Energy Transition speakers

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

Why organisations work with Graham Weale Nine years as Chief Economist of RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, through the sharpest phase of the Energiewende. Few speakers have read the transition from inside a utility of that scale. An active voice in the current European energy debate, with recent commentary in Tagesspiegel Background, Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Euractiv on the hydrogen ramp-up, industrial decarbonisation, and the realism of German power demand forecasts. Cross-border fluency in European energy policy through the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine, the German-French Office for Energy Transition, and advisory work for the Energy Transitions Commission. Expert witness in gas and power contract disputes, price-review arbitrations, PPA disagreements, and capacity-market and state-aid matters, giving testimony in English or German. Comfortable translating between the energy-intensive industry lens (through VIK) and the utility and investor lens. Useful when a room contains both sides of the decarbonisation cost argument. A contrarian read grounded in economics. Weale argues in Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Tagesspiegel that policy underestimates the gap between renewable supply and industrial demand, and that the cost burden risks the industrial base the transition is meant to protect. His 2021 FT essay made the same case for the EU Green Deal. Biography highlights Honorary Professor of Energy Economics, Ruhr University Bochum. Chief Economist, RWE AG, 2007 to 2016. Consultant on power market design, PwC Deutschland, developing a new electricity market model to lower the consumer cost base (2016 to 2018). Senior Advisor, Energy Transitions Commission, 2017 to 2018. Former Director of European Energy Services, Global Insight (now S&P Global), 2000 to 2007. Steering Committee member, Chaire European Electricity Markets, Universite Paris-Dauphine. Published in Energy Policy, Intereconomics, Oxford Energy Forum, EnWZ, and the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law. Biography European heavy industry is being asked to decarbonise and stay competitive at the same time, and the two goals are pulling apart. Renewable supply is not scaling fast enough to meet industrial demand at a price that keeps production in Europe. Graham Weale argues, in Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Tagesspiegel, that policy underestimates this gap, and that the cost burden threatens the industrial base the transition is meant to protect. He has worked the economics of European energy for four decades, first as a practitioner and now as an academic. The operator vantage point is specific. Weale spent nine years as Chief Economist at RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, from 2007 to 2016, the years the Energiewende reshaped the economics of thermal generation. Before that he ran European energy services at Global Insight, now S&P Global Commodity Insights, where he testified as an expert witness in gas price-review arbitrations. He began his career at ExxonMobil in supply and refining, and trained in physics at Oxford, with an MSc in Systems Engineering and an MBA. The academic record runs in parallel. As Honorary Professor of Energy Economics at Ruhr University Bochum, Weale publishes on power market remuneration in Energy Policy, on hydrogen contract design in EnWZ, and on European market reform in Intereconomics. He advised the Energy Transitions Commission under Adair Turner, and has since advised the European Commission and European governments on energy policy. He sits on the Steering Committee of the CEEM chair at Université Paris-Dauphine. Today Weale runs an independent energy economics practice, advising law firms, industrial associations, and policy institutions, and acting as an expert witness in gas and power contract disputes. That work keeps him close to the live questions boards face: whether to sign a long-term hydrogen offtake, how to price capacity market risk, and where the next iteration of European electricity market design will land. He gives testimony, and delivers keynotes, in English and German. Key speaking topics Power market design and capacity remuneration Industrial decarbonisation and the economics of electrification Hydrogen contracts, supply chains, and the European hydrogen ramp-up German Energiewende and EU Green Deal implementation Natural gas markets and price review arbitration Energy geopolitics after the Ukraine invasion Nuclear, renewables, and the zero-carbon generation mix Ideal for Utility, grid, and generation boards setting capital allocation under decarbonisation targets. Infrastructure funds and institutional investors pricing European power and hydrogen assets. Energy-intensive industrial leaders (steel, chemicals, cement) planning decarbonisation roadmaps. Policymakers and regulators working on market design, capacity mechanisms, and hydrogen frameworks. Audience outcomes A clear view of where European power market design is heading and what that means for long-term generation investment. A realistic read on hydrogen: which use cases will scale, which contracts are bankable, and what the European ramp-up actually requires. Sharper framing of the political-economic risk attached to Energiewende-style transitions, drawn from inside a major utility. Specific vocabulary for talking to boards and investors about carbon pricing, capacity mechanisms, and industrial decarbonisation. A defensible basis for stress-testing internal energy transition plans against the economics, not only the targets.

Why organisations work with Guntram Wolff His book The Macroeconomics of Decarbonisation (Cambridge University Press) is one of the few analyses that maps how the green transition reshapes fiscal policy, labour markets, public finances, and central banking together – giving leaders a framework, not just commentary. He has briefed EU finance ministers at informal ECOFIN and testified to the European Parliament and the Bundestag since 2013 – his analysis informs European policy before it becomes the operating environment for business. His concurrent research on European defence economics and rearmament – generating coverage in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and Le Monde – makes him one of the few economists who can connect climate, security, and fiscal risk in a single board conversation. As inaugural holder of the Euroclear Chair in Sustainable Finance at the Solvay Brussels School, he works at the direct intersection of academic research and European financial market infrastructure – relevant to any bank or asset manager assessing ESG transition risk. He has served on the IMF External Advisory Group on Surveillance, France’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique, and the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness Financing – a verifiable international policy footprint that most European economic commentators cannot match. Biography highlights Professor of Economics and inaugural holder of the Euroclear Chair in Sustainable Finance, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université libre de Bruxelles Former Director of Bruegel (2013-2022) and former Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations/DGAP (2022-2024); senior fellow at Bruegel and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy Co-author of The Macroeconomics of Decarbonisation (Cambridge University Press, 2024) Research published in Nature, Science, Nature Communications, Energy Policy, and Foreign Affairs; policy commentary in the Financial Times and the New York Times Advisory roles include the IMF External Advisory Group on Surveillance, the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness Financing, and France’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique (2012-2016) Regular advisor to informal ECOFIN, the European Parliament, and the Bundestag since 2013; PhD in Economics, University of Bonn; fluent in German, English, and French Biography European finance ministers have been briefed by Guntram Wolff at informal ECOFIN since 2013 – a run of advisory engagement that tracks the continent’s most consequential economic crises, from euro area governance reform to energy security to the financing of rearmament. That record of access is not incidental. It reflects the specific value of economic analysis that connects academic rigour to the political and institutional constraints that policymakers actually face. During his nine years directing Bruegel, Wolff built the Brussels-based think tank into one of Europe’s most influential global research institutions. The body of work he developed there spans euro area governance, climate economics, economic statecraft, and European security – with research appearing in Nature, Science, and Foreign Affairs, an unusual range for a European economist. His 2024 book with Cambridge University Press, The Macroeconomics of Decarbonisation, makes the specific case that the green transition is above all a macroeconomic and fiscal policy challenge – a position that distinguishes it from most climate literature. Since taking the inaugural Euroclear Chair in Sustainable Finance at the Solvay Brussels School, Wolff has extended his research into European defence economics and rearmament, contributing analysis covered by the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and Le Monde. He now works across sustainable finance, security economics, and European governance – giving financial institutions and corporate boards access to analysis that treats these as connected, not parallel, problems. His advisory and institutional record includes the IMF External Advisory Group on Surveillance, appointed by then-Managing Director Christine Lagarde, and the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness Financing. He is a council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, has testified to the European Parliament and the Bundestag, and holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Bonn. Key speaking topics European macroeconomics and euro area governance Macroeconomics of decarbonisation and the green transition Sustainable finance and ESG transition risk Geoeconomics and European defence economics European energy security and geopolitical risk Fiscal policy and the financing of structural transitions Euro area reform and European strategic autonomy Ideal for Boards and executive leadership teams with significant European market exposure Financial institutions, asset managers, and investors navigating ESG and transition risk Government, central bank, and public policy audiences International organisations and multilateral forums focused on European or global economic governance Audience outcomes A clearer analytical framework for understanding how decarbonisation, European rearmament, and fiscal reform interact as strategic risks Informed perspective on the macroeconomic implications of the green transition – beyond policy advocacy to economic mechanics Greater ability to distinguish durable structural shifts in European policy from political noise Understanding of how European governance reform and the euro area’s fiscal architecture create risk and opportunity for financial institutions Context on geoeconomic dynamics – trade, sanctions, energy, defence spending – that directly affects European business strategy

Why organisations work with Heinz-Harald Frentzen Ten seasons in Formula One across Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows give him a first-hand account of how winning operations differ from losing ones at the same level of talent and budget. He finished second in the 1997 Drivers’ Championship and third in 1999 with Jordan, in both cases against better-resourced rivals. The lesson he carries into a room is about execution, not hierarchy. His HHF hybrid racing project, which completed the first fully electric lap of the Nordschleife at the 2008 Nurburgring 24 Hours, gives him a credible voice on sustainable engineering as a performance problem, not a compliance one. He is comfortable in both motivational and technical registers, which is unusual for an ex-driver. Engineering and R&D audiences get substance; commercial audiences get the human story behind it. Biography highlights Formula One driver from 1994 to 2003 for Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows. Runner-up in the 1997 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship with Williams. Three Grand Prix wins: San Marino 1997, French 1999 and Italian 1999. Finished third in the 1999 Drivers’ Championship with Jordan on 54 points, with two wins and six podiums. Conceived and built the HHF hybrid race car, which recorded the first electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife during the 2008 24 Hours race. Winner of the ROC Legends Cup at the 2011 Race of Champions; raced in DTM from 2004 to 2006 and competed at the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans with Aston Martin Racing. Biography The 1997 San Marino Grand Prix was Frentzen’s first Formula One victory. It came in his debut season at Williams, against a teammate, Jacques Villeneuve, who would take the title that year. He finished the season second in the championship. It is the decision-making that sits underneath a result like that, not the result itself, that organisations bring him in to talk about. Across a decade in Formula One with Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows, Frentzen operated inside five different team cultures. Some produced wins with fewer resources. Some did not. His vantage point is not the champion’s, which is often misread as pure individual brilliance. It is the vantage point of a driver who watched up close what separates a team that executes from one that does not. His most distinctive post-racing work is the HHF hybrid project. Using a Gumpert Apollo chassis and a battery system he developed himself, he completed the first fully electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife at the 2008 24 Hours, co-driving with Dirk Muller. Gearbox failures kept the car out of the classification, but the hybrid powertrain finished the race. It is one of the earlier serious attempts to treat electrification as a performance engineering problem in endurance racing. That combination of cockpit experience and hands-on technical development is what he draws on now. Audiences get a specific account of how sharp teams make sharp decisions under time pressure, and what it takes to keep a programme moving when the technology, the strategy and the people all have to improve at once. Key speaking topics Decision-making under time pressure High-performance team dynamics Leadership lessons from Formula One Sustainable engineering and hybrid technology Resilience and focus in elite performance Risk, trust and communication in high-stakes environments Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board awaydays focused on performance culture Engineering, R&D and innovation functions in automotive, mobility and advanced manufacturing Sales kick-offs and annual conferences wanting a credible motorsport voice alongside business content After-dinner and gala audiences where racing pedigree adds weight to the evening Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how elite motorsport teams align driver, engineer and strategist in real time A sharper view of what separates teams that execute under pressure from teams that do not Useable lessons on focus, preparation and trust, grounded in named races and named teams A credible perspective on hybrid and electrified engineering as a performance discipline, not a compliance exercise

Why organisations work with Helen Czerski She is an active research physicist inside the climate system, not a commentator on it. Her UCL work on bubbles at the ocean surface sits at the heart of how the atmosphere and ocean exchange heat and carbon, which gives her climate framing a physical basis that reads differently to a board than general sustainability narrative. Blue Machine gives her a defensible thesis audiences can hold onto: the ocean as a single connected engine that drives weather, food, trade and energy. That framing turns abstract climate discussion into something leaders can map to their own exposure. The Institute of Physics awarded her the 2018 Kelvin Medal specifically for translating physics to a mass audience. Few speakers pair that level of academic recognition with a track record on primetime BBC science. She has reached general business and policy audiences as the Wall Street Journal’s “Everyday Physics” columnist and as co-host of BBC Radio 4’s Rare Earth, which means she is used to explaining physics to readers and listeners who did not choose the subject. She treats curiosity as a leadership input. Her Storm in a Teacup thesis, that the rules governing the universe are visible in ordinary objects, lands as a practical argument for how technical organisations should see, question and investigate. Biography highlights Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, leading research on oceanic bubble physics, air-sea gas transfer and bubble acoustics. Natural Sciences (Physics) at Churchill College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD in experimental explosives physics; postdoctoral work at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Author of Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life and Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World (Penguin / W.W. Norton). 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation for Blue Machine. 2018 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for public communication of physics. BBC science presenter across Orbit, Operation Iceberg, Super Senses, Colour: The Spectrum of Science and Sound Waves; co-host of Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4; former “Everyday Physics” columnist at The Wall Street Journal. Biography The ocean is a physical engine that routes most of the planet’s heat, carbon and weather, and it is almost entirely absent from the way boards discuss climate. Helen Czerski’s work at University College London, where she leads research on breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface, sits precisely at the interface where that engine does its work. The research is technical. The implications are strategic. Blue Machine, her 2024 Wainwright Prize-winning book, is the public form of that argument. It treats the ocean as one connected system that moves nutrients, ships, storms and carbon, and explains why every industry with a coastline, a fleet or a climate commitment is already inside it. For leaders wrestling with transition plans, physical risk disclosures or supply chain exposure, Czerski offers a vocabulary that is physical rather than political. Her earlier book, Storm in a Teacup, established the method: start with something visible, coffee stains, popcorn, a magnet on a fridge, and work outward to the physics that governs how the world operates. That method earned her the 2018 Kelvin Medal from the Institute of Physics for public communication, and it carried through ten years of primetime BBC science including Orbit, Operation Iceberg and Super Senses, alongside her “Everyday Physics” column at The Wall Street Journal and co-hosting Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4. What she brings into a room is the rare combination of a working research scientist and a public explainer who has spent a decade translating physics for audiences that did not sign up to hear it. For an organisation trying to move from sustainability language to physical reality, that translation is the point. Key speaking topics Ocean physics and the climate system The ocean economy and physical risk Science of the energy transition Everyday physics for decision-makers Curiosity and scientific thinking in organisations Communicating technical complexity to non-technical audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, sustainability or transition strategy Energy, shipping, insurance and infrastructure leaders exposed to ocean and weather systems CTOs, heads of R&D and engineering leaders investing in technical capability Conferences where a serious science keynote needs to land with a mixed commercial audience Audience outcomes A working mental model of the ocean as a single physical system that connects weather, carbon, food and trade A sharper read on where climate and transition narratives rest on solid physics and where they do not Language for talking about physical risk and scientific uncertainty without defaulting to jargon or slogans A renewed case for curiosity as a disciplined practice inside technical and commercial teams

Why organisations work with Isabel Garro She has held the policy seat, the multilateral seat, and the operating seat. Special Advisor to Spain’s High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, founding Director General of the UN Global Compact Network Spain, now Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA at Votorantim Cimentos. Few ESG voices can read regulation, capital, and operations in one sitting. She built the institution that translates UN Global Compact commitments into corporate practice in Spain, then ran it for more than a decade. She speaks about ESG governance from the side that wrote the rules, not the side that complies with them. Her current operating role inside a major cement group means her view on climate transition is tested against one of the hardest decarbonisation problems in industry, not against a theoretical model. She is fluent in the gap between SDGs as communications and SDGs as commercial opportunity. The work is about which of the 17 goals contain a real margin, not which of them play well in a sustainability report. Biography highlights Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA, Votorantim Cimentos, since November 2023. Founding partner and CEO of 3a4b, a sustainability strategy advisory firm based in Madrid. Founding Executive Director and Director General, UN Global Compact Network Spain, for more than a decade. Special Advisor to the High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, Government of Spain, 2018 to 2020. President of the Local Networks Advisory Council of the UN Global Compact, the elected body that advises the Compact on regional decisions. Associate professor, Master’s in Competitive Social Transformation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and IE Business School. MBA, Brown University and IE Business School. Biography ESG arrived in the boardroom as a disclosure problem and is leaving as a capital allocation problem. The gap between what a company is required to say about sustainability and what it has to actually fund, build, and restructure to deliver on it has become one of the harder strategic questions of the decade. That gap is the territory Isabel Garro has worked in for more than twenty years, from the inside of government, the inside of the United Nations system, and now the inside of a major industrial group. She founded the UN Global Compact Network Spain in 2005 and led it for over a decade as Director General, building the institution that translates global sustainability commitments into Spanish corporate practice. She was then appointed Special Advisor to Spain’s High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, working on the integration of the SDGs into national policy. She has also chaired and now presides over the Local Networks Advisory Council of the UN Global Compact, the elected body representing networks in over 60 countries. Since November 2023 she has been Chief Sustainability Officer EMEA at Votorantim Cimentos, one of the largest cement and building materials groups in the world. That seat puts her inside one of the most operationally demanding decarbonisation problems in heavy industry, where the distance between net zero rhetoric and net zero engineering is unforgiving. She is also founding partner and CEO of 3a4b, advising organisations on sustainability strategy, and an associate professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and IE Business School on the Master’s in Competitive Social Transformation. What makes her useful in a room of senior leaders is the working hypothesis she brings: that sustainability is now a competitive variable, not an external compliance cost, and that the companies treating it as the former will allocate capital differently from those still treating it as the latter. She holds an MBA from Brown University and IE Business School. Key speaking topics ESG strategy and corporate governance The 2030 Agenda and SDGs as commercial opportunity Climate resilience and the decarbonisation of heavy industry Sustainable supply chains and stakeholder governance Sustainability reporting and regulatory change in Europe Regenerative business design and circular economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting ESG and climate strategy under tightening EU regulation Chief Sustainability Officers, Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers building the operating layer behind sustainability commitments Industrial, infrastructure and capital-intensive groups facing real decarbonisation costs Public-private leadership forums on the SDGs, 2030 Agenda, and corporate-government cooperation Audience outcomes A clearer separation between ESG as disclosure and ESG as operating substance, with the questions a board should be asking about each A working view of which of the 17 SDGs contain commercial margin for a given business model An honest read on the gap between net zero communication and net zero capital expenditure A practical map of how European sustainability regulation is reshaping corporate strategy this decade

Why organisations work with James Woudhuysen He treats forecasting as a discipline, not a performance. His work is built on decades of market intelligence at Philips and Seymour Powell, which gives his calls on technology and consumer behaviour a base of operating evidence rather than commentary. He argues against received wisdom on energy, climate and innovation in print, repeatedly. For boards reviewing capital allocation in those areas, that contrarian record is the value, not a stylistic feature. He covers innovation across energy, IT, construction, transport and the office in a single frame. That breadth lets him explain why an emerging technology will or will not change a sector, drawing on adjacent precedents most specialists miss. He writes and lectures with named sources and statistics, not slogans. The work is closer to a serious editorial brief than to a futures keynote, and it stands up to scrutiny in a room of operators. Biography highlights Visiting Professor of Forecasting and Innovation, London South Bank University Co-author, Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation (Beautiful Books, 2009) with Joe Kaplinsky Co-author, Why is Construction so Backward? (Wiley-Academy, 2004) with Ian Abley Co-author, Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation (Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2012) Former Chief of Worldwide Market Intelligence, Philips Consumer Electronics; former Director, Seymour Powell Editor of Design magazine (1979 to 1982); co-founder of Blueprint; contributor to The Economist, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian and spiked Biography Most forecasts about technology repeat the dominant narrative back to the buyer. The harder, more useful question is which parts of the consensus are wrong, and where the capital and political assumptions behind it are about to break. That has been the working question across four decades of Woudhuysen’s career, from physics at Sussex to running worldwide market intelligence at Philips Consumer Electronics in the Netherlands. His chair at London South Bank University is in Forecasting and Innovation, and the topics he writes on cover energy systems, construction, IT, infrastructure and consumer technology in a single frame. Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation, co-authored with Joe Kaplinsky in 2009, argued that the response to climate change should be heavy investment in supply-side energy technology, not moralising about consumption. The argument set the template for his later commentary in spiked, The Economist and The Times. The corporate record matters because it grounds the work. Three years as Chief of Worldwide Market Intelligence at Philips, four years as a director at Seymour Powell, decades of consulting reports for clients including Amadeus, Brother UK and UK Trade and Investment. He edited Design magazine in the early 1980s and co-founded Blueprint. That combination of operating intelligence and sustained published commentary is what makes the forecasting calls credible. His co-authored manifesto Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation was published in 2010 and republished by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press in 2012, and his earlier book Why is Construction so Backward? remains a reference point in the industry’s productivity debate. The through-line across the work is a defence of ambitious innovation against what he sees as the cultural reasons organisations and governments hesitate to pursue it. Key speaking topics The future of energy and the limits of net zero policy Forecasting technology and consumer behaviour Innovation in construction, infrastructure and transport The economics and politics of climate policy The future of work and the office Globalisation, China and the geography of R&D Market intelligence and competitive foresight Ideal for Boards and executive committees reviewing long-range capital allocation in energy, infrastructure or industrial technology Chief Strategy Officers and innovation leads briefing on technology cycles and emerging markets Senior teams in construction, manufacturing and consumer technology rethinking their productivity assumptions Investor and analyst forums looking for a contrarian read on energy transition and innovation policy Audience outcomes A clearer sense of which technology and energy forecasts the audience should trust and which it should challenge A working framework for telling structural change from cyclical noise across sectors A concrete account of why innovation slows in mature sectors and what unblocks it Named arguments and data the audience can take into their own strategy and capital decisions

Why organisations work with Javier Solana Very few people alive have run both NATO and the EU’s foreign policy machinery. His read on transatlantic, Russian and Chinese intent is grounded in a decade of handling the actual files, not in commentary. He was the signing hand on the 2003 European Security Strategy, the document that still frames how European governments think about security, neighbourhood and partnership. Leadership teams exposed to European regulation get the logic from the source. His current work at EsadeGeo and Brookings is forward looking, not memoir. Briefings engage with AI governance, supply chain fragmentation, climate diplomacy and the fragility of the rules based order. He is a working columnist at Project Syndicate, publishing into 2026 on US-China competition, European strategic autonomy and the future of multilateralism. Boards get a current thesis, not career recollections. He operates comfortably as a counterpart to a CEO, chair or sovereign, and speaks to leadership teams on that level. The register is peer to peer, not lecture. Biography highlights Secretary General of NATO, 1995 to 1999, including the alliance’s first post-Cold War enlargement and the 1999 Kosovo campaign. European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary General of the Council of the EU, 1999 to 2009. Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1992 to 1995, and earlier holder of the Culture and Education and Science portfolios under Felipe Gonzalez. President, EsadeGeo – Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, Barcelona and Madrid. Distinguished Fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School, Berlin. Charlemagne Prize 2007 and Carlos V European Award 2011 for services to European integration. Biography The European Security Strategy was signed in Brussels in December 2003. It was the first time the Union had put its name to a single, coherent description of what it was for in the world, what it was willing to defend, and how it intended to act with partners. Solana drafted it. Much of the architecture that European governments, and the companies that operate across them, still live inside was laid down in that document. Before Brussels, there was Kosovo. As Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999, he held together a nineteen-member alliance through the most contested military operation in its history, while also overseeing its first enlargement since the Cold War. Before NATO, he had spent thirteen years in the Spanish cabinet under Felipe Gonzalez, including three years as Foreign Minister. The arc is unusual: national politics, military alliance, civilian foreign policy, all at the top of each. He now runs EsadeGeo, the Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics he founded in Barcelona and Madrid in 2010, and is a Distinguished Fellow at Brookings and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin. He chairs Aspen Institute Espana and sits on the boards of Human Rights Watch, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Crisis Group. What he offers a leadership audience is not the memoir of the files he handled. It is a structural read of where the international order is breaking, where it is holding, and what boards and executive teams should be doing with that information before the next shock lands on the balance sheet. Key speaking topics The future of the rules based international order Transatlantic relations and European strategic autonomy US-China competition and the implications for global business Geopolitics of the energy transition and climate diplomacy NATO, European security and the war in Ukraine Multilateralism and global governance reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to Europe, the US and China CEOs, chairs and chief strategy officers setting five to ten year strategic plans under geopolitical uncertainty Senior policy, risk and government affairs leads at financial institutions, energy and industrial groups Audience outcomes A working model of which pillars of the international order are cracking, which are holding, and where corporate risk actually sits. A sharper read on European policy intent on China, industrial strategy, energy and sanctions, from the person who helped write the doctrine. Concrete framing on what transatlantic drift and US-China competition mean for supply chains, capital allocation and market access. A sense of how peers at the sovereign and multilateral level are framing the same questions your board is wrestling with.

Why organisations work with Javier Verdura He has shipped category-defining hardware, not slide decks. The Supercharger form, the Powerwall housing and the Solar Roof tile are his team’s work, manufactured globally. He is named inventor on more than 130 patents across surgical equipment, consumer products, packaging and energy hardware. The range is the point: the discipline travels across sectors. He operates inside one of the most demanding product environments in the world, reporting into a company that asks its teams to “fail fast” and still hit volume. Leaders hear how that actually runs day to day. He can speak to the handoff between design, engineering and manufacturing, which is where most product organisations lose time and money. His philosophy is explicit: if you can’t manufacture what you create, it is not worth designing. He brings a credible Latin American voice into rooms that rarely hear one at this level of product leadership, which matters for organisations building global teams. Biography highlights Global Director of Product Design at Tesla since 2012. Product design lead on the Tesla Supercharger network, Powerwall home battery and Solar Roof. Named inventor on more than 130 patents. Graduate of ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena (BS Product Design, 1991). Former VP of Industrial Design and Development at Product Ventures (Connecticut), where he spent roughly 15 years before Tesla. Has taught industrial design at Georgia Tech School of Design and Architecture and at Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM). Biography The Supercharger stall, the Powerwall on the garage wall, the Solar Roof tile that reads as a roof before it reads as a panel. All three had to look inevitable and be manufacturable at volume. Javier Verdura leads the team inside Tesla that does that work, and has since 2012. His route in was unusual. Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, an ArtCenter classmate, called in 2012 and asked him to run product design. By then, Verdura had already spent a full career in industrial design consultancy: senior designer at Group 4 Design in Connecticut, design manager at Inno Design in Atlanta, then fifteen years as VP of design and development at Product Ventures, shipping surgical instruments, consumer goods and packaging for clients including Ingersoll-Rand, Kodak and Panasonic. The through-line is manufacturability. Verdura states his philosophy plainly: if you can’t make what you design, it isn’t worth designing. That discipline is what Tesla bought when it hired him, and it is the lens he brings to audiences wrestling with why their own product pipelines stall between concept and line. He holds more than 130 patents, a BS in Product Design from ArtCenter (1991), and teaching posts at Georgia Tech and Universidad de Monterrey. He is one of the most senior Mexican-born product leaders in the global technology sector, a fact that gives his accounts of working inside Tesla an additional resonance for organisations thinking about where their next generation of design and engineering talent comes from. Key speaking topics Product design leadership at scale Design-to-manufacture discipline Innovation inside Tesla: Supercharger, Powerwall, Solar Roof Electric vehicles and the energy transition Patent-driven product development Building global design and engineering teams Latin American talent in global technology Ideal for CEOs, CPOs and heads of R&D running product organisations where design, engineering and manufacturing have to meet on the same timeline. Boards and leadership teams in automotive, energy, consumer hardware and industrials benchmarking their innovation pipeline against Tesla’s. Design and engineering leadership summits that want an operator, not a theorist. Corporate events building Latino and Hispanic executive networks at a senior technical level. Audience outcomes A clear, first-hand account of how Tesla turns a pencil sketch into manufactured hardware at a global scale. The operating logic behind “fail fast” when the failures cost real capital, not slideware. A practical view of where most product organisations break between design, engineering and manufacturing, and where Tesla’s handoff is structured differently. Specific examples from the Supercharger, Powerwall and Solar Roof programmes, not generic innovation theory. A sharper sense of what a modern product leadership function has to look like to ship category-defining hardware.

Why organisations work with Jeremy Rifkin He is the architect of an economic framework that the European Parliament adopted by formal declaration in 2007 and that has been translated into multi-hundred-page regional deployment roadmaps in Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam-The Hague, and Luxembourg. He has advised four European Commission presidents in sequence (Prodi, Barroso, Juncker, von der Leyen) and held that advisory line through three political cycles, which is rare for any external economic thinker. His thesis connects energy, communication, and mobility infrastructure into a single capital story, so boards leave with a way to sequence decarbonisation, digital, and supply chain decisions instead of treating them as separate budget lines. His twenty-plus books, including The End of Work, The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua, give him a body of work that named institutional buyers already know, which shortens the credibility conversation inside large organisations. He taught CEOs and senior leadership at Wharton Executive Education from 1995 to 2016, so the register is built for senior corporate audiences, not policy seminars. Biography highlights Principal architect of the Third Industrial Revolution economic plan, formally endorsed by the European Parliament in May 2007. Advisor to the European Commission under presidents Romano Prodi, Jose Manuel Barroso, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Ursula von der Leyen. President of TIR Consulting Group LLC, which has produced full Third Industrial Revolution roadmaps for the Hauts-de-France region, the Metropolitan Region of Rotterdam and The Hague, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Author of 20+ books translated into more than thirty languages, including The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua. Senior lecturer, Wharton School Executive Education Program, University of Pennsylvania, 1995 to 2016. Recipient of the 13th German Sustainability Award (2020) and honorary doctorates from Hasselt University and the University of Liege (2015). Biography The European Parliament formally endorsed the Third Industrial Revolution as a long-term economic road map in May 2007. Jeremy Rifkin wrote it. Since then, the framework has been the reference document behind successive Commission decisions on energy, digital, and mobility infrastructure, and behind regional deployment plans in Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam and The Hague, and Luxembourg. The argument is that every major economic shift in history is a convergence of three infrastructures: communication, energy, and transport. When those three move together, the productive base of the economy is rebuilt. Rifkin’s contribution is to specify what that convergence looks like now, with a digital communication internet, a renewable energy internet, and an automated mobility internet, and to put numbers, sequencing, and policy choices around it. That is the work he has carried into advisory rooms across four European Commission presidencies, from Prodi to von der Leyen, and into engagements with the Chinese leadership during the run-up to the 13th Five-Year Plan. His TIR Consulting Group brings utilities, ICT firms, and engineering and construction companies into the same room as regional governments to design the roadmaps in detail. The body of work behind the advisory practice is unusually large. Twenty-plus books, translated into more than thirty languages, running from The End of Work through The Third Industrial Revolution, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, The Green New Deal, The Age of Resilience, and Planet Aqua (2024), selected by Nature among its five best science picks of the year. The German Sustainability Award followed in 2020. Few speakers in the energy and economy field can point to a framework that a parliament has formally adopted and that is being built, region by region, on the ground. Key speaking topics The Third Industrial Revolution Energy transition and the renewable energy internet The economics of decarbonisation Smart infrastructure and the Internet of Things economy The future of work in a zero marginal cost economy Climate resilience and the age of rewilding Water, food, and the planetary economy Geopolitics of the green transition Ideal for Boards and executive committees building multi-decade capital plans for the energy transition. CEOs, CSOs, and heads of strategy in energy, utilities, infrastructure, mobility, real estate, and heavy industry. Policy and public affairs leaders working across the EU, national governments, and city regions. Investor audiences allocating to climate, infrastructure, and transition capital. Audience outcomes A common framework for connecting energy, digital, and mobility investment decisions into one capital story. A clearer view of how EU and major regional climate policy is likely to evolve, and what that means for sector-by-sector capital allocation. Specific reference points from the Hauts-de-France, Rotterdam-The Hague, and Luxembourg roadmaps that can be applied to a company’s own transition plan. A sharper sense of where the platform, ownership, and competitive economics of energy and mobility are heading as marginal costs fall. Language and argument that translate well to a board, to investors, and to regulators.

Why organisations work with Johan Rockstrom He is the originator, not the explainer, of the framework that now sits beneath the TNFD, Science Based Targets and a growing share of corporate climate disclosure. Organisations come to him for the source, not the summary. He connects nine specific Earth systems, from climate to freshwater to biogeochemical flows, to commercial decisions on capital, supply chain and product. Boards leave with a map of which limits actually constrain their business. He carries scientific authority that holds in regulator and investor rooms. The 2024 Tyler Prize, the 2009 Nature paper and the directorship of the Potsdam Institute mean his framing survives external scrutiny. He has spent two decades inside the policy process at Davos, the Club of Rome and UN climate negotiations. He speaks to executives in their language about decisions, trade-offs and time horizons, not in the language of an academic seminar. Biography highlights Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), since 2018 Professor of Earth System Science, University of Potsdam Lead author, “A safe operating space for humanity,” Nature, 2009 Co-founder and former Director, Stockholm Resilience Centre (2004 to 2018) 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement; German Environmental Prize (2015); International Cosmos Prize (2015); Hillary Laureate (2017); Knight of the Legion of Honour (2016) Co-author, Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity (2022), the report to the Club of Rome marking 50 years since Limits to Growth Biography In 2009, a paper in Nature titled “A safe operating space for humanity” set out nine biophysical systems that keep the planet in the conditions civilisation grew up in. Johan Rockstrom led the team of 28 international scientists behind it. The framework, planetary boundaries, has since become the scientific foundation for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, the Science Based Targets Network and a widening set of corporate and regulatory climate frameworks. That work is now the working definition of environmental risk in serious institutions. Boards, central banks and investors increasingly need a defensible answer to the question of where the limits actually lie, and his framework supplies it. The 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, often called the Nobel for the environment, recognised the framework as the field-defining contribution. He directs the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the leading climate science institutions in Europe, and holds the chair in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam. Before Potsdam, he co-founded and ran the Stockholm Resilience Centre for fourteen years. He is a co-author of Earth for All, the 2022 report to the Club of Rome that revisits Limits to Growth fifty years on with concrete economic and policy turnarounds. The room he tends to be most useful in is the one where strategy meets disclosure: where leadership has to decide which targets to commit to, which trade-offs to accept and how to justify both to investors and regulators. He is unusually direct about the scale of action required and equally direct about what is still possible inside that window. Key speaking topics Planetary boundaries and Earth system risk Climate tipping points and resilience The science behind ESG, TNFD and Science Based Targets Food, land and water systems within planetary limits Net zero and the energy transition Sustainable economic transformation and the Earth for All agenda Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting climate, nature and ESG strategy under tightening disclosure regimes CSOs, Chief Risk Officers and Chief Sustainability Officers building defensible science-based targets Investors, banks and asset managers integrating climate and nature risk into capital allocation Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on energy, food and land system transitions Audience outcomes A working understanding of the nine planetary boundaries and which ones materially affect their sector A clearer view of how regulatory frameworks (TNFD, SBTN, EU disclosure) trace back to the underlying science A direct read on where global climate and nature trajectories sit relative to scientific safe limits Sharper questions for their own strategy and risk teams about which limits the business actually operates inside A grounded sense of what credible action looks like at the scale and pace the science requires

Why organisations work with John Sitilides He has trained the U.S. diplomats who execute American policy in southern Europe, chairing the State Department Foreign Service Institute’s Advanced Area Studies Program since 2006. That insider vantage point is rare on a corporate stage. He has consulted to the State Department under four U.S. presidential administrations across both parties, which gives boards a reading of Washington that is not tied to one political cycle. His Foreign Policy Research Institute work, including bylined analyses on NATO and the alliance’s posture toward Russia, gives investment committees a defensible framework for European and transatlantic exposure. He translates trade, energy, technology, and security flashpoints into specific commercial implications for capital allocation, supply chains, and regulatory strategy, rather than offering broad commentary. He is a working operator inside Washington as Principal of Trilogy Advisors, so his read on regulatory and political risk is sourced from current client work, not retrospective analysis. Biography highlights Principal, Trilogy Advisors LLC, Washington D.C., advising on U.S. government affairs, regulatory reform, and geopolitical risk. Senior Fellow, National Security Program, Foreign Policy Research Institute. Chair of the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute’s Advanced Area Studies Program for Southeast Europe under government contract since 2006. Founder of the Western Policy Center; negotiated its 2004 merger into the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, then chaired the Wilson Center Southeast Europe Project advisory board through 2011. Regular geopolitical commentator on Bloomberg, CNN, CNN International, FOX News, Newsmax, and NewsNation, with commentary cited in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, NPR, and South China Morning Post. Master’s degree, International and Public Affairs, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Biography The U.S. trained the diplomats running its Southern Europe portfolio inside the Foreign Service Institute. The chair of that Advanced Area Studies Program since 2006, under State Department contract, is John Sitilides. That role sits behind almost everything else he does on a public stage. His day job is Principal at Trilogy Advisors LLC in Washington, where he advises on U.S. government affairs, regulatory strategy, and geopolitical risk. He is also a Senior Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where his recent bylined work has tracked NATO’s posture and the alliance agenda heading into successive summits. Earlier, he founded the Western Policy Center, a Washington research organisation tracking U.S., NATO, and EU interests in southeastern Europe. He negotiated its 2004 merger into the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and chaired the Wilson Center Southeast Europe Project advisory board through 2011. He has testified before Congress, contributed chapters to volumes published by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Committee and the Italian think tank ISPI, and is cited regularly across the major U.S. broadcast networks and the international financial press. For a corporate audience, the value is the synthesis. He sits inside the Washington policy machine, trains the people who run U.S. diplomacy in a critical region, and writes for serious foreign policy outlets. When he speaks to a board, the analysis is sourced from that day’s working environment. Key speaking topics U.S. foreign policy and great power competition Geopolitical and geo-economic risk for global business Trade, technology, and energy security NATO, Europe, and transatlantic relations Washington political risk and U.S. government affairs The Indo-Pacific and U.S.-China strategic competition Ideal for Corporate boards and CEO advisory sessions setting global strategy under geopolitical uncertainty Investment committees, asset managers, and CIO offices pricing political and policy risk Policy, government affairs, and risk leaders briefing executive teams on Washington decisions Industry conferences in financial services, energy, defence, and technology that need a credentialled Washington voice Audience outcomes A working framework for reading U.S. foreign policy signals and translating them into commercial decisions A current view of great power competition between the United States, China, and Russia and what it means for trade, technology, and energy positioning A clearer read on Washington’s regulatory and policy direction across administrations, not tied to one political cycle Specific implications for capital allocation, market entry, and supply chain exposure in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the Middle East Confidence that the analysis is sourced from active policy and diplomatic practice, not commentary at a distance