Economic Trends & Global Markets speakers

Why organisations work with Viktor Mayer-Schönberger His research on data-sharing directly shaped the EU’s Digital Markets Act – when he talks about regulatory risk, he is describing a landscape he helped design. Big Data (co-authored with The Economist‘s Kenneth Cukier) sold over one million copies and set the terms of the enterprise data conversation for a decade; organisations benefit from the intellectual framework behind the book, not just its conclusions. As a member of Germany’s Digital Council, he advised Chancellor Merkel’s cabinet on digital policy (2018–2021) – giving him a rare dual perspective on both corporate strategy and governmental decision-making. His 2024 book Guardrails (with Urs Gasser, hailed in Science journal) offers the most current framework available for deciding which decisions to delegate to AI and which to retain – a live, unresolved question in most boardrooms. He holds the Oxford Chair as one of three statutory professors at the Oxford Internet Institute, combining research authority with over 250 keynote engagements across Fortune 500 companies and government bodies. Biography highlights Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute – one of three statutory chairs Ten years on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; continuing affiliate at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Member of Germany’s Digital Council; personal adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel on digital policy (2018–2021) Delete (Princeton University Press, 2009) won the 2010 Marshall McLuhan Award and the 2010 Don K. Price Award for Best Book in Science and Technology Politics Big Data (2013, with Kenneth Cukier) – NYT and WSJ bestseller; over one million copies sold; translated into more than 20 languages Research cited in, and proposals adopted by, the EU Digital Markets Act; covered by the New York Times, Financial Times, BBC, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and Nature Biography Data governance is not a compliance function. It is, as Viktor Mayer-Schönberger has spent three decades arguing, the central strategic question of the digital economy, and most organisations are still treating it as a footnote. Mayer-Schönberger holds the Chair of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, one of three statutory professorships at the OII. Before Oxford, he spent a decade at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and three years at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. That arc – from entrepreneurship to academic leadership across three continents – gives him a fluency in organisational, governmental, and market dynamics that few researchers in this space share. His books have not merely described the data economy; they have shaped it. Delete (Princeton, 2009) initiated the debate that produced the EU’s right to be forgotten. Access Rules (2022) and the earlier Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data proposed the data-sharing mandates that were subsequently enacted in the EU Digital Markets Act. His bestseller Big Data – co-authored with The Economist‘s Kenneth Cukier – sold over a million copies and remains the foundational text for enterprise data strategy. His most recent book, Guardrails (2024, with Urs Gasser), praised in Science journal, addresses the question now live in every boardroom: how to draw the line between AI delegation and human judgement. From 2018 to 2021 he served as a member of Germany’s Digital Council, advising Chancellor Merkel’s cabinet directly. He is a faculty affiliate at Harvard’s Belfer Center and has addressed senior audiences at IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Roche, as well as regulatory and governmental forums across the EU, UK, and US. His advisory boards have included Microsoft and the World Economic Forum. Key speaking topics AI governance and the limits of delegation Data access, competition, and digital market regulation The strategic economics of data Information privacy and the right to be forgotten Human decision-making in the age of AI Digital policy and corporate regulatory risk The data-driven transformation of capitalism Ideal for Boards and executive leadership teams navigating AI governance and regulatory exposure Chief Data, Digital, and AI Officers building organisational data strategy General counsel, compliance, and risk functions in regulated industries Public policy and regulatory affairs teams across the EU and UK Audience outcomes A structured framework for distinguishing decisions that should be delegated to AI from those that must remain with humans Clarity on the regulatory direction of travel in the EU and UK, and what it means for data strategy An understanding of how data access and sharing mandates will reshape competitive dynamics in their sector Practical grounding in the governance failures that produce both legal exposure and strategic underperformance A shared language for board-level conversations about AI risk that moves beyond the abstract

Why organisations work with Vítor Constâncio He offers direct insider perspective on ECB monetary policy design and execution across an eight-year term as Vice-President: a vantage point that cannot be replicated by academic analysis or market commentary alone. His active role in building the ECB’s macroprudential governance framework, including the development of its systemic risk indicators (FSRI and CSRI), gives audiences a conceptual map for understanding financial stability risk that goes beyond standard risk management frameworks. His unusual combination of central bank leadership, national finance ministry experience, and private-sector board roles provides a rare triangulation of how monetary, fiscal, and regulatory decisions interact; directly relevant to boards navigating rate cycles, sovereign risk, and banking regulation. Through his Bruegel contributions and MacroViews Substack, he remains an active, citable analyst on current ECB and Fed policy, eurozone fiscal governance, and international financial risk: making his perspective current, not merely historical. For European and internationally exposed organisations, his forensic understanding of euro area crisis mechanics, including Portugal’s €78bn bailout programme, Banking Union design, and Capital Markets Union architecture, offers a level of granularity that generic economic speakers cannot match. Biography highlights Vice-President of the European Central Bank and member of its Executive Board, 2010-2018, selected by Eurozone finance ministers for an eight-year mandate Governor of the Banco de Portugal in two separate terms (1985-86 and 2000-2010); member of the ECB Governing Council throughout the second term Finance Minister of Portugal (1977-78) and Secretary of State for Planning and Budget (1974-76) Secretary-General of Portugal’s Socialist Party (1986-89) and member of the Portuguese Council of State (1995-99) Co-architect of the ECB’s macroprudential governance framework; named author of ECB Occasional Paper on macroprudential policy at the ECB; developer of the ECB’s Financial Stability Risk Index and Cyclical Systemic Risk Indicator Professor at the School of Economics & Business Administration, University of Navarra; President of the School Board, ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management, University of Lisbon Active contributor to Bruegel policy debates; extensive BIS-published speech record; author of MacroViews (Substack), a widely-read publication on monetary policy and European economic governance Biography Central banks rarely advertise the tensions behind their decisions. The trade-offs between price stability and financial stability, the institutional pressures on monetary union governance, the limits of macroprudential tools when the financial cycle turns: these are not visible in official communiqués. They are visible only to those who have sat inside the institution at the moments when those decisions were made. Vítor Constâncio served as Vice-President of the European Central Bank for eight years, from 2010 to 2018, a period that encompassed the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, the design and early operation of the Banking Union, and the gradual construction of a macroprudential policy architecture for the euro area. As a member of the ECB’s Executive Board, he was among the principal architects of the framework that now governs systemic risk oversight across European financial markets; including the ECB’s own Financial Stability Risk Index and Cyclical Systemic Risk Indicator, developed under his leadership. His authority on these questions is grounded in institutional breadth as much as seniority. He served as Governor of the Banco de Portugal across two separate terms, representing Portugal on the ECB Governing Council throughout the second; held senior government roles as Finance Minister and Secretary of State; and served as Executive Director at Banco Português de Investimento with non-executive board exposure to major Portuguese corporates. This layered experience – from national treasury to private board to European monetary authority – gives him a perspective on how macroeconomic policy, financial regulation, and institutional design interact that few practitioners can claim. Since leaving the ECB, Constâncio has remained an analytically active voice. He publishes regularly on monetary policy and eurozone governance through his MacroViews commentary platform and continues to contribute to Bruegel, the leading European economic policy research institution. He teaches banking and financial regulation at the University of Navarra and chairs the school board at ISEG. For organisations seeking clarity on the forces shaping credit conditions, regulatory direction, and European financial architecture, he brings the rarest combination available: the institutional memory of someone at the centre of the decisions, and the continued intellectual engagement of someone who has not stopped thinking about them. Key speaking topics Monetary policy design and the limits of central banking Macroprudential policy and systemic risk frameworks European financial governance and Banking Union architecture Sovereign risk and euro area crisis management Banking regulation and the post-Basel III landscape Capital Markets Union and European financial integration Global macro conditions and the outlook for interest rates Ideal for CFOs, CROs, and board risk committees at banks, insurers, and asset managers navigating rate cycles and regulatory change Investment and treasury leaders requiring granular perspective on ECB and eurozone monetary dynamics Government and supranational policy forums focused on European financial architecture and sovereign risk Executive leadership conferences in financial services where strategic macro context is central to the agenda Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how macroprudential policy frameworks function and where their limits lie – grounded in the experience of building them Practical perspective on how central bank decisions are actually made: the trade-offs, institutional constraints, and dissenting pressures that official statements do not capture An informed view of the structural risks in European and global financial systems, and the regulatory tools available to address them Greater ability to distinguish signal from noise in central bank communication and monetary policy signalling Context for assessing how eurozone governance, Banking Union architecture, and Capital Markets Union development affect corporate and institutional financial strategy

Why organisations work with Will Hutton Three decades of macro-economic analysis tested in public, from The State We’re In in 1995 through This Time No Mistakes in 2024, so the framework is not a recent rebrand. A working seat inside the institutions that shape British policy: the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector, the Commission on Creative Industries, the EU Kok Commission, and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. A genuinely structural argument on corporate purpose through The Purposeful Company, used by boards rethinking governance, executive pay and stakeholder accountability. Editorial and broadcast judgement built over years as Editor-in-Chief of The Observer and Economics Editor at Newsnight, which makes him unusually clear on which economic stories matter and which do not. Equally credible on China, Europe and the United States, so a board worrying about exposure across all three gets one coherent analysis rather than three partial ones. Biography highlights President of the Academy of Social Sciences. Principal of Hertford College, Oxford, 2011 to 2020. Co-chair of The Purposeful Company; co-founder and chair of the Big Innovation Centre. Former Chief Executive of The Work Foundation; former Editor-in-Chief of The Observer; former Economics Editor of BBC Newsnight and The Guardian. Author of seven books on political economy, including The State We’re In (1995) and This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain (2024). Chair of the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector (2010 to 2011) and the Commission on Creative Industries (2007); rapporteur to the EU Kok Commission (2004). Biography The State We’re In sold more copies than any British political-economy book since 1945. It set the terms of a debate, on short-termism, on the costs of financialised capitalism, on what serious institutional reform would look like, that the country has been having ever since. Thirty years later, This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain returns to the same argument under new conditions and was reviewed in the Financial Times, the LSE Review of Books and the Literary Review. What sits behind both books is an unusually wide working footprint. Hutton has been Editor-in-Chief of The Observer, Economics Editor at Newsnight and The Guardian, Chief Executive of The Work Foundation, and Principal of Hertford College, Oxford. He chaired the Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector for the Coalition government and the Commission on Creative Industries for the Labour government, and was rapporteur to the EU Kok Commission. The current focus is institutional. As co-chair of The Purposeful Company he works with boards and asset managers on what corporate purpose, governance and executive pay should look like if shareholder primacy is no longer the working assumption. As President of the Academy of Social Sciences and chair of the Big Innovation Centre, he sits across the British social science and innovation policy systems. For senior audiences, the value is in the synthesis. Hutton reads China, the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom as one connected system, and his Observer column is the long-running test bed. A board trying to make capital, governance and political-risk decisions in that environment gets a single coherent reading from a single voice with thirty years of public track record. Key speaking topics The British and European political economy Corporate purpose, governance and executive pay China, the United States and the future of the global economy Stakeholder capitalism and institutional reform The future of work and the social contract Innovation policy and industrial strategy Fairness, inequality and public sector reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of UK and European corporates assessing geopolitical and macro exposure Asset managers, pension funds and institutional investors recalibrating governance and stewardship expectations Government, regulator and think-tank audiences working on industrial strategy, public sector reform or corporate governance Senior leadership programmes at business schools and professional services firms Audience outcomes A working map of how the British, European, Chinese and US economies now connect, and where the pressure points sit A clear view of what corporate purpose and stakeholder governance mean in practice for board agendas, pay and stewardship An informed reading of how UK political and policy shifts feed through to corporate operating conditions A sharper sense of which economic news is structural and which is noise

Why organisations work with William McDonough His Cradle to Cradle framework is not a sustainability philosophy but an operational design standard that underpins a third-party certification programme (Cradle to Cradle Certified™), This programme has been adopted by major global manufacturers and retailers, giving organisations a verifiable, externally recognised pathway to circular design rather than a set of principles to interpret internally. He provides a direct counter-argument to the prevailing ESG framing: that the goal is not «less bad» but genuinely positive material and ecological outcomes; a reframe that changes what boards ask of product and operations leaders, not just what they report. His consultancy work spans the molecular (material chemistry and product formulation via MBDC) through to the industrial-architectural (Ford’s River Rouge plant, NASA’s Sustainability Base): a cross-scalar range that almost no other figure in sustainable design can match from direct project experience. As inaugural Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on the Circular Economy (2014-2016), he has been involved in shaping the global policy and business conversation on circular economy at the highest level, giving organisations access to the strategic framing that has informed international standards. His argument that sustainability and economic abundance are not in tension – that well-designed systems generate more value, not less – addresses the specific internal resistance that sustainability strategies encounter from commercial and operations leadership. Biography highlights Co-creator of the Cradle to Cradle design framework and co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability-Designing for Abundance (2013), foundational texts of the circular economy movement Inaugural Chair, World Economic Forum Meta-Council on the Circular Economy (2014–2016); member, WEF Global Future Council on the Future of Environment and Natural Resource Security Co-founder, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) – the consulting and assessment body behind the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Programme Architect of landmark sustainable design projects including the Ford River Rouge/Dearborn Truck Plant (world’s largest living roof at the time of completion) and NASA’s Sustainability Base, Ames Research Center Recipient of three U.S. presidential honours: Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), first U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003), and National Design Award, Cooper Hewitt/Smithsonian (2004) Named «Hero for the Planet,» Time magazine (1999); one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, Fortune magazine (2019); WEF Award for Circular Economy Leadership (2017) Commissioned to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (1992) as official design guidelines for the City of Hannover’s EXPO 2000 Consulting Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University; former Dean, School of Architecture, University of Virginia (1994–1999) Biography The core problem with most corporate sustainability programmes is that they are built on top of systems that were never designed to be sustainable; product lines, manufacturing processes, and supply chains conceived entirely within a linear, extractive logic. Reducing harm at the margins is not the same as changing it. The question organisations are increasingly unable to avoid is whether their design intentions, and the material and industrial systems those intentions produce, are structurally compatible with a regenerative future. William McDonough is the architect and designer who, with chemist Michael Braungart, developed the Cradle to Cradle framework as a response to precisely that problem. Published in their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, the framework reframes design around three principles drawn from natural systems: that all materials function as nutrients for subsequent use, that systems run on clean and renewable energy, and that diversity rather than uniformity strengthens resilience. The follow-up, The Upcycle (2013), extended the argument from harm reduction to the active generation of ecological and economic abundance. Through co-founded firm MBDC, these principles became the basis for the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Programme, an independent standard adopted by major manufacturers in fashion, consumer goods, and construction. His practice spans both the theoretical and the demonstrably built. McDonough’s architecture firm, William McDonough + Partners, has delivered some of the most cited proof points in industrial sustainability – among them the Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan, whose living roof became one of the most referenced examples of integrated green infrastructure in manufacturing, and NASA’s Sustainability Base at Ames Research Center. These projects are not showcases of green aesthetics; they are operational arguments that regenerative design performs economically and functionally at scale. He was commissioned to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (1992) for the City of Hannover’s EXPO 2000 – a document that remains a reference point in sustainable design policy three decades on. At the World Economic Forum, McDonough served as inaugural Chair of the Meta-Council on the Circular Economy (2014-2016), positioning him within the institutional conversation that shaped how circular economy principles were adopted in global business and policy frameworks. For senior leadership, the value of that positioning is specific: McDonough is not a commentator on circular economy standards, he’s a figure who helped define them, and who speaks with direct authority to how the gap between current industrial design and those standards is closed. Key speaking topics Cradle to Cradle design and the circular economy Regenerative design for products, buildings, and industrial systems Material health and the elimination of waste as a design concept ESG strategy and circular business models Sustainable architecture and the built environment Carbon management and the Circular Carbon Economy The Next Industrial Revolution Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads shaping long-term material and production strategy Chief Operating Officers and heads of manufacturing or supply chain facing regulatory and investor pressure on circular design Product design and innovation leadership in consumer goods, construction, and manufacturing sectors Board-level and executive audiences grappling with the strategic gap between current operations and net-positive environmental commitments Audience outcomes A clear, working understanding of the difference between linear sustainability (less harm) and circular design (positive output), and what that distinction demands operationally Specific grounding in the Cradle to Cradle framework as a design and certification standard that organisations can apply to products, materials, and buildings An evidence-based case, drawn from major industrial projects, that regenerative design is economically viable and operationally executable, not aspirational A revised framing of ESG and circular economy commitments: from reporting exercise to design mandate Practical insight into where the current generation of sustainability strategies falls structurally short, and what a structurally different approach looks like

Why organisations work with Xiao Geng Sustained insider access to Chinese policy and regulatory thinking, built across roles at the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, HSBC Bank China, and senior positions at Brookings, Fung Global Institute, and Columbia Global Centers East Asia. A live, monthly published view on the US-China economic relationship through more than a decade of Project Syndicate commentary co-authored with Andrew Sheng. Founding leadership of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, one of the few institutional bridges between Western policy research and Chinese government economic thinking. Research depth across the technical questions that drive China exposure for foreign capital: exchange rate policy, capital market reform, enterprise productivity, and urbanisation. A working position inside the Greater Bay Area policy network through CUHK Shenzhen and the Shenzhen Finance Institute, giving leaders a sightline into where China’s innovation and finance corridors are heading. Biography highlights President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance. Professor of Practice at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Director of the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute. Director of the Research Institute of Maritime Silk-Road at Peking University HSBC Business School. Founding Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy and former Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Former Vice President for China at the Fung Global Institute and Director of Columbia Global Centers East Asia. Project Syndicate columnist since 2012, with more than 140 published commentaries on China and the global economy. Biography Most foreign boards still treat China as a single risk vector. The economy is more fragmented than that, and the policy logic shaping it does not move on the cycles Western investors are used to reading. A serious view of capital allocation in Asia depends on understanding how monetary policy, financial reform, and political economy interact inside Beijing’s system, not just what is announced. Xiao Geng has spent his career sitting inside that system. He is President of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance and Professor of Practice at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, where he directs the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute. He also leads the Research Institute of Maritime Silk-Road at Peking University HSBC Business School. His earlier roles built the institutional reach. He was Founding Director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Vice President for China at the Fung Global Institute, and Director of Columbia Global Centers East Asia. Inside the Hong Kong system he served as Head of Research at the Securities and Futures Commission. He has advised HSBC Bank China, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme. Since 2012 he has written a monthly Project Syndicate column with Andrew Sheng, covering Chinese monetary policy, technology competition, energy transition, and the financial architecture of the US-China relationship. The column is one of the few sustained English-language readings of Chinese economic policy written from inside it. Key speaking topics China’s macroeconomic outlook US-China economic and financial relations Chinese financial sector reform and regulation Capital markets and exchange rate policy in Asia Urbanisation, enterprise productivity, and the Greater Bay Area Geopolitical risk for foreign investors in China Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material China or Asia exposure CFOs, treasurers, and heads of corporate strategy reviewing supply chain or capital allocation in Asia Financial services leadership briefings on regulatory and macro direction Government, multilateral, and policy audiences working on US-China economic questions Audience outcomes A clearer read of where Chinese monetary, fiscal, and financial reform is actually heading, not what headlines suggest A working framework for the structural drivers of US-China economic tension and where they sit on the cycle Specific signals to watch on capital flows, exchange rate policy, and Chinese capital market opening A more accurate map of the policy actors and institutions that shape China’s economic decisions An informed basis for stress-testing investment, supply chain, and partnership decisions tied to Greater China

Why organisations work with Yu Yongding He sat inside China’s central bank monetary policy deliberations (2004–2006) and inside the post-crisis UN commission that attempted to redesign the global financial architecture – a combination no Western-based economist on China can replicate His publicly argued position that China’s US Treasury holdings generate negative real returns and constitute a geopolitical liability gives boards and investment committees a named, verified analytical framework – not commentary, but a specific thesis with a public record His analysis consistently diverges from both official Chinese positions and from prevailing Western narratives, which is precisely what makes it useful for stress-testing institutional assumptions about China’s trajectory He has published alongside Barry Eichengreen, Raghuram Rajan, and Jean Pisani-Ferry at Bruegel, and contributes regularly to Project Syndicate, meaning his arguments are already in circulation in the rooms where senior policy and investment decisions are made As editor-in-chief of China and World Economy and former Director-General of IWEP, he has shaped the research agenda that feeds into Chinese policymaking: he knows not just the conclusions but the institutional reasoning behind them Biography highlights Academician, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; D.Phil. in economics, University of Oxford (1994) Director-General, Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP), CASS – China’s leading international economics research institution – for over a decade, 1998–2009 Member, Monetary Policy Committee, People’s Bank of China, 2004–2006 President, China Society of World Economy, 2003–2011 Member, UN Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System (Stiglitz Commission), convened in response to the 2008 global financial crisis Member, UN High-Level Panel on Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity (FACTI Panel) Regular contributor to Project Syndicate, South China Morning Post, Wire China, and Bruegel; published alongside Eichengreen, Rajan, and Pisani-Ferry Editor-in-chief, China and World Economy (Wiley); also editor-in-chief of World Economy and International Review of Economics Biography The global reserve currency system has a structural problem that most institutional risk frameworks are not built to assess. The US dollar’s dominant position rests on arrangements; surplus-country accumulation of US Treasuries, capital account conventions, and geopolitical assumptions that are under visible strain. The economists who advise China’s central bank and finance ministries have been debating this openly for two decades. Their conclusions rarely reach Western boardrooms with the precision or independence that makes them actionable. Yu Yongding’s career has placed him at the centre of that debate, on both sides of it. As Director-General of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at CASS from 1998 to 2009, he led the institution that shapes China’s engagement with international economic policy. As a member of the People’s Bank of China Monetary Policy Committee from 2004 to 2006, he participated directly in the monetary decisions of one of the world’s most consequential central banks. Few economists working on China have held both roles. His analytical contribution is specific and verifiable. He has argued publicly that China’s accumulation of US Treasuries constitutes a structural misallocation, producing negative real returns while creating the kind of geopolitical vulnerability that became concrete when US sanctions froze Russian central bank assets. He has written on the Mundell-Fleming trilemma as it applies to China’s exchange rate constraints, on the conditions for sustainable Chinese growth, and on the reform of the international monetary architecture. These arguments are his own; they sometimes diverge from official Chinese positions, which is what gives them credibility for external audiences. He contributed to the Stiglitz Commission’s post-2008 work on reforming the international monetary and financial system, and served on the UN FACTI Panel on financial accountability for sustainable development. His published work appears in Project Syndicate, the South China Morning Post, East Asia Forum, and Bruegel, where he has co-authored with Barry Eichengreen, Raghuram Rajan, and Jean Pisani-Ferry. He holds a D.Phil. in economics from Oxford and is editor-in-chief of the Wiley journal China and World Economy. Key speaking topics China’s macroeconomic framework and growth trajectory Global reserve currency system and dollar dependency RMB internationalisation and capital account reform Exchange rate policy and the Mundell-Fleming trilemma Reform of the international monetary and financial system China’s foreign exchange reserves: composition, risk, and strategy Financial stability and systemic risk in the global economy Post-crisis international economic governance Ideal for Senior investment committees and sovereign wealth fund leadership assessing China exposure or dollar-denominated reserve strategy Central bank governors, finance ministry officials, and financial regulators engaged in monetary policy or international monetary reform Global risk forums and geopolitical strategy sessions where China’s macroeconomic trajectory is a first-order variable International financial institutions and policy bodies working on the architecture of the global financial system Audience outcomes A specific, independently argued framework for assessing the structural vulnerabilities in China’s monetary position, not a summary of official positions Clearer analytical language around the dollar’s reserve status and the conditions under which it is likely to erode A more precise understanding of the policy tensions inside China’s macroeconomic framework: exchange rate, demand management, fiscal space, and reserve composition Context for interpreting China’s monetary and fiscal policy signals that goes beyond what circulates in Western financial media Familiarity with the arguments shaping China’s policy debates, including the positions that diverge from official government framing

Why organisations work with Yuriko Koike She runs the world’s largest metropolitan economy. Few speakers can describe the operating reality of climate, security and fiscal trade-offs at megacity scale from the seat where the decisions are made. She authored the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy, with mandated solar panels on new detached homes from April 2025 and a target of halved emissions by 2030. Audiences hear how a major capital city is converting net zero language into capital allocation and regulation. As Environment Minister she designed Cool Biz, a behavioural and policy intervention that the Japanese Ministry of the Environment estimated cut 460,000 tons of CO2 in its first year. It is a rare example of a low-cost public policy producing measurable emissions reduction. She brings cabinet-level perspective on Japan’s geopolitical position. Former Minister of Defense, former National Security adviser, fluent Arabic speaker, Project Syndicate columnist on Asia, fiscal policy and the rules-based order since 2010. She is the first woman to govern Tokyo and the first to seek the LDP leadership. Her perspective on women in senior public and corporate roles is grounded in an actual executive career, not advocacy alone. Biography highlights Governor of Tokyo since 2016, re-elected in 2020 and 2024. Minister of the Environment of Japan (2003-2006); Minister of Defense (2007); Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for National Security. Architect of the Cool Biz campaign and the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy. Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award, 2019. Chair, OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth Initiative. Project Syndicate columnist since 2010; World Economic Forum Agenda contributor. Biography Tokyo, with a metropolitan population near 14 million and a GDP larger than most G20 economies, is one of the few cities where climate policy, fiscal stress and geopolitical exposure all run through the same office. Yuriko Koike has held that office since 2016, re-elected in 2020 and again in 2024. The decisions she has made there are the substance of her platform. Her policy track record predates the governorship. As Minister of the Environment under Junichiro Koizumi between 2003 and 2006, she launched Cool Biz, a behavioural and dress-code intervention that the Japanese Ministry of the Environment estimated reduced CO2 emissions by 460,000 tons in its first year. As Governor she authored the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy in December 2019, setting a 2050 net zero target with halved emissions by 2030, and pushed through a mandate that new detached homes in Tokyo install solar panels from April 2025. Few city leaders globally have moved climate ambition into binding metropolitan regulation at this scale. She also brings cabinet-level perspective on geopolitics. She was Japan’s Minister of Defense, served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for National Security, ran for the LDP presidency in 2008 as the first woman to seek the leadership of a major Japanese party, and has written for Project Syndicate on Asian security, fiscal policy and the rules-based order since 2010. Before politics she was a Nippon TV anchor and Arabic-speaking foreign correspondent, with a sociology degree from Cairo University. She chairs the OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth Initiative and was awarded the Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award in 2019. Audiences who book her are typically working on the same problem she works on every day: how to govern an exposed, dense, ageing, ambitious economy when energy, geopolitics and capital are all moving at once. Key speaking topics Climate policy and city-scale decarbonisation Megacity resilience and inclusive urban growth Japan, China and the geopolitics of East Asia Energy transition and capital allocation Women in senior public and corporate leadership Public sector reform and fiscal discipline Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, energy and ESG strategy in Asia or with Asia exposure CFOs, CSOs and policy leads working on long-term capital allocation under climate and geopolitical risk Public-private convenings on urban resilience, infrastructure and inclusive growth Conferences on Japan, the Indo-Pacific and the global rules-based order Audience outcomes A first-hand view of how the world’s largest metropolitan economy is converting net zero policy into binding regulation and capital plans A sharper read on Japan’s economic and security position, and what it implies for organisations operating across East Asia A working example of behavioural climate policy that produced measurable emissions reduction at low fiscal cost A senior practitioner’s perspective on running large public institutions through fiscal pressure, demographic change and geopolitical realignment A direct account of breaking into senior leadership in a country and party where the path was not designed for women

Why organisations work with Zanny Minton Beddoes She edits the publication that shapes how the world’s finance ministers, central bankers, and institutional investors read the global economy: her vantage point is not advisory, it is editorial, which means she sees patterns across geographies, sectors, and governments simultaneously rather than from within any single industry or country. Her pre-journalism career – macroeconomic adjustment programmes at the IMF and economic reform work in post-communist Poland as part of the Jeffrey Sachs team – gives her an understanding of what policy looks like under institutional stress, not just in theory. She has written and overseen major special reports on the world economy, European stagnation, Latin American finance, Central Asian development, and U.S. fiscal sustainability. Her depth on structural economic themes goes well beyond the commentary that most media-figure speakers provide. Two Gerald Loeb Awards (2012 and 2017, the latter for breaking the Saudi Aramco story) signal editorial credibility of a different order from standard speaker-bureau economics commentary. For financial services, institutional investors, and multinational boards, she offers a rare combination: the institutional authority of The Economist brand with the direct analytical access of someone who has run the publication for a decade. Biography highlights Editor-in-Chief of The Economist since February 2015 – the first woman to lead the publication in its 180-year history; also serves on the board of directors of The Economist Group Held successive senior roles at The Economist over 30 years: emerging markets correspondent, US Economics Editor, Economics Editor (Washington DC), Business Affairs Editor Economist at the IMF (1992-1994), working on macroeconomic adjustment programmes in Africa Economic reform adviser to Poland’s Minister of Finance under Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University Oxford PPE (St Hilda’s College); master’s degree, Harvard Kennedy School (Kennedy Scholar) Gerald Loeb Award winner in 2012 (economic journalism) and 2017 (Breaking News, Saudi Aramco scoop) Trustee, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; member, Research Advisory Board, Committee for Economic Development Named among Forbes’ «Most Powerful Women in the World»; featured in Debrett’s 500 as «one of the most influential voices in financial journalism» Biography The challenge that keeps most boards and strategy teams off-balance is not a lack of information about the global economy. It is the absence of a coherent framework for integrating macroeconomic dynamics, geopolitical risk, and policy shifts into decisions that were never designed to carry that weight. Very few people are positioned to provide that framework with both practitioner rigour and editorial breadth. Zanny Minton Beddoes is one of them. As Editor-in-Chief of The Economist – the first woman to hold that position in the publication’s 180-year history – she oversees the analytical infrastructure that shapes how central bankers, finance ministers, and institutional investors read the global economy. Her perspective is not that of an adviser operating within a single sector or region; it is the perspective of someone who has spent three decades at the editorial centre of the world’s most closely watched economics publication, watching structural forces play out across geographies and cycles. Before journalism, she was inside the machinery of policy under pressure. At the IMF she worked on macroeconomic adjustment programmes in Africa. In Poland, as part of the Jeffrey Sachs team, she was present during one of the most consequential economic transitions of the post-Cold War period. That experience of watching institutions, incentives, and political constraints interact in real time, is audible in the way she talks about markets and policy today: not as abstractions, but as systems with observable failure modes. Her special reports for The Economist – covering the world economy, European stagnation, Latin American finance, Central Asian development, and U.S. fiscal sustainability – reflect a career-long engagement with structural economic questions, not topical commentary. Combined with two Gerald Loeb Awards and a decade leading the publication, that record gives her a credibility in a board or leadership setting that no amount of media presence alone can substitute for. Key speaking topics Global macroeconomic outlook and structural economic change Geopolitics and the fracturing of the multilateral economic order U.S. fiscal sustainability and dollar dynamics European economic stagnation and structural reform Emerging market resilience and vulnerability The intersection of energy transition and economic growth Trade, protectionism, and the rewiring of global supply chains Democracy, governance, and economic performance Ideal for Corporate boards and C-suite leadership teams navigating macro-level strategic uncertainty Financial services, asset management, and institutional investment audiences Government, policy, and international institutions requiring independent editorial-grade analysis Global leadership summits and senior forums where geopolitical and economic context is the primary agenda Audience outcomes A structured framework for reading the interaction between political, macroeconomic, and institutional forces – rather than treating each as a separate news event Calibrated perspective on where structural economic risk is concentrated, versus where conventional wisdom is overstating or understating it Clearer language for discussing macro uncertainty internally – specifically, the difference between cyclical disruption and structural shift An updated analytical map of the major economies and how their trajectories affect sector-level and investment decisions Context for evaluating specific strategic choices – expansion, capital allocation, supply chain configuration – against a coherent view of the global environment

Why organisations work with Zhang Jun He reads China’s economy from inside its policy apparatus, sitting on the Shanghai Municipal Government’s Special Advisory Committee and having briefed Premier Li Keqiang directly in 2015. His thesis in End of Hyper Growth in China? (Palgrave, 2016) is a specific, defensible counter-position on Chinese consumption data and structural imbalance, not a directional take. He won the 2018 Bergson Prize from the Association for Comparative Economic Studies, the field’s recognised award for serious comparative work on transition economies. He has held visiting positions at LSE, Harvard, Yale, SOAS and UNU-WIDER, so he writes and speaks for Western analytic audiences without losing the China interior view. He has written 70 commentaries for Project Syndicate since 2005 and contributes regularly to the South China Morning Post and the World Economic Forum agenda, which means his framing is already legible to senior international readers. Biography highlights Dean, School of Economics, Fudan University; Cheung-Jiang Professor of Economics. Founding Director, China Center for Economic Studies (CCES), Fudan. Member, Special Advisory Committee to the Shanghai Municipal Government. Bergson Prize (2018), Association for Comparative Economic Studies; China Economics Innovation Prize (2015) with Justin Yifu Lin and Fan Gang. Author of End of Hyper Growth in China? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Unfinished Reforms of the Chinese Economy (World Scientific, 2013). Project Syndicate columnist since 2005; contributor to SCMP and the World Economic Forum. Biography Most foreign reads of the Chinese economy are constructed from data releases, export figures, and a handful of much-quoted Western analysts. Zhang Jun’s view is constructed from inside the room. He sits on the Shanghai Municipal Government’s Special Advisory Committee and was one of three economists chosen in 2015 for a direct dialogue with Premier Li Keqiang on macroeconomic policy. As Dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University and founding Director of the China Center for Economic Studies, he runs one of mainland China’s most serious institutional platforms for analysing the country’s growth model. His 2016 Palgrave book End of Hyper Growth in China? made a specific counter-argument against the consensus that China’s reliance on investment and low consumption made its growth unsustainable. The 2018 Bergson Prize from the Association for Comparative Economic Studies recognised his comparative work in the same field. Zhang publishes for international readers as well as Chinese ones. He has been a Project Syndicate columnist since 2005, with more than 70 commentaries, and writes for the South China Morning Post and the World Economic Forum. Visiting positions at LSE, Harvard, Yale, SOAS and UNU-WIDER over the past two decades mean he speaks the analytic language of Western investment committees while reading Beijing’s policy moves at source. What this gives a boardroom is rare: a voice on China who is neither cheerleading nor catastrophising, who has skin in the policy debate, and who can tell a foreign audience which structural reform signals from Beijing are real and which are rhetorical. Key speaking topics China’s growth model and the post-hyper-growth economy Structural reform and the policy direction of Beijing Chinese consumption, savings, and household demand Supply-side reform and industrial competitiveness China and the global economy: trade, capital, supply chains Shanghai and the role of regional governance in Chinese reform Ideal for Boards and investment committees weighing China exposure or repositioning regional strategy CFOs and Chief Strategy Officers in firms with significant China-linked supply chains or revenue Banks, asset managers and sovereign investors with active China allocations Senior policy and government audiences engaging with Chinese counterparts Audience outcomes A specific read on what Beijing’s current reform signals actually mean for capital allocation in China A sharper sense of which Western narratives about Chinese consumption, debt and growth are overstated and which hold up Direct context on how Shanghai’s policy apparatus thinks about reform priorities and foreign investment Better questions to take into the next China-strategy conversation at executive committee or board level