Economic Trends & Global Markets

Why organisations work with Trevor Williams He spent over a decade as Chief Economist at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking advising corporates, financial institutions, and SMEs, so he reads central-bank data the way a treasurer or CFO needs it read. As rotating Chair of the Institute of Economic Affairs Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, he sits inside the small group of UK economists publicly second-guessing the Bank of England, which gives boards a forecast view that is independent of sell-side consensus. He co-authored Trading Economics (Wiley, 2014), the practitioner reference on how to interpret economic statistics, so he can teach a leadership team to read the indicators rather than only react to headlines. As co-founder of FXGuard, he has built and run an FX risk product for SMEs, which means his commentary on currency and rates is grounded in operating exposure, not abstract modelling. Biography highlights Former Chief Economist, Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, leading the bank’s economics team for more than ten years. Rotating Chair, Institute of Economic Affairs Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Co-author, Trading Economics: A Guide to Economic Statistics for Practitioners and Students, Wiley Finance Series. Visiting Professor, University of Derby; lecturer at Bayes Business School and Cardiff University. Co-founder, FXGuard, an FX risk management platform for SMEs. Former member of the UK Government Economic Service; editorial board member, Journal of Corporate Treasury Management; regular columnist, Moneyfacts. Biography The Bank of England’s rate decisions, the Treasury’s fiscal stance, and sterling’s path are no longer background music for boardrooms. They are direct inputs into pricing, hedging, hiring, and the cost of capital. Trevor Williams spent over a decade as Chief Economist at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking translating exactly that data for corporate clients and financial institutions. That position made him one of the City economists most often quoted on UK growth, inflation, and monetary policy. He now chairs, on rotation, the Institute of Economic Affairs Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, the long-standing independent group that publishes a monthly counter-vote to the Bank of England’s MPC. His co-authored book Trading Economics, in the Wiley Finance Series, is built for practitioners: how to read GDP releases, inflation prints, surveys, and labour market data without being misled by them. The same instinct shapes his work as co-founder of FXGuard, an FX risk tool for SMEs, and his teaching at the University of Derby, Bayes Business School, and Cardiff University. For a board, the value is specific. Williams will not deliver a generic macro tour. He will tell a leadership team where he disagrees with current consensus on rates and inflation, why, and what that means for the next twelve to twenty-four months of capital and currency decisions. Key speaking topics UK and global macroeconomic outlook Monetary policy and central bank decision-making Inflation, interest rates, and capital allocation Foreign exchange and currency risk Economic statistics and how to read them Brexit, trade, and post-shock recovery ESG, climate, and the economics of the energy transition Ideal for Boards, CFOs, and corporate treasurers planning capital and FX strategy under rate and currency uncertainty. Banking, asset management, and insurance leadership teams pressure-testing house views on inflation and growth. Trade associations and industry forums commissioning a credible UK macro voice for annual outlook events. Finance and risk functions inside corporates exposed to FX, commodity, or sovereign-rate cycles. Audience outcomes A clear view of where current Bank of England and consensus forecasts may be wrong, and why. A working grasp of how to read inflation, GDP, and labour market releases for decision-relevant signals. Specific implications for pricing, hedging, and capital allocation under the rate and currency cycle ahead. A sharper sense of how monetary and fiscal policy interact with trade, energy, and political risk.

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

Why organisations work with Marianne Abib-Pech A verified large-cap finance record at the top: Global CFO of Shell Aviation, a circa $20bn turnover business, reached before age 35 Active operating practice through Transitions First, an industrial venture fund rebuilding local, modular and resource-efficient supply chains, which keeps her material current rather than retrospective Author of The Financial Times Guide to Leadership, a published thesis on what trust-based leadership actually looks like in execution Frontier-market depth across Africa, the Middle East, and the Caspian region, useful for boards weighing growth in places where their existing playbook does not transfer Biography highlights Global CFO, Shell Aviation, before age 35 Earlier career at Arthur Andersen (Luxembourg) and GE Capital, including integration of a private bank Author, The Financial Times Guide to Leadership (FT Publishing / Pearson) Co-founder, Transitions First, industrial venture fund focused on local and modular supply chains Founder, LTF Partners, M&A and strategy advisory in emerging and frontier markets Women’s Business Initiative International Ambition Award, 2014 Biography Most leadership material is written from the inside of mature markets. Marianne Abib-Pech wrote hers from the other side. The Financial Times Guide to Leadership argues that trust, not charisma, is the operating system of senior leadership, and the cases that shape it come from places where that argument is hardest to apply. Her credibility on that point is operational. She was Global CFO of Shell Aviation, a circa $20bn turnover business, before she was 35, after earlier roles at Arthur Andersen in Luxembourg and at GE Capital, where she ran the integration of a private bank into the wider business. The seat at the top of a global division is what gives her material weight with senior audiences. Today the work is split between writing, advising, and investing. Through LTF Partners she works on M&A and strategy in frontier markets across Africa, the Middle East and the Caspian. Through Transitions First, an industrial venture fund she co-founded in 2022, she backs companies rebuilding modular, resource-efficient supply chains, the kind of capital decisions boards are now being asked to underwrite themselves. What that produces in a room is unusually concrete. She talks about leading across 88 nationalities because she has done it. She talks about capital allocation in difficult geographies because she is currently allocating it. She received the Women’s Business Initiative International Ambition Award in 2014, but the more useful credential is that her examples are still being built. Key speaking topics Leadership in male-dominated and frontier environments Trust as the operating system of senior leadership Strategy and capital allocation in emerging and frontier markets Industrial venture capital and supply-chain rebuilds Women in finance and senior leadership Cross-cultural leadership and global team performance Ideal for CEOs, CFOs and divisional leaders entering or scaling in frontier markets Boards weighing capital allocation into industrial transitions and supply-chain reconfiguration Senior women’s leadership programmes and executive development cohorts Finance leadership audiences moving from analyst to operator roles Audience outcomes A working definition of trust-based leadership grounded in real CFO-level decisions A clearer view of what changes when a leadership playbook crosses into frontier or industrial-transition contexts Specific reference points for capital allocation and deal execution in unfamiliar geographies Reframed expectations of what credibility looks like for women leading in male-dominated sectors

Why organisations work with Juan Verde Holds first-hand US trade policy experience across three administrations (Clinton, Obama, Biden), including as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia with commercial responsibility for 52 countries. Operates fluently on both sides of the Atlantic, giving executives a practical read on how US and European policy environments shape the same investment decision differently. Frames sustainability as a commercial question, showing boards how climate strategy connects to capital access, pricing power, regulatory positioning, and export competitiveness. Brings live board-level context from HISPASAT and the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors, alongside advisory work with Google, Cisco, Banco Santander, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Currently serves on the President’s Export Council under President Biden, the White House advisory body whose members include the chief executives of Ford, Disney, Citibank, and Starbucks. Biography highlights Member of the President’s Export Council, the White House’s principal advisory committee on international trade and US competitiveness. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the US Department of Commerce, with commercial policy responsibility across 52 countries. Earlier international trade roles at the US Department of Commerce during the Clinton Administration. Founder and President of the Advanced Leadership Foundation, which has trained over 10,000 emerging green leaders across more than 10 countries. Board of Directors at HISPASAT, the satellite communications operator for Spain, Portugal, and Latin America; member of the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors. Master’s in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; BA in Political Science and International Relations, Boston University. Biography Trade policy used to move slowly enough that executives could treat it as weather. That no longer holds. Tariff regimes, export controls, and climate-linked regulation now reshape commercial plans in quarters, not decades, and the decisions are made in rooms Juan Verde has spent three decades working in. Appointed by President Obama in 2009, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the US Department of Commerce, with commercial policy responsibility across 52 countries. Under the Clinton Administration he held earlier international trade roles at Commerce. In 2023 President Biden appointed him to the President’s Export Council, the White House’s principal advisory committee on trade competitiveness, alongside the chief executives of companies including Ford, Disney, Citibank, and Starbucks. The through-line in his commercial work is a specific argument about sustainability. He treats climate action as a commercial question, which is the organising idea of his Profit Meets Planet keynote series on corporate climate, geopolitical arbitrage, and leading through disruption. That thesis draws on co-founding Climate Reality Project chapters with Al Gore in Spain and Argentina, and on advisory engagements through Alamo Solutions with Google, Cisco, Banco Santander, and the Inter-American Development Bank. His doctoral research at Universidad Camilo José Cela, on green economy strategies for small island nations, gives the argument academic grounding. For senior leaders, this translates into a speaker who can move between a boardroom question about European market entry and a policy question about US trade posture without losing commercial specificity. He sits on the Board of Directors of HISPASAT, the satellite communications operator for Spain, Portugal and Latin America, and on the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors. His keynote platforms include the World Economic Forum, Harvard Kennedy School, the World Bank, and successive UN Climate Conferences, most recently COP25 and COP26. Key speaking topics International trade policy and market access Transatlantic economic relations Sustainability as commercial advantage Foreign direct investment and green export strategy Geopolitical risk for global businesses Public-private collaboration in international markets Ideal for Boards and CEOs planning international expansion or transatlantic market entry Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads connecting climate commitments to growth strategy Investment attraction agencies, trade bodies, and government ministers Corporate delegations at policy summits, sustainability events, and international conferences Audience outcomes How Washington and Brussels are reshaping what corporate sustainability commitments actually cost in commercial terms Why climate strategy should be treated as an export competitiveness question, with examples drawn from specific national markets Where the next flows of green foreign direct investment are likely to move, and what that means for growth planning Language that links trade policy shifts to board-level decisions on capital allocation and market entry

Why organisations work with Fernando Trias de Bes He is the only Spanish author to have co-written books with Philip Kotler, and the frameworks in Lateral Marketing and Winning at Innovation give leadership teams a shared vocabulary for where their ideas actually come from. Winning at Innovation, with its A-to-F Model, won the CMI Innovation and Entrepreneurship category at the 2013 Management Book of the Year Awards, a credential that speaks directly to boards asking how innovation should be structured inside the firm. He runs Salvetti and Llombart, a Barcelona-based consumer research and innovation consultancy whose client list has included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Nestle and McKinsey, which means the classroom work is tested against paying clients. He bridges two registers most economists do not reach, serious academic marketing theory and popular business writing, and audiences that have read La buena suerte or El libro negro del emprendedor often arrive already familiar with his thinking. He presents in English and Spanish and has been delivering executive-level keynotes since 2003, with hundreds of international engagements behind him. Biography highlights Associate Professor of Marketing Management at ESADE Business School since 1994. Co-author with Philip Kotler of Lateral Marketing (Wiley, 2003) and Winning at Innovation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). CMI Management Book of the Year 2013, Innovation and Entrepreneurship category, for Winning at Innovation. Founder and President of Salvetti and Llombart, a consumer insight and innovation consultancy working with PepsiCo, Sony, HP, Nestle and McKinsey. Regular columnist for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal; author of more than twenty books of essay and fiction translated into more than thirty languages. Winner of the Premio Espasa de Ensayo (2015), Premio De Hoy de Ensayo (2009) and Shinpukai Prize (Japan, 2005). Biography Most innovation in large companies is lateral in name only. Teams segment further, tweak an existing product, and call it new. Fernando Trias de Bes spent two decades arguing, in books co-written with Philip Kotler, that this is the core reason corporate pipelines stall, and building methods that address it directly. Lateral Marketing, published by Wiley in 2003, set out a structured way to generate product concepts that do not come from narrower segmentation but from a different logical operation on the category itself. Winning at Innovation, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2011, took the argument further with the A-to-F Model, a step-by-step description of the roles and stages an organisation needs to convert ideas into launches. The Chartered Management Institute named it Innovation and Entrepreneurship Book of the Year at its 2013 awards. Trias de Bes has taught marketing and innovation at ESADE Business School since 1994 and runs Salvetti and Llombart, the Barcelona consumer research and innovation consultancy he co-founded in 1996. Clients have included PepsiCo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, McKinsey and Nestle, which gives the academic frameworks a field of consumer goods and services to answer to. Beyond the business books he writes columns for La Vanguardia, ARA and El Pais Semanal, and has published essays and novels translated into more than thirty languages, including La buena suerte, co-written with Alex Rovira, and El libro negro del emprendedor. The Premio Espasa de Ensayo in 2015 sits alongside earlier recognition in Japan and Spain. That range, economist, consultant, columnist, novelist, is the unusual shape of the author, and it is what audiences tend to remember from the keynote. Key speaking topics Business model innovation Lateral marketing and creativity in commercial strategy The A-to-F Model for organising innovation Entrepreneurship and the economics of new ventures Economic trends and consumer behaviour Corporate reinvention and disruptive thinking Ideal for CMOs, CSOs and heads of innovation confronting commoditised categories and stalled pipelines. Executive committees running corporate strategy offsites on growth and reinvention. Business schools and management development programmes covering innovation, marketing and entrepreneurship. Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for lateral versus vertical innovation that a leadership team can use the next day. The A-to-F structure for assigning innovation roles and stages inside an organisation. Concrete examples, drawn from consumer goods and services, of where breakthrough ideas actually come from. A sharper read on why most corporate innovation produces line extensions rather than category moves.

Why organisations work with Dan Restrepo He sat in the White House Situation Room as the Obama administration’s point person on the Americas, and he explains U.S. policy toward the region with the authority of someone who helped write it. He holds a current corporate board seat at MasTec, a New York Stock Exchange-listed infrastructure group, which gives his risk analysis a boardroom register rather than a think-tank one. His published argument on hemispheric migration, carried in Foreign Affairs and Americas Quarterly, reframes migration as a management problem for governments and investors, not a humanitarian talking point. He works in English and Spanish across U.S., Latin American, and Iberian audiences, with on-air experience on CNN and CNN en Espanol that makes him effective in front of mixed-language rooms. Through Dinamica Americas and Restrepo Strategies he advises firms actively making investment, market-entry, and government-relations decisions across the region, so the analysis lands on live questions rather than historical ones. Biography highlights Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs, National Security Council, March 2009 to July 2012, under President Barack Obama. Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, focused on U.S. policy in the Americas. Founder and managing director, Restrepo Strategies; Founding Partner, Dinamica Americas. Class II Director, MasTec, Inc. (NYSE: MTZ). On-air contributor, CNN and CNN en Espanol; published in Foreign Affairs and Americas Quarterly. Named one of America’s most influential Latinos three times by Poder magazine; J.D., University of Pennsylvania Law School; former judicial clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Biography The U.S. relationship with Latin America has never mapped neatly onto a single policy frame. Trade, migration, narcotics, Cuba, Venezuela, and the competition for influence with China all run through the same capitals and the same meetings. For nearly six years, Dan Restrepo sat at the centre of that portfolio as President Obama’s principal advisor on the Americas, first as a campaign surrogate and then as Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council. That experience shapes the way he advises boards and executives now. Through Restrepo Strategies and as Founding Partner of Dinamica Americas, he works with U.S. firms operating in Latin America and with Latin and Iberian firms operating in the United States. The brief is usually the same: read the political signal correctly, price it, and decide what to do about it before the market does. Published work in Foreign Affairs and Americas Quarterly has put him on record arguing that migration in the Americas is a management challenge, not a crisis narrative, and that the tools already exist to handle it if governments choose to use them. On CNN and CNN en Espanol he translates U.S. domestic politics and hemispheric policy in both English and Spanish, which is part of why Spanish-speaking boards and U.S. leadership teams hire him for the same conversation. His seat as a Class II Director on the board of MasTec, a listed U.S. infrastructure group, is the detail that distinguishes him from most policy voices. He has used it. The analysis buyers get is not an academic read on the region but a directorial one, tested against the kind of operational decisions boards actually make. Key speaking topics U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere U.S.-Mexico relations and the border Migration strategy across the Americas Political risk in Latin America U.S. domestic politics and its foreign policy consequences Investment climate and market entry in the Americas Cuba, Venezuela, and U.S. engagement with authoritarian regimes Ideal for Boards and executive committees of firms with operations, supply chains, or expansion plans in Latin America and the Caribbean Chief strategy officers, heads of government affairs, and risk committees pricing Western Hemisphere exposure Latin American and Iberian corporates preparing for U.S. market entry, regulatory engagement, or capital raises Investor conferences, family offices, and financial institutions with dedicated Americas portfolios Audience outcomes A clear read on where U.S. policy toward Latin America is heading and what the administration is likely to do next A practical framework for distinguishing political noise from decisions that will actually move capital, trade, and talent Specific judgment on U.S.-Mexico, migration, Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil, delivered with the authority of someone who has negotiated in the region The confidence to ask sharper questions of internal country teams, local partners, and government affairs advisers

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

Why organisations work with Andrew Verity He is the reporter who broke the evidence of central bank involvement in LIBOR rate-rigging on Panorama and in the Radio 4 podcast The Lowball Tapes, and then laid out the full case in his book Rigged. Few speakers in this field can claim that level of original work on a scandal they covered end to end. As BBC Economics Correspondent he explains interest rates, inflation and growth on air to a national audience every week. That training shows up on stage: dense economic material rendered in language a board can use. His investigative track record, from The Truth About Property ahead of the 2008 housing crash to on-the-ground reporting on money laundering in Ukraine, gives him a sharper instinct than most commentators for where institutional risk is actually building. He is a practised live broadcaster, which makes him a natural moderator and interviewer at internal leadership events, client summits and regulated-industry conferences where the stakes of the conversation are high. For financial services, risk and compliance audiences in particular, he offers a perspective that is informed by named regulators, named trials and named evidence, not generic commentary. Biography highlights Economics Correspondent, BBC News, reporting across television, radio and online since 2014. Author of Rigged (The History Press, 2023), a detailed account of the LIBOR scandal serialised in The Times. Presenter of The Lowball Tapes, the 2022 BBC Radio 4 investigative podcast series shortlisted for the British Journalism Awards and the Foreign Press Association Awards. Reporter and presenter for Panorama, including the investigation into the Bank of England’s role in LIBOR rate-rigging, with further contributions to Newsnight and File on Four. Former host of Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live for eight years, a daily programme on markets, the economy and personal finance. Previously Personal Finance Correspondent at The Independent, recognised with industry awards for personal finance journalism and broadcasting. Biography The LIBOR scandal was presented to the public as a story about rogue traders. The evidence Andrew Verity assembled, on Panorama, in The Lowball Tapes and then in his book Rigged, tells a different story about the role of central banks and the safety of the convictions that followed. That body of work is why senior financial audiences take him seriously when he speaks about misconduct, regulation and market structure. His day job is to translate macroeconomics for a national audience. As BBC Economics Correspondent since 2014 he has covered Brexit, the pandemic shock and post-pandemic inflation across television, radio and online. The discipline of explaining a rate decision or an inflation print in clear language, live, week after week, is what makes him effective in front of a leadership team. The investigative thread runs through the rest of his career. He presented BBC Two’s The Truth About Property before the 2008 housing crash, hosted Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live for eight years, and has reported from Ukraine on suspected money laundering. His book Rigged, published by The History Press in 2023 and serialised in The Times, has since been optioned for television. For boards, risk committees and regulated-industry audiences, the practical value is specific. He can moderate a results conference, interview a chief executive on the record, or deliver a keynote that takes the latest central bank move and shows what it changes for the people in the room. Key speaking topics The LIBOR scandal and financial misconduct Inflation, interest rates and monetary policy UK and global economic outlook Regulation and enforcement in financial services Investigative journalism and corporate accountability Housing, property markets and household finance Economics event moderation and on-stage interviewing Ideal for Financial services, banking and asset management leadership events Risk, compliance and internal audit conferences in regulated industries Board and executive offsites seeking a clear read on the macro environment Corporate and client summits needing a senior broadcast-grade moderator or interviewer Audience outcomes A clearer read on where inflation, interest rates and growth are heading and what actually drives the next move. A grounded view of the LIBOR scandal from the journalist who reported the cover-up, with direct relevance to conduct and culture questions today. A sharper sense of where regulatory and reputational risk tends to build inside large financial institutions. Confidence that the on-stage conversation with their own leaders or guests will be handled with the discipline of a live BBC broadcast.

Why organisations work with Kamal Ahmed Senior insider perspective on how a national broadcaster makes editorial decisions under political and commercial pressure, drawn from running the BBC News Board. First-hand operating experience building a Gen Z newsroom from zero, with concrete views on where younger audiences actually go for information and what they reject. Practical authority on misinformation as an organisational risk, not an abstract policy debate, grounded in the founding thesis of The News Movement. A working broadcaster’s craft as a moderator and on-stage interviewer, including current podcast hosting at The Telegraph, useful when the brief is high-stakes panel or fireside rather than keynote. A named voice on race, identity and belonging in British public life, supported by his Bloomsbury memoir, when the audience and brief warrant it. Biography highlights Editorial Director, BBC News (2018 to 2021); member of the BBC News Board and BBC Sounds Board. BBC Business Editor (2014 to 2016) and BBC Economics Editor (2016 to 2018). Co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief, The News Movement. Former Director of Audio, The Telegraph; co-host of The Daily T podcast. Author, The Life and Times of a Very British Man (Bloomsbury, 2018). Vice-President, Society of Editors; Trustee, Media Trust. Biography Most boards still plan their external communications as if a national newspaper front page or a BBC Six O’Clock News bulletin is where the audience meets them. Younger employees, customers and investors mostly do not. They meet brands inside short-form video, group chats and platforms whose editorial logic looks nothing like a newsroom’s. Closing that gap is the work Kamal Ahmed has spent the last five years on. He came to it from inside the institution it is reshaping. As Editorial Director of BBC News between 2018 and 2021, sitting on both the BBC News Board and the BBC Sounds Board, he was responsible for editorial standards across the largest English-language news operation in the world. Before that he was BBC Economics Editor and BBC Business Editor, and before that Business Editor at The Daily Telegraph and Political Editor at The Observer. In 2021 he co-founded The News Movement with former Dow Jones chief executive Will Lewis, building a social-first newsroom designed for audiences under thirty rather than retro-fitting an existing brand to them. The thesis was direct: misinformation is not solved by quality journalism in the wrong format. He served as Editor-in-Chief through the launch phase in London and New York. Alongside the operating work, he is a Bloomsbury-published author on race, identity and Britishness, an inaugural winner of the CFA Society’s Ethical and Professional Standards Award, Vice-President of the Society of Editors and a Trustee of Media Trust. The combination matters: he can speak to the leadership room about trust and media as a senior editor who has run them, and as a builder who has tried to construct what comes next. Key speaking topics Trust in media and institutions Gen Z audiences and the future of information Misinformation as organisational risk Editorial leadership under pressure The economy and business after the BBC Race, identity and belonging in British public life Ideal for Communications, brand and corporate affairs leaders rebuilding external narrative CHROs and internal communications leads facing engagement gaps with under-thirty employees Boards reviewing reputational and information-environment risk Conference and summit organisers needing a moderator with broadcast craft and editorial authority Audience outcomes A clear read on where trust now sits across generations, and what that costs organisations that ignore it A concrete picture of how Gen Z audiences receive, interrogate and share information A sharper view of misinformation as a board-level operating risk rather than a policy abstraction A practitioner’s account of how a national newsroom makes decisions, useful for leaders who are interviewed, scrutinised or covered

Why organisations work with Andrew Marr Direct line of sight into Westminster and Whitehall built across forty years of political reporting, including five years as BBC Political Editor and sixteen years presenting the BBC One Sunday political programme. Historical context most political commentators cannot offer. His BBC One series and accompanying books on modern Britain, the making of modern Britain and the Elizabethan era are the standard popular references for how the British state and economy got to where they are. Non-partisan, on-the-record reading of UK politics that can be quoted in front of clients, regulators and international visitors. Marr has interviewed every recent UK prime minister and most senior cabinet figures. Working journalist, not a retired one. Political Editor of the New Statesman and presenter of Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, so the analysis is current to the week of the event. Equally effective as keynote speaker, interviewer and moderator. The same craft that drove fifteen years of Sunday political interviews carries into corporate fireside formats and on-stage conversation with senior leaders. Biography highlights BBC Political Editor, 2000 to 2005. Editor of The Independent, 1996 to 1998. Political Editor of The Independent before that. Presented The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One from 2005 to December 2021. Political Editor and columnist at the New Statesman, since February 2022. Presents Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC and a current affairs show on Classic FM. Author of A History of Modern Britain, The Making of Modern Britain, A History of the World, The Diamond Queen, and Elizabethans. Companion BBC documentary series accompanied most of them. BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award (2004), British Press Awards Columnist of the Year (1995), Royal Television Society Best Presenter (2008), RTS Scotland Current Affairs Award (2017). Read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, first class honours. Biography British politics has rarely moved at a pace this difficult for boards and senior leaders to track. Election cycles, fiscal reversals, the state’s relationship with business, and Britain’s position in the world are all in motion at once. Reading the signal underneath the noise is now part of corporate planning, not an adjacent interest. That is the contribution Andrew Marr brings to a corporate audience. As BBC Political Editor from 2000 to 2005, and then as presenter of the BBC One Sunday political programme for sixteen years, he interviewed every recent UK prime minister and most senior cabinet figures across two decades of British government. Few broadcasters have that continuity of access. The historical work is what separates him from other political commentators. A History of Modern Britain, The Making of Modern Britain, and Elizabethans, each a Sunday Times bestseller with a major BBC television series alongside it, gave a generation of British readers their working picture of how the country got from 1945 to now. The BBC series for A History of Modern Britain won a BAFTA. He left the BBC at the end of 2021 and now writes as Political Editor of the New Statesman, presents Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, and a current affairs programme on Classic FM. The journalism is current to the week. Awards include the BAFTA Richard Dimbleby (2004), British Press Awards Columnist of the Year (1995), and Royal Television Society Best Presenter (2008). He read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, with first class honours. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster British government and policy Modern British history and national identity UK economic policy and the state Elections and the political cycle Media and public life Scotland and the union Ideal for Boards and executive committees of UK and international businesses with material UK exposure Senior partner and client events for professional services firms hosting clients on UK affairs Annual conferences and leadership offsites seeking a credible on-the-record political read Event organisers needing a senior moderator or interviewer for political and economic sessions Audience outcomes A clear, non-partisan read on where UK politics is heading in the next political cycle Historical context for current political and economic shifts, traced back to identifiable turning points in post-war Britain An informed sense of how Westminster, Whitehall and the Treasury actually interact on the issues that matter to business A sharper picture of the UK’s standing internationally and what that means for British operations and investment

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

Why organisations work with Matt Frei A working journalist who covers the stories shaping board agendas in real time, from the Russo-Ukrainian war and US elections to European political instability, not a retired commentator looking back Two International Emmys, two Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year awards, a Peabody and a duPont-Columbia, awarded by named industry bodies for the specific reporting he is asked to talk about Native fluency in three of the political systems senior audiences need to understand: Washington, Brussels and Berlin, built across thirty years as Bonn, Washington and Europe correspondent A broadcaster’s command of a room that translates directly into chairing, moderating and interviewing principals at executive forums, not only keynote delivery The 2022 Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcast Journalism, given by the British Journalism Review, recognises a body of work, not a single moment Biography highlights Channel 4 News presenter and Europe Editor; previously Washington Correspondent for Channel 4 from 2011 BBC Washington Correspondent 2002 to 2011 and presenter of BBC World News America 2007 to 2011 Earlier BBC postings as Bonn Correspondent through German reunification, Southern Europe Correspondent through the Balkan wars, and Asia correspondent based in Hong Kong and Singapore Two International Emmys for News, Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year in 2015 and 2017, Peabody Award 2010, duPont-Columbia Award 2011, Prix Bayeux Calvados 2000 Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcast Journalism, British Journalism Review, 2022 Author of Getting the Boot: Italy’s Unfinished Revolution (1995) and Only in America (2008) Saturday morning host on LBC since 2016 Educated at Westminster School and St Peter’s College, Oxford Biography The frontline of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the West Wing during a Trump presidency, and the European chancelleries that hold the alliance together are three rooms that look very different from a boardroom in London or Frankfurt. Frei has reported from all of them, often in the same year, and explains them in terms a senior audience can act on. His career covers the political shifts that now define corporate risk. As BBC Bonn Correspondent he covered German reunification. As Southern Europe Correspondent he reported through Bosnia and Kosovo. From 2002 to 2011 he was BBC Washington Correspondent and presented BBC World News America, anchoring coverage through the Iraq war, the financial crisis and the Obama transition. He moved to Channel 4 in 2011 as Washington Correspondent and is now the network’s Europe Editor. The substance of his work has been recognised by the bodies that judge it most carefully. Two International Emmys, two Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year awards, a Peabody, a duPont-Columbia and the Prix Bayeux Calvados sit alongside the British Journalism Review’s 2022 Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcast Journalism. He is also the author of Only in America, a book-length argument about the United States written from inside the Washington press corps. For corporate audiences he operates in two registers. He delivers keynote analysis on geopolitics, US politics, Europe and the war in Ukraine, drawn from current reporting. He also chairs and moderates panels and interviews principals on stage, the same craft he applies on Channel 4 News and on LBC every Saturday morning. Key speaking topics Geopolitics US politics and the transatlantic relationship The Russo-Ukrainian war European political risk Economic Trends & Global Markets Conference moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning a geopolitical and US-politics briefing for an offsite or strategy day CEOs and CCOs needing an experienced broadcaster to chair an external-facing forum or moderate a principal interview CHROs and internal communications leaders running a leadership conference where a recognised on-air presence sets the tone Investor and client events that need a sharp interpreter of macro-political risk on stage Audience outcomes A current read of the political dynamics in Washington, Kyiv, Berlin and Brussels from a journalist actively reporting them A clearer sense of which geopolitical headlines materially affect strategy and which are background noise Specific anecdote and detail from inside the rooms most senior audiences only see filtered through wires A professionally moderated session where the speaker, panel or interview lands as intended