ESG Strategy

Why organisations work with Diana Verde Nieto She has built the operating substance behind two commitments most companies treat as comms exercises. Positive Luxury and the Butterfly Mark turned sustainability claims into an audited certification with periodic re-earn cycles. Edify is now doing the same work for AI-driven capability, turning brand standards and SOPs into something frontline teams actually use. “Reimagining Luxury” (Kogan Page, 2024) is built on direct contributions from chief sustainability officers at LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal, alongside Harvard’s John P. Kotter and Paul Polman. The frameworks it sets out are drawn from how the major houses actually run sustainability, not how they describe it externally. Shortlisted, Business Book Awards 2025, Change and Sustainability category. Two founded-and-exited businesses (Clownfish, sold to Aegis-Dentsu in 2008; Positive Luxury) mean her thinking on commercial strategy has been tested by real investors and real markets, not consulting decks. Through Edify Collective, she is applying the same thesis to workforce capability, embedding policies and standards into the daily flow of work rather than relying on training events that fade within weeks. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Harvard Kennedy School graduate. Non-Executive Director at the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. Former adviser to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO of Edify Collective, an AI-native frontline performance support platform that embeds policies, SOPs, and brand standards into the daily flow of work, bridging board-level strategy and frontline execution. Co-founder of Positive Luxury (2011), creator of the Butterfly Mark, the luxury sector’s best-known independent ESG certification. Founder of Clownfish (2002), one of the world’s first dedicated sustainability communications consultancies; built to a presence in five markets and sold to Aegis-Dentsu Group in 2008. Author of Reimagining Luxury: Building a Sustainable Future for Your Brand (Kogan Page, 2024); shortlisted, Business Book Awards 2025, Change and Sustainability category. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; degree in Global Leadership and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School. Non-Executive Director, British Beauty Council and Watts 1874; former adviser to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Biography Most organisations are excellent at deciding what needs to change. They write the policy, sign off on the strategy, brief the leadership team. The work that follows, embedding that decision into how thousands of people actually behave at the frontline, is where most of the value is either captured or lost. Diana Verde Nieto has spent two decades building businesses around this problem. In 2002 she founded Clownfish, one of the first dedicated sustainability communications consultancies, scaled it to five markets, and sold it to Aegis-Dentsu in 2008. In 2011 she co-founded Positive Luxury with Karen Hanton MBE and built the Butterfly Mark, an independent ESG certification now sought by over 100 brands across fashion, beauty, jewellery, and travel, awarded on demonstrated performance across nine criteria and re-earned every two years. Reimagining Luxury (Kogan Page, 2024), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2025, draws directly on contributions from the chief sustainability officers of LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal, alongside Harvard’s John P. Kotter and Paul Polman. As Co-Founder and CEO of Edify Collective, she is now applying the same thesis to workforce capability. Edify is an AI-native platform that embeds policies, SOPs, and brand standards directly into the flow of frontline work, replacing fragmented training tools with a single performance support layer. The argument is the same one she has been making for 25 years, but the domain has shifted: the strategy-execution gap is now also the gap between AI ambition and AI deployment, and the same operating disciplines apply. A World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Harvard Kennedy School graduate, she serves as a Non-Executive Director at the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. Her previous advisory work includes the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network, and La Prairie (Beiersdorf). Key speaking topics Closing the Strategy-Action Gap: From Boardroom to Frontline The AI-Native Workforce: Augmentation, Not Replacement Operationalising Purpose: Building Standards That Survive Daily Operations Lessons from Luxury: How LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal Run Sustainability as Commercial Strategy Trust as a Brand Asset: Why Operational Reality Determines Reputational Value The Entrepreneurial Journey: Building, Scaling, and Exiting Purpose-Driven Businesses Seeing Markets Before They Arrive: Strategic Foresight in Volatile Industries Ideal for CEOs and brand leaders responsible for bridging strategic intent and daily operational reality Chief Operating Officers and Chief Transformation Officers redesigning legacy systems and workflows for an AI-native workforce Boards and Non-Executive Directors whose governance responsibilities turn on whether operational substance backs board-level commitments Founders, investors, and venture partners examining purpose-driven businesses, scale-up discipline, and exit strategy Industry associations, regulators, and policy bodies operating at the intersection of corporate strategy and standards-based oversight Audience outcomes Diana’s focus is the final mile of leadership: the work between strategy being agreed and strategy being delivered through the daily behaviour of frontline teams. Her sessions are built for senior audiences who have already named the strategic problem and need to understand how to operationalise the answer. A working definition of The Action Gap, the space between board-level commitments and frontline reality, and the operating disciplines that close it. A direct view of how LVMH, Kering, and L’Oréal turn sustainability commitments into auditable commercial strategy, drawn from her book’s primary research with their CSOs. A reframing of AI in the workforce from substitution to augmentation: what it means to put expert-level judgement into the hands of frontline workers in real time, and what that requires of the operating model. A founder’s view of scale, exit, and the discipline of building purpose-driven businesses that hold their commercial integrity through investor scrutiny and global expansion. A practical map of where brilliant strategies fail at the point of work, and what board-level leaders can do about it before the failure becomes a reputational event.

Why organisations work with Shela Gobertina von Trapp She brings twenty years of sustainability operating experience to a story most people only know from the screen: founding partner of the Circular Electronics Partnership and a decade leading corporate sustainability at Office Depot across the US and Europe. She gives boards a usable frame for decisions whose payoff sits well beyond the current leadership’s tenure, which is the practical problem behind most long-term commitments. She is the one speaker who can connect a globally recognised family legacy directly to corporate questions of brand stewardship and long-term value, which makes the argument land rather than feel borrowed. Through the Global Electronics Council, managers of the EPEAT ecolabel, she has worked inside the procurement standards and circular-economy roadmaps that large buyers actually use. Biography highlights Founder and President of Celebrity Legacy and co-founder of the Georg & Agathe Foundation, with the heritage project vonTrapp.org Founding partner of the Circular Electronics Partnership (CEP), the cross-industry roadmap toward a circular electronics value chain by 2030 Director of Global Relations at the Global Electronics Council, managers of the EPEAT environmental ecolabel Roughly a decade in corporate sustainability at Office Depot, a Fortune 500 company, across the United States and Europe Master’s in Energy and Environmental Analysis from Boston University, with a Bachelor’s in Environmental Analysis and Policy awarded Magna Cum Laude Great-granddaughter of Captain Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead, and granddaughter of Johanna von Trapp, portrayed as Marta in The Sound of Music Biography Most companies plan in quarters and report in years. The choices that shape a brand compound over decades, long after the leaders who made them have gone. Sustainability lives in that gap, judged on short cycles and paid for over much longer ones. Shela Gobertina von Trapp spent two decades working that gap from inside large organisations. At Office Depot, a Fortune 500 company, she led corporate sustainability across the United States and Europe. At the Global Electronics Council, managers of the EPEAT ecolabel, she became a founding partner of the Circular Electronics Partnership, an industry roadmap toward a circular electronics value chain by 2030. What makes her perspective unusual is its source. She is a great-granddaughter of Captain Georg von Trapp and Agathe Whitehead, and a granddaughter of Johanna von Trapp, portrayed as Marta in The Sound of Music. She has spent years researching how that family held its identity through war, exile, and reinvention, and what allowed the name to outlast the people who carried it. She now puts the same question to companies in commercial terms: how does a brand earn the right to last? Drawing on the family archive and her sustainability work, she helps boards treat reputation and environmental commitment as assets that are stewarded across generations, the way the von Trapp name was. Key speaking topics Corporate sustainability and the circular economy Long-term value and legacy thinking Brand longevity and stewardship Heritage and historical preservation Leadership lessons from the von Trapp family Values-based and purpose-driven leadership Sustainable procurement and electronics circularity Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG teams moving from reporting cycles to long-term substance Boards and family businesses weighing brand stewardship and succession across generations Heritage brands and organisations whose long-term reputation is itself a core asset Leadership and culture programmes wanting a substantive story about values that outlast their founders Audience outcomes A way to test today’s decisions against their consequences decades out, not just the current cycle A concrete account of how one family held its name through war and exile, and why that matters for institutions that want to last Sustainability reframed as a long-horizon asset that boards steward, illustrated with circular-economy examples from the electronics industry Reputation and brand understood as inheritances, built deliberately or eroded by default

Why organisations work with Louis De Jaeger He runs a working design practice, Commensalist, that has delivered regenerative projects from food forests and future-proof farms to vineyard hotels and private eco-islands, so the recommendations on stage are tied to built assets, not slideware. He frames regeneration as a financial proposition. Boards leave able to discuss soil, biodiversity and food systems as long-term yield and risk variables, not as CSR. He is one of the few sustainability voices who has also built infrastructure at scale, co-founding the Belgian night-train start-up Moonlight Express that merged into European Sleeper, which gives him direct credibility with leaders who care about how new green businesses actually get financed and operated. He brings a body of evidence from his own work: the FoodForest documentary, the book SOS: Save Our Soils, and over fifty opinion pieces in titles such as De Standaard, De Morgen and Knack. Audiences hear arguments that have already been pressure-tested in print and on screen. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Commensalist, a regenerative landscape architecture practice working on productive landscapes, regenerative farms and hospitality estates worldwide. Co-founder of the Food Forest Institute and of the ByeByeGrass biodiversity campaign in Belgium. Co-founder of Moonlight Express, the Belgian night-train start-up that merged into European Sleeper, now operating sleeper services from Brussels. Director of the award-winning documentary FoodForest (2022) and of the feature documentary Eat More Trees on the role of food forests in climate and food security. Author of SOS: Save Our Soils (2025) and of Design your own food forest, a technical reference on food forest design. Long-running opinion contributor to De Standaard, De Morgen, Knack, Knack Weekend and MO*, with more than fifty published columns since 2018. Biography Most boards now accept that climate, biodiversity and food security are material risks. Far fewer can describe what to actually do about the soil their supply chains depend on. Louis De Jaeger has spent the last decade closing that gap, designing the land and writing the case for it at the same time. He runs Commensalist, a Belgian landscape architecture practice that designs regenerative projects from productive farms and food forests to vineyard hotels and private eco-islands. The work is built, not theoretical. Clients come to him because they need an asset that will still hold value in thirty years under heat, drought and tighter nature regulation. Alongside the practice, he co-founded the Food Forest Institute and the ByeByeGrass campaign in Belgium, and made the documentaries FoodForest and Eat More Trees about the role of food forests in cooling the climate and rebuilding food systems. His 2025 book SOS: Save Our Soils sets out a direct argument that regenerative agriculture is the cheapest, most effective form of climate infrastructure available, and that current food and land policy is mispriced against it. What makes him useful in a leadership room is the second track. With Moonlight Express, the night-train start-up he co-founded that merged into European Sleeper, he has been on the inside of building a green infrastructure business from a deck to operating trains. So when he talks to investors and operators about regeneration as a long-term asset class, the argument carries the weight of someone who has had to finance, license and run one. Key speaking topics Regenerative agriculture and soil health Food forests and productive landscapes Climate, biodiversity and nature-based solutions Sustainable land use and food systems Regeneration as long-term asset strategy Sustainable hospitality and estate design Green infrastructure entrepreneurship Ideal for Boards and investment committees pricing climate, nature and land-use risk into long-term portfolios CSOs, heads of sustainability and ESG leads moving beyond carbon accounting into soil, water and biodiversity Real estate, hospitality and agribusiness operators evaluating regenerative design for their own assets Founders and corporate venture teams backing food, agritech and green infrastructure businesses Audience outcomes A working definition of regeneration that boards can use, distinct from offsetting and from generic ESG language. A clearer view of which sustainability assumptions and assets are likely to age badly over the next decade. Practical reference points from built projects: food forests, regenerative farms, hospitality estates, biodiversity campaigns. A founder’s account of how a green infrastructure business actually gets financed and run, drawn from Moonlight Express and European Sleeper. A sharper internal narrative for connecting climate, food and land strategy to commercial decisions.

Why organisations work with Caspar Veldkamp Direct working experience as the foreign minister of an EU member state during the 2025 NATO summit year, including hosting the first NATO summit ever held in the Netherlands. A documented record of policy principle: he resigned the foreign ministry over the cabinet’s refusal to advance further measures on Israel, and authored the EU review proposal that bears his name. Constituency-level experience of China at the EBRD board, now extended into the EU’s most senior diplomatic post in Beijing from summer 2026. Frontline diplomatic service through two of Europe’s hardest decades of crisis: ambassador to Israel from 2011 to 2015 and to Greece during the Eurozone and migration emergencies. Comfort moving between the transatlantic and Brussels frames, grounded in early service on Senator Richard Lugar’s staff and political counsellor work in Washington. Biography highlights Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, 2024 to 2025. EU Ambassador to China designate, taking up post in Beijing in summer 2026. Board Director, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London, 2020 to 2023. Ambassador of the Netherlands to Israel (2011 to 2015) and to Greece (2015 to 2019). Hosted the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague. Author of “the Caspar proposal” for EU review of the EU to Israel Association Agreement. Biography The cabinet meeting on 22 August 2025 ended with the Dutch foreign minister resigning his post. Caspar Veldkamp had proposed further measures on Israel over the conduct of the war in Gaza, including an import ban on goods from settlements in the occupied territories. The cabinet would not move. He left office the same evening, and the New Social Contract ministers followed him out in solidarity. It was the kind of public exit that explains in one moment what a leader’s working principle is. The career that led there is unusually broad for a sitting politician. Veldkamp ran the Dutch embassies in Israel from 2011 to 2015 and in Greece from 2015 to 2019, the second through the Eurozone and migration crises. Between politics and diplomacy he sat on the EBRD board in London for three years, with constituency responsibility for the Netherlands, China, Mongolia, North Macedonia and Armenia, chairing the Board Steering Group during a period of governance reform and active climate and Ukraine work. As foreign minister he hosted the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, the first summit held in the Netherlands. He argued publicly that the two-percent NATO defence benchmark was no longer adequate, backed sustained military support for Ukraine, and authored what came to be called the Caspar proposal: a formal EU review of Israel’s compliance with the EU to Israel Association Agreement. The proposal drew broader member state support than expected and reframed the conversation inside the bloc. In summer 2026 he takes up the post of European Union Ambassador to China, the first Dutch national appointed to the role. For organisations sitting on China exposure, transatlantic supply chain decisions, or the next round of EU sanctions logic, the perspective he carries into Beijing is the one boards are now looking to brief against. Key speaking topics European geopolitics and EU foreign policy NATO, transatlantic security and Ukraine EU to China relations and the Brussels view of Beijing Sanctions, ESG and the Middle East Diplomacy under coalition and parliamentary constraint Crisis-period leadership in foreign ministries and embassies Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material China, Israel or Russia exposure CEO and CFO offsites focused on geopolitical scenario planning Banking, insurance and energy leadership teams sizing sanctions and policy risk Public affairs, government relations and risk leadership functions Audience outcomes A clearer read on how EU foreign policy decisions are actually formed across capitals. A working framework for what the next phase of EU to China relations is likely to demand of European businesses. Specific reference points on Ukraine support, NATO posture and the trajectory of sanctions logic into 2026 and beyond. A first-person account of holding a foreign ministry under coalition strain, useful for any leader managing decisions that carry public principle as well as commercial weight.

Why organisations work with John Mackey He took one Austin store to 540 locations and $22B in annual sales over four decades, so his account of stakeholder strategy is operating evidence, not theory. He co-authored the book, Conscious Capitalism (HBR Press, 2013), that gave the stakeholder argument its working vocabulary inside boardrooms and business schools. Few founders have lived the full arc he describes: IPO, activist investor pressure, a $13.7B sale to Amazon, and a second venture built on the same philosophy. His Love.Life venture applies the same conscious-business model to preventative healthcare, giving audiences a current case in a different sector. He speaks to capitalism’s critics from inside the system, useful for boards under pressure on purpose, ESG credibility and the social licence to operate. Biography highlights Co-founded Whole Foods Market in 1978; served as CEO until September 2022, growing the business to 540 stores in the US, UK and Canada and over $22B in annual sales. Co-author of Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013), New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. Author of Conscious Leadership: Elevating Humanity Through Business (2020) and the memoir The Whole Story: Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism (2024). Co-founder and CEO of Love.Life, an integrated preventative healthcare and wellness venture, with its flagship centre in El Segundo, California. Inducted into the World Retail Congress Hall of Fame (2022); recognised by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year US Overall Winner. Board roles include Conscious Capitalism Inc., The Motley Fool, Cato Institute, Institute for Cultural Evolution and Students for Liberty. Biography Whole Foods Market began in 1978 as a single store on a side street in Austin, Texas. Forty-four years later, when John Mackey stepped down as CEO, it had 540 stores, 105,000 team members and $22 billion in annual sales. That trajectory is the spine of his authority on stakeholder capitalism. The argument he co-built around it became Conscious Capitalism (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013), a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller co-authored with Raj Sisodia. The book set out four operating tenets, higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership, conscious culture, that boards and business schools now use as a working vocabulary for purpose-led business. Mackey has also lived the harder parts of the case. He took Whole Foods through an IPO, public clashes with critics on both left and right, sustained activist investor pressure from Jana Partners, and the $13.7 billion sale to Amazon in 2017. His 2024 memoir The Whole Story sets out what those moments cost and what they confirmed. He now runs Love.Life, a preventative healthcare and wellness company he co-founded with former Whole Foods executives, applying the same conscious-business model to a sector he argues is structurally set up to manage disease rather than prevent it. The work positions him as a serious voice on stakeholder strategy, board-level purpose, and the next test of conscious capitalism in healthcare. Key speaking topics Conscious Capitalism and stakeholder strategy Founder-led growth and scaling a category-defining business Purpose, culture and the operating model behind them Leadership through activist pressure, acquisition and succession Preventative healthcare and the future of wellness Higher-purpose leadership at board level Entrepreneurship and long-horizon company building Ideal for Boards and CEOs reframing purpose as an operating model rather than a communications layer Founders and senior leaders scaling mission-led businesses through institutional capital and public-market pressure Retail, consumer, grocery and health sector leadership teams Conferences on capitalism, ESG credibility and the social licence to operate Audience outcomes A working account of how stakeholder strategy held together through four decades of growth, IPO, activism and acquisition The four-tenet architecture of Conscious Capitalism applied to current board and executive decisions A founder’s view of when to fight activist investors and when to sell A live case on building a second purpose-led business, this time in healthcare Sharper language for explaining purpose to investors, employees and customers without losing credibility on either side

Why organisations work with Stefan Löfven Direct head-of-government experience of running a minority coalition through migration shock, terror response, the pandemic, and a vote of no confidence, useful for boards weighing political risk in their own operating geographies. Chair of SIPRI, the institute whose annual data on military expenditure, arms transfers and conflict is the reference set used by foreign ministries and defence analysts globally. Co-Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, which produced the 2023 report A Breakthrough for People and Planet on reforming global governance. Co-led, with Cyril Ramaphosa, the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, the body whose 2019 report shaped the ILO Centenary Declaration on labour standards and social protection. Career rooted on the factory floor as a welder and union leader, which gives a credibility on labour, industrial policy and the social contract that very few former heads of state can claim. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Sweden, 2014 to 2021, across two coalition governments. Chair of the Governing Board, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), since 2022. Co-Chair, UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, 2022 to 2023. Co-Chair, ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, with President Cyril Ramaphosa. President, Party of European Socialists, elected 2022. Resident Fellow, Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, Fall 2022. Biography The seven years of Löfven’s premiership covered the European migration crisis, a fatal terror attack on central Stockholm, a vote of no confidence that briefly removed him from office, and the COVID-19 response in a country that diverged from most of its neighbours on lockdown policy. Few European leaders held office continuously across that span. Fewer still did so while running minority governments dependent on votes from across the political spectrum. That experience is the foundation of the international roles he now holds. As Chair of SIPRI’s Governing Board since 2022, he sits over the institute that produces the data foreign ministries rely on for arms transfers, military spending, and conflict trends. As Co-Chair, with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, of the UN High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, he led the 2023 report A Breakthrough for People and Planet, which set out concrete reforms to the global financial architecture and the UN system itself. The labour and industrial dimension of his work is harder to fake. Trained as a welder at Hagglunds and active in the Swedish Metalworkers’ Union from his twenties, he became the first president of IF Metall in 2006 before entering elected politics. That background is why the ILO chose him, with Cyril Ramaphosa, to co-chair its Global Commission on the Future of Work, and why the Global Deal he launched in 2016 with the OECD and ILO is built around social dialogue rather than purely fiscal levers. For audiences, what travels is the practical weight of having held the line on multilateral cooperation when the politics moved against it, and the clarity that comes from briefing other heads of state, not from observing them. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the rules-based order Multilateral cooperation and UN reform Crisis leadership in coalition government Future of work and the social contract European political alignment and the rise of the populist right Industrial policy and the labour market Peace, security and disarmament Ideal for Boards and executive teams scoping geopolitical exposure, sanctions risk, and operating decisions in a fracturing global order. CHRO and policy leaders working on the social contract, labour standards, and the future of work agenda. Government affairs, sustainability, and ESG functions tracking multilateral reform and UN-level policy direction. Senior leadership audiences at financial institutions, defence and dual-use industries with direct exposure to peace, security and arms-control data. Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a head of government weighs political risk, security, and economic exposure inside the same decision. A clearer reading of where multilateral institutions are likely to bend, break, or reform over the next cycle. A grounded view of the European political map, including the rise of the populist right and its operating consequences. An informed perspective on labour, social dialogue and the future of work from a leader who has lived both sides of the table. Confidence that the briefing reflects current institutional reality, not commentary from the outside.

Why organisations work with Sacha Romanovitch She has actually done what most purpose-led leadership talks describe. As CEO of Grant Thornton UK she capped her own pay at 20 times the firm’s average salary, introduced firm-wide profit sharing, and gave 4,500 staff a stake in how the partnership was run. She left Grant Thornton having grown it past £500m in revenue and finished her tenure in the Glassdoor Top 50 CEOs with a 94% approval rating, two places behind Tim Cook. Boards listening to her hear an operator, not an advocate. She built Fair4All Finance from a standing start into the UK’s recognised body on financial inclusion, working across HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, regulators, lenders, and the voluntary sector. Few speakers can demonstrate cross-sector convening at that scale. She is willing to discuss the political and partner-level backlash she faced for refusing to back down on shared enterprise. That candour is rare from former CEOs and unusually useful to boards anticipating their own pushback. Biography highlights First woman to lead a major UK accounting firm, as CEO of Grant Thornton UK LLP from 2015 to 2019. OBE awarded in 2020 for Services to Business, recognising her work on financial wellbeing through Fair4All Finance. Founding CEO of Fair4All Finance, the UK financial inclusion body backed by dormant assets funding, from September 2019. Member of the UK Government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council from February 2022, leading the Social Infrastructure working group. Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford; Honorary Doctorate, University of York; Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Independent Non-Executive Director of the Association of British Insurers; Non-Executive Director, LeapFrog Investments; inaugural Chair of Access Accountancy. Biography In 2015 the partnership at Grant Thornton UK voted in a CEO who told them their pay should be capped, profits should be shared with every employee, and the firm should drop clients whose work it could not defend. By the end of her tenure the firm had grown past £500m in revenue, was sitting in the Glassdoor Top 50 CEOs ranking with a 94% staff approval rating, and the same partnership that elected her had fractured over the cost of what it had agreed to. That tension is the substance of Sacha Romanovitch’s leadership work. She is one of the few senior UK operators who has put a recognisable shared enterprise model inside a major professional services firm and then absorbed the partner-level resistance it produced. Boards that say they want a purpose-led culture often have not faced the moment when their senior earners discover what purpose costs them. She has, and she will discuss it directly. Since 2019 she has been building Fair4All Finance, the body set up under the Dormant Assets Scheme to extend access to affordable credit, insurance, and savings for people in vulnerable financial circumstances. Under her the organisation has become the convening point for the financial services sector, HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, and the voluntary sector on financial inclusion. She co-chairs the Inclusive Economy Partnership and served on the Government’s Levelling Up Advisory Council from 2022, leading its Social Infrastructure working group. The thread across both roles is the same. Values claims are tested by the decisions a leader takes when those values cost something. Romanovitch is unusually credible on that test because she has been on both sides of it: as the CEO who held the line at Grant Thornton, and as the founding chief executive who has had to make the case for financial inclusion to commercial lenders, regulators, and ministers in turn. Key speaking topics Purpose-led leadership in commercial organisations Shared enterprise and employee ownership models Financial inclusion and the social contract of financial services Inclusive leadership in regulated and professional services sectors Cross-sector partnership between government, business, and civil society Social mobility and access to professional careers Leading change against partner-level or shareholder resistance Ideal for Boards and ExCos in professional services, financial services, and partnership-structured firms reviewing their culture and ownership model CEOs and CHROs designing reward, voice, and stake structures for purpose-led strategies Financial services leaders, regulators, and policy audiences working on financial inclusion and consumer vulnerability Industry social mobility programmes and DEI sponsor groups setting concrete targets rather than statements Audience outcomes A direct account of what shared enterprise looks like when it is operating, costing, and contested inside a major firm A working model for testing whether a stated value will hold under commercial pressure before it is publicly committed to A clear picture of how financial inclusion gets built in practice across regulators, banks, fintechs, and the voluntary sector An honest reading of the partner-level and shareholder dynamics that derail purpose-led change, and the moves that protect it A sense of what the next decade of financial services accountability looks like from inside the policy conversation

Why organisations work with Jean Asselborn Nineteen years of continuous EU foreign ministerial decision-making, spanning the 2008 financial crisis, the eurozone crisis, the 2015 migration shock, Brexit, and Russia’s war on Ukraine. A board hearing him is hearing from the room, not about it. Led Luxembourg into its first ever UN Security Council seat in 2013 to 2014, including chairing the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and steering humanitarian resolutions on Syria. A working brief on how small-state diplomacy moves a multilateral system. A public record of confronting democratic backsliding inside the EU, including a documented call for Hungary’s expulsion in 2016. Useful for any leadership audience wrestling with values, compliance, and political risk in European markets. Decorated by both the German and French states (Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, 2010; Commander of the Legion of Honour, 2013) and recognised with the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize, 2016. A credible Franco-German interlocutor at a moment when the Paris-Berlin axis is again the structural question. Biography highlights Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2023; the longest-serving foreign minister in EU history. Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2013, under Jean-Claude Juncker. Presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005. Architect of Luxembourg’s elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2010); Commander of the French Legion of Honour (2013); Grand Media Prize, Franco-German Journalism Prize (2016). Subject of two published political biographies, “Merde alors!” by Margaretha Kopeinig (Czernin Verlag, 2021) and “Die Tour seines Lebens” by Michael Merten. Biography For nineteen years, every major European foreign policy crisis crossed the desk of Luxembourg’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the 2015 migration emergency, Brexit, the rule-of-law fights with Warsaw and Budapest, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Jean Asselborn was in the room for all of them, from 2004 to 2023, longer than any foreign minister in EU history. The seat mattered. Luxembourg is small enough to be heard without threatening anyone, and Asselborn used that position to push the EU on values when larger member states preferred to look away. He called publicly for Hungary’s expulsion from the bloc in 2016 over the treatment of asylum seekers, and remained one of the most consistent ministerial voices on democratic backsliding inside the Union. He also built institutional weight beyond Brussels. As Deputy Prime Minister from 2004 to 2013, he presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005, and engineered Luxembourg’s first elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. During that term Luxembourg chaired the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and helped pass the Syria humanitarian resolutions that defined the Council’s response that year. France and Germany have both recognised him at the highest civic level: the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in 2010, the Legion of Honour as Commander in 2013, and the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize in 2016. For organisations trying to read what the Paris-Berlin axis, the European Commission, and a more brittle multilateral order will actually do next, Asselborn is one of the few accessible voices who spent two decades inside those decisions. Key speaking topics European integration and the future of the EU The rules-based international order and multilateralism Democracy and rule of law inside the European Union Franco-German relations and the EU institutional axis UN Security Council diplomacy and small-state influence Migration, asylum, and European border policy Transatlantic relations and EU strategic autonomy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material European exposure assessing political and regulatory risk Public affairs, government relations, and ESG leads working at EU-institution level Banking, asset management, and defence audiences pricing geopolitical and sanctions risk in Europe Foundations, NGOs, and policy convenings on democracy, human rights, and multilateralism Audience outcomes A first-hand reading of how decisions actually get taken inside the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council A sharper view of where rule-of-law tensions inside the EU are heading, and what that means for operating in those member states A clear sense of how the Franco-German axis and the European Commission are likely to align on the next phase of sanctions, enlargement, and defence An informed perspective on the limits and uses of multilateral institutions, drawn from a UN Security Council term A serious, non-partisan frame for discussing democracy, migration, and European values without recourse to talking points

Why organisations work with Anna Gumbau She arrives at the room already inside the file. Her day job is reporting on EU climate and energy policy for outlets including Euractiv, Energy Monitor, and FORESIGHT Climate and Energy, so panel guidance is editorial rather than scripted. She moves comfortably between Brussels institutions, industry associations, and consumer-side stakeholders, with named-client work for the European Commission, Eurelectric, SolarPower Europe, BEUC, and the European Committee of the Regions. She works in five languages, English, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian, which makes her a single hire across pan-European events that would otherwise need swapped chairs. Her former role as Brussels correspondent for Carbon Pulse, covering the EU ETS and the Fit for 55 package, means she can chair sessions on carbon markets and Green Deal implementation without needing a translator into policy language. She runs The Green Light, a coaching initiative for women in climate and energy, which gives her a credible second register for women-in-leadership and inclusion sessions at energy-sector events. Biography highlights Brussels-based energy and climate journalist, with published work in Euractiv, Deutsche Welle, El Pais, Energy Monitor, FORESIGHT Climate and Energy, and Carbon Pulse. Former Brussels correspondent for Carbon Pulse on the EU ETS and Fit for 55, and former energy reporter at Interfax Global Energy Services in London. Member of the Moderating.EU roster and a listed moderator on Parliament Events for the 2024 and 2026 Circular Economy Forums. Moderation clients include the European Commission, European Committee of the Regions, EPP Group, Eurelectric, SolarPower Europe, BEUC, Volvo Cars, Booking.com, and EIT Raw Materials. Founder of The Green Light, a coaching initiative supporting women working in climate and energy. Working languages: English, Spanish, Catalan, French, Italian. Biography EU climate and energy policy now sets the operating envelope for entire industries, from power generation to mobility to consumer goods, and the events built around it have become harder to chair well. The room is mixed: Commission officials, industry associations, NGOs, and corporate sustainability leads, each with their own vocabulary and their own red lines. Holding that conversation requires a chair who can read the politics of the file in real time. That is the working surface Anna Gumbau has spent her journalism career on. As a freelance reporter she has written for Euractiv, Deutsche Welle, El Pais, Energy Monitor, FORESIGHT Climate and Energy, and Carbon Pulse, where she was Brussels correspondent covering the EU Emissions Trading System and the Fit for 55 package. Before that she reported on energy from London with Interfax Global Energy Services. The reporting is the source material she moderates from, not a credential separate from it. Her client list reflects that positioning. Sessions for the European Commission, the European Committee of the Regions, the EPP Group, Eurelectric, SolarPower Europe, BEUC, Volvo Cars, Booking.com, and EIT Raw Materials cover the full institutional and industry span of the EU energy and circular economy debate. The Parliament Magazine has used her as moderator for its Circular Economy Forum in both 2024 and 2026. A second strand sits alongside the policy work. Through The Green Light, an initiative she founded for women in climate and energy, she coaches and mentors women working in those sectors, and that lens carries into chair work on women’s leadership and inclusion in industry events. She works in English, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian, which is what allows a single chair across the pan-European programme rather than a different name on each language track. Key speaking topics Energy transition and EU climate policy Circular economy and resource policy European Green Deal implementation Carbon markets and the EU Emissions Trading System Sustainability in industry and consumer sectors Women in climate and energy leadership Ideal for Corporate sustainability, public affairs, and regulatory affairs teams hosting EU-facing events Industry associations and trade bodies in power, mobility, and raw materials running policy conferences EU institutions, agencies, and political groups commissioning panels, forums, and award ceremonies Multilingual pan-European corporate events that need a single chair across English, Spanish, French, and Italian Audience outcomes A panel where the contested points in the file are surfaced and pressure-tested, not deferred Clearer separation between policy direction, industry positioning, and unresolved political risk on the topic Time held, speakers balanced, and questions from the floor handled inside a defined run order A read on how the Brussels conversation on the session topic is moving, from someone reporting on it day to day

Why organisations work with Arunjay Katakam He has spent over a decade inside the GSMA and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation portfolios building the financial infrastructure that brought a billion people into the formal economy, so he speaks about inclusion as an operating problem, not a values statement. His book Generation Hope sets out a five-principle model (growth, participation, opportunity, stability, sustainability) that boards can map directly onto strategy, pricing, and product decisions. He has co-founded three startups, mentored 20-plus emerging-market fintechs through DFS Lab, and built ventures at Catalyst Fund, which gives him real authority on scale-up economics rather than commentary. He brings operator credibility on cross-border payments, digital public infrastructure, and zero-fee payment design, all areas where boards now face direct regulatory and competitive pressure. Biography highlights Author, Generation Hope: How Inclusive Economics Can Help Us All Thrive (Otterpine, 2024). Author, The Power of Micro Money Transfers, a practitioner guide to profitable money-transfer operators. Strategic Advisor, Interledger Foundation. Founder and CEO, Yooz, a cross-border remittance company. Founder, Inclusive Action Lab, a non-profit incubating ventures aimed at poverty alleviation by 2030. Co-author of two GSMA State of the Industry reports on mobile financial services for the unbanked; former EY consultant; mentor to 20-plus inclusive fintech startups via DFS Lab. Biography Most organisations describe inclusion as a values problem. After a decade inside the GSMA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, building the rails that brought a billion people into the formal economy, the case is sharper than that. Inclusion is an operating problem, with measurable consequences for pricing, distribution, and risk. That is the argument behind Generation Hope (Otterpine, 2024), which sets out five principles: growth, participation, opportunity, stability, and sustainability. The book gives senior leaders a usable frame for redesigning commercial strategy when the extractive model is running out of road, not a moral lecture. The operator background is what makes the case credible. Arunjay Katakam co-founded three startups, including one acquired by Twitter, ran cross-border remittance company Yooz, mentored more than 20 emerging-market fintechs at DFS Lab, and built ventures with Catalyst Fund. His earlier book, The Power of Micro Money Transfers, is a working manual for building profitable payment operators on zero-fee economics. He now advises the Interledger Foundation on open payments infrastructure and runs Inclusive Action Lab, a non-profit incubating moonshot ventures aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030. The throughline is consistent: commercial discipline applied to inclusive design, with the numbers to support it. Key speaking topics Inclusive economics as a commercial operating model Cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure Open and decentralised finance Scale-up leadership in emerging-market fintech Zero-fee payment design and unit economics Generation Hope: rebuilding growth around participation and sustainability Ideal for Boards and ExCos rethinking growth strategy under regulatory, customer, and capital pressure Financial services leaders (CEO, COO, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer) navigating cross-border payments, fintech disruption, and inclusion mandates Innovation and venture-building teams inside large institutions backing inclusive products Foundation, development finance, and policy audiences working on financial inclusion Audience outcomes A five-principle model audiences can apply to their own pricing, product, and strategy decisions A clearer view of where inclusive economics changes unit economics rather than just narrative Specific examples from cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure that show what works at scale A practical agenda for boards on how to position growth strategy for the next decade

Why organisations work with Christian Stiegler He works at the rare junction of three constituencies that rarely speak the same language: regulators, corporates and creative-industry partners. His client list runs from the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ to Björk, Phoebe Bridgers and the team behind #bravehood with Coldplay and The Rolling Stones. His MIT Press book, The 360° Gaze, gives him a peer-reviewed framework for immersive media that buyers can cite when justifying XR, metaverse or AI-content investments to a sceptical board. He has advised the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ on algorithmic accountability and digital governance, which means his governance content reflects what regulators are actually pressing for, not a generic responsible-AI script. He runs Guiding Light, an organisation built specifically to convert ethics and sustainability principles into deployable technology programmes, so his keynotes connect to a delivery practice rather than ending at the slide deck. Biography highlights Director, Guiding Light (Organisation for Ethics and Sustainability in Technologies), Vienna and Berlin. Academic Director Design and faculty, IU International University of Applied Sciences, Germany; research focus on AI, XR, Metaverse and technology ethics. Former Wallscourt Associate Professor of Immersive Media, UWE Bristol; former Associate Professor / Senior Lecturer in Digital Media, Brunel University London. Author, The 360° Gaze: Immersions in Media, Society, and Culture (MIT Press, 2021); earlier monograph New Media Culture (transcript, 2015). Named advisor to the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ on AI ethics, algorithmic accountability and digital governance. Speaker at SXSW, Cannes XR, Berlinale, International Film Festival Rotterdam, MIPTV Cannes and C21 Content Summit London. Biography Most organisations describe AI ethics as a principle and treat it as a compliance task. The decisions that decide outcomes, what training data is licensed, how a model is evaluated before release, who owns the recall trigger, sit several layers below the published policy. That is the operating gap Christian Stiegler works in. As Director of Guiding Light, the Vienna and Berlin organisation he founded for ethics and sustainability in technologies, he advises governments, multilateral bodies and corporates on translating governance principles into deployment decisions. Named advisory clients include the European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ, covering algorithmic accountability, AI ethics and digital policy. His academic anchor is The 360° Gaze: Immersions in Media, Society, and Culture (MIT Press, 2021), a peer-reviewed treatment of immersive media that underwrites his work on XR, the metaverse and AI-generated content. He holds faculty positions in technology ethics at IU International University of Applied Sciences in Germany, and was previously Wallscourt Associate Professor of Immersive Media at UWE Bristol and Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Brunel University London. He also operates across the creative industries, an unusual range for an AI ethics voice. Through his #bravehood initiative with UNICEF and War Child he has worked with Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Björk, Phoebe Bridgers and others on the technology-driven design of social-impact campaigns. That cross-sector reach is what buyers in regulated industries tend to remark on; he can move between a regulator’s framing, a CTO’s risk register and a brand team’s storytelling problem without losing the thread. Key speaking topics AI ethics and algorithmic accountability Digital policy and AI governance Extended reality and the metaverse Sustainable and human-centred innovation Immersive media and cultural impact of emerging technologies Tech for good and social-impact technology design Ideal for Boards and audit committees setting AI governance and assurance frameworks Chief AI officers, CDOs and CTOs moving from responsible-AI principles to deployed controls Government, regulator and multilateral teams shaping digital policy and AI regulation Brand, content and creative leadership teams evaluating XR, metaverse and generative-AI investments Audience outcomes A clearer map of where regulator attention is actually concentrating across AI governance and digital policy A working distinction between AI ethics as principle and AI ethics as operating practice Reference frames from The 360° Gaze that audiences can use to assess XR, metaverse and generative-content decisions Examples from European Commission, UNICEF and GIZ advisory work that show how governance language converts into named deployment decisions

Why organisations work with Margarida Matos Rosa She has run a national competition regulator from the inside. Decisions on banking, telecoms, energy, health, digital services and advertising cartels passed across her desk between 2016 and 2023, giving her a working view of how cases are built, prioritised and defended. She has sat at the policy table that shapes EU and global competition rules, as ICN Vice-Chair for Growth and Recovery and as a Bureau member of the OECD Competition Committee. Few speakers can read the regulatory direction of travel from inside both bodies. Her background bridges competition policy and capital markets. Earlier roles at the Portuguese Securities Market Commission and at BNP Paribas, Santander Investment and UBS Bank mean she speaks credibly on the Savings and Investments Union, financial regulation and the cost of capital, not only antitrust. She translates regulation into board language. Boards leave with a sharper view of how competition enforcement, digital rules and capital markets integration affect their pricing, M&A pipeline and growth assumptions. Biography highlights President of the Portuguese Competition Authority, 2016 to 2023. Vice-Chair, International Competition Network (Growth and Recovery), 2022 to 2023. Bureau member, OECD Competition Committee, elected by peer authorities. Senior Consultant, Compass Lexecon International practice. Former Managing Director, Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM), investment management supervision. Earlier career at BNP Paribas, Santander Investment and UBS Bank in economic research, investment banking and asset management. MPA, Princeton University. Economics degree, Université Catholique de Louvain. Fulbright scholar at MIT. Biography Competition policy used to sit in a corner of corporate strategy: a compliance file, occasionally a deal-breaker, rarely a board-level lens. That has changed. Digital markets rules, merger thresholds and cartel enforcement now move pricing, investment and M&A decisions across whole sectors, and the EU is moving on capital markets integration in parallel. Margarida Matos Rosa led Portugal’s competition regulator through that shift. As President of the Autoridade da Concorrência from 2016 to 2023, she oversaw enforcement decisions across banking, telecoms, energy, health, digital services and advertising, and built up the authority’s technical capability in AI and IT forensics for cartel detection. Her tenure is widely credited with raising the authority’s international standing. That national role sat alongside two international ones. She was elected by peers to the Bureau of the OECD Competition Committee, and was appointed Vice-Chair of the International Competition Network for Growth and Recovery in 2022, a portfolio focused on the interface between antitrust and macro-economic policy after the pandemic. She now advises clients of Compass Lexecon’s International practice as a Senior Consultant. Her earlier career gives her an unusually wide read of the regulatory landscape. Before competition policy, she ran investment management supervision at Portugal’s Securities Market Commission, and held roles at BNP Paribas, Santander Investment and UBS Bank covering economic research, investment banking and asset management. That financial markets grounding is what makes her credible on the Savings and Investments Union and on how capital allocation responds to a tighter EU regulatory perimeter. Key speaking topics Competition policy and antitrust enforcement EU single market and strategic autonomy Digital markets regulation Productivity and AI in regulated markets Savings and Investments Union and capital markets integration Financial regulation and capital markets oversight Institution building in economic regulators Ideal for Boards and executive committees of regulated firms in banking, telecoms, energy, digital and consumer markets General counsels, heads of strategy, heads of M&A and chief economists managing competition and digital regulation exposure CFOs and treasurers reading EU capital markets and Savings and Investments Union signals Policy and government affairs leaders shaping engagement with national and EU competition authorities Audience outcomes A clearer read on how EU and national competition enforcement is moving, and where it is likely to bite next A working understanding of how digital markets rules interact with innovation, pricing and platform strategy A view from inside a regulator on how cases are prioritised, built and resolved A sharper sense of how the Savings and Investments Union and capital markets integration affect cost of capital and cross-border deals A practical framework for engaging credibly with competition authorities, the European Commission and the OECD