Economic Trends & Global Markets

Why organisations work with Manuel Muñiz Government office at the level where geopolitical strategy is actually written. As Spain’s Secretary of State for Global Spain, he coordinated the country’s foreign action strategy and its first national strategy on technology and global order. A scholarly frame for the technology and geopolitics intersection. His Oxford doctoral work and Brookings fellowship give boards a structured way to think about the US-China technology competition, AI, and the political economy of disruption. Institutional vantage point. As Provost of IE University and former Dean of IE’s School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs, he sits at the centre of one of Europe’s most connected platforms on global affairs. A specific argument about the social contract. His writing on populism, inequality, and the consequences of technological change gives leaders language for the political risks now landing inside their markets and workforces. Biography highlights Provost of IE University and Dean of IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs (SPEGA) Former Secretary of State for Global Spain at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution President of APSIA, the global association of professional schools of international affairs, 2023 to 2025 DPhil, International Relations, University of Oxford; MPA, Harvard Kennedy School Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, Spain (2024); David Rockefeller and Eisenhower Fellow Biography Spain’s first National Strategy on Technology and Global Order was coordinated by a vice minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs whose doctoral work at Oxford had already mapped the same terrain. Manuel Muñiz held that office from 2020 to 2021, and the strategy reflected a view he had been developing for a decade: technological change, inequality, and geopolitical fragmentation are one connected problem, not three. He now leads IE University as Provost, having previously built its School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs from a small programme into one of Europe’s most international platforms for public policy and international relations, with around 1,900 students and a faculty connected to government, multilateral institutions, and global firms. His scholarship and writing sit where most board agendas now sit: the US-China technology competition, the regulation of AI, the fracturing of the rules-based order, and the political consequences of an economy in which growth no longer reliably produces shared prosperity. Essays appear in Project Syndicate, El Pais, The Washington Post, and Le Monde. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. In 2023 he was elected President of APSIA, the international association of professional schools of international affairs, the first Spaniard to hold the role. In 2024 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, one of Spain’s senior civilian honours. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the new global order Technology, AI and great-power competition Strategic foresight for boards and governments The political economy of disruption and inequality Transatlantic relations and European security Economic diplomacy and the future of multilateralism Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to US-China competition, sanctions, or technology controls Government, foreign ministry, and multilateral audiences working on technology and global order Senior leaders in finance, energy, defence, and technology managing geopolitical risk Foundation, university, and policy convenings on democracy, populism, and the social contract Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where great-power competition is heading and what it means for capital allocation A framework for connecting technological change, inequality, and political instability inside one strategic picture A sharper sense of the policy and regulatory direction on AI, data, and critical technologies Vocabulary senior leaders can use with their own boards and governments on geopolitics and technology

Why organisations work with Gonzalo Delacamara He sits inside the rule-making, not outside it. As a member of the European Commission’s Platform on Sustainable Finance, he helps shape the EU Taxonomy that is now reshaping how capital is allocated across European markets. He translates natural-resource economics into CFO and investor language. Water, climate and biodiversity stop being policy topics and become inputs into valuation, cost of capital and scenario models. Operational reach across more than 80 countries, with advisory work for the European Commission, the World Bank Group, the OECD, the Inter-American Development Bank and UN agencies, gives a grounded view of how sustainability rules land in different jurisdictions. He leads Europe’s water policy conversation from the inside. First Vice President of Water Europe and Director of the IE Center for Water and Climate Adaptation, he is one of the few voices connecting EU water policy, desalination economics and climate resilience in the same argument. He convenes serious economic thought, not applause lines. He co-founded the Water Economics Forum with Nobel laureates including George A. Akerlof, Jean Tirole and Mohan Munasinghe. Biography highlights Director, IE Center for Water and Climate Adaptation, IE University First Vice President, Water Europe (former EU Water Platform WssTP) Member, European Commission Platform on Sustainable Finance Senior advisor and member, OECD Water Governance Initiative Elected Board Director, International Desalination Association Professor at Universidad de Alcala; contributor to The Conversation and Smart Water Magazine; co-founder of the Water Economics Forum convening Nobel laureates in economics and peace Biography Water and climate adaptation used to be treated as environmental policy. They are now capital-allocation problems, and Gonzalo Delacamara is one of the few economists working at both ends of that shift. He directs the IE Center for Water and Climate Adaptation at IE University, and sits on the European Commission’s Platform on Sustainable Finance, the body advising on the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. His career has been built at the intersection of natural-resource economics and policy design. For more than two decades he has advised the European Commission, the World Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank, the OECD and UN agencies including UN Water, UNESCO, FAO, WHO-PAHO and UNDP. That work spans more than 80 countries, across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, which shapes how he thinks about rules, implementation and the distance between the two. As First Vice President of Water Europe and an elected Director of the International Desalination Association, he is embedded in the operational and infrastructure side of water policy, not just the academic side. He has taught at Universidad de Alcala for over fifteen years, writes for The Conversation and Smart Water Magazine, and co-founded the Water Economics Forum, a public debate initiative that has convened Nobel laureates including George A. Akerlof, Jean Tirole and Mohan Munasinghe. The argument he brings to a boardroom is specific. Climate adaptation is no longer a compliance line; it is a repricing event. The EU Taxonomy, physical water stress and the cost of capital are already moving together, and organisations that treat sustainability as reporting rather than strategy are setting themselves up to misprice assets and underwrite the wrong risks. Key speaking topics Water economics and climate adaptation EU Taxonomy and sustainable finance Governance of natural resources Economics of biodiversity and ecosystem services Geoeconomics and geopolitics of energy and water ESG strategy and capital allocation Sustainability under complexity and uncertainty Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting ESG, sustainability and climate-adaptation strategy Banks, asset managers and insurers exposed to the EU Taxonomy and physical climate risk Utilities, infrastructure and industrial operators facing water stress and regulatory repricing Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on sustainable finance, water policy and climate resilience Audience outcomes A clearer view of how the EU Taxonomy and the broader sustainable-finance architecture will reshape capital allocation in their sector A grounded read on where water, climate and biodiversity risks actually sit inside their business model, not just their disclosures Language that lets strategy, finance and sustainability teams argue the same case in the same terms Specific reference points from live policy processes in Brussels, OECD water governance, and multilateral finance Sharper questions to put to management and investment committees on climate adaptation and natural-resource risk

Why organisations work with Daniel Lacalle He is one of the few macro voices who has run institutional capital at Citadel and PIMCO, which means his read on central banks, rates and currencies is shaped by position-taking, not commentary. His work on monetary policy, set out in Escape from the Central Bank Trap, gives boards a specific framework for understanding why stimulus produces weaker growth and persistent inflation rather than the recovery policymakers promise. The Energy World Is Flat anticipated the structural shift in oil, gas and commodity markets that now sits at the centre of every industrial capital plan, energy security review and net zero financing decision. He sits across the macro and the energy desk in a way almost no other economist on the speaking circuit does, which matters for any board with significant exposure to commodities, infrastructure or sovereign risk. A regular voice on CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the World Economic Forum Agenda, so the analysis a room hears in private is the analysis institutional investors are pricing in public. Biography highlights Chief Economist at Tressis SV; former Vice President at PIMCO and portfolio manager at Citadel and Ecofin Limited. Professor of Global Economics at IE Business School and lecturer at the London School of Economics. Author of Life in the Financial Markets (Wiley), The Energy World Is Flat (Wiley), Escape from the Central Bank Trap (Business Expert Press) and Freedom or Equality (Post Hill Press). Ranked among the world’s twenty most influential economists by Richtopia in 2016, 2017 and 2019, and placed fifth in 2020. Voted Top 3 in the Thomson Reuters Extel Survey for five consecutive years across generalist, oil and electricity categories. Regular contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and the World Economic Forum Agenda, and weekly columnist for El Español. Biography Central banks have spent fifteen years running the largest monetary experiment in modern history. Boards now have to allocate capital inside the consequences. Daniel Lacalle has spent his career on the side of the trade where being wrong about the macro has a price, first at Citadel, then at Ecofin, then as Vice President at PIMCO. That experience sits underneath the books. Escape from the Central Bank Trap argues that easy money produces fragile balance sheets, asset inflation and weaker real growth, not the recovery policymakers describe. The Energy World Is Flat, written before the shale revolution remade global oil markets, set out why the assumptions priced into long-dated energy contracts no longer held. Both have moved from contrarian reading to mainstream reference inside investment committees. Since 2015 he has been Chief Economist at Tressis SV and a professor of global economics at IE Business School, with lecturing roles at the London School of Economics and IEB. His weekly commentary in El Español, his monthly slots on CNBC and Bloomberg, and his contributions to the World Economic Forum Agenda give boards a continuous read on rates, currencies, sovereign debt and energy that lines up with how institutional capital is actually positioned. The reason serious organisations book him is narrower than the topic list suggests. He is one of a small number of speakers who can sit across monetary policy and energy markets at the same time, with the credibility of having priced both inside a fund. For any board with material exposure to commodities, sovereign risk, or the cost of capital, that is the conversation that matters. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank intervention Inflation, currencies and the cost of capital Global energy markets and security of supply Sovereign debt and fiscal sustainability Macroeconomic risk and capital allocation Geopolitics and global financial markets Ideal for Boards, investment committees and CFOs reviewing capital allocation under rate and currency volatility Energy, utilities and industrial leadership teams managing commodity exposure and the economics of the energy transition Banking, asset management and family office audiences setting macro positioning Sovereign and policy audiences working on fiscal, monetary and energy questions Audience outcomes A direct read on what current central bank policy implies for inflation, rates and the real cost of capital over a multi-year horizon A defensible view of structural conditions in global oil, gas and power markets, and what they mean for industrial investment A sharper sense of where sovereign and currency risk is being mispriced, and what that means for cross-border exposure The macro framing institutional investors are actually using, expressed in language a board can act on

Why organisations work with Blanca Moreno-Dodson Direct line of sight into how the World Bank, UNOPS and European institutions actually think about fiscal stability, tax cooperation and development finance, from someone who held senior operating roles in all three. Published authority on the rewriting of international tax rules, co-author of Winning the Tax Wars (Wolters Kluwer, 2017), which sits at the centre of how governments and multinationals are reorganising around BEPS and global minimum tax. A working interpreter of Mediterranean and MENA integration, with operational experience of regional dialogue on trade, climate and migration as Manager of the Center for Mediterranean Integration. Field-tested across more than four regions, with policy assignments in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and East Asia, which lets her speak credibly to boards with exposure across emerging markets. Bilingual fluency across English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, which makes her unusually effective in mixed-language executive rooms in Europe, Latin America and Francophone Africa. Biography highlights Lead Economist, World Bank Group, with senior roles on the Global Tax Team, West Africa Region, the Investment Climate Department and the Office of the Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. Manager, Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI), the World Bank and UNOPS-hosted partnership based in Marseille. Director, United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), 2021 to 2023. Co-author, Winning the Tax Wars: Tax Competition and Cooperation (Wolters Kluwer, 2017); author/co-author of four other books on fiscal policy and public finance published by the World Bank and CMI. Ph.D. in International Economics and Finance, Aix-Marseille University; executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. Affiliated economist with the Economic Research Forum, the Policy Center for the New South and the Navarra Center for International Development. Biography The architecture of international taxation is being rewritten while most boards are still operating on the version that preceded BEPS. Trade rules, fiscal transfers and regional integration agreements are moving with it. Leadership teams that treat these shifts as background noise are routinely the ones surprised by them. Winning the Tax Wars, co-authored with Brigitte Alepin and Louise Otis and published by Wolters Kluwer in 2017, sits inside that argument. It maps how globalisation of trade, digitisation of the economy and tax competition between states have exposed the limits of legacy tax systems, and what governments are now constructing in their place. Earlier work, including Is Fiscal Policy the Answer? (World Bank, 2013) and Public Finance for Poverty Reduction (World Bank, 2006), gives the policy spine that runs through her thinking. The credibility comes from inside the system. Twenty-six years at the World Bank Group, including Lead Economist positions on the Global Tax Team, the West Africa Region and the Office of the Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. Then Manager of the Center for Mediterranean Integration in Marseille, the partnership hosted by UNOPS that convenes governments, financial institutions and civil society across the Mediterranean basin. From 2021 to 2023, Director at UNOPS itself. For senior audiences this matters in a specific way. She does not theorise about how multilateral institutions and tax authorities behave; she has run programmes inside them. That makes her unusually effective with boards in extractives, infrastructure, financial services and any business whose tax exposure or regional footprint is being reshaped by the new fiscal order. Key speaking topics International taxation and the post-BEPS order Fiscal policy and inclusive growth Mediterranean and MENA regional integration Public-private sector dynamics in development finance Poverty reduction and macroeconomic policy Climate, migration and regional dialogue Globalisation, inequality and the development trajectory Ideal for Boards and executive teams with material tax, trade or regulatory exposure across MENA, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America CFOs and Heads of Tax navigating the global minimum tax and shifting international tax cooperation Government, development finance and multilateral audiences working on fiscal reform, regional integration and public finance Investor and policy forums where macroeconomic, fiscal and geo-economic context shapes capital decisions Audience outcomes A clear read of where international tax cooperation is heading and what that means for cross-border business A more accurate map of fiscal policy as a driver of growth, stability and political risk in emerging economies A working understanding of how Mediterranean and MENA integration shapes trade, migration and climate exposure An informed view of how multilateral institutions actually operate, and where their decisions land on corporate strategy Sharper questions to ask of internal tax, treasury and public affairs teams about exposure to the new fiscal order

Why organisations work with Anna Rosling Rönnlund Her Factfulness framework – co-developed with Hans and Ola Rosling and verified through Gapminder’s systematic global testing – gives leadership teams a named, testable inventory of the cognitive instincts that distort how they read global trends; knowing which instinct is operating is more actionable than being told to think more carefully about data. Dollar Street, the income-sorted photographic database she founded at Gapminder, organises 30,000+ images from 50+ countries by purchasing power rather than by geography – showing what global consumers actually look like at different spending levels in a way that statistical reports rarely achieve. She brings a combination almost nobody in this space can match: rigorous sociological training (Lund University), professional photography, senior UX design at Google, and twenty years building Gapminder’s data tools for mass, non-specialist audiences. Factfulness has sold over 2.5 million copies in 45+ languages; organisations engaging her work are connecting to a framework already embedded in business schools, executive education programmes, and corporate strategy teams internationally. She leads ESG and SDG literacy workshops using Gapminder’s verified, publicly available global datasets – giving organisations a grounded, non-ideological entry point to sustainability strategy built on measurable global reality rather than advocacy frameworks. Biography highlights Co-founder and VP, Head of Design and User Experience, Gapminder Foundation (est. 2005, Stockholm) Designed Trendalyzer – the animated bubble-chart visualisation tool – acquired by Google in 2007; Senior UX Designer, Google Mountain View (2007-2010) Co-author, Factfulness (Flatiron Books, 2018) – New York Times bestseller; 2.5 million+ copies sold; 45+ language editions Founder of Dollar Street (2016) – 30,000+ income-sorted photographs from 50+ countries, free under Creative Commons licence TED speaker (2017): “See how the rest of the world lives, organized by income” Honorary Doctorate in Informatics, University of Skövde (2018) Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award, Photography and Visualization category (2017) Biography Global strategy conversations are routinely shaped by assumptions that are decades out of date. Gapminder, the foundation Anna Rosling Rönnlund co-founded in 2005, was built to measure this problem precisely. It tests what people believe about the world, identifies where those beliefs are provably wrong, and develops tools to correct them. Her first major contribution was Trendalyzer, an animated visualisation tool she designed with Ola Rosling that made decades of development data readable in seconds. Google acquired it in 2007. When she and Ola returned to Gapminder in 2010, the mission shifted from visualisation to diagnosis: systematically testing what educated, experienced people get wrong about global development – and why. That diagnostic work produced Factfulness, co-authored with Hans Rosling and Ola Rosling and published in 2018. The book names ten cognitive instincts – including the gap instinct and the generalisation instinct – that cause leaders to systematically misread global trends. It became a New York Times bestseller, with over 2.5 million copies sold across 45 languages. Her parallel project, Dollar Street, sent photographers to 50+ countries to document everyday life at every income level – 30,000+ images, organised by purchasing power rather than geography. These images replace national stereotypes with income-level reality, giving organisations a concrete tool for understanding global consumers. Anna holds a Master’s in Sociology from Lund University and a Bachelor’s in Photography from Gothenburg University. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Informatics from the University of Skövde in 2018 and received the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award in the Photography and Visualization category in 2017. Key speaking topics Fact-based decision-making and the Factfulness framework Global development trends and emerging market realities Data visualisation and communicating complexity to non-specialist audiences Consumer demographics and income-level market analysis Dollar Street and visual approaches to global data ESG and SDG literacy for business Strategic misconceptions and cognitive bias in leadership Ideal for Boards and senior leadership teams making strategic decisions about global markets, risk, or emerging economies Chief Strategy Officers and heads of corporate strategy evaluating long-term assumptions and scenario plans Sustainability and ESG leads working with SDG frameworks and global impact data Leadership development and executive education programmes building data literacy and fact-based reasoning habits Audience outcomes A working understanding of the ten Factfulness instincts and how they distort strategic decision-making Practical methods for identifying and correcting the shared assumptions driving organisational strategy A reframed view of global consumer markets using Dollar Street’s income-level visual data, reducing reliance on outdated country stereotypes Greater confidence in questioning shared assumptions during leadership team discussions and board conversations Awareness of which global trends are measurably improving versus declining, grounded in Gapminder’s verified datasets

Why organisations work with Lizzy Burden She anchors Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe across television and radio, which means she walks into a room already briefed on the morning’s market-moving stories rather than the previous week’s headlines. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, so she is comfortable pressing senior figures without losing the room. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, which is the working ground of corporate and policy audiences. As a non-executive director of Creative Access, she brings genuine governance experience on diversity in the creative industries, not a topic talk borrowed for the occasion. She also writes the Readout newsletter and hosts the Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, so the same voice clients book on stage is already in their feed. Biography highlights UK Correspondent, Bloomberg TV; anchor of Daybreak Europe on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. Host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast and author of the Readout newsletter. Named one of MHP’s 30 Journalists to Watch. Non-executive director, Creative Access, appointed November 2023. Previously economics writer at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News; earlier graduate trainee at The Times. History graduate, University of Cambridge. Biography Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe goes on air before most of the City has reached its desk, and the job of the anchor is to set the day’s agenda for European investors in the hour the markets need it most. That is the platform Lizzy Burden runs. She is Bloomberg TV’s UK Correspondent, the host of the television and radio editions of Daybreak Europe, the host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, and the writer of the Readout newsletter. The reporting record is what gives her the authority to host senior corporate and political audiences. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, and has filed from Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England and the Elysee Palace on monetary policy decisions, multiple prime ministerial transitions, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Brexit, the US-China trade war and the war in Ukraine. Her event work sits squarely inside that beat. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, the venues where senior business and policy audiences gather. She came to Bloomberg via The Times graduate scheme and economics writing roles at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News, after reading history at the University of Cambridge. Outside the studio, she serves as a non-executive director at Creative Access, the organisation that works to widen representation in the creative industries. MHP has named her one of its 30 Journalists to Watch. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster Monetary policy and the Bank of England Global economic outlook Geopolitics and political risk Conference hosting and on-stage interviews Diversity in the creative industries Media and journalism Ideal for Corporate conferences and AGMs that need a credible host across politics, markets and macro-economics. Boards, leadership offsites and investor events that want a Bloomberg-grade interviewer for sessions with senior policymakers or chief executives. Industry summits and policy forums seeking a moderator who can run plenary panels and one-to-one stage interviews. DEI-focused convenings looking for a working journalist with board-level governance experience on representation. Audience outcomes A clear read of the UK political and economic stories most likely to shape the next twelve months, drawn from Bloomberg’s daily output. Sharper sessions on stage, because she briefs hard and presses guests on the questions the audience came to hear answered. A working sense of how monetary policy, Westminster decisions and global political risk connect to corporate strategy. A rare combination of macro-economic fluency and lived experience of widening representation in a creative industry.

Why organisations work with Dominic O’Connell He chairs financial services flagship events at the level institutions trust with their reputation, including two editions of TISA’s Annual Flagship Conference. He interviews executives the way a working business journalist does, with the framing of someone who has spent twenty years inside UK corporate stories at The Sunday Times, the BBC and The Times. He won the Wincott Award in 2017, the most credible signal in UK business journalism, which buyers in financial services and the City recognise on sight. He moves between hosting, on-stage interviewing, and panel moderating without flattening any of them, which is what complex multi-stream conferences need. Biography highlights Business presenter, Times Radio (from November 2021, the station’s first business correspondent). Saturday business columnist, The Times. Business presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme for five years from 2016, with regular appearances across BBC television. Business Editor, The Sunday Times, 2010 to 2016; joined the paper in 2001. Wincott Award winner, 2017. Contributing author on “Grit, Rigour & Humour: The INEOS Story” (Penguin, 2023), appraising the INEOS business alongside contributors including Sebastian Coe and Andrew Likierman. Biography UK business journalism has produced a small group of people who can chair a flagship financial services conference, interview a sitting CEO live on national radio, and write a Saturday newspaper column on the same week. Dominic O’Connell is one of them. He currently anchors business coverage on Times Radio and writes the Saturday business column for The Times. Before Times Radio he spent five years as business presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, where corporate Britain went on the record before breakfast and where preparation and composure are the price of entry. He joined the BBC in 2016 from The Sunday Times, where he was business editor for six years and a senior writer on the paper from 2001. The Wincott Award in 2017, UK business journalism’s premier prize, sits behind the work. So does a longer body of corporate reporting recognised inside the City and Westminster. In 2023 he was the journalist Penguin commissioned to appraise INEOS at twenty-five in “Grit, Rigour & Humour”, alongside contributors including Sebastian Coe and Andrew Likierman. That track record is why financial services institutions hire him to chair the rooms where their boards, regulators and clients are watching. He has twice chaired TISA’s Annual Flagship Conference and has worked with firms including RSMR. The product is not a keynote thesis. It is a working business journalist running the room and keeping the agenda honest. Key speaking topics UK and global business news Financial services and investment Equity markets and corporate strategy Macroeconomics and policy Corporate leadership and CEO interviews The City of London and UK plc Ideal for Annual flagship conferences hosted by financial services trade bodies and asset managers Investor days, AGMs and capital markets events Corporate leadership summits, board offsites and CEO panels Industry awards, gala dinners and after-dinner business audiences Audience outcomes A conference programme that holds together as one editorial narrative across the day Panels that go past the prepared statements and produce something quotable A chair who can press a CEO without losing the room or the speaker Coverage that lands cleanly with a business-literate audience, on stage and in any subsequent write-up

Why organisations work with Martin Roll He wrote the reference text on Asian brand strategy. “Asian Brand Strategy”, named one of Strategy+Business’s Best Business Books on Marketing the year after publication, is still the credential boards reach for when they need someone who has thought seriously about brand building outside the Western frame. He sits inside the family enterprise field, not next to it. As INSEAD Distinguished Fellow at the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, he advises principals and next-generation leaders on succession, governance, and strategy with a practitioner’s view, not an academic’s distance. McKinsey retains him as a senior advisor on family business and family office mandates. That is a hard credential to fake, and a useful signal for boards that want strategy advice with the rigour of a tier-one firm and the candour of an outside operator. He moves credibly between two audiences most speakers cannot bridge: C-suites at multinational consumer companies looking at Asian growth, and principals of family-controlled enterprises wrestling with continuity. The same frame, branded value creation under contested ownership conditions, applies to both. Biography highlights Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD’s Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise; Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD. Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company on family business and family office strategy. Author of “Asian Brand Strategy” (Palgrave Macmillan), named a Strategy+Business Best Business Book on Marketing. Co-author of “The Future of Branding” with Kevin Lane Keller, Don E. Schultz and Rajendra K. Srivastava. Faculty across INSEAD, CEIBS and Nanyang Business School; guest lecturer at Harvard, Wharton, ESSEC, IE. Columnist at INSEAD Knowledge and Harvard Business Review; editor and host of the INSEAD Family Business Podcast. Biography Asian companies spent two decades being told that brand-building was a discipline they would eventually import. The argument in “Asian Brand Strategy” was the opposite. The book, published by Palgrave Macmillan and named a Best Business Book on Marketing by Strategy+Business, made the case that Asian firms would build global brands on their own terms, with their own founder dynamics, their own ownership structures, and their own customer logic. Two decades of work since then has tracked that thesis as it played out across consumer goods, luxury, and family-controlled conglomerates. That work runs through Martin Roll Company, the Singapore advisory firm Roll founded after 25 years of board and C-suite counsel to multinationals, Asian corporates, and global business families. He is a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company on family business and family office strategy, and Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD’s Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, where he leads research and teaching on the strategy and governance questions that decide whether family enterprises survive succession. His teaching reach is unusually wide. He sits on the faculty at INSEAD, CEIBS and Nanyang Business School and guest lectures at Harvard, Wharton, ESSEC, and IE. His writing appears regularly in INSEAD Knowledge and Harvard Business Review, and he edits and hosts the INSEAD Family Business Podcast, which has become one of the more substantive channels for next-generation leaders working through governance and continuity in private. The combined record matters because the questions he answers, how to build a brand outside the Western default, how to professionalise a family enterprise without breaking what made it work, are the kind boards usually meet through three different specialists. Roll holds the brief in one place, and writes about it with the discipline of someone who has had to deliver on it. Key speaking topics Asian brand strategy and global brand building Family business strategy and succession Family office governance and capital strategy Luxury brand management Leadership of family-controlled enterprises Asia growth strategy for multinational corporates Brand-led value creation Ideal for Boards and CEOs of consumer and luxury businesses pursuing Asian growth Principals and next-generation leaders of family-controlled enterprises Family office leadership and investment committees CMOs and brand strategy leadership at multinationals expanding in Asia Audience outcomes A clearer view of how Asian brand-building actually works, including where Western playbooks fail and where they translate. A practical frame for the strategy and governance decisions that determine whether a family enterprise survives the next generation. A sharper read on brand as a commercial asset on the balance sheet, not a marketing line item. A grounded view of what professionalising a family business requires, beyond org-chart changes.

Why organisations work with Ashley Armstrong She interviews FTSE 100 chief executives as her day job. The people on the platform are the people she covers in the Financial Times, which means questions land with weight and follow-ups are not generic. Her interview record on the record includes Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, M&S’s Stuart Machin, Sainsbury’s Simon Roberts, Primark’s Paul Marchant, ITV’s Dame Carolyn McCall, and Sage’s Steve Hare. Senior leaders engage with her because they know she has read the half-year results. She has broken stories that moved the dial on UK corporate life: the implosion of Peter Mandelson’s Global Counsel, the JD Sports chair’s exit after a failed move on the CEO, and Sir Philip Green’s break-up of Arcadia. That level of access translates directly into how she runs a stage. She is the rare British business journalist with credibility across mass-market and Pink-Press readerships, having held senior roles at The Telegraph, The Times, The Sun, and now the FT. She can pitch a conversation to a board, a sales conference, or a public-facing audience with the same confidence. PRCA City Journalist of the Year 2022, recognising the kind of original reporting that distinguishes a chair who knows the territory from one who has been briefed on it. Biography highlights Chief UK Business Correspondent, Financial Times (since June 2025) Former Business Editor, The Sun, where she relaunched the daily business section and ran the cost-of-living desk Former Retail and M&A Editor, The Times; former Retail Editor and M&A Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph PRCA City Journalist of the Year, February 2022 Began career at City AM in 2008, two weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers BA, University of Exeter; MA, City, University of London Biography When Peter Mandelson’s lobby business Global Counsel collapsed in 2025, the Financial Times reporter interrogating the ties between the firm and Westminster was Ashley Armstrong, three months into her job as the paper’s Chief UK Business Correspondent. The story was characteristic. So was the byline. Armstrong has held senior business positions at The Telegraph, The Times, The Sun, and now the FT. That range is unusual in British financial journalism. It means she has covered the same companies for FTSE board readers, City professionals, mass-market subscribers, and now the most senior commercial newsroom in Europe, and she has held her own in each. She won PRCA City Journalist of the Year in 2022 for the kind of original reporting that earns sustained access. Her record at The Sun matters for what it reveals about her interviewing range. She invited the chief executives of Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Primark, ITV, and Sage to guest-edit her daily business page, and grilled Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on the record. At the FT she has continued breaking corporate news that moves share prices, including JD Sports chair Andy Higginson’s exit after a failed attempt to oust chief executive Régis Schultz. This is what gives her work as a host and moderator its weight. She does not arrive at the stage carrying a briefing pack written by someone else. She arrives carrying notes from the morning’s reporting, on companies and leaders she covers professionally, and she runs the room accordingly. Key speaking topics UK economy and markets Corporate governance and FTSE leadership Retail and consumer business Cost of living and household finance Business and politics in the UK Mergers and acquisitions Ideal for Sector conferences in retail, consumer goods, and financial services that need a chair credible with FTSE 100 leadership on stage In-house leadership events where senior teams want a journalist’s view on how the company looks from outside Investor days, AGM-adjacent events, and capital-markets days requiring a chair who reads the numbers Business-and-politics events that bring corporate leaders into conversation with policymakers Audience outcomes A clearer read on what is actually happening across the UK corporate landscape, drawn from current reporting rather than secondary sources Sharp on-the-record exchanges with senior executives, the kind that delegates remember and quote Editorial pacing and questioning that keeps high-stakes panels on the substance and off the platitudes A journalist’s framing of how the company in the room is being read by markets, government, and competitors

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

Why organisations work with Harry Broadman He has negotiated services trade for the United States inside NAFTA and the WTO, then operated those same markets from inside the World Bank and the private sector. Few speakers can carry one argument across all three vantage points. He chairs the CFIUS practice at Berkeley Research Group, which gives leaders a current, working perspective on how foreign investment is actually reviewed in Washington, not how it reads on paper. His emerging markets work spans more than 80 countries and includes book-length research on China and India in Africa, on Russia and the former Soviet Union, and on Chinese state ownership. The frameworks he uses on stage are his own. He writes monthly columns in Forbes, Newsweek, and Gulf News, so audiences encounter a voice they may already recognise from named outlets, not a generic bureau profile. Biography highlights Partner, Managing Director, and Chair of the Emerging Markets and CFIUS Practices at Berkeley Research Group Former U.S. Assistant Trade Representative; led services negotiations for NAFTA and the WTO Former Chief of Staff, President’s Council of Economic Advisers; CFIUS member; OPIC board member Senior World Bank roles covering China, Russia, the Balkans, and Africa Author of Africa’s Silk Road, From Disintegration to Reintegration, and The State as Shareholder Faculty, Johns Hopkins University; columnist at Forbes, Newsweek, and Gulf News Biography Few people have negotiated U.S. trade policy, run capital and reform programmes inside the World Bank, and then advised boards on what those same rules mean for live investment decisions. That is the career Harry Broadman has built. As U.S. Assistant Trade Representative, he led the American negotiating position on services in both NAFTA and the WTO, the framework most multinationals still operate under. He served as Chief of Staff to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the first Gulf War and the Savings and Loan crisis, sat on CFIUS, and was a board member at OPIC. From there, he moved into senior operational roles at the World Bank, working on the ground in China, Russia, the Balkans, and Africa. The research he produced in that period, including Africa’s Silk Road and The State as Shareholder, is still cited by people trying to understand how Chinese capital and state-owned firms behave abroad. Today he chairs the Emerging Markets and CFIUS Practices at Berkeley Research Group, teaches at Johns Hopkins, and writes monthly columns for Forbes, Newsweek, and Gulf News. His work concentrates on the boardroom problem behind every geopolitical headline: where to commit capital, how to read foreign investment review, and how to restructure supply chains when cheap globalisation is no longer the operating assumption. For a leadership team trying to make a defensible call on China exposure, on a supply chain shift, or on a CFIUS-sensitive deal, his value is the rare combination of having negotiated the rules, supervised reform programmes that operationalised them, and now advising the corporate directors who live with the consequences. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the rules-based trading order Foreign investment review and CFIUS Emerging markets investment strategy China and India in the global economy Supply chain reconfiguration and trade policy Corporate governance under geopolitical pressure Sanctions, antitrust, and FCPA compliance for global firms Ideal for Boards and investment committees facing China, Russia, or sanctions exposure Chief Strategy Officers and Heads of Corporate Development weighing cross-border deals General Counsel and Compliance leaders working through CFIUS, antitrust, or FCPA matters Institutional investors and private equity partners deploying into emerging markets Audience outcomes A working view of how foreign investment review actually operates inside Washington A clearer read on where China and India are reshaping commercial geography, beyond headline narratives A practical lens for sequencing supply chain shifts under tariff and sanctions risk Direct exposure to a voice that has sat inside trade negotiation, multilateral finance, and corporate boards

Why organisations work with Paul Johnson He led the Institute for Fiscal Studies through fourteen years of fiscal events, Budgets and Spending Reviews, and is the economist most often cited when journalists need the numbers explained. He has been inside the machinery: Director of Public Spending at HM Treasury and Chief Economist at the Department for Education, so he speaks to how decisions are actually made, not how they are reported. His book Follow the Money is the clearest public account of how Britain raises and spends roughly £1 trillion a year, and it gives a board a shared vocabulary for fiscal risk. Eleven years on the UK Climate Change Committee mean he can connect net zero policy to the capital allocation choices it forces on boards, not just the headline target. As Provost of The Queen’s College, Oxford, he now sits at the intersection of economic policy, higher education funding and long-term institutional strategy. Biography highlights Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2011 to 2025. Provost of The Queen’s College, Oxford, from August 2025. Author of Follow the Money: How Much Does Britain Cost? (2023), Sunday Times bestseller. Weekly columnist for The Times; presenter of Austerity Audit on BBC Radio 4. CBE, 2018, for services to social sciences and economics. Honorary doctorates from UCL, York, Sussex and Exeter; member of the UK Climate Change Committee for eleven years. Biography The state raises and spends roughly £1 trillion a year in the UK. Most boards treat that figure as background. It is not. Tax policy, departmental budgets and the demographics behind them shape the cost of capital, the cost of labour and the regulatory weather every business operates in. For fourteen years as Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson was the public translator of those numbers. The IFS Budget briefings he led became the reference point for journalists, civil servants and parliamentary committees on fiscal events. Follow the Money, his 2023 book, is the most readable account of UK public finances in print, and it became a Sunday Times bestseller. His credibility is built on direct experience inside the system. He was Director of Public Spending at HM Treasury, Chief Economist at the Department for Education, and Deputy Head of the Government Economic Service. He served eleven years on the UK Climate Change Committee, where the policy gap between net zero ambition and capital allocation is most visible. He sat on the councils of the ESRC and the Royal Economic Society. In August 2025 he became Provost of The Queen’s College, Oxford. He continues to write a weekly column for The Times and to advise organisations whose strategic decisions are shaped by UK and global fiscal policy. He was appointed CBE in 2018 for services to social sciences and economics. Key speaking topics UK public finances and fiscal policy Tax, welfare and pensions reform Macroeconomic outlook and capital allocation Income inequality and the distributional effects of policy Climate change economics and net zero financing Government spending priorities and trade-offs Ideal for Boards and executive committees of UK and internationally exposed companies CFOs, treasurers and heads of strategy planning under fiscal and tax uncertainty Investor and asset-management audiences focused on macro and policy risk Public-sector leadership and regulated-industry executives Audience outcomes A clear read of how the next Budget, Spending Review or fiscal event is likely to land A shared vocabulary for fiscal risk that connects Treasury decisions to operating choices A grounded view of how net zero policy will translate into capital and tax pressure A sharper sense of where UK macroeconomic constraints will most affect their sector Direct answers to the questions a CFO or chair actually wants to ask an economist