Economic Trends & Global Markets speakers

Why organisations work with David Smith More than three decades of reading the UK economy from inside the same national-press seat, which gives audiences a continuous interpretive line on monetary policy, fiscal cycles and recovery patterns that no rotating commentator can offer. A working journalist’s access. Smith writes the weekly Sunday Times economics column and a Times column, so briefings draw on live contact with policy thinkers, Treasury officials and City economists, not retrospective analysis. Authored catalogue covering the Thatcher-era monetarist experiment, the 2008 financial crisis, the China and India growth story, and post-crisis Britain. Few UK economics speakers can place a current decision against that depth of written record. Trusted by sector audiences for Budget and Spending Review briefings, including recurring briefings for the Disruptive Innovators Network in housing, which signals he reads as relevant to operational leaders, not just finance specialists. Academic credibility without academic remove: Honorary Professor at Nottingham and Visiting Professor at Cardiff, while still writing weekly for the national press. Biography highlights Economics Editor of The Sunday Times since 1989; also chief leader-writer, assistant editor and policy adviser. Weekly columnist for The Times since 2016. Honorary Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham; Visiting Professor, Cardiff University. Author of Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics, The Dragon and the Elephant, The Age of Instability, Something Will Turn Up and earlier titles including The Rise and Fall of Monetarism and North and South. Harold Wincott, Senior Financial Journalist of the Year; Economics Commentator of the Year (2013); Business Journalist of the Year, London Press Awards (2014); Property Columnist of the Year. Highly Commended Feature Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards (2008). Biography UK economic policy has been rewritten at least three times in a generation: the monetarist experiment, the response to the 2008 crash, and the post-pandemic reset of inflation, rates and public spending. Reading each of those shifts as they happened, in the same national newspaper column, is a rare position. That is the seat David Smith has held since 1989. As Economics Editor of The Sunday Times, chief leader-writer and assistant editor, Smith writes the paper’s weekly economics column and contributes a separate weekly column to The Times. The work is grounded in continuous contact with Treasury officials, Bank of England watchers and City economists, which is why corporate audiences treat his Budget and Spending Review briefings as a baseline read rather than a comment piece. His books extend that frame backwards and outwards. The Rise and Fall of Monetarism, From Boom to Bust and North and South, track the structural arguments inside the UK economy. The Dragon and the Elephant set out the China and India growth story before it was a consensus board topic. The Age of Instability and Something Will Turn Up read the 2008 crisis and its long tail. The catalogue gives him a historical baseline that most current commentators do not have. Academic affiliations sit alongside the journalism rather than replacing it. Smith is Honorary Professor in Nottingham’s Faculty of Social Sciences and a Visiting Professor at Cardiff University, and has lectured at Nottingham’s Malaysia and Ningbo campuses. His awards record, including the Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year, the 2013 Economics Commentator of the Year and the 2014 Business Journalist of the Year at the London Press Awards, marks him as the commentator other commentators read. Key speaking topics UK economic policy and the Budget Bank of England and interest rate outlook Global markets and the US Federal Reserve UK and Europe after Brexit UK housing and property markets China, India and the shifting global economic order Long-run outlook for the UK economy Ideal for Boards and executive teams making capital allocation, hiring or pricing decisions against a moving macro picture CFOs, treasurers and heads of strategy are briefing leadership on the UK and global economic outlook Property, housing and real-estate leadership audiences planning against rate and policy cycles Annual conferences, partner meetings and client events are looking for a senior, non-partisan read of the UK economy Audience outcomes A clear, current read of where UK growth, inflation and interest rates are heading and what is driving each A view on the next Budget or fiscal event and how it changes the operating environment A grounded sense of how UK conditions sit against US, European and Asian economic shifts Confidence in distinguishing genuine structural change from short-term political and market noise Specific reference points from three decades of UK economic cycles that audiences can use in their own planning conversations

Why organisations work with David Thomas He lives in Cebu and works on active cross-border deal flow through Mabuhay Capital Corporation, the Philippines M&A advisory firm, so what he says about emerging Asia is being tested in live transactions rather than retrieved from a desk in London. His reading of Hong Kong and Greater China carries family proximity that other Asia speakers cannot match. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Attorney General of Hong Kong from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, sat on Hong Kong’s Executive and Legislative Councils and went on to sit in the UK House of Lords. He has spent two decades running capital and investment delegations across emerging Asia, including the BRIC+ Program he co-founded (Brazil, Russia, India and China), so when he points at a corridor opening, he is usually already moving founders or capital through it. His North-South Corridor framework maps how capital and supply chains are moving between the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand. It is the lane that most of the cross-border activity of the next decade will be priced along, and it is the lane that most Western strategy decks still skip. His Three Cups of Tea framework, drawn from the book of the same name, gives Western leaders a working method for how commercial trust actually builds in Asian markets: Stranger, Friend, Family, in that order. Biography highlights Author of Three Cups of Tea: A 3 Step Guide to Doing Business in China and Year of the Rat, alongside further writing on Asian commerce. Lived and worked in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s; ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. Father Michael Thomas QC CMG, Attorney General of Hong Kong (1983–1988); stepmother Baroness Lydia Dunn, senior unofficial member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and Legislative Council, and a UK House of Lords cross-bencher. Co-founder of the BRIC+ Program (2005–2010), running five years of Australian investment study tours into Brazil, Russia, India and China. Consultant to Mabuhay Capital Corporation (Philippines) on cross-border M&A and ASEAN capital flows. Founding President of the Australia China SME Association. Founder/CEO of Think Global Consulting. Graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing (2019). Has spoken at corporate events for Deloitte, Westpac, Telstra, DHL, BT Financial Group, RMA Australia and others across Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK. Biography Western boards are still reading Asia through a US-China lens. The next two decades of cross-border capital and supply chain activity will move along a different lane: the corridor connecting the Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong, down through the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN, to Australia and New Zealand. That lane is what David Thomas calls the North-South Corridor, and he has spent three decades inside it. That perspective begins with family. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Hong Kong’s Attorney General from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that determined the territory’s future. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, was a senior member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and went on to sit as a cross-bencher in the UK House of Lords from 1990 to 2010. David lived in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s and ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. He made his first trip to Beijing in 1989. What followed was three decades of running capital and trade work across emerging Asia. He co-founded the BRIC+ Program, an Australian investment delegation that ran for five consecutive years into Brazil, Russia, India and China and gave senior financial advisers structured access to all four markets simultaneously. His book Three Cups of Tea introduced a model now used by Western executives entering Asian markets: relationships build through three stages, Stranger, Friend and Family, and the real commercial work begins only at the third. He served as founding President of the Australia China SME Association and founded Think Global Consulting. He works with Mabuhay Capital Corporation on active cross-border M&A and capital flows across the Philippines and ASEAN. He is a graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing, and recent client work has included executive briefings for senior freight and logistics teams gathered in Ho Chi Minh City and curated investor introductions for Australian and New Zealand founders raising into Asia-Pacific capital. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the North-South Corridor ASEAN as the next commercial growth axis Cross-border capital flow between developed markets and emerging Asia Supply chain repositioning under US-China decoupling Cross-cultural negotiation and trust architecture in Asian markets Strategic foresight on Asia for Western boards Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors with current or planned commercial exposure to Hong Kong, Greater China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia or broader ASEAN. Investment committees, family offices and venture firms allocating capital across the Greater Bay Area, ASEAN and Australia/New Zealand. Corporate development, M&A and market entry teams running cross-border transactions or joint ventures in emerging Asia. Industry associations and trade bodies briefing members on supply chain risk and the capital corridor connecting developed markets to ASEAN. Audience outcomes A working map of the North-South Corridor and where capital, supply chains and political risk are actually being repriced. A method for building commercial trust in Asian markets (Stranger, Friend, Family), and a clear view of why transactional Western approaches consistently fail there. A sharper read of US-China-ASEAN dynamics and where they intersect with their own organisation’s market and supplier exposure. An applied frame for market entry, joint venture and capital partner decisions across the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN.

Why organisations work with Debarati Guha Sits at the editorial centre of one of the largest non-Asian international broadcasters covering Asia, with operational responsibility across nine language services run from Germany, and bureaus in Taipei, Delhi, Jakarta, and Chennai. Two decades of front-line reporting on South Asian politics, including direct interviews with Sheikh Hasina, Shashi Tharoor, and Amartya Sen, gives her a working network few moderators in the region can match. Recognised as one of Germany’s top ten women leaders by Global Woman Leader in 2023, with a track record of leading multi-country, multi-language editorial teams through digital transition. Comfortable chairing complex media and policy panels for organisations like WAN-IFRA, where the room mixes editors, regulators, and platform leaders. Bilingual cultural register: equally readable to a Berlin or Brussels audience and a Delhi, Dhaka, or Jakarta one, which matters when the conversation crosses both. Biography highlights Director Programs for Asia, Deutsche Welle, leading nine Asian language departments plus Asia Desk (English and German). MA and MPhil in Political Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Career interviews include Sheikh Hasina, Shashi Tharoor, and Amartya Sen. Top 10 “Women Leader in Germany” 2023, Global Woman Leader. “Most Influential Business Leader” 2024, Business Frontier. Executive Management Programme, EBU Academy (2022); BAKS course on Southeast Asian politics and Germany (2023). Panel chair at WAN-IFRA Indian Media Leaders eSummit and similar industry forums. Biography Asia is no longer a single story for international organisations. India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Taiwan, and the Mekong economies each move on different political clocks, and the editorial signal reaching Western capitals is increasingly mediated by national platforms with their own agendas. Reading Asia from a London or Frankfurt boardroom is harder than it was ten years ago. That is the operational world Debarati Guha works inside every day. As Director Programs for Asia at Deutsche Welle, she oversees nine Asian language services plus the Asia Desk in English and German, with editorial bureaus in Taipei, Delhi, Jakarta, and Chennai. The job involves judgement calls on what crosses the line between regional reporting and global business interest, made several times a day across very different political environments. Her background is unusual for that seat. She trained in political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, started in journalism as the New Delhi assistant to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s Asia correspondent in 2003, and joined DW in 2007. By 2013 she was running DW’s Bengali service; by 2018, the whole Asia operation. Along the way she has interviewed Sheikh Hasina, Shashi Tharoor, and Amartya Sen, and built relationships across South and Southeast Asian political and intellectual life. For Speakers Associates, this means a moderator and panellist who can hold a room of senior leaders on Asia, media, and the politics of digital information without resorting to high-level summary. She was named one of Germany’s top ten women leaders by Global Woman Leader in 2023, and chairs panels at WAN-IFRA’s Indian Media Leaders eSummit, where the audience is exactly the working editors and platform leaders she manages every day. Key speaking topics Geopolitics of South and Southeast Asia Asia-Europe relations and cross-continental media strategy Digital transformation in newsrooms Women in media leadership Disinformation and political reporting in Asia Cross-cultural editorial leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams shaping Asia strategy or expansion plans Conferences on international media, journalism, and digital news Leadership programmes on cross-cultural management and women in senior media roles Panels and summits requiring an informed chair on Asia, geopolitics, or the information ecosystem Audience outcomes A clearer read on the political and media dynamics shaping South and Southeast Asia Direct insight into how a major international broadcaster makes editorial calls across nine languages and three Asian bureaus Practical perspective on running multilingual, multicultural teams through digital change A sharper sense of where disinformation, platform power, and politics intersect in Asia A panel or session moderated with senior-room composure, where the questions land and the speakers are pushed

Why organisations work with Desmond Lachman Three careers in one seat: IMF crisis rooms, Salomon Smith Barney’s emerging-markets strategy desk, and two decades of published analysis at AEI. Very few macro commentators have worked the lender, the investor, and the think-tank perspectives on the same problem. A track record of specific named calls, not generic warnings. Argentina’s default, the US housing bust, and the eurozone sovereign-debt stress were all argued in print before they broke. Active columnist at Project Syndicate with regular bylines in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Barron’s. What a client hears in a private session is the same argument serious financial readers are getting in print that week. A clear, unhedged house view on US fiscal sustainability, tariff shocks, and dollar risk. Useful for boards that want a counterweight to consensus forecasts from sell-side research. Fluency in the multilateral architecture. When the IMF, World Bank, or G20 becomes the story, he can explain what those institutions will and will not do, from direct experience inside them. Biography highlights Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, since 2003 Former Deputy Director, IMF Policy Development and Review Department; earlier Senior Advisor in the Western Hemisphere and European Departments Former Managing Director and Chief Emerging Market Economic Strategist, Salomon Smith Barney Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and Georgetown University Columnist at Project Syndicate; regular contributor to the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, The Hill BBC Newsnight “Chart of the Year”, 2011, for his 10-year euro yields graph; credited by Bloomberg with calling the global credit crisis and eurozone stress PhD in Economics, Cambridge University; BA, University of the Witwatersrand Biography The argument that US debt dynamics and the dollar’s reserve status are unassailable is exactly the assumption Desmond Lachman has been dismantling in print for years. His Project Syndicate columns and AEI essays make the case that America is beginning to show the fiscal and currency signatures of a troubled emerging-market economy, and that the response from the IMF and major central banks will be slower and more constrained than markets are pricing. The credibility of that view rests on a career built across the three institutions that shape these outcomes. At the IMF, Lachman rose to Deputy Director of the Policy Development and Review Department after a decade as Senior Advisor in the Western Hemisphere and European Departments, the years that included the Mexican peso crisis and the build-up to Argentina’s default. He then moved to Salomon Smith Barney as Managing Director and Chief Emerging Market Economic Strategist, advising institutional investors on the same sovereign risks from the buy side. Since 2003 he has been a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, with adjunct chairs at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown. He writes regularly for the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, and The Hill, and is interviewed on CNBC, BBC, NPR, and CNN when the story is sovereign debt, tariffs, or currency stress. BBC Newsnight picked his 10-year euro yields chart as Chart of the Year in 2011; Bloomberg credited him with calling the global credit crisis and the strains that the euro would create among member states. For a board or investment committee, the value is pointed: Lachman will name the scenarios, the trigger variables, and the policy responses he expects, and he will tell a room why the official forecasts are wrong when he believes they are. Key speaking topics US fiscal sustainability and sovereign debt risk The dollar and global reserve currency dynamics Eurozone macro and sovereign stress Emerging-market crises and capital flows Tariffs, trade policy, and the global economy The IMF, World Bank, and multilateral lender behaviour Inflation, interest rates, and central bank policy Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting multi-year capital allocation against macro and currency risk CFO, treasurer, and corporate-risk audiences stress-testing sovereign, FX, and rate exposure Asset managers, banks, and insurers briefing clients on emerging-market and eurozone outlooks Policy, trade, and government-affairs leaders tracking tariff and multilateral-lender dynamics Audience outcomes A specific read on where US fiscal and dollar risk sits in the current cycle, with the variables to watch A working mental model of how sovereign debt crises actually unfold, drawn from cases Lachman worked at the IMF and from Wall Street A candid view on what the IMF and major central banks will and will not do in the next stress episode Sharper questions to put to sell-side research and in-house economists on tariffs, currency, and emerging-market exposure

Why organisations work with Digby Jones He has sat in both chairs that most business audiences only see from outside: head of the CBI and Minister of State for Trade. Very few speakers can tell a boardroom what the other side of the table is actually thinking. As Trade Minister he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries in 15 months. That is a working map of how UK plc sells itself abroad, not a theory about it. His two Wiley books, Fixing Britain (2011) and Fixing Business (2017), set out a consistent argument about competitiveness, skills and responsible profit that still frames how he talks to boards today. He is a crossbencher by choice and a non-aligned voice in public life. For audiences tired of partisan framing, that independence is the point. The New Troubleshooter, his 2014 BBC Two series, put him inside three real British SMEs to diagnose and fix them on camera. It is a rare speaker credential: public evidence of how he actually thinks through a business problem. Biography highlights Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, 2000 to 2006. Minister of State for Trade and Investment, 2007 to 2008, jointly in BERR and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Life peer as Baron Jones of Birmingham, 2007; crossbencher in the House of Lords until retirement in 2020. Knight Bachelor, 2005 New Year Honours, for services to Business. Author of Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011) and Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017); Fixing Britain shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year. Presenter of BBC Two’s Digby Jones: The New Troubleshooter, 2014. Senior Partner at Edge & Ellison, Birmingham, 1995 to 1998, after two decades as a corporate lawyer in the West Midlands. Biography The CBI is where British business tells the government what it needs. The Department for Business is where the government tells British business what it is prepared to do. Digby Jones has run the first and served in the second. That combined vantage is what a boardroom is buying when it brings him in. He was Director General of the CBI from 2000 to 2006, then accepted an invitation from Gordon Brown to serve as Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2007 to 2008, joining the Lords as a crossbencher to take the post. In 15 months he made 45 overseas visits to 31 countries, pitching the UK as a place to invest and British firms as firms to buy from. He sat as a non-aligned peer until retiring from the Lords in 2020. The two books are where his argument lives. Fixing Britain (Wiley, 2011), shortlisted for the 2012 CMI Management Book of the Year, is a working plan for national competitiveness: skills, infrastructure, a functioning relationship between Whitehall and the wealth creators. Fixing Business (Wiley, 2017) extends the argument into how profitable companies can justify themselves to the societies they operate in. The thesis is consistent and it is his own. Before politics, he spent twenty years at Edge & Ellison in Birmingham, becoming senior partner, brokering deals for mid-market companies in a region that lives or dies by manufacturing. That is the register he still speaks in. On the BBC Two series The New Troubleshooter in 2014 he spent three episodes inside three British SMEs, arguing with owners and staff about pricing, exports and focus. A senior audience watching him work sees the same person they will meet on stage: direct, specific, unafraid to name the problem. Key speaking topics UK competitiveness and the business-government relationship Trade, exports and inward investment British economic policy and the view from Westminster Skills, productivity and the domestic labour market Responsible business and the case for profit Leadership from the employers’ side of the table Ideal for Board and executive committee offsites debating UK exposure, investment or political risk CEO and CFO audiences at trade associations, industry bodies and chambers of commerce Senior audiences at professional services and financial firms briefing clients on the UK economy After-dinner and conference keynotes where a non-partisan senior voice on British business is the draw Audience outcomes A candid read on where the UK economy and UK business policy actually stand, from someone who has worked both sides A clearer view of what government decisions mean for investment, exports and hiring A sharper argument for why skills and productivity remain the binding constraint on British growth A usable sense of how to talk about profit, responsibility and national interest in the same sentence Direct answers in Q&A: a working conversation with a senior practitioner, not a rehearsed set piece

Why organisations work with Dominic McVey He has operated, not observed: acquired and restructured Hela Clothing in Sri Lanka in 2013 and grew its workforce to over 17,000 across Sri Lanka, Kenya and Ethiopia, supplying M&S, Tesco, John Lewis and Asda. He converts a teenage-millionaire origin story into serious boardroom utility: the founder instinct for spotting asymmetric opportunity, applied to corporate growth, M&A, and emerging market entry. He brings a government-grade network on Africa: MBE for services to private sector development in Africa, Namibian Honorary Consul to Wales, Coalition for Global Prosperity advisory council, Co-Chair of Global Academy Africa. He speaks credibly on ethical supply chains from the operator seat, as founder of the Fair Fashion Pact and Chairman of Computer Aid International. Biography highlights Professor of Practice, University of Wales Trinity Saint David (appointed June 2022). MBE, 2022 Platinum Jubilee Honours, for services to private sector development in Africa. Chairman and trustee of Computer Aid International, which has reached over 14.5 million people with technology access since 1997. Founder, Fair Fashion Pact; former owner and chairman of Hela Clothing, Sri Lanka. Namibian Honorary Consul to Wales; Co-Chair, Global Academy Africa; advisory council, Coalition for Global Prosperity; ambassador, HALO Trust. Keynote speaker at Davos (2020, 2024), Bloomberg’s Modern Affluence Summit (2019) and the Conservative Party Conference main stage (2018). Biography Most expansion plans into frontier markets get built around cost arbitrage and break on everything else. The operators who actually scale in Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ethiopia or Mexico spend less time on the landed-cost model and more on recruitment, training, community standing, political relationships and supplier reliability. McVey has done the second version of that work. He bought Hela Clothing in Sri Lanka in 2013, when the business had around 3,000 staff supplying UK high street retailers. Under his ownership the group expanded into Kenya and Ethiopia, grew to more than 17,000 employees, and supplied Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, M&S, John Lewis and Tesco. That track record is the spine of his credibility when he speaks to boards about emerging market growth. The earlier chapter gives him the founder register. At 13 he began importing US-made micro-scooters into the UK. By 15 he was Britain’s youngest self-made millionaire. At 18 the Queen named him a “Pioneer for Britain in Entrepreneurism”. That arc is not a keynote hook; it is why buyers trust him to talk about spotting mispriced opportunity. The third layer is policy and philanthropy. He was awarded an MBE in the 2022 Platinum Jubilee Honours for services to private sector development in Africa, sits on the Coalition for Global Prosperity advisory council, serves as Namibian Honorary Consul to Wales, and chairs Computer Aid International. He founded the Fair Fashion Pact to raise standards in African apparel supply chains. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David appointed him Professor of Practice in 2022. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founder thinking Emerging market growth and private sector development in Africa Ethical supply chains and responsible sourcing Scaling manufacturing across multiple geographies Business model innovation and portfolio diversification Philanthropy, trade and sustainable foreign direct investment Ideal for Boards and executive teams planning expansion into African, South Asian or Latin American markets. CEOs and commercial leaders wrestling with supply chain ethics, ESG credibility and supplier consolidation. Founder-led businesses and family offices looking for a peer voice on portfolio strategy and emerging opportunity. Conferences on trade, development finance, manufacturing and the UK-Africa commercial relationship. Audience outcomes A clearer read on what actually determines whether emerging market operations scale, beyond the cost model. A framework for evaluating supply chain partners that treats labour standards as commercial leverage, not compliance overhead. A sharper view of Africa as an investment destination from someone with working diplomatic and trade relationships there. A founder’s perspective on how to spot and act on asymmetric opportunity inside a corporate setting.

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 Dominique Strauss-Kahn His account of the 2008 global financial crisis comes from inside the institution that managed it – not from research or observation, but from running the IMF through its most consequential period in decades. He chaired the multilateral process that produced the IMF’s early call for a coordinated global fiscal stimulus. The practical mechanics of that coordination – and its limits – are not recoverable from any published analysis. He has developed an analytical framework that maps the structural tensions between national sovereignty, democratic accountability, and deep global economic integration – giving organisations a precise vocabulary for the governance dilemmas that now shape trade strategy, capital allocation, and regulatory planning. He has worked on both sides of the government-institution relationship: as a national finance minister who negotiated with international bodies, and as the head of the body those ministers negotiated with. That dual vantage point is genuinely rare. Post-IMF, he has advised governments on sovereign debt restructuring, giving him current applied knowledge of how creditors, debtors, and international institutions interact under financial pressure. Biography highlights Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (2007-2011), selected by consensus of the IMF Executive Board with the backing of the European Union, the United States, China, and most of Africa Led the IMF’s institutional response to the 2008 global financial crisis, including its influential early call for a coordinated global fiscal stimulus French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry (1997-1999), responsible for national economic policy during France’s transition to the euro; also served as Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade (1991-1993) Member of the French National Assembly across multiple terms; chaired the parliamentary finance committee (1988-1991) Professor of Economics at Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies) and the University of Paris (Nanterre) PhD in economics from the University of Paris (Nanterre); graduate of HEC Paris and Sciences Po Biography The international monetary system was not designed for the world it now governs. Capital moves faster than treaties can be renegotiated. Sovereign debt crises spread before early warning systems respond. Dominique Strauss-Kahn served as IMF Managing Director during the 2008 global financial crisis, the sharpest test the institution had faced in decades. Under his leadership, the IMF moved early to advocate a coordinated global fiscal stimulus, placing the institution at the centre of the crisis response. He led quota reforms that gave emerging economies a larger voice in IMF governance. He also supervised a significant reversal of the institution’s longstanding position on capital controls, recognising them as a legitimate tool of macroeconomic management. These were not technical adjustments but substantive shifts in how the world’s principal international financial institution understood its own role. Before the IMF, Strauss-Kahn served as France’s Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, overseeing national economic policy during France’s transition to the euro. He also held the portfolio of Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade, and chaired the National Assembly’s finance committee across an earlier parliamentary term. Few speakers have held senior responsibility on both sides of the relationship between national governments and international economic institutions. He has held academic positions at Sciences Po and the University of Paris, and holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Paris. He has developed a publicly presented analytical framework – drawing on the Mundell-Fleming impossible trinity, the Rodrik globalisation trilemma, and the European fiscal-monetary dilemma – that gives organisations a structured way to map the governance tensions that now affect trade, investment, and regulatory strategy. Key speaking topics International economic governance and its limits Sovereign debt, financial crisis, and multilateral response The international monetary system and its reform Global fiscal and monetary policy coordination European economic integration Geopolitical risk and economic stability Emerging economies and the shifting balance of global economic power Ideal for CFOs, treasurers, and investment committees at global organisations managing currency, sovereign, and systemic risk Board-level and C-suite audiences at banks, financial institutions, and multinational corporations Government, central bank, and regulatory audiences engaged in international policy Economic policy forums, sovereign wealth fund conferences, and global business summits Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how the IMF and comparable institutions make decisions under pressure, and what those decisions cannot achieve Practical insight into the mechanics of sovereign debt negotiation and cross-border financial crisis management A framework for mapping structural tensions between national economic policy and global integration, and what those tensions mean for corporate and government strategy Context for how international monetary reform debates – over reserve currencies, capital controls, and fiscal coordination – are likely to develop A sharper grasp of where global economic governance is most fragile, and why

Why organisations work with Douglas Alexander He has sat at four different Cabinet tables, including Transport, Scotland, International Development and most recently UK Trade Policy, which gives him a working knowledge of how governments actually make trade, development and security decisions. As Secretary of State for International Development he ran a department operating in 39 countries with more than 2,500 staff and served as UK Governor to the World Bank, so he speaks about development finance and multilateral institutions from inside the system. His Harvard Kennedy School Senior Fellowship at the Future of Diplomacy Project and his visiting seat at King’s College London’s Policy Institute give him a live academic-policy network that most former ministers do not maintain. He edited Rethink: How We Can Make A Better World, a 2021 essay collection with Pope Francis, Samantha Power, Niall Ferguson and Paul Krugman, which signals the level of international interlocutor he convenes. As a strategic adviser to Pinsent Masons since 2016 he has translated political judgement into usable counsel for corporate clients, not just policy commentary. Biography highlights Four Cabinet roles under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown: Transport Secretary, Scotland Secretary, International Development Secretary, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2011 to 2015. Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project, Harvard Kennedy School. Visiting Professor, Policy Institute, King’s College London. Strategic adviser, Pinsent Masons, from 2016. Editor, Rethink: How We Can Make A Better World (2021), with contributions from Pope Francis, Niall Ferguson, Samantha Power and Paul Krugman. Bylines in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and The Boston Globe. Biography International development is where abstract policy meets a balance sheet and a border. For three years as UK Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander ran a department operating in 39 countries with more than 2,500 staff, represented the UK as Governor to the World Bank, and was the minister answering for British aid through the 2008 financial crisis. That was one of four Cabinet posts he held under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Transport Secretary and Secretary of State for Scotland came first, simultaneously, in 2006. He was also Minister for Europe and Minister for Trade earlier in his career. From 2011 to 2015 he served as Shadow Foreign Secretary, the opposition counterpart on UK foreign policy. After leaving Parliament in 2015, he was selected by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Future of Diplomacy Project as a Senior Fellow, took a visiting professorship at the Policy Institute at King’s College London, and became a strategic adviser to the international law firm Pinsent Masons. He edited Rethink: How We Can Make A Better World in 2021, a collection of essays on the post-pandemic global reset with contributions from Pope Francis, Niall Ferguson, Samantha Power and Paul Krugman. He writes for a range of national titles in the UK and the US, including The New York Times, The Guardian and The Boston Globe. For boards pricing exposure to trade, development finance and European policy, that is the difference between reading the news and reading the brief. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and global political risk International trade and economic diplomacy International development and the World Bank system The transatlantic relationship and the future of Europe Populism and the erosion of democratic trust UK policy and Brexit implications for business Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing exposure to trade, tariffs, sanctions and European policy CEOs, CFOs and heads of strategy in financial services, industrials and infrastructure with active international development or emerging markets positions Policy forums, think tanks and multilateral institutions convening on geopolitics and the transatlantic relationship Professional services firms advising clients on political risk, Brexit and UK government direction Audience outcomes A read on how Cabinet-level decisions on trade, sanctions and development are actually made in the UK and alongside allies A clearer view of where the transatlantic relationship, Europe and UK policy are moving in the next cycle An honest account of where populism has changed the political terrain for business and for government A sharper framework for thinking about political risk as a board agenda item rather than a government affairs footnote A line of sight into the Harvard, King’s and Westminster conversations that shape the next wave of foreign and trade policy

Why organisations work with Shameen Prashantham Owns a defined intellectual territory, corporate-and-startup partnering, that almost no other senior strategy academic has built a 15-year body of fieldwork around. Wrote the practitioner book on the subject. Gorillas Can Dance (Wiley, 2021) sets out a tested framework of synergy, interface and exemplar drawn from work with Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, Bosch, BMW, Cisco, Ford, IBM, Intel, Unilever, Walmart and others. Brings genuinely first-hand China and emerging-market perspective to Western boards. Based at CEIBS in Shanghai, with active fieldwork across Bangalore, Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, Tel Aviv and Silicon Valley, he can discuss what Chinese firms actually do, not what Western analysts assume. Writes for the audience he speaks to. Recent contributions to Harvard Business Review, including a June 2024 piece on safe engagement with China, give a buyer confidence the keynote will land at board level rather than in academic register. As CEIBS Associate Dean (Africa) and former MBA Director, he is one of a small group of strategy academics with substantive operating insight into both China and Africa, the two markets large corporations most often handle badly. Biography highlights Professor of International Business and Strategy, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Shanghai. Associate Dean (Africa), CEIBS. Previously Associate Dean and MBA Director, 2020 to 2024. Author of Gorillas Can Dance: Lessons from Microsoft and Other Corporations on Partnering with Startups (Wiley, 2021). Author of Born Globals, Networks, and the Large Multinational Enterprise (Routledge). Research published in Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Organization Studies. Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Financial Times and the Brightline-Thinkers50 volume Strategy@Work. Biography Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, BMW, Walmart and Unilever have all built programmes to partner with startups. Few of those programmes work as designed. The reason is rarely strategy. It is the operating asymmetry between a $200 billion balance sheet and a 30-person company, and almost no one has studied that asymmetry as carefully or for as long as the author of Gorillas Can Dance. Based at CEIBS in Shanghai, Shameen Prashantham has spent more than fifteen years inside this question. His fieldwork runs across Silicon Valley, Bangalore, Tel Aviv, Beijing, Berlin, Lagos, Nairobi and Accra. The book sets out three pillars, synergy, interface and exemplar, that distinguish corporate partnership programmes that produce real innovation from those that produce press releases. His academic credibility is straightforward. PhD from the University of Strathclyde. Research in the Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and Organization Studies. The work translates into Harvard Business Review, where his June 2024 piece on safe engagement with China ran in the print edition. What buyers tend to value most is the geography. He sits in Shanghai, runs CEIBS engagement in Africa, and has serious working knowledge of Indian and Israeli innovation ecosystems. For a Western board trying to decide whether and how to partner in or from emerging markets, that combination is rare and expensive to replicate. Key speaking topics Corporate-startup partnerships Innovation strategy in large corporations Doing business in and with China Emerging-market growth strategy Africa as a strategic market Corporate entrepreneurship Sustainable Development Goals partnerships Ideal for CEOs, chief strategy officers and chief innovation officers running corporate venturing or startup-engagement programmes. Boards reassessing China exposure or considering operating commitments in Africa or India. Heads of M&A, partnerships and corporate development designing the next phase of inorganic growth. Executive audiences inside multinationals where emerging-market strategy is on the agenda. Audience outcomes A clear test for whether an existing corporate-startup partnership programme is structurally set up to produce results. Three operating levers, synergy, interface and exemplar, to apply to live partnership decisions. A grounded read on what is actually happening inside Chinese firms and Chinese innovation, beyond Western commentary. A working frame for sequencing entry, partnership and growth decisions in emerging markets. Concrete examples drawn from named programmes at Microsoft, SAP, Bayer, Unilever, Walmart and others.

Why organisations work with Elena Boheme She has run the full development lifecycle, from hotel operator design management and fit-out contracting through to property M&A and family office advisory. That breadth is rare; most advisors sit on one side of the design, build, or operate split. She co-founded Metrix Projects and Metrix Advisory in the Kingdom, and sits on the advisory board of RED Summit KSA and the Modern Building Summit KSA. That places her inside the rooms where Saudi development decisions are made, not adjacent to them. She works credibly across the capital stack, advising AETOS MFO on luxury asset and yacht financing and Triversa Holding at executive board level. International family offices use her to translate Gulf real estate exposure into something they can actually govern. She operates in English, French, and Russian fluently, with working Arabic and Mandarin, and has executed projects in China, Macau, Korea, Monaco, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Cross-cultural deal structuring is a practised skill, not a claim. Biography highlights Co-founder and Development Director, Metrix Projects; co-founder, Metrix Advisory and AETOS MFO. Executive Board Member, Triversa Holding. Strategic Advisor on Project Management, Coldwell Banker Commercial Saudi Arabia. Advisory Board member, RED Summit KSA, and Advisory Board member plus moderator, Modern Building Summit KSA 2025. Speaker and moderator across AlMashtal Knowledge of Design 2024, Cityscape Saudi Arabia 2024, Hospitality Leadership and F&B Forum UAE 2025, Furtech Show Dubai 2025, and Women in Private Equity Forum London 2025. Host of LinkedIn Live series Development Dialogues and author of the LinkedIn newsletter Project Within. Biography Saudi Arabia’s development pipeline is the largest in the world and the least forgiving. International capital arrives expecting Dubai and discovers a market with its own regulatory architecture, its own localisation requirements, and its own definition of what delivered means. Elena Boheme’s work sits inside that translation problem. She co-founded Metrix Projects and Metrix Advisory in Riyadh to do one specific job: take hospitality and residential developments from concept through to operational handover without the gaps that quietly consume budget. Before that, she spent a decade on hotel operator design management, fit-out contracting, and property development across China, Macau, Korea, Monaco, and the UAE, including hospitality projects valued at over two billion US dollars in Korea and Macau. A second strand of her work runs through capital. She co-founded AETOS MFO, a multi-family office advising on luxury real estate and yacht financing, and sits as an executive board member at Triversa Holding and strategic advisor on project management to Coldwell Banker Commercial Saudi Arabia. The combination matters: developers usually understand bricks, family offices usually understand money, and Saudi-bound investors need someone who can hold both sides of the conversation at once. She moderates and chairs across the Kingdom’s main industry platforms, including the RED Summit KSA advisory board, the Modern Building Summit KSA, Cityscape Saudi Arabia, and AlMashtal Knowledge of Design, and hosts the LinkedIn Live series Development Dialogues. The track record is operational rather than academic. For a leadership team weighing a Vision 2030 entry, that is the more useful kind of credibility. Key speaking topics Project deliverability in Saudi Arabia Localisation and market entry strategy for the Kingdom Real estate development lifecycle, from design through operations Cross-cultural deal structuring in the Gulf Women in real estate development and leadership Family office exposure to Gulf real estate Ideal for International hospitality operators and developers planning entry into Saudi Arabia Family offices and private investors building Gulf real estate exposure Boards of project management, design, and construction firms expanding into the Kingdom C-suite teams at firms shifting from regional MENA presence to substantive KSA delivery Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of what separates a signed Saudi deal from a delivered asset The localisation choices that decide whether a foreign operator can actually execute in the Kingdom A working map of how design, build, operate, and capital decisions interact across a Gulf development Specific failure modes she has seen at the hand-off between international design teams and local execution A perspective on Saudi development from someone embedded in it, not commenting from outside

Why organisations work with Emily Maitlis She holds power to account live, on the record. The 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, winner of RTS Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year, is the reference point clients book against when they want a real interviewer in the room rather than a host. She reads Westminster and Washington in the same conversation. Fifteen-plus years on Newsnight and the daily discipline of The News Agents give her a working map of the political operators, donors and advisors shaping policy on both sides of the Atlantic. She is an operator on stage, not a presence. Moderating panels, running fireside interviews with CEOs and ministers, chairing leadership offsites: the craft is the product, and it is the craft that sold out the 2022 MacTaggart Lecture and her speaking diary. She brings a named argument about media and democracy. Her MacTaggart Lecture, “Boiling Frog: Why We Have To Stop Normalising The Absurd,” sets out a specific thesis on populism and impartiality that leadership audiences can engage with rather than nod along to. Biography highlights Lead anchor of BBC Newsnight, 2018 to 2021; a Newsnight presenter from 2006. Co-host of The News Agents, the daily Global podcast launched in August 2022 with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall; Gold winner for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast at the British Podcast Awards. Delivered the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, 2022. Author of Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News (Penguin, 2019). RTS Network Presenter of the Year, 2019 and 2020; RTS Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year, 2020, for the Prince Andrew interview; London Press Club Broadcast Journalist of the Year, 2017. Queens’ College, Cambridge; earlier career with NBC Asia in Hong Kong and Sky News as a business correspondent. Biography The Prince Andrew interview was broadcast on Newsnight in November 2019. Emily Maitlis asked the questions that became the public record of that story, and it remains the case study most often cited when organisations talk about what a real interview looks like. The RTS named it Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year. That night sits inside a longer body of work. Maitlis spent roughly fifteen years on Newsnight, becoming lead anchor in 2018, after building the craft at NBC Asia, Sky News as a business correspondent, and earlier BBC roles. The output is a consistent habit of pressing political and financial power for specifics rather than positioning. Since leaving the BBC in 2022 she has co-hosted The News Agents with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall, a Global podcast that took a Gold British Podcast Award for Best News and Current Affairs. Her 2022 MacTaggart Lecture, “Boiling Frog: Why We Have To Stop Normalising The Absurd,” laid out a specific argument about how mainstream media coverage normalises populist politics, and how that reshapes the job of a public broadcaster. For leadership audiences, the value is practical. She reads political risk and media dynamics for a living, she moderates and interviews on stage the way she does on screen, and she has a thesis about the information environment that serious rooms engage with. Her 2019 book Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News is the written version of that working method. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster analysis US elections and transatlantic political risk Geopolitical flashpoints and their business implications Media, populism and the information environment Interviewing power: the craft of holding leaders to account Conference moderation, fireside interviews and awards hosting Ideal for Leadership offsites, CEO summits and partner conferences needing a host or on-stage interviewer with real political and business range. Annual client conferences and investor events where a keynote on geopolitics, elections or the media environment sets the agenda. Boards and executive committees using an off-the-record session to pressure-test political and regulatory scenarios. Audience outcomes A working read on the political and geopolitical stories most likely to affect the business over the next twelve months. A sharper view of how media narratives form, harden and reach decision-makers, and where that process is being gamed. Specific reference points from two decades of interviewing politicians, regulators and CEOs, used to illustrate rather than decorate the argument. A different quality of on-stage conversation when Maitlis is moderating: leaders pushed past talking points to the substance.