Energy Transition speakers

Why organisations work with Manuel Maqueda He teaches the working mechanics of circular and regenerative economics at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, and built the equivalent programmes at UC Berkeley Extension and UCLA Extension. The intellectual content has been tested on senior professional audiences for years. He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition and runs SUPER, a certification programme that operationalises single-use plastics elimination inside real businesses. The advice is operator-grade, not lecture-grade. He bridges sustainability and AI through Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response. Boards facing both decarbonisation and AI agendas get one voice across both. His client list includes Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber, Santander and the New Plastics Economy Conference. He is fluent across deep-tech, financial services and policy audiences. He delivers in English and Spanish, useful for Iberian, Latin American and Pan-American programmes where most sustainability authorities are anglophone only. Biography highlights Special Program Instructor, Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education. Architect of the Circular Economy Program at UCLA Extension and the Circular Economy online course at UC Berkeley Extension. Co-founder, Plastic Pollution Coalition; CEO and co-founder, SUPER (Single-Use Plastics Elimination or Reduction). Co-founder, Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response. Adviser to the Long Now Foundation; producer associated with the award-winning documentary Albatross on plastic pollution. Author of the forthcoming book The Meaning Economy on regenerative economics; speaking clients include Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber and Santander. Biography Most sustainability programmes inside large companies are still organised around doing less harm. They count carbon, swap materials, and add disclosures, while the core business model continues to extract, consume and discard. The leaders running them know the gap, and they are looking for a credible account of what an actual circular or regenerative business looks like. That account is the working content of Manuel Maqueda’s teaching at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, where he is Special Program Instructor in Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics. He built the equivalent programmes at UCLA Extension and UC Berkeley Extension. The frame he uses is practical: maintain the value of materials, components and products in use; eliminate waste and pollution by design; and where possible restore natural capital rather than only protecting it. His authority is not only academic. He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance on plastics, and runs SUPER, a tiered certification programme for businesses eliminating single-use plastics from their operations. Through Viento.ai he co-founded a venture applying machine learning to climate disaster response, which gives him a working view of where AI helps and where it does not in the climate agenda. Maqueda has advised the Long Now Foundation, contributed to the documentary Albatross, and speaks for clients including Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell and the New Plastics Economy Conference. His forthcoming book The Meaning Economy sets out his case that only regenerative thinking provides a serious framework for the next phase of climate action and commercial reinvention. Key speaking topics Circular economy strategy and implementation Regenerative economics and business models Plastic pollution and materials innovation Sustainability failure modes inside large organisations Supply chain redesign for circularity AI for climate resilience and disaster response Ideal for Boards and executive committees of consumer goods, retail, materials and industrial companies revisiting their sustainability strategy. Chief Sustainability Officers, Chief Supply Chain Officers and Chief Strategy Officers preparing the next ESG operating cycle. Innovation, R&D and product leaders responsible for materials choices and packaging redesign. Policy, public sector and city government audiences working on plastics, circularity and climate adaptation. Audience outcomes A working distinction between eco-efficiency, circular and regenerative business models, and where each one actually applies. The specific failure patterns that make corporate sustainability programmes stall, and what to do instead. A view of where AI changes the climate and resilience agenda for executives, and where it does not. Language and examples senior leaders can use with their board when proposing a more ambitious sustainability operating model.

Why organisations work with Marga Hoek She has run the institutions she now advises on. As founder and CEO of De Groene Zaak, the Dutch Sustainable Business Association, she built the policy-side organisation that pushed Dutch business onto a sustainability footing, then took the same argument to the supervisory boards of Aegon, SUSI Partners and Earth Capital. Her three books have set a sequence: New Economy Business (2014) framed shared value, The Trillion Dollar Shift (2018) mapped the SDGs as a business opportunity, Tech For Good (2023) translated Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies into specific corporate use cases. Both later books carry Axiom Business Book Awards. She speaks with operating credibility on sustainable capital, which is rare. Most ESG voices come from academia or activism. Hoek sits on the supervisory boards of institutions allocating billions into the energy transition, infrastructure and real estate. Her argument that “Business for Good is Good Business”, coined in 2014, has aged into the dominant board framing for ESG. She is one of the people who put it there. Biography highlights Three-time CEO across private and public sectors, including Thunissen (Dutch construction) and the Municipality of Haarlemmermeer. Founder and CEO of De Groene Zaak, the Dutch Sustainable Business Association, from 2009 to 2017. Author of three Routledge titles: New Economy Business (2014), The Trillion Dollar Shift (2018) and Tech For Good (2023). Gold Axiom Business Book Awards for The Trillion Dollar Shift (2019) and Tech For Good (2024). Thinkers50-recognised; featured on the Thinkers50 podcast. Supervisory and advisory board roles at Aegon Nederland, SUSI Partners, Redevco, ArcTern Ventures and Earth Capital. Media coverage in Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, Forbes and Fortune. Biography The argument that sustainability is good business is now uncontested in principle and unevenly applied in practice. Marga Hoek has spent fifteen years closing that gap from inside the institutions that allocate the capital. As founder and CEO of De Groene Zaak, the Dutch Sustainable Business Association, she built the body that pushed corporate Netherlands onto a sustainability footing between 2009 and 2017. That operating background is what differentiates her work. She sits on the Supervisory Board of Aegon Nederland, the Supervisory Board of SUSI Partners, the International Advisory Council of Redevco, and advisory boards at ArcTern Ventures and Earth Capital. Each of these is a vehicle for capital flowing into the energy transition, sustainable infrastructure or climate technology. She is not describing the shift, she is helping govern it. Her three Routledge books form a sequence. New Economy Business (2014) won Management Book of the Year and established shared value as a commercial argument. The Trillion Dollar Shift (2018) mapped the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals as named market opportunities and won the Gold Axiom Business Book Award in 2019. Tech For Good (2023) translated artificial intelligence, blockchain, robotics and other Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies into specific corporate applications against climate, biodiversity and inequality, and won Gold Axiom in 2024. Thinkers50 recognises her, and the Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, Forbes and Fortune have covered the work. The reason senior buyers commission her is more specific. She has the rare profile of an operator who has been responsible for sustainability decisions at executive level, an author whose frameworks have been adopted by boards, and a non-executive sitting on the capital side of the transition. Key speaking topics Sustainable business and capital ESG and the Sustainable Development Goals Energy transition and climate finance Purpose-driven leadership Technology for good and the Fourth Industrial Revolution Sustainable investing and capital allocation Board governance of ESG Ideal for Boards and supervisory boards setting or reviewing ESG and net zero commitments CEOs, CFOs and Chief Sustainability Officers translating commitments into operating decisions Asset managers, institutional investors and family offices allocating into the transition Financial services, real estate and infrastructure leadership teams Audience outcomes A clearer view of where ESG narrative is failing to convert into capital allocation, and where it is. Named examples of companies and investors who have made the commercial case for sustainability work. A framework for using Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies against specific sustainability outcomes rather than as generic transformation. A board-level vocabulary for distinguishing substantive ESG progress from disclosure activity.

Why organisations work with Mike Kaplin Built sustainability under genuine resource constraints. The Center for Creative Ecology at Kibbutz Lotan has spent nearly three decades producing food, energy, and shelter from waste streams and brackish water in the Arava desert. Pioneering work on natural building in Israel led to the legalisation of natural building regulations there, a rare case of grassroots ecological practice changing the regulatory environment. A working demonstration site to point to: around 700 Israeli and international participants have come through the Green Apprenticeship programme since 2000, and the regenerative system can be examined in operation rather than only on paper. Integrated regenerative practice runs as one connected operation, where organic agriculture, alternative energy, natural construction, and waste management feed into each other. Biography highlights Co-founder and Director of the Center for Creative Ecology (CfCE) at Kibbutz Lotan, established in 1997. One of Israel’s first permaculturists; pioneered the country’s first recycling area. Led the natural building work that contributed to the legalisation of natural building regulations in Israel. Initiator and coordinator of the Green Apprenticeship work/study programme. Around 700 Israeli and international participants have completed it since 2000. The Center for Creative Ecology received the Israel Ministry of the Environment’s Shield award in 2000 for environmental education. Kibbutz Lotan received the Global Ecovillage Network’s Ecovillage Excellence prize in 2006. Biography Kibbutz Lotan sits in the southern Arava desert, where the founding settlers had little more than sand and brackish water to work with. The Center for Creative Ecology grew out of that constraint. Established in 1997, the CfCE has become a working centre for training, research, and demonstration in sustainability under arid conditions. Mike Kaplin co-founded it and now directs it. The work spans organic food production from composted municipal and agricultural waste, energy-efficient construction using straw bale and natural materials, water systems built around brackish irrigation, and community waste management. Every part has been built, run, refined, and documented on site. Some of the work has reshaped what Israel allows. Mike’s pioneering of natural building methods contributed to the legalisation of natural building regulations in Israel, and the recycling area he developed at Lotan was the country’s first. The CfCE received the Israel Ministry of the Environment’s Shield award in 2000 for environmental education; Kibbutz Lotan received the Global Ecovillage Network’s Ecovillage Excellence prize in 2006. Around 700 participants from Israel and overseas have come through the Green Apprenticeship programme since 2000, learning permaculture design, natural building, and community-scale sustainability on the kibbutz itself. For organisations rethinking their use of resources, Lotan offers something unusual: a board can examine operations that have run for decades, in conditions harsher than any corporate setting, and ask what transfers. Key speaking topics Permaculture design Sustainable agriculture in arid environments Natural and ecological building Community-scale waste management Organic food production from composted waste Renewable energy in desert conditions Regenerative community design Ideal for Sustainability and ESG leaders are looking for working examples of regenerative practice rather than aspirational frameworks. Boards examining what climate transition demands are at the operational level, including under genuine resource constraints. Real estate, construction, and built-environment teams interested in natural building methods and the regulatory work that legalised them in Israel. Education and learning leaders responsible for designing experiential sustainability programmes. Audience outcomes Direct examples of regenerative practice from a desert site that has run since 1997. The story behind one of Israel’s clearest cases of grassroots practice changing national regulation, via natural building. A working reference point for integrated sustainability across food, water, energy, and waste, designed as a single system. What serious sustainability looks like when supply chains and conventional inputs cannot be assumed, drawn directly from the operations Lotan has run for decades.

Why organisations work with Narendra Taneja Reads global energy from an Indian and Global South vantage point that Western commentary routinely misses, particularly on the gap between developed-world decarbonisation timelines and emerging-economy growth needs. Holds standing in both academic and policy worlds: Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Chairman of the Independent Energy Policy Institute in New Delhi. Speaks directly into the operator and investor audience he has worked alongside for over two decades, having served as Founder President of the World Oil & Gas Assembly between 2001 and 2011. Carries advisory weight across multilateral energy forums, with seats on the ONS International Advisory Board in Norway and the Energy Intelligence Group’s Advisory Board in the United States. Tested in the highest-pressure broadcast formats, including BBC HARDtalk and CNN’s Amanpour, where energy claims have to survive cross-examination. Biography highlights Chairman, Independent Energy Policy Institute, New Delhi Distinguished Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies Founder President, World Energy Policy Summit; former Founder President, World Oil & Gas Assembly (2001 to 2011) International Advisory Board member, ONS Foundation (Norway) and Energy Intelligence Group (United States) Former National Convener of the BJP Energy Cell and former National Spokesperson for the BJP Regular contributor to BBC HARDtalk, CNN’s Amanpour and major Indian and international media Biography India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and third-largest electricity producer. It is also among the most climate-exposed major economies, with historical cumulative emissions far below those of the United States or China. The global energy transition will not be solved by Western timelines alone, and the implications run through New Delhi. Narendra Taneja works the seam between rich-world and emerging-economy energy systems. He is Chairman of the Independent Energy Policy Institute in New Delhi and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. That dual standing puts him inside the academic debate on transition and inside the policy machinery that has to act on it. His operator credibility is older. He was Founder President of the World Oil & Gas Assembly from 2001 to 2011, the decade energy moved from sector concern to the centre of foreign policy. He now leads the World Energy Policy Summit and holds advisory seats on the ONS International Advisory Board in Norway and the Energy Intelligence Group in the United States. His public reach is unusual for a policy specialist. He served as National Convenor of the BJP Energy Cell and as National Spokesperson for India’s governing party, with direct line of sight into one of the world’s largest energy markets. He appears regularly on BBC HARDtalk and CNN’s Amanpour. He is widely cited as a powerful voice on the energy question between rich and developing economies, a position most international commentary still struggles to hold. Key speaking topics Energy geopolitics and global energy systems Energy security and supply dynamics Energy transition policy across Global North and Global South Oil and gas markets in a decarbonising world India’s energy strategy and global role Geopolitics of climate policy Political risk in emerging market energy Ideal for Energy and utilities boards weighing transition strategy and capital allocation Investors and asset managers with cross-border exposure to oil, gas and renewables Government and policy audiences engaging with India and the wider Global South International business forums analysing geopolitical risk in energy markets Audience outcomes How Global North decarbonisation timelines collide with Global South growth imperatives, and what that means for capital allocation Where political risk actually sits inside the energy transition, by region and asset class A working view of India’s energy strategy and its implications for global supply and capital flows Sharper questions to ask before approving long-horizon energy investment or partnership decisions

Why organisations work with Nicholas Stern He authored the most influential economic study of climate change ever commissioned by a government. The Stern Review (2006) put the cost of inaction at 5 to 20 percent of global GDP and reframed climate as the largest market failure in economic history. Boards and treasuries still cite it as the standard reference. He is a former Chief Economist of both the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and a former Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury. The institutional authority means he speaks to investment committees and finance ministries from inside their own decision frameworks. He chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE, the centre that produces the analytical work most quoted in serious climate finance and net-zero policy debate. His talks draw on its current research. He co-chaired the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices, the bodies that shaped how governments and central banks now approach carbon pricing and transition finance. He is a crossbench life peer in the UK House of Lords and a Companion of Honour. His arguments are taken seriously across political administrations and inside major financial institutions because they sit outside any party or commercial alignment. Biography highlights IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at LSE and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment Lead author of The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (HM Treasury, 2006) Author of The Growth Story of the 21st Century (LSE Press, 2025), updating the Review’s economic case for climate action two decades on Former Chief Economist of the World Bank and of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; former Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury and Head of the UK Government Economic Service Crossbench life peer in the UK House of Lords as Baron Stern of Brentford; Companion of Honour; Fellow of the Royal Society; former President of the British Academy Recipient of the Blue Planet Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, the Leontief Prize and the Schumpeter Award Biography For two decades, the question of whether climate action makes economic sense has shaped how governments and large financial institutions make capital decisions. The Stern Review, published by HM Treasury in 2006, is the document that gave that question its first authoritative answer. It put the cost of inaction at 5 to 20 percent of global GDP and framed climate change as the largest market failure in economic history. The case it made for early action is still cited by policymakers and finance ministries today. Stern’s authority on this rests on an unusually broad institutional base. He was Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2000 to 2003, having previously held the same role at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He was also Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury and Head of the UK Government Economic Service during the period when the Review was conducted. He now chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. Its analysis is the reference most often cited in serious debate over climate finance and net-zero costs. He also co-chaired the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices and the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, the latter with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Paul Polman. He sits in the UK House of Lords as a crossbench peer and was made a Companion of Honour in 2017. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a former President of the British Academy. His most recent book, The Growth Story of the 21st Century (LSE Press, 2025), revisits the Review two decades on and frames climate action as the central growth opportunity of the next two decades. Key speaking topics Economics of climate change Climate risk and capital allocation Net-zero policy and the energy transition Climate finance for emerging economies Sustainable growth and economic development Policy design for the climate transition Ideal for Boards of financial institutions and large industrial firms with material climate exposure Finance ministries, central banks and senior government policymakers working on transition policy Chief sustainability officers and chief climate officers at multinational organisations Asset owners and fund managers with net-zero or transition mandates Audience outcomes An economic argument for climate action that holds up against board-level scepticism A clearer view of where capital is and is not flowing in the energy transition, and what that means for investment and policy decisions A working understanding of how carbon pricing now sits inside government and central bank thinking A defensible position on the economics of net zero that can be referenced and revisited inside the organisation

Why organisations work with Nikolas Badminton He brings a published, named foresight methodology to the room. The Positive Dystopia Canvas, set out in Facing Our Futures, is a structured tool for stress-testing strategy against scenarios leaders would rather not entertain. He has worked the discipline at scale, with leadership teams at NASA, JP Morgan, Disney, Rolls Royce, the United Nations, and the UK Home Office. The methods on stage have been tested in serious rooms first. He bridges AI capability and strategic foresight in a way few speakers can. Most AI speakers stop at adoption. Most foresight speakers treat AI as one signal among many. Badminton treats AI as the variable that breaks existing planning horizons, and shows leaders how to plan accordingly. He served as a key advisor to The Age of A.I. documentary series with Robert Downey Jr., and his work is regularly cited by the BBC, The Atlantic, Forbes, and Fast Company. The audience tends to recognise him before he is introduced. Biography highlights Chief Futurist at Futurist.com, the international strategic foresight consultancy founded by Glen Hiemstra in 1993. Author of Facing Our Futures (Bloomsbury Business, 2023), JP Morgan Private Bank’s Next Gen Pick on its Summer Reading List and a Top-50 Business Book of 2023 by The Next Big Idea Club. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a member of Chatham House. Advisor to The Age of A.I. documentary series with Robert Downey Jr. Research cited by the BBC, VICE, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Business Insider, Forbes, and Sunday Telegraph. Engagements with NASA, the United Nations, Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Disney, Rolls Royce, Procter & Gamble, the US Department of State, and the UK Home Office. Biography Most organisations cannot describe the future they are planning toward. They have a five-year strategy and a quarterly forecast, with very little real method in between. This gap is where Nikolas Badminton works. As Chief Futurist at Futurist.com, the strategic foresight consultancy founded by Glen Hiemstra in 1993, he advises executives and government leaders on how to build anticipatory capability into how they plan. His method is set out in Facing Our Futures (Bloomsbury Business, 2023). The book gives executives the Positive Dystopia Canvas, a structured tool for stress-testing strategy against scenarios leaders would rather not entertain. JP Morgan Private Bank named it a Next Gen Pick for its Summer Reading List, and The Next Big Idea Club listed it among the Top-50 Business Books of 2023. The client list reflects the demand for that work. NASA, Disney, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Rolls Royce, the United Nations, the US Department of State, and the UK Home Office have used Badminton’s foresight work to inform planning that runs longer than the political or quarterly cycle. A Fellow of the RSA and a member of Chatham House, he served as a key advisor to The Age of A.I. documentary series with Robert Downey Jr., and his research is cited by the BBC, The Atlantic, Forbes, and Fast Company. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and futures design Artificial intelligence in the enterprise Anticipatory governance and long-range planning Innovation under disruption Energy transition and the future of resources Geopolitical scenarios and technology futures Ideal for CEOs and CSOs building foresight capability inside annual planning cycles. Boards and executive committees stress-testing strategy against long-range scenarios. Innovation, transformation, and R&D leaders responsible for moving beyond pilot stage on AI. Public-sector leaders and policymakers designing decisions with consequences beyond the political cycle. Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Positive Dystopia Canvas and how to apply it to current strategic decisions. Specific signals and scenarios in AI, energy, and geopolitics mapped onto the organisation’s actual planning horizon. The language to make the case for foresight capability inside a strategy function built around quarterly forecasting. Confidence to extend the planning conversation past 18 months without it becoming abstract or speculative.

Why organisations work with Nina Schick She published the first book on generative AI in 2020, years before the technology entered the boardroom conversation, which means her current strategic claims sit on a public track record rather than a recent pivot. She is one of very few commercial speakers who has briefed both a sitting US President and a former NATO Secretary General on AI and statecraft, giving senior audiences direct access to the language used at the top of Western policymaking. Her “Industrial Intelligence” thesis reframes AI from a software adoption question into an infrastructure and energy question, which is the conversation CFOs, infrastructure heads, and strategy teams now need but rarely get from a generalist AI speaker. Through Tamang Ventures she holds active advisory roles with frontier firms including Synthesia, valued at $4 billion in its January 2026 Series E led by Google Ventures, alongside Qlik and Truepic, so she speaks from inside the capital and product decisions she describes, not from the outside. Biography highlights Author, Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse (Hachette/Twelve, 2020), translated into multiple languages and widely cited as the first book on AI-generated content Briefed US President Joe Biden and advised former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as Director of Rasmussen Global Worked on Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 presidential campaign and advised on the Democracy Perception Index, the largest annual study on global attitudes toward democracy Founder of Tamang Ventures; advisor to Synthesia (valued at $4B in its January 2026 Series E), founding AI Council member at Qlik, advisor to Truepic Strategic analyst contributor across CNN, Bloomberg, and Sky News during a decade of European political crises including Brexit and the war in Ukraine Half-Nepalese and half-German, with degrees from the University of Cambridge and University College London; now based in the United States after a decade inside UK and EU policy Biography The race to dominate artificial intelligence is no longer a software race. It is a contest over fabs, energy, compute, and the sovereign infrastructure that will determine which states and which companies hold the next decade of pricing power. That argument, which Nina Schick calls Industrial Intelligence, sits at the centre of her current work with governments, defence institutions, and frontier AI companies. She arrived at it earlier than most. Her 2020 book Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse, published by Hachette imprint Twelve, was among the first to describe the geopolitical and informational consequences of generative AI, written before ChatGPT existed as a public product. It introduced the concept of the Infocalypse and is cited as foundational reading in national security and policy circles. That early thesis is grounded in a long career inside European policymaking. As Director of Rasmussen Global, she advised Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary General, on political risk and the technological evolution of warfare. She worked on Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 presidential campaign and advised on the Democracy Perception Index, the largest annual machine-learning study on global attitudes toward democracy. She has briefed US President Joe Biden on AI, technological integrity, and statecraft, and works with the US Army, the United Nations, and Mastercard on AI and sovereignty. For seven years she also served as a strategic analyst contributor across CNN, Bloomberg, and Sky News during the Brexit, Trump, and Ukraine cycles. Through Tamang Ventures, the advisory firm she founded, she now sits inside the companies building the new stack: Synthesia in enterprise AI video, valued at $4 billion in its January 2026 Series E led by Google Ventures, Qlik in data analytics where she is a founding AI Council member, and Truepic in digital provenance. Now based in the United States, she works with the institutions and capital allocators that will shape what the AI infrastructure stack looks like at the end of this decade. The combination of policy access, commercial proximity, and a public thesis published five years before the market caught up is what makes her useful in a boardroom. Key speaking topics Industrial Intelligence and the AI infrastructure stack Generative AI and corporate strategy AI, semiconductors, and the US-China technology competition AI and energy demand Deepfakes, synthetic media, and information integrity AI in defence, NATO, and statecraft Sovereign AI and the future of national power Ideal for Boards, CEOs, and strategy heads recalibrating long-range AI investment around infrastructure rather than tooling CIOs, CTOs, and chief data officers needing a geopolitical lens on supply, partnerships, and dependency risk Defence, security, and public sector audiences working on AI policy, sovereignty, and statecraft Investor and capital allocator audiences pricing AI exposure across compute, energy, and software layers Audience outcomes A clear thesis about why AI is an infrastructure and energy contest, not only a software adoption question A working frame for assessing corporate exposure to compute, semiconductor, and energy supply constraints Specific examples of how policy, defence, and frontier AI companies are already operating inside the Industrial Intelligence framework Sharper questions to take into the next strategy review on AI, sovereignty, and dependency risk A grounded view of where deepfakes and synthetic media now sit in the corporate and political risk picture

Why organisations work with Paddy Lowe He has industrialised winning at three Formula 1 constructors and can show, from inside the engineering room, how a championship operation actually allocates capital, talent and risk. He runs Zero Petroleum, the company behind the Guinness-verified first flight on 100 percent synthetic fuel, which gives him a working answer to the question of how aviation and motorsport decarbonise without waiting for batteries. His authority on energy transition is operational, not advocacy: a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering speaking from a fuel plant, not a policy podium. He bridges the two conversations that boards now run in parallel, hard-edged engineering performance under pressure and the capital reality of net zero, which most speakers handle separately. Biography highlights 32 years in Formula 1 across Williams, McLaren and Mercedes; technical leadership behind cars that won 12 World Championships and 158 Grands Prix. Technical Director at McLaren, then Executive Director (Technical) at Mercedes during the team’s 2014 to 2016 dominance with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. Co-founder and CEO of Zero Petroleum, a UK synthetic fuel company producing fossil-free drop-in fuels from atmospheric CO2 and renewable hydrogen. Holder of the Guinness World Record with the Royal Air Force for the first aircraft flight powered entirely by synthetic fuel, achieved at Cotswold Airport in November 2021. Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, elected 2015. Engineering graduate of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and Honorary Fellow of the College. Biography Mercedes won 51 of 59 Grands Prix between 2014 and 2016. Paddy Lowe was the Executive Director responsible for the technical organisation that made that possible, after a decade as Technical Director at McLaren and an earlier career at Williams developing the active suspension that delivered the 1992 titles. Three constructors, twelve World Championships, one common pattern: an engineering culture built to convert money and time into measurable performance under public scrutiny. That track record is the credential. The substantive work he now talks to boards about is different. In 2020 he co-founded Zero Petroleum, a synthetic fuel company that combines atmospheric carbon dioxide with renewable hydrogen to produce fossil-free, drop-in liquid fuels. The point is not laboratory novelty. The point is that aviation, motorsport, shipping and the global classic vehicle base will run on hydrocarbons for decades, and decarbonising them needs molecules, not only electrons. The proof exists. In November 2021, Zero Petroleum and the Royal Air Force flew an aircraft on 100 percent synthetic fuel and were awarded a Guinness World Record for the first such flight. Formula 1 has since committed to fully sustainable fuels, and Lowe has been a public technical voice in the policy conversation around how that transition is engineered and financed. For a senior buyer, the value is operational specificity. He explains how engineering organisations win against deadlines, how data and simulation reshape decision-making at the top of an organisation, and what it actually takes, in capital, regulation and supply, to move a heavy industry off fossil fuel. Key speaking topics Synthetic fuels and the energy transition in aviation, motorsport and heavy transport Net zero strategy beyond electrification Engineering performance under competitive pressure Data-led decision making in high-stakes operations Innovation and R&D leadership in regulated industries Lessons from Formula 1 championship organisations Ideal for Boards and executive teams in aviation, automotive, energy and industrial groups facing a credible decarbonisation deadline CTOs, Chief Sustainability Officers and Heads of R&D scoping practical low-carbon liquid fuel pathways Strategy and transformation leads benchmarking high-performance engineering cultures Investor days, supplier summits and policy forums where the audience needs a working voice on the energy transition Audience outcomes A clearer view of how aviation, motorsport and other liquid-fuel sectors can decarbonise without waiting for full electrification A working sense of how a Formula 1 technical organisation converts data, simulation and capital into repeatable performance A sharper read on which net zero claims are engineered and financed, and which are still rhetorical Specific examples of what it takes, in regulation, supply chain and certification, to move a synthetic fuel from prototype to commercial flight

Why organisations work with Paolo Scaroni He has run two of Europe’s largest energy companies, Enel from 2002 to 2005 and Eni from 2005 to 2014, through privatisation, restructuring and the early phase of the energy transition. He brings a working view of natural gas as a transition fuel from inside the boardrooms that bought, sold and shipped it, not from the outside as an analyst. His current chairmanship of Enel and nine years as Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co give him an unusually current read on capital allocation, M&A and governance in the European energy sector. He has sat on the boards of Veolia, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom, Assicurazioni Generali and the London Stock Exchange, which gives him cross-sector reference points few energy speakers can offer. Discussions are pragmatic rather than ideological, useful for boards trying to reconcile net zero commitments with capital, supply and political reality. Biography highlights CEO of Enel from May 2002 to May 2005 and CEO of Eni from 2005 to 2014. Chairman of Enel since May 2023; Chairman of A.C. Milan since July 2018. Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co Group from May 2014 to May 2023. CEO of Pilkington plc in London from 1997 to 2002, leading the turnaround of one of the world’s largest flat glass manufacturers; earlier CEO of Techint from 1985 to 1996. Past non-executive director at Veolia Environment, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom and Assicurazioni Generali; former Vice Chairman of the London Stock Exchange. Cavaliere del Lavoro (2004) and member of the Légion d’honneur (2007); Bocconi graduate and Columbia Business School MBA. Biography European energy is being asked to do three things at once: decarbonise, stay secure and remain affordable. Few executives have made those trade-offs at the scale Paolo Scaroni has. As CEO of Enel from 2002 and then of Eni from 2005 to 2014, he ran Italy’s two largest energy companies through privatisation, restructuring and the first wave of the climate agenda. At Enel he abandoned the multi-utility model and pushed the group back into core energy, set up a dedicated wind business, and brought the company into the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. At Eni he tilted the portfolio away from oil toward natural gas, framing gas as a transition fuel, and the group’s net worth rose from EUR 39 billion to EUR 61 billion over his tenure. Eni was added to the Carbon Performance Leadership Index in 2012. After Eni he spent nine years as Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co, advising on European deals across the energy and industrial sectors, before being appointed Chairman of Enel in May 2023. He has chaired A.C. Milan since 2018, including through the club’s 2022 Scudetto and the change of ownership to RedBird Capital. Past non-executive seats at Veolia, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom, Assicurazioni Generali and the London Stock Exchange give him a working view of governance across regulated industries. His public position on the energy transition is unusually direct: renewables alone will not get Europe to its CO2 targets, energy efficiency and nuclear have to be part of the answer, and gas is the realistic bridge. That argument carries weight because he had to allocate capital against it, not just write about it. Key speaking topics Energy transition and energy security Geopolitical and regulatory risk in energy markets Natural gas, nuclear and the realistic path to net zero Large-scale transformation in legacy industries Board governance and stakeholder management in regulated sectors Capital allocation in capital-intensive industries European industrial competitiveness Ideal for Boards and executive committees in energy, utilities, industrials and infrastructure CFOs, heads of strategy and corporate development weighing transition capex Investor and lender audiences focused on European energy and industrial credit Senior leadership teams reframing decarbonisation strategy against geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A grounded read on where European energy security and the transition timetable actually meet. A sharper view of how natural gas, nuclear and renewables fit together in a credible decarbonisation plan. Boardroom-tested judgement on geopolitical and regulatory risk in capital-intensive industries. A reference frame from someone who has chaired and run companies on both sides of the energy table.

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

Why organisations work with Peggy Liu She has operated inside China’s sustainability apparatus at the point of policy formation – not as an observer or consultant, but as the person who introduced Smart Grid to China, trained over a thousand mayors on sustainable urban development, and helped birth the framing that became the national “China Dream” slogan. No other speaker in this space holds that depth of direct institutional access. Her “Tornado Leadership” framework – derived from running multi-sector, government-backed change campaigns across China – gives organisations a transferable methodology for scaling environmental commitments through complex stakeholder systems, rather than a theory of change. As a board member of Project Drawdown and a member of the WEF Global Agenda Councils on Sustainable Consumption and New Energy Architecture, she brings current, peer-level intelligence on global climate frameworks alongside her China-specific depth. For organisations with China supply chain, manufacturing, or investment exposure, she closes a specific and consequential knowledge gap: understanding what Chinese sustainability policy means in practice, at speed, at city and provincial level – intelligence that determines both risk exposure and commercial opportunity. Her background spans MIT-trained engineering, McKinsey consulting, Silicon Valley venture capital, and fifteen years of NGO leadership in China – a combination that allows her to address the same challenge simultaneously in technical, strategic, financial, and political registers. Biography highlights Chairperson and co-founder of JUCCCE (Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy), founded 2007 Named “Hero of the Environment” by TIME Magazine (2008); World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Hillary Laureate (2010) and Hillary Step Prize winner (2012) for the China Dream sustainable consumption programme Board member, Project Drawdown; Governor, Hillary Institute; advisor to FTSE Environmental Markets Committee and EAT Forum Distinguished Professor, China Academy of Governance; lecturer at China Executive Leadership Academy of Pudong and National Academy for Mayors of China – has trained over 1,000 Chinese mayors and central government officials in sustainable city development MIT graduate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; former McKinsey consultant and early-stage venture capitalist in Shanghai Regular speaker at the World Economic Forum and TED; featured on BBC, Discovery Channel, and Voice of America Biography Most organisations engaging on energy transition are working with an incomplete picture of China – the world’s largest renewable energy investor and the country whose government decisions on sustainable urbanisation, consumption, and grid infrastructure will define the trajectory of global climate outcomes. Filling that gap requires more than analysis from the outside; it requires someone who has worked inside Chinese policy systems long enough to understand how change actually moves through them. Peggy Liu built JUCCCE from a 2007 MIT forum into an organisation that introduced Smart Grid technology to China, triggering an initial $7.2 billion investment in electrical grid transformation, trained over a thousand mayors and central government officials in sustainable urban development, and created the China Dream initiative – a programme designed to reframe prosperity for China’s growing middle class that was subsequently adopted as the country’s national slogan. These are not advisory contributions. They are documented, policy-level interventions at national scale, carried out through direct collaboration with China’s Ministry of Housing, the National Development and Reform Commission, and senior government academies. From this experience she has developed “Tornado Leadership” – a named framework for catalysing societal-scale change across complex, multi-stakeholder systems. The framework is grounded in the practical challenge of aligning government, industry, civil society, and media around a common direction, and has been applied in contexts ranging from sustainable consumption campaigns to food education policy. It is the kind of methodology that emerges from doing, not from theorising. Her institutional affiliations place her at the intersection of policy, capital markets, and civil society: board member of Project Drawdown, Governor of the Hillary Institute, advisor to the FTSE Environmental Markets Committee and WEF Global Agenda Councils. For boards and executive teams navigating ESG commitments, supply chain exposure in China, or energy transition strategy with a China dimension, Liu offers something that cannot be replicated from secondary sources – an operational understanding of how green China works, built over nearly two decades at its centre. Key speaking topics China’s green economy and clean energy transition Cross-border sustainability strategy and US-China collaboration Sustainable urbanisation and government policy alignment Sustainable consumption and behaviour change at scale Tornado Leadership and societal-scale change methodology Energy transition and smart grid innovation Food systems, diet transition, and global health Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG strategy leads at multinationals with China exposure Boards and executive committees assessing energy transition risk and opportunity Government affairs and public policy teams operating across US-China or EU-China markets Heads of strategy at energy, utilities, infrastructure, and consumer goods organisations Audience outcomes A grounded, operationally specific understanding of how China’s sustainability commitments translate into policy, investment, and market behaviour at city and provincial level A framework (Tornado Leadership) for accelerating internal sustainability commitments through complex multi-stakeholder systems Clarity on the practical distinction between China’s stated environmental targets and the mechanisms through which they are implemented – directly applicable to supply chain, investment, and ESG risk assessment Insight into how sustainable consumption shifts are being shaped in China’s middle class, and what this means for global demand patterns and brand strategy A more textured model for cross-border collaboration: what works, what is misread, and where the genuine points of alignment between Chinese institutions and international organisations lie

Why organisations work with Peter Altmaier Direct cabinet-level authorship of the Energiewende, with first-hand accountability for grid build-out, nuclear exit, and renewables expansion under Merkel-era Germany. Two ministerial portfolios at the centre of European crisis response: economic affairs and energy through the COVID industrial intervention period, and the Chancellery during the 2015 refugee coordination. Insider read on Berlin, Brussels, and Paris political mechanics, sharpened by 27 years in the Bundestag and senior CDU leadership roles. Substantive position on European technological sovereignty and platform regulation, formed while economics minister and visible in his work with the IEA and the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council. Speaks German, English, French, and Dutch, which makes him operable across European boardrooms without translation drag. Biography highlights Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany, 2018 to 2021 Head of the Federal Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Tasks, 2013 to 2018; Acting Federal Minister of Finance, 2017 to 2018 Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, 2012 to 2013 Member of the German Bundestag, 1994 to 2021 Knight of the French Legion of Honour (2004); Honorary President, Europa-Union Deutschland Featured speaker, PETRONAS International Energy Speaker Series, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary (2022) Biography Germany’s energy transition was redrawn while Peter Altmaier was in the room. As Federal Minister for the Environment in 2012 and later as Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2018 to 2021, he held direct departmental responsibility for the Energiewende, the nuclear exit, and the integration of renewables into Europe’s largest industrial economy. Between those portfolios he ran the Federal Chancellery for five years under Angela Merkel. That post placed him at the centre of cabinet coordination during the 2015 refugee response, the eurozone debt sequence, and the early industrial-policy calls that would later define Germany’s posture on technological sovereignty and platform regulation. He served as Acting Federal Minister of Finance through the 2017 to 2018 transition. His parliamentary career ran for 27 years, representing Saarlouis from 1994 and serving as Chief Whip of the CDU/CSU group from 2009 to 2012. He chaired the Parliamentary Oversight Panel for Germany’s intelligence services. Earlier work as a European Commission official and rapporteur on the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights gave him a working command of the institutional machinery in Brussels. Since leaving office in 2021 he has continued through Europa-Union Deutschland as Honorary President, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, and the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council. France made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2004, a recognition of his role in Franco-German policy coordination that has remained central to his work on European energy and industrial strategy. Key speaking topics European energy transition and security German and EU industrial strategy Geopolitics and the transatlantic relationship Climate and decarbonisation policy European technological sovereignty Macroeconomic outlook for Europe Franco-German political economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with significant European exposure on energy, industrial, or supply chain decisions CSOs, heads of public affairs, and government relations leads briefing on EU and German policy direction Energy, utilities, automotive, and heavy industry leadership teams setting capital allocation against the Energiewende Investor and asset manager forums covering European macro and geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A working read on how Berlin and Brussels actually decide on energy and industrial policy A clearer view of where the Energiewende is binding capital and where it is creating openings Sharper anticipation of European responses to US, China, and Russia policy moves Insight into the political economy of technological sovereignty and platform regulation in Europe Anecdote-grounded perspective on Merkel-era cabinet decision-making, useful for boards working alongside German counterparties