for Finance. The 2013 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Eugene Fama and Lars Peter Hansen, recognised his empirical analysis of asset prices, including the work showing that stock prices move far more than dividends justify. The implication for capital markets has shaped a generation of valuation thinking. His infrastructure sits inside the toolkit of serious investors. The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, developed with Karl Case, became the reference series for US housing and the basis for CME futures. The Cyclically Adjusted Price-to-Earnings ratio, built with John Campbell, gave equity investors a long-cycle valuation lens. Irrational Exuberance, first published in 2000, named the dot-com peak in real time and was updated to identify the housing bubble before the subprime crisis. The later work moved into territory most macroeconomists avoid. Animal Spirits and Phishing for Phools, both with George Akerlof, brought behavioural and psychological forces into mainstream macro. Narrative Economics, a Financial Times Best Book of 2019, made the case that the stories people tell each other about money and markets shape outcomes as much as the numbers do. For senior leaders, that is the practical question: which narratives are moving capital right now, and which ones are about to break. Key speaking topics Asset prices and market valuation Housing markets and price cycles Behavioural finance Narrative economics Bubbles and financial volatility Macroeconomic risk and forecasting Innovation in finance and risk management Ideal for Boards and investment committees making capital allocation decisions under cycle and valuation uncertainty CFOs, CIOs, and treasury leaders in banks, asset managers, and insurers Senior policymakers, central bank audiences, and regulators working on financial stability Real estate, mortgage, and housing finance leadership Audience outcomes A clearer read on where current asset prices sit relative to long-cycle valuation benchmarks like CAPE A working understanding of how narrative and sentiment translate into measurable market behaviour A sharper framework for spotting bubble dynamics before they reverse Behavioural finance applied to specific decisions on housing, equities, and credit Direct exposure to the empirical evidence behind Nobel-recognised work on asset pricing

Why organisations work with Robyn Dwyer Two decades anchoring business news for BBC, ITN, Sky and TalkTV translates directly to the stage: she can interview a CEO with the editorial discipline of a newsroom rather than the deference of a corporate compere. She works fluently in French and English, which makes her a practical choice for Paris-based forums, pan-European leadership meetings and bilingual customer events without a second host. Her live anchoring at CGTN keeps her sharp on the running stories executives are being asked about, including energy, retail, China exposure and sustainability, so she chairs from current information rather than a briefing pack. She has interviewed business figures from Sir Richard Branson to the head of Citroen, alongside political leaders and bankers, which is the relevant proof point for boards putting their own leadership on stage opposite her. Biography highlights Presenter for CGTN, anchoring live news programmes, documentaries and special events. Former anchor of TalkTV’s flagship evening news programme. Business news experience at BBC, ITN, Sky and CGTN spanning more than two decades. Conceived and presented a US elections programme for TRT World. Radio news credits at Classic FM, Magic Radio, Smooth Radio, Absolute Radio, LBC and Share Radio. Fluent in French, with on-air work across Istanbul, Paris, Sydney and London. Biography Conferences are where leadership teams expose themselves in front of customers, regulators and their own people. The person chairing the day decides whether that exposure becomes useful tension or polite filler. Robyn Dwyer has spent more than twenty years on the working side of that question, first as a business journalist for the BBC and ITN, then as an anchor for Sky and TalkTV’s flagship evening news programme. Her current seat at CGTN keeps her in daily contact with the live agenda boards are wrestling with: energy markets, retail conditions, China exposure, the sustainability transition. Hosts who only emerge for events tend to drift into generic moderation. Dwyer chairs from a newsroom, which is a different discipline. The interviewee list is the relevant proof. Sir Richard Branson, the head of Citroen, political leaders, bankers and environmental stakeholders have all sat opposite her on air. That experience reads on stage. Senior executives are interviewed properly rather than handed a microphone, and the panel does not collapse into talking points. A working command of French, plus on-air experience in Istanbul, Paris, Sydney and London, makes her a practical pick for European and bilingual programmes that would otherwise need two hosts. The differentiator is straightforward: a journalist who chairs, not a presenter who reads. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and panel chairing Live business interviews with senior executives Bilingual French and English event hosting Sustainability and the energy transition Retail, consumer and finance briefings China business and politics UK news and political context for international audiences Ideal for CEO, CFO and CMO led customer forums and partner conferences that need a credible business interviewer on stage. Boards and investor relations teams running flagship results events, capital markets days and AGM-adjacent forums. Communications, marketing and event leads at European and bilingual French-English organisations. Sustainability, energy and retail sector convenings where the chair needs to handle technical executives without losing the room. Audience outcomes A flagship event held to time, with senior executives interviewed in a way the audience trusts. Panels that produce a usable point of view rather than a round of position statements. Bilingual French and English programming covered by a single host without quality drop-off. Q and A handled with newsroom judgement on which questions to take, redirect or close. A chair record the comms team can point to when the next sponsor or board member asks who is hosting.

Why organisations work with Roger Bootle He runs the institutional view, not a commentator’s view. Capital Economics, which he founded in 1999, is one of the largest independent macroeconomic research firms in the world, and senior leaders get the house perspective directly from the source. He has been right on inflation when the consensus was wrong. The Death of Inflation, published in 1996, called the structural fall in inflation a decade before central banks adjusted their thinking, and his subsequent inflation work continues to set the contrarian benchmark. He won the 2012 Wolfson Economics Prize, the largest cash prize in economics after the Nobel, for the most credible plan to manage a eurozone exit. Boards exposed to euro-denominated risk get a serious answer, not a hot take. He sat for nearly two decades inside UK economic policymaking as Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Committee and as a member of the Chancellor’s “Wise Men” panel. He explains the policy process from the inside. The AI Economy, his Axiom Award-winning book, gives leadership teams a proper economic reading of AI: productivity, wages, employment and welfare, not vendor narrative. Biography highlights Founder of Capital Economics, an independent macroeconomic research consultancy, which he started in 1999 Former Group Chief Economist of HSBC; earlier roles at Lloyds Bank and Capel-Cure Myers Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Committee, 1998 to 2017 Member of the Chancellor’s panel of Independent Economic Advisers, the “Wise Men.” Winner, with the Capital Economics team, of the 2012 Wolfson Economics Prize for a eurozone exit plan Author of The Death of Inflation, The Trouble with Markets, Making a Success of Brexit, and The AI Economy (Gold, 2020 Axiom Business Book Awards) Weekly economics columnist for The Daily Telegraph; named Economics Commentator of the Year at The Comment Awards 2012 Biography The Death of Inflation appeared in 1996 and argued that the inflationary regime built into Western economies since the 1970s was structurally finished. The book sold widely, was translated into nine languages, and became the reference point for a generation of contrarian inflation analysis. It also established its author as an economist willing to take a position years before the policy consensus caught up. That author is Roger Bootle. He founded Capital Economics in 1999 and built it into one of the largest independent macroeconomic research firms in the world, serving banks, asset managers, corporates, and policymakers. Before that, he was Group Chief Economist of HSBC, with earlier roles at Lloyds Bank and Capel-Cure Myers. His public-policy work runs in parallel. He served as Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Committee from 1998 to 2017, and was appointed to the Chancellor’s panel of Independent Economic Advisers known as the Wise Men. In 2012, he and a team from Capital Economics won the 250,000 pound Wolfson Economics Prize for the most credible plan to manage a country leaving the eurozone, and he was named Economics Commentator of the Year at The Comment Awards the same year. His more recent books extend the same approach to Brexit and AI. Making a Success of Brexit set out the economic conditions for the UK outside the EU. The AI Economy: Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Age of the Robot, which won Gold at the 2020 Axiom Business Book Awards, treats artificial intelligence as a question about productivity, wages and welfare rather than a technology story. He writes a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph. Key speaking topics Global macroeconomic outlook Inflation and monetary policy Eurozone and European economic policy Brexit and the UK economy The economics of artificial intelligence Capital markets and the policy environment Long-run productivity and growth Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting capital allocation against a volatile macro backdrop CFOs, treasurers and CIOs in financial services and corporates with rate and currency exposure Asset management and private capital firms are briefing LPs on the macro outlook Senior policy and government-relations audiences working on UK, EU and monetary policy Audience outcomes A clear reading of where inflation, rates and growth are heading, and the reasoning behind it A direct view from one of the few economists with a public track record of contrarian calls that proved right A grounded economic framing of AI’s effect on productivity, employment and wages A working understanding of how UK and European economic policy is actually made, from someone who advised inside it A perspective on the eurozone and Brexit risk that buyers can defend in front of their own committees

Why organisations work with Rohit Talwar His “Very Human Future” argument that the central strategic task is keeping human outcomes at the centre of AI and technology adoption, not merely managing adoption itself gives leadership teams a framing that is both commercially grounded and defensible at board level. He edits and contributes to multi-author research books that aggregate the work of 60+ futurists and practitioners across a single question; this publishing model means his content draws on current collective intelligence rather than a single perspective frozen at a point in time. As Co-Chair of the UK Node of The Millennium Project, he sits inside a global futures research network. His material reflects active scenario-building methodology, not retrospective trend commentary. He builds entire talks around sector-specific strategic implications: financial services, aviation, local economies, rather than delivering a generic future-of-technology keynote with surface-level industry references. Ranked among the Global Gurus Top 30 Futurist Professionals for 2025, he is a verifiably credentialled figure in an industry where credibility is difficult to assess. Biography highlights CEO and founder of Fast Future, a foresight research, publishing, and advisory firm Editor or lead contributor to more than eight books including A Very Human Future, Beyond Genuine Stupidity: Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, and The Future of Business Co-Chair of the UK Node of The Millennium Project, a global futures research organisation Ranked in the Global Gurus Top 30 Futurist Professionals for 2025; previously profiled by The Independent as a top 10 global futurist MBA from London Business School; BA in Electronics and Computer Science from the University of Keele; early career at British Telecom on AI research and at Andersen Consulting Delivered more than 1,500 keynotes and workshops across 70+ countries on six continents; regular contributor to international news networks on technology and innovation Biography Fast Future is not a typical consultancy. Rohit Talwar built it as a research and publishing operation, an ongoing mechanism for aggregating the work of futurists, practitioners, and emerging thinkers into books and advisory frameworks. That structural choice shapes the quality of what he brings to a leadership conversation. His central argument, developed across titles including A Very Human Future and Beyond Genuine Stupidity: Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, is specific: the question organisations are not asking clearly enough is not whether to adopt AI, but what kind of organisation they want to be when the adoption is complete. Strategy that treats AI as a technical problem consistently misses the governance, cultural, and human-capital decisions that determine whether the investment pays off. Talwar holds an MBA from London Business School and began his career in AI research at British Telecom before moving into management consulting. His foresight work is grounded in structured methodology: he serves as Co-Chair of the UK Node of The Millennium Project, a global futures research body, and brings scenario-building rigour to topics that, in other hands, often remain speculative. The Global Gurus research organisation ranked him among the Top 30 Futurist Professionals for 2025. The effect on senior audiences evidenced consistently across client feedback is a specific one: not inspiration, but productive disruption of existing strategic assumptions. His talks are built to destabilise complacent planning rather than to validate it. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and exponential technologies Strategic foresight and scenario planning Human-centred responses to digital transformation Business model innovation in the face of disruption Global megatrends and drivers of change The future of financial services and fintech Long-range futures and organisational resilience Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards stress-testing long-range strategy Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Innovation Officers building foresight capability Financial services leadership navigating AI and platform disruption Conference and association audiences in technology, aviation, professional services, and public sector Audience outcomes A structured vocabulary for discussing AI strategy that goes beyond adoption and automation Practical scenario-thinking tools that can be applied directly in strategy workshops Clearer understanding of which emerging technologies require immediate strategic response versus longer-horizon monitoring A sharper framing of the organisational and human-capital implications of accelerating technological change Reduced gap between awareness of disruption and the leadership confidence to act on it

Why organisations work with Rory Stewart He has sat inside the decision-making structures most geopolitical analysts only describe – as a UK Cabinet minister, National Security Council member, and coalition administrator governing two Iraqi provinces at 29. That is not a background organisations can easily find elsewhere on a speaker platform. His co-authored book Can Intervention Work? (2011) makes a specific, tested argument about the conditions under which external state interventions succeed or fail – relevant to any organisation navigating politically unstable markets or working alongside governments in fragile environments. Politics on the Edge (British Book Awards Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year 2024) provides a forensic account of how democratic governance hollows out – useful for any leadership team trying to anticipate political risk in Western markets, not just emerging ones. He teaches grand strategy at Yale’s Jackson School alongside his public engagement – his analysis is grounded in academic rigour about how states make long-term choices under uncertainty, not in the rolling commentary of the news cycle. Co-hosting the UK’s most-listened podcast across all genres (The Rest Is Politics) gives him an unusually clear read of where public and political opinion is moving – and why the gap between elite decision-making and public trust continues to widen. Biography highlights Inaugural Brady-Johnson Professor in the Practice of Grand Strategy and co-director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs (from January 2024) Former UK Secretary of State for International Development and member of the National Security Council; held six ministerial roles across four government departments under David Cameron and Theresa May Former Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights, Harvard Kennedy School Founder of Turquoise Mountain Foundation, Kabul – a cultural heritage and livelihoods charity operating under the patronage of King Charles III Author of six books including The Places in Between (Ondaatje Prize, Royal Society of Literature, 2005) and Politics on the Edge (British Book Awards Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year 2024, #1 Sunday Times bestseller) OBE for services in Iraq (2004); Livingstone Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2009); Ness Award, Royal Geographical Society (2018); three BBC television documentaries; contributor to the New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, and Times Literary Supplement Biography Rory Stewart served as a UK Cabinet minister and member of the National Security Council, held six ministerial roles across four departments, governed two Iraqi provinces as a coalition administrator at 29, and founded an operating NGO in Kabul before it was fashionable to work there. He is now the inaugural Brady-Johnson Professor in the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, where he co-directs the programme that trains the next generation of strategists. He is not a commentator who studies power. He is someone who has held it. His intellectual contribution goes beyond memoir. Can Intervention Work? (2011) – co-authored with Gerald Knaus – makes a specific argument about why external state interventions fail and under what conditions they can succeed. Politics on the Edge (2023), winner of the British Book Awards Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year and named a best book of the year by the Financial Times and Foreign Affairs, dissects the structural causes of democratic decline from the inside – cronyism, the hollowing of expertise, the capture of institutions by short-term political incentives. Both books ask questions that boards are now asking about the environments in which they operate. Before Parliament, Stewart served in the UK Diplomatic Service in Indonesia and Montenegro, walked solo across Afghanistan in 2002 – documented in The Places in Between, winner of the Ondaatje Prize – and later led Turquoise Mountain in Kabul. He directed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School before abandoning that chair to stand for Parliament. The breadth is not accidental: his authority on geopolitical risk rests on having moved between every layer of the system that produces it. Co-hosting The Rest Is Politics – the most-listened-to podcast in the UK across all genres – has given him a reading of the gap between institutional decision-making and public trust that no think-tank report captures. For organisations trying to understand not just what geopolitical risk looks like but why it is so consistently misjudged by the institutions they rely on, that perspective is specific and hard to replicate. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the shifting global order Grand strategy and statecraft Political risk and institutional failure The limits of state intervention International development and fragile states Democratic governance and the crisis of political trust Leadership under uncertainty in high-stakes environments Ideal for Boards and executive committees assessing geopolitical exposure in global strategy and investment decisions Chief Risk Officers and political risk functions in financial services, energy, and infrastructure sectors Government affairs and public policy leadership navigating an unstable regulatory and political environment International development organisations, multilaterals, and NGOs operating in fragile or conflict-affected contexts Audience outcomes A clearer framework for distinguishing genuine geopolitical risk from noise – grounded in how decisions are actually made inside governments, not how they are reported Specific insight into why state interventions and institutional responses to crises so often fail, and what the structural causes are A more calibrated understanding of the relationship between democratic instability in Western markets and long-term strategic planning Practical exposure to how grand strategy is taught and applied – the long-arc thinking that boards and senior leadership teams rarely build time for Greater confidence in engaging with geopolitical complexity without defaulting to the oversimplified framings of media commentary

Why organisations work with Rosanna Lockwood She has anchored live business news for CNBC International, MSNBC, NBC and Bloomberg TV, so she can chair a CFO, a central bank governor and a sanctions analyst in the same hour without losing the thread. Her brief is built where the audience expects it to be tested: Downing Street, the Singapore Strait, Istanbul, Dubai. That field record carries weight with senior delegates who can spot a host briefed only from a deck. She has moderated for COP, the World Economic Forum and LEAP, formats where the chair has to manage geopolitical sensitivity and named-company exposure in real time. She holds her own opposite Nobel laureates, central bank governors and CEOs without ceding the room, which is the actual job when the panel includes a sitting minister and a sceptical buy-side audience. Biography highlights Anchor on CNBC International, presenting Squawk Box and Street Signs from London and Singapore, with European markets reporting for CNBC US, MSNBC and NBC. Host of Prime Time with Rosanna Lockwood on TalkTV, and Piers Morgan’s stand-in on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Earlier broadcasting roles with Bloomberg TV, Reuters in Dubai, the BBC, LBC and ITN. Moderator at COP, the World Economic Forum and LEAP, plus conferences and summits in London, Paris, New York, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Singapore. BJTC-accredited Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism, London College of Communication; BA English Literature and Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London. Senior Fellow of the John Schofield Trust, mentoring early-career journalists. Biography Live business news is unforgiving territory. The anchor has minutes, sometimes seconds, to read a central bank statement, frame the implication for markets and put the right question to the next guest. Lockwood spent over a decade in that seat, anchoring Squawk Box and Street Signs for CNBC International in London and Singapore and reporting European markets for CNBC US, MSNBC and NBC. That work shaped a specific kind of moderator. She is fluent in the vocabulary of monetary policy, corporate strategy and geopolitical risk because she has had to translate it on air, in real time, with a Nobel laureate, a CEO or a finance minister opposite her. Earlier roles at Bloomberg TV, Reuters in Dubai, the BBC, LBC and ITN extended that range across foreign policy, defence, sustainability and energy. The conference work follows the same logic. Lockwood has chaired and moderated for COP, the World Economic Forum and LEAP, and across summits in London, Paris, New York, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Singapore. The brief in those rooms is concrete: keep a senior panel honest, surface the disagreement that matters, and leave the buy-side or board audience with a signal they can act on. She qualified through a BJTC-accredited Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism at London College of Communication, after a BA in English Literature and Drama at Royal Holloway. As a Senior Fellow of the John Schofield Trust, she mentors early-career journalists in the UK. Key speaking topics Conference moderation and panel chairing Investor day and AGM hosting Business and finance interviewing Geopolitics and foreign policy Sustainability and energy transition Macroeconomics and central bank policy Defence and security Ideal for Boards, IR teams and CFO offices commissioning chairs for capital markets days, AGMs and investor summits Sustainability, public affairs and ESG leads convening regulator-facing or COP-adjacent conversations Heads of communications and event leads at banks, asset managers and energy companies running flagship summits Government and multilateral programme leads at WEF, COP and LEAP-tier convenings Audience outcomes Senior speakers handled with the discipline of a live news desk, including the unscripted moments Sharper questions in the room, including the ones panellists would prefer to skip A chair who can connect a macro print, a corporate decision and a policy shift inside a single panel Confidence that sensitive geopolitical territory will be navigated without diplomatic damage A through-line for the audience, so the day reads as one argument rather than a sequence of sessions

Why organisations work with Ruchir Sharma He runs live capital at Rockefeller International and Breakout Capital. The frameworks he presents are tested against the same allocation decisions his audience is making. His Breakout Nations and Rise and Fall of Nations theses give boards a structured set of rules for ranking countries on growth durability, not a country-of-the-month view. What Went Wrong with Capitalism, named a 2024 Book of the Year by both the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, gives him a current, contested argument on debt, state expansion and inequality that lands directly on capital allocation decisions in developed markets. Two decades of on-the-ground reporting across Indian and emerging-market elections give him a political-risk read that desk-bound macro speakers cannot match. A working FT column and prior NYT column mean his arguments are already road-tested against serious editorial scrutiny. Biography highlights Chairman of Rockefeller International; founder and CIO of Breakout Capital. 25 years at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, latterly as Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist. Author of five books, including Breakout Nations, The Rise and Fall of Nations and What Went Wrong with Capitalism, named a 2024 Book of the Year by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. Contributing editor and columnist at the Financial Times; former New York Times opinion columnist. Recognised as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2007), a Foreign Policy top global thinker (2012) and one of Bloomberg’s 50 Most Influential People (2015). Has covered every Indian national election since 1998, and travels widely across emerging economies meeting policymakers, CEOs and local leaders. Biography Most countries that look like the next economic miracle do not become one. The work that made Sharma’s reputation, Breakout Nations and The Rise and Fall of Nations, is built on that observation. Both books set out a structured, rule-based way of judging which economies are likely to sustain growth and which are running on borrowed time. He brings that lens to the room as a working investor, not a commentator. As Chairman of Rockefeller International and CIO of Breakout Capital, he is allocating capital across the same emerging and developed markets he writes about. Before that he spent 25 years at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, ending as Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist. His most recent book, What Went Wrong with Capitalism, was named a 2024 Book of the Year by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. It argues that a century of expanding government, bailouts, entitlements and financial rescues, has distorted Western markets and entrenched inequality. The thesis travels directly into capital allocation conversations about debt, valuation and the limits of policy support. The reporting work underneath all of this is unusual. Sharma has covered every Indian national election since 1998 and travels regularly through emerging economies meeting politicians, CEOs and local operators. That fieldwork is what gives his macro calls their texture, and what separates a Sharma keynote from a desk-research presentation. Key speaking topics Emerging markets and the rules of national economic success Macro-economic and capital allocation outlook The long-cycle critique of state-led capitalism India’s economic and political trajectory Geopolitics, populism and political risk Globalisation and the post-crisis world economy Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting country and currency exposure CEOs and CFOs of multinationals reassessing emerging-market footprint Asset managers, pension funds and family offices on capital allocation Senior policy and strategy audiences in financial services Audience outcomes A structured set of indicators for ranking countries on growth durability A read on which emerging markets are likely to break out and which are likely to stall A specific, contestable argument on how state expansion is shaping returns in developed markets A political-risk perspective on India and the wider EM landscape grounded in on-the-ground reporting A clearer view of the macro-economic regime shift facing capital allocators

Why organisations work with Sally Bundock BBC News chief presenter, one of nine appointed in London when BBC News and BBC World News merged in 2023. The institutional weight comes built in. Twenty years interviewing CEOs and political figures live on international television. The fluency in how senior people speak and what they actually reveal cannot be borrowed for an event. Covered the World Economic Forum, G7, G20, and EU summits as a working reporter. The geopolitics and macroeconomics in a brief read as familiar ground. Built her early career at Bloomberg, where she created the evening programme Bloomberg Money. Finance is a fluent register for her. Named one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers by Timewise and the Financial Times, and now sits on the judging panel. Useful when the event touches flexible working or the social contract of work. Biography highlights BBC News chief presenter, fronting BBC News on BBC One and the BBC News Channel Has anchored The Briefing, Business Live, Business Today, World Business Report, and Work Life across BBC1, BBC News Channel, and BBC World News Created and presented Bloomberg Money during her tenure at Bloomberg LP from 1996 to 2002 Has reported from the World Economic Forum at Davos, G7 and G20 conferences, and successive EU summits Named one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers on the Power Part Time List compiled by Timewise and the Financial Times. Now sits on the judging panel Radio credits include Wake Up To Money on BBC Radio 5 Live and the business slot on Drive Time with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 2 Biography Live business news at 5am is one of the more demanding seats in international broadcasting. The brief is to interview the right CEO and hold a global audience through the next story. Sally Bundock has done it on the BBC for more than two decades. The credibility came up the long way. She joined Bloomberg in 1996, where she created and presented Bloomberg Money, and moved to the BBC in 2002. Twenty years on Business Live, World Business Report, Work Life, and The Briefing followed. She became one of nine chief presenters in London after the BBC News and BBC World News merger in 2023. Her beat covers the territory most boards now spend their time on: macroeconomics, geopolitics, capital markets, and the politics of trade. She has reported from Davos, from G7 and G20 conferences, and from successive EU summits. The subject matter at most senior events is not new ground. It is a Tuesday morning at work. There is also a second-track expertise. Timewise and the Financial Times named her one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers in 2014, and she now sits on the panel that judges the list. That track sharpens her when an event lands on flexible working or the changing social contract between employee and employer. Key speaking topics Global economy and macroeconomic outlook Geopolitical risk and global affairs Business and finance journalism Leadership interviews and CEO conversations Future of work and flexible working Media trust in the disinformation era Ideal for Boards and executive committees convening on global economic and geopolitical risk CFO, treasury, and capital markets gatherings where the agenda is macro and the speakers are senior CHRO and people leadership audiences on flexible working and the changing social contract of work Industry conferences and high-stakes panels needing a moderator who can press a CEO without losing the room Audience outcomes A panel that lands on substance instead of safe ground, with each contributor’s actual position drawn out A reading of how the day’s macroeconomic and geopolitical story is hitting business The interview craft of a working BBC journalist applied to your senior figures Confidence that the conversation will hold its audience through to the close

Why organisations work with Samantha Simmonds She has spent more than two decades reading live news on Sky News and BBC News, so a live audience, a faulty autocue or a delayed senior speaker does not move her off the agenda. She hosted the inaugural Bhutan Innovation Forum, interviewing Snap founder Evan Spiegel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos and Ivanhoe Mines chairman Robert Friedland across three days, keeping each of them on the substance without flattening the conversation. She works at the top of UK corporate hosting, with named clients including the UK Government, Deloitte, London Stock Exchange Group, Sainsbury’s, Hewlett Packard, British Business Bank and Manpower Group. She compered the Qatar-UK Business and Investment Forum in 2017, addressed by Theresa May and the Qatari Prime Minister, so the protocol judgement a government stage demands is familiar ground. She carries content in her own name as well as running the room. She gave the keynote on geopolitics and macroeconomics in emerging markets at SuperReturn in Amsterdam, and chaired three panels at APSACO in Rabat, including the closing session on Africa’s security outlook to 2036. Biography highlights BBC News presenter, currently hosting Politics London on BBC One. Sky News main anchor from 2005 to 2016, covering UK general elections, the EU referendum, the murder of Jo Cox MP and the Royal Wedding from Buckingham Palace. Earlier presenter on BBC Breakfast and BBC London News, producer on Channel 5 News. Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism, City University London; BA, University of Liverpool. Host of Alternatively Speaking, Grant Thornton UK’s monthly business podcast, with guests including Cinven principal Jodi Balfe and Green & Black’s co-founder Jo Fairley. Also co-hosts It’s a Grown Up Life with journalist Lauren Libbert. Named hosting credits include the UK Government, Deloitte, London Stock Exchange Group, Sainsbury’s, Hewlett Packard, British Business Bank and Manpower Group, and in 2026 the Global RegTech Summit, the ICA Compliance Awards Europe and the Marcus Evans Private Wealth Management Summit in Boston. Biography Live news anchoring is closer to senior corporate hosting than most buyers realise. Both require holding a room, reading the agenda live, asking a useful question of someone who would rather stay on message, and recovering quickly when the running order breaks. Samantha Simmonds has done one for more than two decades and now does the other at the top end of the UK corporate market. Her on-air career runs from local radio in Yorkshire through Channel 5 News, BBC Breakfast and BBC London, into more than a decade as a main anchor at Sky News from 2005 to 2016. She returned to the BBC in 2017 and currently presents for BBC News and hosts Politics London on BBC One. The Sky years covered UK general elections, the EU referendum, the Royal Wedding live from Buckingham Palace and the murder of Jo Cox MP. The corporate work sits on top of that. She has hosted conferences, awards and fireside chats for the UK Government, Deloitte, London Stock Exchange Group, Sainsbury’s, Hewlett Packard, British Business Bank and Manpower Group. At the inaugural Bhutan Innovation Forum she interviewed Snap founder Evan Spiegel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos and Ivanhoe Mines chairman Robert Friedland. She compered the Qatar-UK Business and Investment Forum in 2017, addressed by Theresa May and the Qatari Prime Minister. Her 2026 work has concentrated in finance, regulation and geopolitics. She hosted the Global RegTech Summit in London, interviewing former Chancellor George Osborne on stage almost twenty years after first interviewing him on Sky News. She anchored the Marcus Evans Private Wealth Management Summit in Boston, alongside speakers including Eurasia Group founder Ian Bremmer, chaired three panels at APSACO in Rabat, and hosts Alternatively Speaking, Grant Thornton’s monthly podcast on the trade-offs facing business leaders. In June 2026 she gave the keynote on geopolitics and macroeconomics in emerging markets at SuperReturn in Amsterdam, arguing that the deglobalisation framing misreads what is happening to supply chains and alliances. Key speaking topics Conference hosting and moderation Fireside chats with senior leaders Awards ceremony hosting Interviewing technique under pressure Composure on the live stage Women, work and midlife UK political and current affairs context Geopolitics and global capital flows Ideal for Corporate annual conferences, leadership offsites and investor days needing a senior host. Awards ceremonies and gala dinners requiring an experienced presenter on stage. CEO, chair or political-leader fireside chats where the interviewer needs to hold the room and the substance. Government, financial services and private capital events, including investor summits and regulatory conferences. Audience outcomes A stage that stays on time, on agenda and on tone for the duration of the event. Senior-leader interviews that go beyond pre-approved talking points without becoming combative. A host who can absorb a last-minute running order change, speaker no-show or live technical failure without the audience noticing. For keynote bookings, a working account of how live broadcasters prepare for, and recover from, things going wrong on air.

Why organisations work with Sandra Navidi She wrote the book on how the financial elite actually operates. SuperHubs maps the people, institutions and personal networks that move capital and policy, and gives a board a working model of where systemic risk concentrates rather than a list of headlines. She is a member of Columbia University’s Center on Capitalism and Society, founded by Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps, which gives her line of sight to academic research on capitalism, innovation and inequality alongside her practitioner work. Her second book, Future IQ, treats AI as a workforce and strategy question, not a technology demo. That makes her unusually well placed to take a board through the macro and the AI conversation in a single session. Bilingual delivery in English and German, paired with two decades of n-tv commentary, gives DACH and transatlantic audiences a speaker who works natively in both regulatory and cultural contexts. A licensed attorney in New York and Germany with prior roles in investment banking, fund counsel work and macro advisory at Roubini Global Economics. The credential stack maps directly to the rooms she is asked to speak in. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of BeyondGlobal, a New York-based strategic advisory firm. Author of SuperHubs, a Bloomberg Best Book of the Year and 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal winner. Author of Future IQ: Your Success Strategies in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Die DNA der USA: Wie tickt Amerika. Member of the Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University. LinkedIn Top Voice (Executive Blue Badge) and long-standing n-tv (RTL) expert commentator on business and politics. Co-host of the Biz and Beyond podcast with Ulrich Reitz, interviewing senior decision-makers and international experts. Biography The 2008 financial crisis exposed something most risk frameworks had missed. The shocks did not travel through markets in the abstract; they travelled through a small, interlocking network of bankers, regulators, central bankers and policy figures who knew each other personally. SuperHubs, written with a foreword by Nouriel Roubini, is the book that mapped that network and named it. It was selected as a Bloomberg Best Book of the Year and won a Silver Medal in the 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards. Sandra Navidi spent the years before that book inside the rooms she went on to describe. She worked as an investment banker, as general counsel at Muzinich and Co., as a Deloitte consultant, and then as a director of research strategies at Roubini Global Economics, where she briefed clients on macroeconomic and geopolitical risk. She is admitted to the bar in New York and Germany, holds an LL.M. in banking, corporate and finance law from Fordham, and is a member of Columbia University’s Center on Capitalism and Society, founded by Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps. Her second book, Future IQ, takes the same network thinking into the AI conversation. It treats AI as a workforce and capital-allocation problem, not a technology demonstration, and asks how individuals, organisations and economies stay relevant when machine intelligence absorbs more of the cognitive work. It is the bridge between her macro authority and the questions boards are now being asked by their own people. Through BeyondGlobal she advises corporates, financial institutions and ultra-high-net-worth clients; through n-tv (RTL) and the Biz and Beyond podcast she keeps a working line into German and European business audiences. The result is a speaker who can move between Washington-style macro analysis, frankfurt-style risk culture and a Silicon Valley AI brief inside the same keynote, in either English or German. Key speaking topics Systemic risk and the architecture of global finance Geopolitics, sanctions and transatlantic exposure AI as a strategy and workforce question Macroeconomic volatility and capital allocation Future-proofing leadership and human capital US political and economic intelligence for European boards Ideal for Boards and executive committees of banks, asset managers and insurers CEOs, CFOs and CROs in globally exposed corporates Family offices and private wealth platforms with cross-border allocation decisions DACH and transatlantic leadership audiences requiring bilingual delivery Audience outcomes A working mental model of where systemic risk concentrates in the global financial system, named by institution and actor. A clearer read on how geopolitical fracture, sanctions and US policy shifts reach their own balance sheet. A practitioner view of AI as a capital and workforce question, not a tooling debate. A briefing on what US business and political dynamics mean for European strategy in the next cycle.