Economic Trends & Global Markets speakers

Why organisations work with Stephen Roach His false narratives framework, argued across two Yale University Press books and cited by senior Financial Times columnists Martin Wolf, Gillian Tett, and Rana Foroohar, as well as multiple Nobel laureates in economics, gives leaders a forensically grounded alternative to the prevailing decoupling consensus. Three decades as Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist and then Chairman of its Asia operations means he has spent equal time analysing the US macro economy and operating inside Asian financial markets: a bilateral vantage point that most China analysts or US economists hold separately, not together. His analysis attributes much of the US-China conflict to domestic failures on both sides – America’s savings shortfall, China’s failed economic rebalancing – rather than to strategic malice. This reframes the risk calculus for leaders making long-term decisions about market exposure and technology strategy. As a monthly columnist for Project Syndicate and an active commentator on current US-China developments, he tracks the relationship in real time, not from a static academic framework. He was among the earliest economists identified as having predicted the structural conditions leading to the 2008 financial crisis – a forecasting record that lends credibility to his current warnings about the misread trajectory of US-China conflict escalation. Biography highlights Senior Research Scholar, Paul Tsai China Center, Yale Law School; formerly Senior Fellow, Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs (2010–2022) and Senior Lecturer, Yale School of Management Chief Economist, Morgan Stanley (from 1982), heading a global team across New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Paris; Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia (2007–2010), based in Hong Kong Research staff, Federal Reserve Board; Research Fellow, Brookings Institution Author of Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives (Yale University Press, 2022) – Financial Times Best Book of the Year: Economics; endorsed by Nobel laureates Robert Shiller and Robert Engle Author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China (Yale University Press, 2014) and The Next Asia (Wiley, 2009) Monthly columnist, Project Syndicate; Member, Council on Foreign Relations PhD in Economics, New York University Biography The US-China relationship is the most consequential and most misread economic partnership of the 21st century. Most boardroom analysis of the conflict treats it as a zero-sum structural rivalry between two incompatible powers. Stephen Roach’s argument is more uncomfortable: much of the conflict is self-inflicted, driven not by genuine strategic incompatibility but by false narratives that each nation has constructed to deflect accountability for its own economic shortcomings. That argument is made with unusual authority. Roach spent thirty years at Morgan Stanley, first as Chief Economist leading a global team across six major financial centres, then as Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, where he worked directly with governments, financial institutions, and multinationals operating at the intersection of the two economies. When he joined Yale in 2010, first at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and subsequently at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, he brought that bilateral operating experience into academic research and graduate teaching, developing courses including «The Next China» and «The Lessons of Japan.» His two Yale University Press books make a cumulative argument. Unbalanced (2014) identified the structural codependency binding the two economies. Accidental Conflict (2022), named a Financial Times Best Book of the Year in Economics, diagnosed the false narratives on both sides now pushing that codependency toward confrontation. The analysis drew endorsements from Nobel laureates Robert Shiller and Robert Engle, and was reviewed by Financial Times senior columnists Martin Wolf, Gillian Tett, and Rana Foroohar. For boards making consequential decisions about market exposure, supply chain configuration, and technology strategy, the practical question is not which side of the conflict to believe. It is whether the conflict they are planning for is the conflict that actually exists. Key speaking topics US-China economic and geopolitical relations Global macroeconomic risk and policy Trade conflict and the structural limits of decoupling Asian economies and market dynamics False narratives and strategic misperception International trade and globalisation US savings, fiscal imbalance, and structural economic vulnerability Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to US or China market risk CFOs, Chief Risk Officers, and heads of strategy in global financial services, technology, and industrial manufacturing Government, diplomatic, and policy audiences engaged in trade, investment, or security posture toward China Investment management firms and sovereign wealth funds requiring a rigorous bilateral economic framework for allocation decisions Audience outcomes A structured framework for separating the rhetoric driving US-China conflict from the underlying structural economic forces that actually shape it Sharper clarity on what decoupling, reshoring, and geopolitical hedging strategies address – and what they leave unexamined A more rigorous basis for assessing China-related risk in capital allocation, supply chain design, and technology partnership decisions Exposure to a track record of independent, contrarian macroeconomic forecasting, including early identification of conditions leading to the 2008 financial crisis Greater confidence in framing the US-China trajectory for boards, investors, and senior stakeholders

Why organisations work with Stephen Sackur Access to a perspective built across nearly four decades of frontline reporting, from the Gulf War and the fall of the Berlin Wall to two decades of adversarial interviews with presidents, prime ministers, and heads of international institutions, that cannot be replicated by analysts working from secondary sources. A forensic, barristerial framework for examining how leaders think and deflect under pressure, drawn from nearly 20 years presenting HARDtalk to audiences in over 200 countries, that translates directly into sharper boardroom questioning and more rigorous scenario analysis. Timely relevance: his forthcoming book Hard Truth (Headline Press, 2026) addresses disinformation, authoritarian political power, and the fight to preserve truth-telling institutions, the precise threats organisations are being asked to assess and respond to now. The ability to moderate high-stakes discussions at board or senior leadership level with the structural discipline of a trained interviewer, not merely facilitating, but drawing out what participants actually believe rather than what they intend to say. Credibility built through direct engagement with the figures who shape geopolitical risk, including Hugo Chávez, Alexei Navalny, Emmanuel Macron, Christine Lagarde, and Bill Clinton, giving his analysis a texture that is absent from most expert commentary. Biography highlights Presented BBC HARDtalk for 19 years (2005–2025), conducting in-depth accountability interviews with heads of state and global leaders broadcast across more than 200 countries 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent, based in Cairo, Jerusalem, Brussels, and Washington DC; covered the Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and 9/11 First correspondent to report the mass killing on the Basra road at the end of the Gulf War; author of On the Basra Road (1991), named a Spectator Book of the Year Named International TV Personality of the Year (Television) by the Association for International Broadcasting, 2010; nominated Speech Broadcaster of the Year, Sony Radio Awards, 2013 Honorary Doctorate, University of Warwick (2018); Henry Fellow, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; BA History (Hons), Emmanuel College, Cambridge Contributor to The Observer, London Review of Books, New Statesman, The Guardian, and The Daily Telegraph; currently presenter of The Times at One, Times Radio Under contract with Headline Press for Hard Truth: 10 Investigations That Shook the World – and Why They Matter Now (due September 2026) Biography When organisations need to understand how geopolitical risk is constructed as the product of decisions made by identifiable people operating under specific pressures, they are looking for something that most commentary cannot supply: direct, structured, adversarial engagement with the people who make those decisions. That is the experience Stephen Sackur brings. As the presenter of BBC HARDtalk from 2005 to 2025, Sackur conducted in-depth accountability interviews with figures including Hugo Chávez, Emmanuel Macron, Alexei Navalny, Christine Lagarde, and Bill Clinton that reached audiences across more than 200 countries. The programme’s defining characteristic was not access but interrogation: a forensic, evidence-based questioning method that was designed to surface what leaders believe rather than what they wish to project. Over nearly two decades, this produced an unusually detailed map of how power operates, deflects, and occasionally fractures under scrutiny. Before HARDtalk, Sackur spent 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent in Cairo, Jerusalem, Brussels, and Washington DC. He reported on the Gulf War, the Velvet Revolution, the collapse of the peace process in the Middle East, and the political crises of the Clinton era. His 1991 book On the Basra Road, which emerged from being the first correspondent to report the mass killing of retreating Iraqi forces at the end of the Gulf War, was named a Spectator Book of the Year and established the analytical seriousness that has characterised his work since. His forthcoming book Hard Truth: 10 Investigations That Shook the World – and Why They Matter Now (Headline Press, September 2026) makes the case for investigative journalism as a democratic safeguard against disinformation, authoritarian capture, and institutional erosion. Educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Sackur now presents The Times at One on Times Radio and works regularly with international forums and senior leadership audiences as a moderator and speaker on geopolitics, accountability, and the anatomy of power. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and global power dynamics Political risk and democratic accountability Leadership under pressure and public scrutiny The media’s role in holding institutions to account Disinformation and the future of truth-telling High-stakes questioning and structured decision-making International affairs: Middle East, US politics, European security Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership teams seeking structured geopolitical context rather than generic risk briefings Risk, strategy, and government affairs functions in international financial services, energy, and professional services firms Senior leadership conferences where geopolitical volatility, democratic risk, or institutional trust is on the agenda Organisations seeking a high-calibre moderator for multi-stakeholder panels on international affairs or governance Audience outcomes A clearer framework for distinguishing genuine geopolitical signal from media and political noise Insight into how senior political leaders actually think and behave when their positions are challenged, and what that reveals about institutional resilience A more rigorous vocabulary for assessing democratic risk, disinformation threats, and the erosion of accountability structures that underpin stable operating environments Practical understanding of how adversarial questioning works as a leadership and governance tool, applicable to board effectiveness, media engagement, and stakeholder management A grounded, non-sensationalised view of geopolitical risk derived from direct engagement with many of the figures who have shaped it

Why organisations work with Steven Pinker His argument that human cognitive biases – availability, confirmation, narrative distortion – are not random errors but predictable and correctable patterns gives organisations a diagnostic framework that most behavioural science speakers only gesture towards. The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now provide leaders with a rigorously evidenced counterweight to crisis-driven decision-making: a data-grounded case for long-run institutional progress that challenges the assumption that things are categorically worse than before. Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters grew out of a Harvard course on reasoning, and offers organisations a structured, named toolkit – logic, Bayesian probability, causal inference, game theory – applied directly to the kinds of collective judgments institutions face. His work on language and common knowledge (the study of what people know that others know they know) gives communicators and senior leaders rare analytical precision about why messaging fails, why consensus breaks down, and how shared understanding is actually constructed. Recognised by the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award and elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Pinker brings a level of peer-validated scholarly authority that very few public-facing intellectuals in this space can match. Biography highlights Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; faculty career spanning Harvard, MIT (1982–2003), and Stanford Elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2016) Author of thirteen books, including The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now, and Rationality BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Humanities and Social Sciences (shared with Peter Singer) William James Book Prize (three times); Los Angeles Times Science Book Prize; Cundill Recognition of Excellence in History Award Ranked by Academic Influence as the second most influential psychologist in the world, 2010–2020 Regular contributor to The New York Times, Time, and The Atlantic; named to Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and Foreign Policy‘s 100 Global Thinkers Biography Organisations that operate in complex, information-saturated environments face a specific and underappreciated failure mode: not a shortage of data, but a systematic distortion in how that data is processed. Leaders overweight vivid recent events, underweight statistical baselines, and build strategy around narratives that feel coherent rather than evidence that is reliable. The cognitive science underlying these failures is well-documented – but rarely applied with rigour inside institutions. Steven Pinker has spent four decades studying the mechanisms of language, reasoning, and human cognition at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford. His research is not popularised work drawn from others’ findings: it is original experimental scholarship in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and the psychology of social relations, conducted at the Johnstone Family Chair in Harvard’s Department of Psychology. What distinguishes his public work is the consistent application of that scientific foundation to questions that organisations – and civilisations – actually face. His most argued books form a coherent intellectual project. The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) used historical data across centuries to make the case that violence and conflict have declined measurably – not as opinion, but as documented empirical fact – and identified the institutional and psychological forces responsible. Enlightenment Now (2018) extended that analysis across all major indicators of human welfare, arguing that reason, science, and Enlightenment institutions remain the engines of progress. Rationality (2021) turned the lens directly onto decision-making: what cognitive tools are required to think clearly, why they are rarely applied, and how organisations and democracies can build structures that reason more reliably. The book emerged from a course Pinker teaches at Harvard and addresses logic, Bayesian probability, causal inference, and game theory as practical instruments for institutional judgment. Recognised by the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Humanities and Social Sciences – for contributions to the understanding of human rationality and progress that have entered the mainstream of public debate – and elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Pinker occupies a rare position: a research scientist whose work is directly legible to senior leaders grappling with the quality of organisational reasoning and the reliability of their own institutions. Key speaking topics Cognitive biases and institutional decision-making Rationality and evidence-based reasoning Language, communication, and common knowledge The psychology and history of violence Enlightenment values and organisational progress Human nature and social behaviour Clarity and effectiveness in professional communication Ideal for C-suite and board audiences wrestling with strategic decision-making under uncertainty Policy, government, and public affairs leadership Strategy, risk, and scenario planning functions Executive development and leadership faculty programmes Audience outcomes A working understanding of how specific cognitive biases – availability, confirmation, narrative distortion – shape organisational decisions, and what structures can correct them A data-grounded framework for assessing long-run institutional and societal progress, reducing reliance on media-driven perception of perpetual crisis Practical reasoning tools from logic, probability, and causal inference, applied to the kinds of collective judgments senior leaders actually face Greater precision about how language shapes shared understanding – and why institutional communication so often fails to build the common knowledge it intends A clearer sense of where human nature helps and where it hinders, grounded in evolutionary psychology rather than management metaphor

Why organisations work with Steven Sitao Xu A working chief economist at a Big Four firm in China, briefing on the same data, policy reads and forecasts that Deloitte uses with its own clients, not a retired view from outside. Two careers’ worth of forecasting: a decade running China forecasting at the Economist Intelligence Unit, then more than a decade as Chief Economist of Deloitte China. Prior roles as Chief Economist for Asia at Societe Generale and Head of Economics at ICBC (Asia) give a markets-side reading that translates directly to CFO and treasury audiences. Used as a regular China commentator by CNBC, Bloomberg, CCTV, the Financial Times and YaleGlobal Online; the same voice editors trust on a deadline. A visiting scholar appointment at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a guest professorship at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management; the international and domestic Chinese reads of the same economy. Biography highlights Chief Economist and Partner, Deloitte China. Former Chief Representative in China and forecasting director, Economist Intelligence Unit, The Economist Group. Former Chief Economist for Asia at Societe Generale; former Head of Economics at ICBC (Asia). Visiting Scholar, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; guest professor at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management. Regular contributor on CNBC, Bloomberg, CCTV; bylines in the Financial Times, Asian Wall Street Journal, YaleGlobal Online, Caijing, Caixin and 21st Century Business Herald. Education: Peking University (BA Economics), University of Connecticut (MA Economics), Boston College (MS Finance). Biography China is the single largest variable on most large boards’ five-year planning grids, and the data on it is contested. Official statistics, financial-market signals and policy direction often point in different directions in the same quarter. Boards need someone who can hold all three at once and translate them into operating implications. Steven Sitao Xu does that work day to day. As Chief Economist of Deloitte China, he leads the firm’s economic and industry research and is the voice Deloitte’s own clients hear when they want a calibrated read on Chinese growth, monetary policy and sectoral risk. The role sits inside live client decisions, not on a podium. The path to it was unusual in its breadth. Xu spent a decade as forecasting director of the Economist Intelligence Unit in China and Chief Representative for The Economist Group, before which he ran Asia economics for Societe Generale and headed economics at ICBC (Asia). That sequence gave him the editorial and the markets ear in the same career, which is why CNBC, Bloomberg, the Financial Times and CCTV come back to him for live commentary. His academic anchors connect both sides of the conversation: a visiting scholar appointment at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a guest professorship at Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management. The result is a speaker who can sit with a CFO on currency exposure, a strategy team on consumer demand, and a board on the geopolitics behind both, without changing register. Key speaking topics China macro outlook and policy direction Chinese financial markets and currency Geopolitics and US-China economic relations Asia-Pacific economic trends Consumer and structural shifts in the Chinese economy Implications of Chinese policy for multinational strategy Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material China revenue or supply exposure CFOs, treasurers and capital allocation committees pricing China risk Strategy and corporate development leaders evaluating China entry, scaling or exit Investor and partner conferences in financial services, manufacturing and consumer sectors Audience outcomes A current read on China’s growth trajectory, policy stance and financial-market signals from a working Big Four chief economist A clearer view of where official Chinese statistics, market pricing and policy intent agree and where they do not A framework for translating Chinese macro and policy moves into specific implications for revenue, supply chain and capital decisions An informed perspective on US-China economic friction and what it means operationally for non-Chinese firms

Why organisations work with Sung Won Sohn His forecasting record is one of the few in the economics profession that has been publicly audited. The Wall Street Journal has repeatedly ranked him the most accurate forecaster in the country, including first place in 2006 and a top-three ranking in 2012 as the only academic in the top ten. Analysis built from inside three institutions most economists only write about. Dr. Sohn served as a Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, as Chief Economist at Wells Fargo, and as President and CEO of Hanmi Financial Corporation in Los Angeles. A Pacific-rim lens that US-focused commentators rarely offer. Korean-born and long specialised in trans-Pacific trade, he reads US-China and US-Korea exposure the way someone who has tracked those flows for four decades does. Constant presence in live financial coverage. Reuters, CNN, CNBC, NBC, and Bloomberg cite him regularly on Fed decisions, inflation prints, and tariff announcements. Audiences hear what is shaping markets this week, in the language of the data that week. Biography highlights Professor of Finance and Economics, College of Business Administration, Loyola Marymount University Former Senior Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers at The White House Former Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at Wells Fargo Bank; former President and CEO of Hanmi Financial Corporation in Los Angeles Named the most accurate economic forecaster in the United States by the Wall Street Journal in 2006, with top-five rankings from the same publication in 2010 and 2012 Named to Time Magazine’s Board of Economists; one of the five most accurate US forecasters by Bloomberg News; most accurate forecaster for the Western States by Blue Chip Publications Author of Global Financial Crisis and Exit Strategy and The New Economy; Chair of the Investment Committee at LACERS, overseeing a multi-billion-dollar public pension fund; Director, Western Alliance Bancorporation Biography In 2006, the Wall Street Journal named its most accurate economic forecaster in the United States. The winner was running what he himself described as a one-man operation against forecasting teams at Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and Bank of America. His name was Sung Won Sohn. The Journal has returned to him in the years since, at one point ranking him the only academic in the country’s top ten forecasters. The forecasting record is built from a career that has sat on three different sides of the economic question. Dr. Sohn served as a Senior Economist on President Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers, with a brief covering the Federal Reserve and financial markets. He then spent three decades inside Northwest National Bank as it became Wells Fargo, rising to Executive Vice President and Chief Economist. In 2005 he crossed the table entirely, becoming President and CEO of Hanmi Financial Corporation in Los Angeles. Today Dr. Sohn is Professor of Finance and Economics at Loyola Marymount University’s College of Business Administration and president of SS Economics, his own consulting firm. Reuters, CNN, CNBC, NBC, and Bloomberg cite him routinely on Fed decisions, jobs data, and tariffs. His books Global Financial Crisis and Exit Strategy and The New Economy address the questions that still sit on most board agendas. What sets the commentary apart from other US-based macro voices is a Pacific-rim lens. Korean-born and formerly chief executive of a Korean-American bank in Los Angeles, Dr. Sohn has tracked trans-Pacific trade flows for four decades. He reads US-China and US-Korea exposure the way someone who has lived on both ends of those flows reads them. He also sits on the Board of Directors at Western Alliance Bancorporation and chairs the Investment Committee at LACERS, the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System. Key speaking topics US economic forecasting and the Federal Reserve Inflation, interest rates, and monetary policy International trade, tariffs, and non-tariff barriers The Pacific-rim economy and US-China relations AI and the future of business and productivity Digital currencies and the future of payments Competitive strategy in a volatile economy Ideal for CFOs, treasurers, and finance leadership teams needing a clear read on Federal Reserve policy and interest rate direction Board directors and investment committees making decisions sensitive to inflation, tariffs, and global trade flows CEOs and strategy leaders in manufacturing, retail, banking, and logistics with material exposure to US-China and Pacific-rim trade Asset managers, pension trustees, and financial advisers who need a macro voice with a publicly verified forecasting record Audience outcomes A forecast of where US growth, inflation, and interest rates are likely to move over the next two to four quarters, and the indicators that matter most A reading of US-China and US-Korea trade dynamics that goes beyond the headlines, including the non-tariff barriers that often matter more than the tariffs themselves A sharper sense of how AI is actually reshaping pricing, productivity, and labour markets, grounded in specific company examples A way to pressure-test their own planning assumptions against someone who has sat inside both the Council of Economic Advisers and a major bank’s forecasting team

Why organisations work with Susan HayesCulleton She holds the CFA charter and runs a financial-training practice with clients across Europe and the United States, so the economic read is grounded in capital-markets discipline, not punditry. She wrote the textbook that Irish students learn economics from twice. That same instinct for sequencing complex material into something a room can act on is what she brings to executive audiences. She presents “Taking Stock” on Newstalk, interviewing experts on the issues moving the world economy each week. The implication for buyers is current material, sourced from named guests, refreshed continuously. She sits on the boards of the Irish International Business Network and the Ireland Hong Kong Business Forum, which gives her a working view of cross-border trade flows that few keynote economists hold. She built #SavvyTeenAcademy and Active Peers AI alongside the speaking practice, which means the economic argument lands with someone who has actually run payroll, raised invoices and made a hire. Biography highlights CFA charterholder; MSc Executive Leadership; BSc Financial Maths and Economics; Diploma in Taxation. Co-author of “Positive Economics”, a market-leading Leaving Certificate economics textbook in Ireland. Author of “The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Financial Freedom” and “The Savvy Guide to Making More Money” (Penguin Ireland). Author of “Money Matters”, a financial literacy textbook sponsored by CFA Society Ireland and distributed to Irish secondary schools. Presenter of “Taking Stock” on Newstalk; host of Fantastic Female Fridays and the ESG and Tech Show. Managing Director, Hayes Culleton Group; Associate Lecturer, Ulster University; board roles with the Irish International Business Network and the Ireland Hong Kong Business Forum. Biography Most boardrooms do not have an economist in the room. They have a CFO with a P&L, a strategy lead with a deck, and a set of macro headlines none of them can confidently translate into a hiring decision or a hedge. Susan HayesCulleton works in that gap. The credentialing matters here. The CFA charter, the MSc Executive Leadership and the BSc Financial Maths and Economics are not decoration; they are the reason the read on rates, currency and capital flows hold up under questioning. The Hayes Culleton Group serves clients across Europe and the United States out of that same training discipline. The public work is what makes the material legible. “Positive Economics”, co-authored twice, is the textbook generations of Irish students sat the Leaving Certificate with. “Money Matters”, sponsored by CFA Society Ireland, went into every secondary school in the country. On Newstalk, “Taking Stock” runs each week with named guests on the issues moving the world economy. The instinct for sequencing technical content into something a non-specialist room can use is the through-line. She also runs businesses. #SavvyTeenAcademy places teenagers into corporate work experience programmes; Active Peers AI captures and diffuses tacit knowledge inside networks. Board seats with the Irish International Business Network and the Ireland Hong Kong Business Forum keep her close to the cross-border trade flows that most economists discuss only in the abstract. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook and macro forecasting Capital markets and investing for non-specialist audiences Cross-border trade, Ireland, UK and Asia-Pacific exposure ESG and sustainability in commercial decision-making Financial literacy and women in finance Entrepreneurship and scale-up economics Ideal for Boards, executive committees and CFOs are preparing capital allocation, hedging or pricing decisions against an uncertain macro backdrop. Banking, financial services and professional services audiences who want a working economist on the platform rather than a generalist commentator. Conferences hosting international trade, ESG, or financial literacy themes. Corporate audiences seeking a credible Irish or European economic voice for European, UK or US-facing programmes. Audience outcomes A clearer read on what the current macro signals mean for the specific decisions in front of the leadership team. Working vocabulary for capital-markets concepts (rates, currency, equity flows) that previously sat with the CFO alone. A view on cross-border exposure for organisations trading into Ireland, the UK, the EU or Asia-Pacific. Confidence to ask the next-level question of internal finance and risk teams. An economic argument paced for a mixed-seniority audience, not a specialist one.

Why organisations work with Tadhg Enright Two decades of live broadcast experience at Sky News, BBC News and RTE, which means he runs a stage on the timing standards of rolling news, not the looser pace of a corporate AGM. Specialist depth in business and economics: he led Sky’s coverage of the Eurozone debt crisis and covered Brexit from London for Euronews, so finance, treasury and policy audiences hear questions framed by someone who reported the story. Hosting work for clients including Chartered Accountants Ireland, the Embassy of Ireland in London and the Irish Exporters Awards, alongside corporate messaging work for Facebook, Tesco and Coca-Cola, signals comfort across regulated, professional and consumer brand contexts. Editorial range across breaking news, business, consumer and culture means he can host an awards dinner, chair a board panel and moderate a press-facing fireside session without changing register awkwardly between them. Biography highlights Presenter of business bulletins on the BBC News Channel and of Business Live on BBC World. Eight-year career at Sky News, including the role of regular presenter of hourly business updates and lead on the Eurozone debt crisis coverage. UK correspondent for Euronews, with extensive London-based reporting on Brexit. Long-running presenter of The Globalist on Monocle 24 Radio, a morning hour on world affairs, business and culture. Helped develop RTE’s first dedicated television business news segment; presenter and reporter on The Consumer Show on RTE One. Journalism training at Dublin City University; corporate messaging work for Facebook, Tesco and Coca-Cola. Biography Live business news rewards a presenter who can do two things at once: read a balance sheet quickly and translate it for a general audience in real time. That is the discipline Tadhg Enright built across eight years at Sky News, where he led coverage of the Eurozone debt crisis from Dublin and London, and where he became a regular face on the channel’s hourly business updates. He now presents business bulletins on the BBC News Channel and Business Live on BBC World. As UK correspondent for Euronews, he covered Brexit from London across the full arc of the negotiations. For eight years he hosted The Globalist on Monocle 24 Radio, an early-morning hour on world affairs, business and culture, which gave him a wider editorial vocabulary than most business presenters carry. The earlier work matters too. At RTE he helped build the broadcaster’s first dedicated television business news segment, then moved into consumer journalism on The Consumer Show, where his investigation into potentially dangerous Bosch dishwashers prompted a nationwide repair action. The same instinct sits behind his corporate messaging work for Facebook, Tesco and Coca-Cola, and behind his event hosting for Chartered Accountants Ireland, the Embassy of Ireland in London and the Irish Exporters Awards. What clients buy, in practice, is editorial command of a room. He runs a stage on the timing standards of rolling news, asks the question the audience came to hear, and keeps senior panellists honest without making the conversation hostile. Key speaking topics Conference and summit hosting Awards and gala dinner hosting Panel moderation and fireside chats Hybrid and virtual event facilitation Business and economics commentary Media training and corporate messaging European political and economic affairs Ideal for CFOs, finance directors and treasury teams convening flagship industry conferences. Professional services firms (accounting, legal, consulting) hosting client summits, partner conferences and awards. Corporate affairs and communications leaders running investor or media-facing events. Trade bodies, chambers and embassies running policy-facing forums and awards. Audience outcomes A panel session that lands its central question rather than rotating through prepared remarks. An audience that follows the financial and economic substance because the chair has translated it without flattening it. Senior speakers held to their own positions, with follow-up questions that pull out the strategic point. A run-of-show that finishes on time and on tone, from opening remarks through Q and A to closing thanks.

Why organisations work with Tanya Beckett Her banking career at Citibank and Commerzbank means she reads financial and economic data with the fluency of a practitioner, not just a reporter: and audiences notice the difference. Thirty years of front-line international broadcasting with BBC, CNN, Sky News, and CNBC has produced a presenter with genuine command of geopolitical complexity rather than surface-level confidence in it. Her advisory work with the World Bank, EBRD, EIB, ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office gives her direct insight into how trade and policy decisions are actually made, not just reported. She makes complex global dynamics legible for senior audiences without simplifying them, a skill that comes from structuring coverage for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service audiences with a high tolerance for nuance. As a facilitator and panel chair, she brings the interrogative discipline of a seasoned broadcast journalist to conference formats, which produces sharper discussions than a conventional MC approach. Biography highlights BBC broadcaster since 1998, with presenter credits on World Business Report, Working Lunch, Newsnight, Today, Our World, The Inquiry, and Talking Business across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Radio 4, BBC World News, and the BBC World Service Three-year posting to New York as BBC World US Business Anchor, reporting from Times Square and Washington DC Earlier broadcast career at CNBC Europe, Sky News, and CNN International (1993–1998) Career began in journalism at the Financial Times Former investment banker at Citibank (London, Credit Analysis) and Commerzbank (Frankfurt, Capital Markets Division) Advisory and facilitation work for the World Bank, EBRD, EIB, ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office, among other multilateral and government bodies Degree in Metallurgy and Materials Science, Pembroke College, Oxford; fluent German and French Biography Tanya Beckett started her career not in a newsroom but on a trading floor. Her years in investment banking at Citibank in London and Commerzbank in Frankfurt gave her a working understanding of capital markets, credit risk, and cross-border financial transactions before she ever picked up a microphone. When she moved into journalism, starting at the Financial Times and then building her broadcast career at CNBC Europe, Sky News, and CNN International, that foundation travelled with her. At the BBC, where she has worked since 1998, she has presented across the full range of the corporation’s business and economics output: World Business Report, Newsnight, Today on Radio 4, Our World, Working Lunch, and The Inquiry, the BBC World Service’s weekly current affairs documentary. Her three-year posting to New York as BBC World US Business Anchor placed her at the centre of transatlantic financial and political coverage during a period of sustained global market volatility. What distinguishes her from most journalists who move into the conference circuit is the institutional depth behind the broadcast profile. She has worked with the World Bank, the EBRD, the EIB, the ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office on matters of trade and communication, giving her direct exposure to how policy is shaped and where geopolitical risk is actually concentrated, not just how it is narrated. For organisations hosting high-stakes leadership events, that combination – thirty years of international broadcast experience, a banking foundation, and access to the institutions that shape global economic policy – produces a facilitator and keynote voice whose grasp of the material is substantive rather than performative. Key speaking topics Global economic trends and financial markets Geopolitical risk and international trade International institutions and multilateral policy Business communication and economic literacy for leaders Transatlantic business and US–Europe dynamics Current affairs in context: interpreting global risk Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership conferences requiring substantive economic and geopolitical framing Financial services organisations hosting client, leadership, or regulatory briefings International trade and policy forums needing a credible facilitator with institutional fluency Global corporates running town halls or leadership summits with a geopolitical or macro-economic agenda Audience outcomes A clearer framework for interpreting current global economic and geopolitical developments, anchored in how those events are shaped by international institutions Confidence engaging with financial and trade data without requiring an economics background Practical context for how major macroeconomic shifts – in trade policy, financial markets, or geopolitical realignment – translate into business risk and opportunity Greater precision in the questions leadership teams ask when briefed by economists or policy advisers

Why organisations work with Thomas Piketty He owns the primary dataset. The World Inequality Database, which he co-directs from the Paris School of Economics, is the reference series most finance ministries and international institutions cite when modelling distribution. His arguments have moved policy. Capital in the Twenty-First Century reset the global conversation on wealth taxation, inheritance and progressive capital rules at the OECD, EU and G20 level. He works at a 250-year time horizon. Boards modelling political risk, sovereign debt sustainability or long-run capital returns get a frame that goes well beyond standard cycle analysis. He is independent of national political circuits. He declined the French Legion d’Honneur in 2015, and his credibility with European, US and emerging-market audiences rests on that distance from government. A senior buyer gets an economist who has both the academic standing (EHESS, PSE, LSE) and the public reach to engage a leadership team on inequality without flattening it into a slogan. Biography highlights Professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales and the Paris School of Economics. Centennial Professor at the LSE International Inequalities Institute since 2015. Co-director of the World Inequality Lab and the World Inequality Database. Author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Capital and Ideology, and A Brief History of Equality, all published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Recipient of the Yrjo Jahnsson Award (2013) and the British Academy Medal (2014). Delivered the Ellen McArthur Lectures at the University of Cambridge Faculty of History in 2025. Biography The distribution of wealth is not a side-effect of growth. It is now the variable that shapes tax design, capital controls and the political tolerance for global business. Capital in the Twenty-First Century, published in 2014, made that case with 250 years of historical data and forced finance ministries, central banks and large investors to take inequality seriously as a risk factor. The author of that book runs the dataset behind the argument. The World Inequality Database, co-directed from the Paris School of Economics, is the reference series for income and wealth concentration used by the OECD, the European Commission and the IMF. Capital and Ideology in 2020 extended the analysis into a comparative history of inequality regimes, and A Brief History of Equality in 2022 distilled the argument into policy terms. His institutional base is unusual. He holds chairs at EHESS and the Paris School of Economics, is Centennial Professor at the LSE International Inequalities Institute, and taught earlier as an assistant professor at MIT. He declined the Legion d’Honneur in 2015, on the grounds that it was not the state’s role to decide who is honourable. For a senior audience, the value is direct. He gives boards a way to read inequality as a structural input into long-run capital allocation, regulatory exposure and political risk, drawn from the empirical work that has reshaped how governments think about taxation since 2014. Key speaking topics Income and wealth inequality Taxation and capital regulation Long-run capital returns and political risk The future of progressive taxation and inheritance Inequality in Europe, the US and emerging markets Macroeconomic policy and redistribution Globalisation, trade and capital mobility Ideal for Boards and investment committees price long-run political and policy risk into capital allocation. CFOs, heads of tax and group treasurers tracking the direction of corporate, capital and inheritance tax regimes. CEOs and strategy heads at multinational firms are exposed to shifting regulations on wealth, labour share and globalisation. Senior teams in banks, asset managers and sovereign investors that need a serious empirical frame on inequality. Audience outcomes A clear read of where wealth concentration is heading in major economies and what that implies for tax and regulation. A 250-year frame on capital returns, growth and inequality that sharpens long-horizon strategic decisions. A working understanding of the policy proposals (progressive capital tax, inheritance reform, tax transparency) under serious discussion at the OECD and EU. An independent academic perspective on the political conditions for global business, distinct from sell-side commentary. A direct exchange with one of the economists whose work is most cited by policymakers shaping the rules companies will operate under.

Why organisations work with Thomas Sargent The rational expectations framework he helped build is now embedded in the operating logic of central banks, the IMF, and finance ministries worldwide. Sargent doesn’t explain this framework from the outside. He built it. His policy-ineffectiveness proposition (developed with Neil Wallace) gives organisations a precise analytical basis for understanding why government interventions routinely fall short of stated intentions, and how to plan around that gap. His co-authored work on Robustness (with Nobel laureate Lars Peter Hansen) addresses something most economic frameworks ignore: what rigorous decision-making looks like when the decision-maker doesn’t fully trust their own model. This is directly applicable to scenario planning and capital allocation under genuine uncertainty. His directorship of SIQEF at Peking University HSBC Business School gives him unusual depth on Chinese macroeconomic institutions and decision-making; relevant to any organisation navigating US-China economic dynamics. His Nobel lecture – «United States Then, Europe Now» – applied the lessons of US fiscal-monetary coordination to the European debt crisis in real time. He has a demonstrable track record of applying formal economic theory to live policy problems, not just historical ones. Biography highlights Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, 2011 (shared with Christopher Sims), cited for empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy W.R. Berkley Professor of Economics and Business, New York University (joint appointment, Department of Economics and Stern School of Business) Donald L. Lucas Professor in Economics, Emeritus, Stanford University; Senior Fellow (adjunct), Hoover Institution, Stanford (since 1987) Past President of the American Economic Association, the Econometric Society, and the Society for Economic Dynamics Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 1983); Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics, Northwestern University (1997) Director, Sargent Institute of Quantitative Economics and Finance (SIQEF), Peking University HSBC Business School; co-founder, QuantEcon (2016) Biography Monetary policy has consequences that depend not just on what governments and central banks do, but on what everyone else expects them to do next. Thomas Sargent is one of the economists who formalised that insight – and in doing so, changed the way economic policy is designed and communicated globally. His contribution to the rational expectations revolution, developed through close collaboration with Robert Lucas and Neil Wallace at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s, established that households and firms adjust their behaviour in anticipation of policy moves. The practical implication – often called the policy-ineffectiveness proposition – is that surprise stimulus and systematic intervention operate by fundamentally different mechanisms. Central bank communication strategy, inflation targeting, and the design of fiscal rules all carry the influence of this work. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Christopher Sims, recognised his empirical methods for identifying cause-and-effect relationships in complex macroeconomic systems. His subsequent work with Lars Peter Hansen, published as Robustness, extended this into a formal framework for decision-making under model uncertainty; the condition in which a leader knows their economic model might be wrong, but must act anyway. It is a framework with direct application well beyond academic economics. He is currently the W.R. Berkley Professor of Economics and Business at NYU, a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and Director of the Sargent Institute of Quantitative Economics and Finance at Peking University HSBC Business School, a role that gives him active engagement with macroeconomic thinking across both Western and Chinese institutional contexts. Key speaking topics Rational expectations and macroeconomic policy Monetary policy design and central bank strategy Fiscal-monetary coordination Economic modelling under uncertainty Inflation dynamics and policy regime change Robustness and decision-making under model uncertainty Quantitative tools in economic analysis Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives making long-horizon capital allocation or strategic planning decisions in uncertain macroeconomic environments Financial services organisations (asset managers, insurers, investment banks) with direct exposure to central bank policy and interest rate cycles Government and public sector leadership teams engaged in fiscal or monetary policy design Economists, analysts, and research leads in institutions where formal macroeconomic modelling is central to decision-making Audience outcomes A working understanding of how rational expectations theory changes the analysis of monetary and fiscal policy, and why this matters for corporate planning A clearer framework for distinguishing between policy signals that will hold and those that markets and households have already priced or neutralised Exposure to the robustness approach to decision-making: how to act rationally when you know your model of the world may be incomplete Greater confidence in reading macroeconomic indicators in relation to institutional behaviour, not just headline data Context on the historical record of policy regime transitions – disinflation, fiscal consolidation, currency crises – and the conditions under which those transitions succeed or fail

Why organisations work with Tim Hames He has run the trade body for British private equity and venture capital, so he speaks to investors, allocators and operators in their own language, not as an outside commentator. His China analysis is built on close study of the Chinese Communist Party’s internal operations, which is the level boards need when sanctions, supply chain and market access decisions are on the table. He spent a decade as chief leader writer and assistant editor at The Times, which means he can frame a complex political argument tightly enough for a board paper or an investor letter. He served as the first Special Adviser to the Speaker of the House of Commons, giving him direct experience of how Westminster machinery actually moves. He co-wrote The Long Shot with Dame Kate Bingham, the definitive insider account of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, and a Financial Times science book of the year. Biography highlights Director General of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), 2013 to 2019. Co-founder of Acuti Associates, a UK, US and China political and geopolitical risk advisory. Co-author with Dame Kate Bingham of The Long Shot: The Inside Story of the Race to Vaccinate Britain (Oneworld, 2022); Sunday Times business bestseller, FT science book of the year, Money Week politics book of the year. Former Assistant Editor, chief leader writer and weekly political columnist at The Times. First Special Adviser to the Speaker of the House of Commons, with a brief on parliamentary reform. Former Lecturer in Politics at Oxford University, 1989 to 1996, specialising in American and British government. Biography Most political risk advice on offer to boards is written by people who have only ever observed politics from outside. Hames has worked inside three of the systems that matter, Westminster, the British press, and the City, and the value comes from how he connects them. His BVCA years gave him an investor’s reflex for capital flows; his Times years taught him to write a sharp, defensible argument; his Speaker’s Office year showed him how Parliament actually decides. That combination shapes the way he reads the UK, US and China triangle through Acuti Associates, the advisory firm he co-founded. The focus is practical: what does a Trump second term mean for trans-Atlantic deal flow, how should a board think about China exposure when the signals from Beijing are deliberately opaque, what does the UK regulatory direction look like after a change of government. The answers are not generic. His co-authored book with Dame Kate Bingham, The Long Shot, is the inside record of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, the rare British state-led project of the last decade that actually worked. It was a Financial Times science book of the year and a Sunday Times business bestseller, and it doubles as a study in how political and commercial decision-making interact under pressure. He continues to advise financial institutions, professional services firms and technology companies, and serves as a Senior Adviser to FTI Consulting’s strategic communications practice. The work he is asked to do is consistent: translate political signal into commercial decision, before the headlines force the issue. Key speaking topics UK, US and China political risk Geopolitical risk for boards and investors US politics and the Trump factor Chinese Communist Party decision-making UK government, regulation and the post-election landscape Private equity and venture capital policy environment Lessons from the UK Vaccine Taskforce Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material China, US or UK regulatory exposure Private equity and venture capital firms briefing LPs on political risk Financial services and professional services leadership teams CEO and CFO offsites where geopolitics is a standing agenda item Audience outcomes A clearer read on what to take seriously and what to discount in current US, UK and China political coverage. Sharper questions to put to in-house government affairs, public policy and risk teams. A practical sense of how Westminster, Washington and Beijing actually decide, not how they are reported. A more disciplined frame for board discussions on China exposure, sanctions risk and regulatory direction.

Why organisations work with Tim Harford Translates economic and statistical research into commercial decisions, drawing on a Financial Times column that has run for nearly two decades and a body of ten published books. Brings credibility on numbers that very few speakers can match: Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and OBE for services to economic understanding. Reframes innovation as an evidence-based discipline grounded in adaptation and failure, the central thesis of “Adapt” and “Messy”, rather than the usual creativity rhetoric. Equips senior audiences to interrogate their own data culture using the rules from “How To Make The World Add Up”, a practical antidote to misleading statistics inside organisations. Trusted as a host, moderator and after-dinner speaker by serious audiences because his radio craft on “More or Less” and “Cautionary Tales” carries directly into the room. Biography highlights Senior columnist, Financial Times, writing “The Undercover Economist”. Presenter, BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, the long-running statistics-in-the-news programme. Host of “Cautionary Tales”, a Pushkin Industries podcast, and creator of “Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy”. Author of ten books, including “The Undercover Economist”, “Adapt”, “Messy”, “How To Make The World Add Up” and “The Truth Detective”. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and of Brasenose College, Oxford; Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. OBE for services to Improving Economic Understanding; winner of the Bastiat Prize (twice), the Wincott Journalist of the Year award, and the Royal Statistical Society award for journalistic excellence. Biography Most organisations claim to be evidence-led. Few are. Decisions are framed in numbers but driven by narrative, and innovation programmes routinely refuse to learn from the failures that contain the most useful information. Harford’s work, across the Financial Times column, ten books and two long-running BBC and Pushkin productions, has been built around exactly that gap. His books map the intellectual territory leaders care about. “The Undercover Economist” reframed everyday markets through the lens of price, scarcity and incentive, and has sold more than 1.5 million copies in thirty languages. “Adapt” and “Messy” argue that progress depends on disciplined trial, error and tolerance for disorder, a more honest account of innovation than most corporate playbooks allow. “How To Make The World Add Up” gives senior audiences a practical method for testing the numbers they are asked to act on. The credentials behind that work are unusual. Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Associate Member of Nuffield College Oxford, an OBE for services to economic understanding, and a body of awards from the Bastiat Prize to the Wincott. As presenter of BBC Radio 4’s “More or Less”, Harford has spent years publicly stress-testing the statistics that shape policy and business commentary, which makes him one of the few speakers who can hold a senior room on data culture without resorting to platitudes. For boards and leadership teams, the value is concrete. Sharper questions about innovation portfolios, a working method for separating signal from noise, and a more honest model of how organisations actually learn. The recent “Cautionary Tales” series, which dissects high-profile organisational failures, has become a reference point for leaders thinking seriously about how decisions go wrong. Key speaking topics Behavioural economics in commercial decision-making Innovation, adaptation and learning from failure Statistical literacy and data culture in organisations Economic forces shaping business and policy Creativity, disorder and team productivity Cognitive bias and judgement under uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive committees confronting decisions where the numbers are contested Strategy, innovation and R&D leaders building portfolios under uncertainty CFOs and finance functions reviewing how evidence is presented and challenged internally Senior leadership offsites where the brief calls for serious intellectual content with broad relevance Audience outcomes A working method for interrogating statistics and management dashboards before acting on them A clearer model of innovation as managed trial and error, with practical implications for portfolio choice Sharper recognition of the cognitive errors that recur in senior decision-making Concrete references from “Cautionary Tales” and “More or Less” that audiences can use to reframe their own debates