ESG Strategy

Why organisations work with Didier Cossin He is the named author of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness, a governance methodology in active use at IMD’s Global Board Center and applied to over 3,000 board members worldwide. His advisory client list, which spans the UN, ECB, World Bank, IOC, PIF, ADQ and Temasek, gives him a reference set that very few governance voices can match. He treats stewardship as an operating discipline for senior leaders, not a values statement, and has built a body of work, including the book with Stewardship Asia, that codifies what that looks like in practice. The second edition of High Performance Boards extends the framework into cyber, ESG metrics, geopolitical risk and board activism, the live agenda for chairs and lead independent directors in 2026. Biography highlights Founder and Director, IMD Global Board Center; holds the UBS Chair in Banking and Finance at IMD. PhD, Harvard University, under the Robert C. Merton Chair; two Derek Bok Awards for teaching excellence at Harvard. Originator of the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness methodology. Author of High Performance Boards (Wiley, second edition 2024) and Inspiring Stewardship (Wiley, 2016). Senior Advisor in Governance to UNICEF and the International Organization for Standardization. Advisor to the UN, ECB, World Bank, IFC, IOC and sovereign wealth funds including PIF, ADQ and Temasek. Biography The hardest problems a board faces rarely arrive labelled as governance problems. They arrive as a cyber breach, a regulatory letter, an activist shareholder, a geopolitical exposure no one had modelled. The board’s job is to make a decision before the situation forces one. The capacity to do that is what Cossin has spent two decades studying, codifying and teaching. At IMD, he founded the Global Board Center and developed the Four Pillars of Board Effectiveness, a methodology now used to evaluate and rebuild boards across corporates, sovereign wealth funds and supranational institutions. The framework treats board performance as a function of four interacting variables: the quality and diversity of the people in the room, the information they receive, the structures they operate within, and the dynamics that shape how they argue and decide. The advisory work tests the framework in unusual settings. He is Senior Advisor in Governance to UNICEF and to the International Organization for Standardization, and has worked with the UN, ECB, World Bank, IFC and IOC alongside sovereign investors including PIF, ADQ and Temasek. The same questions surface across these institutions: how to keep oversight credible as scale and complexity rise, how to protect long-term stewardship when short-term pressure intensifies. His two books, High Performance Boards (Wiley, second edition 2024) and Inspiring Stewardship (Wiley, 2016), turn that field experience into method. The newer edition adds cyber risk, ESG operating substance, board activism and geopolitical exposure to the original framework, which is now the live agenda for any chair preparing the board calendar for the year ahead. Key speaking topics Board effectiveness and governance Stewardship and long-term value creation Decision-making at the top of organisations Cyber and AI risk at board level ESG and sustainability governance Sovereign wealth and institutional investor governance Geopolitical risk and board oversight Ideal for Chairs, lead independent directors and non-executive directors CEOs and executive committees preparing for board scrutiny on cyber, AI, ESG or geopolitical exposure Sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and institutional investors Family-owned businesses and family offices building governance for succession Audience outcomes A working diagnostic for assessing their own board against the Four Pillars A view of how leading sovereign investors and supranational bodies structure governance under scrutiny A clearer separation between the board’s stewardship role and management’s operating role Specific reference points on cyber, ESG and geopolitical risk at board level, drawn from named institutions

Why organisations work with Dani Rodrik His “political trilemma of the world economy” – the argument that deep globalisation, national sovereignty, and democracy cannot all coexist simultaneously – gives leaders a precise framework for understanding trade conflict, populist backlash, and the limits of multilateral governance. No other speaker in this space originated a framework with comparable analytical reach. He was an early and rigorous critic of hyperglobalisation decades before it became a mainstream concern – his 1997 book Has Globalization Gone Too Far? challenged the economic consensus at a time when that consensus was near-universal. That track record gives his current views on de-globalisation a weight that commentary-based speakers cannot match. His most recent research on industrial policy – including the 2024 Annual Review of Economics paper “The New Economics of Industrial Policy” – provides organisations with an evidence-based lens on why governments are intervening in markets again, and what conditions make those interventions work or fail. His co-directorship of the Reimagining the Economy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, combined with long-standing engagement with the World Bank, IMF, and national governments, grounds his arguments in institutional and policy realities rather than theoretical abstractions. He addresses the specific commercial tension that most economists avoid: that markets require states, but too much globalisation undermines the states that markets depend on – a paradox directly relevant to any organisation managing regulatory risk, supply chain exposure, or international strategy. Biography highlights Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy, Harvard Kennedy School; formerly Albert O. Hirschman Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Originator of the “political trilemma of the world economy” – one of the most cited frameworks in international economic theory Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, 2020; Albert O. Hirschman Prize (inaugural), Social Science Research Council, 2007; Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought, Tufts University, 2002 President of the International Economic Association, 2021-23 Author of more than twenty books including The Globalization Paradox (2011), Straight Talk on Trade (2017), and Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World (Princeton University Press, 2025) Regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 1998; affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London Member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences; co-director, Reimagining the Economy Program, Harvard Kennedy School Biography Dani Rodrik has spent three decades making a single, uncomfortable argument: that the version of globalisation advanced since the 1990s contained the seeds of its own political destruction. His 2000 paper coining the “political trilemma of the world economy” – the claim that deep globalisation, national sovereignty, and democracy cannot coexist simultaneously – now reads less like a provocation than a forecast. Brexit, the rise of economic nationalism, and the collapse of the trade consensus have all traced the fault lines he identified. His 2011 book The Globalization Paradox gave the trilemma its fullest treatment: markets require functioning states, but aggressive global integration progressively undermines the democratic legitimacy that states need to operate. The book has become a reference point for policymakers and strategists trying to understand why the rules-based international order is under pressure from within its own societies, not only from geopolitical rivals. More recently, Rodrik has turned the argument forward. His work at Harvard’s Reimagining the Economy Program, his 2024 Annual Review of Economics paper on the new economics of industrial policy, and his 2025 book Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World set out the conditions under which governments can use selective intervention to create good jobs, reduce inequality, and manage the green transition without sacrificing the open economy entirely. The argument is neither protectionist nor conventionally liberal – it is a structured case for how managed markets can deliver outcomes that free markets, left alone, will not. At Harvard Kennedy School, where he has held the Ford Foundation Chair in International Political Economy since 1996, Rodrik has advised the World Bank, contributed monthly analysis to Project Syndicate since 1998, and served as President of the International Economic Association. His awards – including the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences and the inaugural Albert O. Hirschman Prize of the Social Science Research Council – recognise a body of work that has demonstrably reshaped how economists and policymakers talk about trade, development, and the relationship between markets and democracy. Key speaking topics The political trilemma of globalisation Trade policy and economic nationalism Industrial policy and the future of manufacturing Economic development and growth strategy Inclusive prosperity and the labour market Geopolitics and the international economic order Post-neoliberal economic policy The relationship between democracy and market integration Ideal for Government ministers, central bank officials, and senior civil servants navigating trade and industrial policy decisions Board-level strategy and risk committees assessing geopolitical and regulatory exposure International economic forums, sovereign wealth funds, and multilateral institutions Chief economists and global research heads at financial institutions Audience outcomes A precise analytical framework – the political trilemma – for diagnosing why trade and globalisation conflicts are structural rather than episodic Clearer understanding of the conditions under which industrial policy and managed trade create value, and when they do not Insight into the relationship between economic inequality, democratic instability, and the pressures on international institutions A sharper vocabulary for board and government conversations about de-globalisation, reshoring, and the limits of multilateral governance Historical and comparative perspective on which economic policy models have produced broad-based growth in developing and advanced economies

Why organisations work with Dan Jorgensen Direct line of sight into EU energy and climate decision-making. As the sitting Commissioner with the portfolio, he sets the regulatory weather that most European businesses have to plan against. Track record of turning climate ambition into binding policy, including Denmark’s 70% 2030 emissions target, the decision to end North Sea oil and gas exploration by 2050, and the energy islands programme. Co-founded the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance with Costa Rica at COP26, one of the few multilateral vehicles for a managed phase-out of fossil fuel production. Combines national ministerial experience, EU legislative experience as an MEP, and EU executive experience as a Commissioner. Few speakers on energy policy hold all three. Biography highlights European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, second von der Leyen Commission, since December 2024. Former Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities (2019-2022) and Minister for Development Cooperation and Global Climate Policy (2022-2024). Co-initiator of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, launched at COP26 with Costa Rica. Proposed the law for the world’s first offshore wind energy island, passed by the Danish Parliament in 2021. Member of the European Parliament 2004-2013, Vice-Chair of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee. Author of “Grønt håb – Klimapolitik 2.0”, with interviews including Jens Stoltenberg, Connie Hedegaard and Rajendra Pachauri. Awarded the Ukrainian Order of Merit, first degree, by President Zelenskyy in 2024. Biography The EU’s energy agenda sits at the intersection of three pressures that do not naturally align: affordability for households and industry, security of supply after the shock of 2022, and the decarbonisation trajectory committed to under the European Green Deal. Getting all three right is the central policy problem of this Commission mandate. It is also the portfolio Dan Jorgensen holds. Appointed European Commissioner for Energy and Housing in December 2024, he is responsible for driving down energy prices, scaling clean generation, upgrading grid infrastructure, and helping Member States address housing supply. The brief is unusually wide, and unusually consequential for any business with European exposure. The background is substantive. As Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities from 2019 to 2022, he negotiated the binding 70% emissions reduction target into law during COP25, proposed the legislation for Denmark’s North Sea energy island, and co-founded the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance with Costa Rica at COP26. As Minister for Development Cooperation and Global Climate Policy, he co-facilitated the Global Stocktake at COP28 in Dubai. A decade earlier, as an MEP from 2004 to 2013, he served as Vice-Chair of the Environment Committee and worked inside the EU legislative process that now defines his executive remit. For organisations trying to read the direction of European energy and climate policy, his perspective is closer to the pen than to the commentary. He also writes: his book “Grønt håb – Klimapolitik 2.0” set out an early argument that climate ambition and economic growth are complementary rather than opposed, a framing now visible in the EU’s industrial policy response to the clean energy transition. Key speaking topics European energy policy and market design Climate policy and global climate negotiations Energy transition and security of supply EU regulation and institutional decision-making Managed phase-out of fossil fuel production Offshore wind and grid infrastructure Affordable and sustainable housing policy Ideal for Boards and executive teams at energy utilities, industrials, real estate and infrastructure investors with European market exposure Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of Regulatory Affairs, and ESG leads tracking EU policy direction Government relations and public affairs leadership preparing for EU legislative cycles Investor conferences and industry forums on energy transition, climate finance and the European Green Deal Audience outcomes A clearer read on where EU energy and climate policy is heading over this Commission mandate, and why Sharper understanding of how affordability, security and decarbonisation trade off in live policy decisions Context on the levers available to accelerate clean energy deployment across Member States Grounded view of the multilateral climate agenda post-COP28 and what to expect from COP cycles ahead

Why organisations work with Chris Goodall His book Possible: Ways to Net Zero provides a sector-by-sector analysis of 16 specific technical challenges – from green hydrogen storage to decarbonising steel and cement – giving executive teams a structured, evidence-based account of what net zero delivery actually requires, not just what it aspires to. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, advising institutional capital on the technologies he researches and writes about – his perspective is shaped by what serious investors are actually backing, not by policy advocacy. Carbon Commentary – his long-running newsletter, part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked real-world clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. Executives and investors treat it as a check on sector claims rather than a source of promotional commentary. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was named an FT Books of the Year, establishing a track record of translating complex energy systems into analysis that serious non-specialist audiences can act on. He covers hard-to-abate sectors – aviation, agriculture, heavy industry – where most advisers produce high-level ambition; Goodall engages with specific technologies and deployment realities. Biography highlights Author of seven books on energy and climate published over 17 years, with Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024) as the most recent Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate named an FT Books of the Year What We Need to Do Now shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation Member of the Advisory Board, Pictet Clean Energy Fund, Geneva Publisher of Carbon Commentary – long-running energy transition newsletter and website, part of the Guardian Environment Network Contributor to The Guardian, The Independent and The Ecologist Alumnus of the University of Cambridge and Harvard Business School (MBA) Biography Chris Goodall has spent nearly two decades tracking the energy transition – not as a trend to describe, but as a set of specific, solvable technical and economic problems. His most recent book, Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024), takes that argument to its logical conclusion: mapping 16 distinct challenges on the path to carbon neutrality, from the decarbonisation of steel and cement to green hydrogen storage and climate-resilient agriculture. That analytical discipline is tested against real capital. Goodall sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, where institutional investors are deploying money into the technologies he researches. It is a position that keeps his work anchored in what is commercially viable now, rather than what might be viable in a decade. Most energy transition commentary collapses that distinction. His Carbon Commentary platform – part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. It has earned a readership among executives and investors precisely because it does not represent a corporate or consultancy position. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was an FT Books of the Year; What We Need to Do Now was shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Goodall read at the University of Cambridge and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He brings to board-level audiences something the energy transition conversation rarely produces: an independent, data-grounded account of what is technically and financially achievable – and what is not. Key speaking topics Net zero pathways and energy system transformation Decarbonisation technologies: hydrogen, storage, renewables deployment Hard-to-abate sectors: steel, cement, aviation, agriculture Clean energy investment and technology readiness Climate policy, regulation and corporate strategy Electric vehicles and charging infrastructure Grid infrastructure and the limits of the energy transition Ideal for Boards and executive teams building credible net zero strategies Energy, infrastructure and sustainability investors Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leaders in energy-intensive industries Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads navigating the capital implications of decarbonisation Audience outcomes A clearer picture of which decarbonisation technologies are deployment-ready and which remain speculative A realistic, sector-specific understanding of what net zero delivery actually requires operationally Greater confidence in evaluating clean energy investment claims against independent evidence Insight into the policy and regulatory risks shaping energy transition timelines A framework for moving from corporate climate ambition to credible, technology-grounded action

Why organisations work with Charlie Luxton He runs a working practice, Charlie Luxton Design, whose built work includes the Hook Norton Community Land Trust Passivhaus scheme, so his sustainability argument is grounded in projects he has actually delivered, not a consultancy deck. Two decades of mainstream broadcasting on More4, Channel 5, and BBC platforms have trained him to explain embodied carbon, retrofit, and energy performance to non-specialist audiences without losing technical substance. He speaks credibly across the full stack of a property or ESG conversation: design, materials, regulation, occupant behaviour, and cost, which is unusual for a single speaker. He is a comfortable host and awards presenter as well as a keynote voice, so clients running built-environment or sustainability conferences can use him in more than one role across an event. His perspective is practitioner-first: what works on a real site in the UK climate, at a realistic budget, with real trades and supply chains, which senior buyers in property, construction, and corporate real estate recognise as scarce. Biography highlights Director of Charlie Luxton Design, an Oxfordshire architectural practice focused on energy-efficient residential work. BA in Architecture, Oxford Brookes University; MA, Royal College of Art, London. Lead presenter on More4’s Building the Dream and Homes by the Sea, and presenter on Channel 5’s Build a New Life in the Country. Architect for the Hook Norton Community Land Trust, a twelve-home Passivhaus-standard community-led housing scheme. Co-author with Sally Bevan of Restored to Glory (BBC Books, 2005), the book accompanying the BBC restoration series. Has delivered talks through professional bodies including RIBA Gloucestershire on embodied carbon in buildings. Biography The built environment is responsible for a significant share of global carbon emissions, and the gap between pledges and delivered projects is where most organisations are now stuck. Architects who actually build at that intersection, and who can describe the work in plain language, are rare. That is the space Charlie Luxton occupies. He runs Charlie Luxton Design from North Oxfordshire, a practice dedicated to energy-efficient homes that use local materials and respond to local climate. The studio’s work includes the Hook Norton Community Land Trust scheme, twelve Passivhaus-standard homes developed with a community-led trust in the village where the practice is based. It is a concrete example of the low-energy, community-scale housing model the sustainability conversation often describes in the abstract. Alongside the practice, he has spent more than twenty years on UK television, presenting Building the Dream and Homes by the Sea for More4 and Build a New Life in the Country for Channel 5, with earlier credits including BBC Three’s Dreamspaces. That broadcasting background is why organisations book him: he can take a technical topic like embodied carbon or retrofit and hold a general audience without simplifying the substance. He trained at Oxford Brookes and the Royal College of Art and co-authored Restored to Glory with Sally Bevan for BBC Books. For corporate audiences this produces something specific. Real-estate, construction, and ESG conversations often split between policy speakers who have not built anything and technical specialists who cannot hold a room. Luxton bridges the two, which is useful when a leadership team has committed to a sustainability target and now has to make decisions about what they actually build or lease. Key speaking topics Sustainable architecture and low-carbon buildings Embodied carbon and the built environment Retrofit, energy performance, and the existing UK housing stock Passivhaus and community-led housing Design, materials, and local climate The future of construction Property, homes, and how people live Ideal for Property, construction, and real-estate leadership audiences setting net-zero and retrofit strategy ESG, sustainability, and corporate real-estate teams inside large corporates Housing associations, local authorities, and community trusts working on low-carbon housing delivery Built-environment conferences and awards requiring a credible host with technical authority Audience outcomes A clear read on where embodied and operational carbon actually sit in a building project, and which decisions move the number. A practical sense of what Passivhaus, retrofit, and low-energy design look like once built, drawn from delivered UK projects. Confidence to interrogate sustainability claims made by designers, developers, and suppliers in their own supply chain. A more realistic view of cost, trade-offs, and timescales in low-carbon building, as opposed to the brochure version.

Why organisations work with Bob Geldof He is one of the few people who has operated on both sides of the Africa debate: as a member of the policy commission whose recommendations shaped the G8 Gleneagles debt and aid package, and as the chairman of a private equity firm that has deployed capital into African agriculture, banking, and consumer goods. That combination is structurally un-replicable. His central argument – that aid and debt relief are necessary but insufficient, and that private investment in African businesses is what creates durable economic capacity – gives boards a concrete and politically coherent rationale for commercial engagement in the continent. Having designed the advocacy campaign that produced the G8 Gleneagles commitments, he offers a working understanding of how coordinated pressure on governments actually functions: useful for any organisation navigating policy engagement, coalition-building, or multi-stakeholder strategy. He engages honestly with the failures of the development consensus – the limits of aid, the contradictions of development finance, the gap between commitments and delivery – which produces more analytically useful content for a board audience than a promotional narrative of Africa’s rise. Biography highlights Co-founder of Band Aid (1984) and co-organiser of Live Aid (1985), which raised over $200 million for famine relief in Ethiopia Member of Blair’s Commission for Africa (2004–2005), whose recommendations on aid, debt cancellation, and trade reform became the basis of the G8 Gleneagles Africa package Chairman of 8 Miles, a private equity firm investing exclusively in Africa, with portfolio companies across agriculture, food processing, financial services, and consumer goods Former member of the Africa Progress Panel, which advocates at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa Adviser to the ONE Campaign, the global advocacy organisation co-founded by Bono Awarded an honorary KBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986; recipient of the Man of Peace award at the Nobel Peace Summit (2005), presented by Mikhail Gorbachev Author of the bestselling autobiography Is That It? (1986); subject of BBC documentary series Geldof in Africa Biography Band Aid, Live Aid, and Live 8 are the titles on the record. The less-visible work spans Blair’s Commission for Africa, the ONE Campaign, and the chairmanship of 8 Miles – the private equity firm that has deployed capital in African agriculture, banking, and consumer goods. Bob Geldof’s engagement with Africa has always operated on two tracks: advocacy and investment. The Commission for Africa (2004–2005) brought together seventeen commissioners – the majority active African political leaders – to examine the continent’s governance, debt, and trade architecture. Its recommendations became the blueprint for the G8 Gleneagles package on African aid and debt. Live 8, timed to precede the summit by days, was the pressure mechanism. This was sequenced campaign design, not a celebrity gesture. Geldof’s argument has remained consistent: aid and debt relief are necessary, but they are structurally insufficient. Private investment – particularly in agriculture, food processing, and consumer goods – is what builds economic capacity that lasts. 8 Miles was the practical expression of that argument: a fund investing exclusively in African businesses, from an Ethiopian winery to a Ugandan bank, in sectors that build domestic economic structures rather than extract natural resources. For boards navigating Africa – as a commercial geography, a policy context, or an ESG commitment – his perspective is useful because it has absorbed forty years of engagement, including the failures. He is not promoting a destination. He is explaining how the system works. Key speaking topics Africa’s political economy and investment landscape Sovereign debt, trade rules, and development finance Private equity and emerging market investment Large-scale advocacy and coalition-building G8 and multilateral policy architecture The intersection of political risk and commercial strategy Purpose and global accountability in business Ideal for Boards and C-suite leaders of multinationals with operations, investment interests, or ESG commitments in African markets Senior executives leading responsible investment, ESG strategy, or impact investing programmes Government affairs, public policy, and external affairs leaders navigating geopolitical complexity Conferences focused on global development, emerging markets, or the commercial case for sustainable investment Audience outcomes A clearer framework for integrating political risk, development economics, and ESG considerations into Africa-related commercial decisions First-hand insight into how the G8 Gleneagles Africa commitments were designed – and what the gap between political promise and delivery looks like in practice An honest account of where aid, debt relief, and private capital each have structural limits, and where they are complementary Greater confidence in distinguishing commercial opportunity from humanitarian obligation when assessing Africa as a business or investment geography A working understanding of how coordinated advocacy campaigns are designed to move governments – applicable beyond the African context to any multi-stakeholder policy challenge

Why organisations work with Bjarke Ingels His “hedonistic sustainability” concept – coined in a 2011 TED talk with over two million views – gives leadership teams a credible, named argument against the assumption that environmental ambition and commercial performance are in tension. The Yes Is More manifesto argues against the choice between bold vision and practical delivery; it is taught beyond architecture because the logic is genuinely transferable to any organisation navigating competing strategic demands. BIG’s project portfolio – CopenHill’s waste-to-energy plant with a public ski slope, the BIG U flood-defence park in Manhattan, the Google North Bayshore campus co-designed with Thomas Heatherwick – gives executive audiences proof that resolving sustainability and desirability through design produces outcomes superior to either goal pursued alone. He has spoken at the World Economic Forum, TED, WIRED, and 10 Downing Street, meaning his frameworks have already been stress-tested in front of heads of government, technology leaders, and senior executives. Teaching at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rice runs alongside leading a 400-person practice with major projects on four continents – his arguments carry the authority of both the seminar room and the construction site. Biography highlights Founder and creative partner of BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), established 2006; offices in New York, London, and Copenhagen; team of 400+ Originator of “hedonistic sustainability,” introduced in a 2011 TED talk now viewed over two million times Author of Yes Is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution (2009) and HOT TO COLD: An Odyssey of Architectural Adaptation Named to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People (2016); WSJ Innovator of the Year in Architecture; Fast Company 100 Most Creative People in Business Awards include the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2004), ULI Award for Excellence (2009), Danish Crown Prince’s Culture Prize (2011); Honorary Fellow of the AIA (2020) and RIBA (2015) Featured as opening subject of Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design; speaker at TED, the World Economic Forum, WIRED, and 10 Downing Street Has taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rice Universities; honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen Biography CopenHill is a waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen that doubles as a public ski slope, climbing wall, and rooftop hiking trail. It is not a compromise between environmental performance and civic amenity. It is Bjarke Ingels’ most cited demonstration of what he calls “hedonistic sustainability” – the argument that reducing environmental impact and improving how people experience their city are the same design challenge. In his 2011 TED talk, now viewed over two million times, Ingels introduced the concept and set out the logic. His manifesto Yes Is More pushed the argument further, proposing “pragmatic utopianism” as a design principle: the deliberate rejection of the choice between visionary ambition and commercial delivery. The book was written for architects. It is now taught in business and strategy contexts because the core argument is transferable. Ingels founded BIG in Copenhagen in 2006, following earlier work at OMA under Rem Koolhaas and the co-founding of PLOT with Julien De Smedt. The firm now operates from New York, London, and Copenhagen with more than 400 staff. Its projects range from the BIG U – Manhattan’s Hurricane Sandy flood-defence infrastructure, redesigned as a continuous public park – to Google’s North Bayshore campus, co-designed with Thomas Heatherwick, where workplace performance and environmental targets were treated as a single design brief. TIME Magazine named him one of the world’s 100 Most Influential People in 2016. He holds the WSJ Innovator of the Year award, Honorary Fellowships from the AIA and RIBA, and has spoken at the World Economic Forum and 10 Downing Street. He has taught at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Rice. Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design featured him as its opening subject. His discipline is architecture; his primary value to organisations is a framework for dissolving the trade-off between ambition and pragmatism. Key speaking topics Hedonistic sustainability and design-led climate action Pragmatic utopianism and innovation strategy Urban resilience and large-scale infrastructure design Architecture’s role in organisational and civic identity Creative leadership at scale The built environment and corporate space strategy Design thinking across disciplines Ideal for C-suite and executive leadership teams at real estate, infrastructure, and large-scale development organisations Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads seeking to reframe sustainability as a source of commercial advantage rather than compliance cost Corporate boards and transformation leads examining how built environment decisions affect organisational culture, talent, and long-term asset value Civic leaders and urban planners making large-scale public investment decisions Audience outcomes A named, transferable framework – “hedonistic sustainability” – for challenging the trade-off assumption in ESG, design, and innovation strategy conversations Concrete examples, drawn from BIG’s global project portfolio, of how resolving competing constraints through design produces outcomes that neither goal alone would generate A reframe of what “innovation” means in large-scale, long-horizon project environments where short-term pragmatism typically wins Greater confidence in presenting design ambition as a strategic argument rather than an aesthetic or cost preference Practical insight into building and leading a high-velocity creative organisation across multiple geographies and project scales

Why organisations work with Bjørn Lomborg He brings a formal economic framework, developed with Nobel laureate economists through the Copenhagen Consensus project, for ranking interventions by return on spend rather than political salience. His argument is specific and well-published: The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, 2001), False Alarm (Basic Books, 2020), and Best Things First (2023, named a Best Book of the year by The Economist) give boards a documented thesis to engage with. He is one of the few commentators on climate economics taken seriously in policy and finance rooms while remaining openly sceptical of orthodox climate spending priorities, which is valuable for leadership teams wanting a genuine debate rather than a consensus reaffirmation. He speaks the language of trade-offs, not advocacy, which suits boards and investment committees that have to defend capital allocation to shareholders and regulators. His institutional base (Copenhagen Consensus Center, Hoover Institution at Stanford, Copenhagen Business School) gives a clear provenance that buyers can cite internally. Biography highlights President and founder, Copenhagen Consensus Center. Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Visiting Professor, Copenhagen Business School. Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cool It, False Alarm, and Best Things First. Named to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People (2004); Top 100 Global Thinker, Foreign Policy (2011, 2012). Biography Most climate and development debate is framed as moral argument. Lomborg’s career has been spent reframing it as an allocation problem. Through the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which he founded and leads, he works with more than 300 economists, including seven Nobel laureates, to rank global interventions by cost and benefit rather than by political attention. That method produced the thesis running through his published work. The Skeptical Environmentalist, published by Cambridge University Press in 2001, argued that many accepted environmental narratives did not match the data. Cool It and False Alarm, the latter from Basic Books in 2020, applied the same analytic discipline to climate policy. Best Things First, published in 2023, ranks twelve interventions by expected human and economic return and was named a Best Book of 2023 by The Economist. His institutional base reflects the seriousness of the work. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen, is a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School. TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential People in 2004. Foreign Policy placed him on its Top 100 Global Thinkers list in 2011 and again in 2012. Lomborg is a contested figure in climate debate, and boards hire him knowing that. The value is a disciplined, published, defensible argument that forces leadership teams to compare what they are spending on sustainability with what that spend actually delivers. Key speaking topics Cost-benefit analysis in climate and development policy Climate economics and capital allocation Global development priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals Evidence-based policymaking ESG and sustainability trade-offs Long-horizon risk and resource allocation Ideal for Board and executive audiences reviewing climate and ESG capital allocation Chief sustainability officers and chief risk officers working through net-zero trade-offs Investment committees and asset owners stress-testing climate assumptions Policy, philanthropy, and development leaders ranking interventions under fixed budgets Audience outcomes A clear framework for comparing climate and development interventions by measurable return, not political profile. A working vocabulary for challenging internal ESG and sustainability spending claims. Exposure to the Copenhagen Consensus ranking method and how it has been applied to real policy choices. A more defensible position when boards are asked how their climate capital is justified.

Why organisations work with Bertrand Piccard The Solar Impulse Foundation’s portfolio of more than 1,000 independently certified, profitable environmental solutions gives organisations a verified, searchable evidence base – not an aspiration but a commercially assessed library of technologies available today, spanning energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry. His “qualitative growth” framework – articulated in his book RÉALISTE – gives leaders a specific language for presenting sustainability to boards, investors, and governments as a source of economic development rather than a compliance cost. Few speakers can point to a named framework, a published thesis, and twenty years of testing it with heads of state and global executives. As a trained psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the structural reason sustainability arguments fail at decision-making level: not a lack of belief, but the absence of a financial narrative that aligns with existing incentive structures. His diagnosis is precise – and so is the alternative he offers. His advisory roles – Special Advisor to the European Commission and member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council – provide direct intelligence on the regulatory and financial frameworks that will shape corporate energy transition decisions this decade. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight covered 43,000 km on commercially available solar technology alone. Organisations working through assumptions about what clean energy can realistically deliver hear this not as a metaphor but as an audit: the gap between what these technologies can do and what most boards believe they can do is not a future problem. Biography highlights Completed the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, Breitling Orbiter 3, with Brian Jones (1999) – the longest flight in aviation history by both distance and duration at that time Co-initiated and piloted Solar Impulse: the first solar-powered aircraft to circumnavigate the globe (2016, 43,000 km, zero fuel), with André Borschberg Founder and Chairman, Solar Impulse Foundation – has certified more than 1,000 clean and profitable environmental solutions via the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label UN Champions of the Earth Award (2012, UNEP); UN Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment; Special Advisor to the European Commission; member, European Investment Bank Climate and Environment Advisory Council Mungo Park Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2018); Harmon Trophy; FAI Gold Air Medal; holds 22 FAI world records in solar and electric aviation categories Author of RÉALISTE, The Greatest Adventure, and Changer d’Altitude; keynote speaker at the United Nations, World Economic Forum, TED, and major UN Climate Change Conferences Biography The argument Bertrand Piccard has advanced for two decades is specific: ecology and economy are not opposites. Clean technology is where the next generation of industrial value is being created. His Solar Impulse Foundation has certified more than 1,000 profitable environmental solutions – available today – to demonstrate that the energy transition is already a market, not a future aspiration. The Solar Impulse round-the-world flight – 43,000 km with zero fuel, completed with André Borschberg in 2016 – was designed to carry a message as much as a pilot. When Piccard landed in Abu Dhabi, the point was not the distance but the technology: every solar system and electric motor that had just circled the planet was commercially available. Most organisations had simply not been shown a coherent financial case for using it. That case is the work of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which Piccard founded and chairs. The Foundation’s Efficient Solution Label certifies technologies, products, and processes across energy, construction, mobility, agriculture, and industry – providing governments, corporations, and investors with a vetted evidence base for capital and policy decisions. His advisory roles extend this work directly into policy: he is Special Advisor to the European Commission and a member of the European Investment Bank’s Climate and Environment Advisory Council, positions that give him current intelligence on the regulatory environment shaping energy transition this decade. Trained as a psychiatrist, Piccard applies behavioural insight to the precise reason sustainability strategies fail at board level: the financial argument is missing. His book RÉALISTE sets out the case for his named framework – “qualitative growth” – as a practical alternative to both degrowth and unlimited consumption. The Climate Impulse project, a hydrogen-powered aircraft designed for a non-stop round-the-world flight, is his current proof-of-concept: another first, built to demonstrate what the next generation of clean technology can already do. Key speaking topics Clean technology and the commercial case for energy transition Qualitative growth: sustainability as an economic strategy The Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label and cleantech certification Climate policy, regulation, and the role of business Mission-driven leadership and the explorer’s mindset The psychology of organisational change and resistance to transition Hydrogen and the future of sustainable aviation Ideal for Boards and C-suites working through the commercial and investment case for energy transition Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads under pressure to translate environmental commitments into language investors and boards will act on Government and policy audiences involved in clean energy planning, regulatory design, or climate target-setting Global executive leadership summits where the intersection of sustainability, growth strategy, and industrial policy is on the agenda Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of the sustainability-profitability relationship – with a specific named framework, “qualitative growth,” that can be used internally to move the conversation forward Awareness of a verified portfolio of more than 1,000 commercially available clean technologies, and how the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label works as a practical decision-making tool A clear diagnosis of why sustainability arguments typically fail at board and investment level – and what to substitute for the standard cost-and-compliance framing Insight into the European and global regulatory and financial architecture that will shape energy transition investment decisions over the next decade A more precise distinction between sustainability as an organisational cost and sustainability as a source of new industrial markets – presented with the proof points to make that argument to investors, regulators, and governments

Why organisations work with Andrew Wilson A decade reporting from Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington gives him the standing to interview heads of state, ministers and CEOs without deferring to them, and without grandstanding. RTS-winning presenting craft from Sky News Live at 5 means he controls pace, time and tone on a live stage the way a broadcast studio expects, which is rare on the corporate circuit. Regular moderator at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at COP conferences, which means he arrives fluent in the vocabulary of geopolitics, macro risk and climate policy rather than briefed on it the night before. A Reuters track record of sit-down interviews with international CEOs, directly applicable to sponsor-led fireside formats, AGMs and leadership off-sites where the quality of the questions is the product. Editorial independence on sensitive material: conflict coverage from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza, Chechnya and Iraq means he is comfortable in rooms where the subject matter is politically live. Biography highlights Former Sky News foreign correspondent in Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington DC, with international awards from each posting. Presenter of Sky News Live at 5, winner of the RTS Best News Programme award in 2016. Ten years presenting current affairs on Sky News, including coverage of three US presidential elections, Russian and Israeli elections, and conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, Ukraine and Iraq. Moderator and interviewer at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at COP environmental conferences; host of Virgin Formula E events in New York and Paris. Conducted CEO interview series internationally for Reuters. Member of BAFTA, mentor with the John Schofield Trust, and contributor to the Westminster foreign-affairs think tank Global Strategy Forum. Biography Live-television credibility is hard to fake on a corporate stage. A host either controls the room, the clock and the interview, or the audience quietly checks out. Wilson spent a decade as a Sky News foreign correspondent in Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington, then close to ten years anchoring current affairs in London, which is where that control comes from. The editorial range is unusually wide for an event moderator. He reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and, since then, conflict and breaking news from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza, Chechnya, Lebanon, Iraq and the Asian Tsunami, along with three US presidential cycles and Russian and Israeli elections. His programme Live at 5 won the RTS Best News Programme award in 2016. That grounding now carries into a second career hosting leadership conversations where the subject matter is serious. He moderates at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at COP environmental conferences, has run CEO interview series for Reuters, and hosts Virgin Formula E events in New York and Paris. He is a member of BAFTA, mentors emerging journalists through the John Schofield Trust, and contributes to the Westminster foreign-affairs think tank Global Strategy Forum. For organisations putting a senior figure on stage, the value is specific. Wilson is the journalist in the chair who has already covered the story, already interviewed the type of person sitting across from him, and already worked to a live clock every night for a decade. Key speaking topics Corporate event hosting and conference moderation CEO fireside interviews and on-stage panels Geopolitics and international affairs US politics and elections Climate policy, COP and sustainability Media and communications skills training Ideal for Boards, CEOs and investor-day organisers commissioning a live on-stage interview or panel Sustainability, ESG and policy conferences wanting a moderator fluent in COP and Davos language Global sales kick-offs, leadership summits and AGMs where the chair needs to handle live Q and A with senior external guests Communications and PR leaders running media-skills or crisis-interview training for executives Audience outcomes A meeting where senior speakers are drawn out rather than read from notes, with time kept and the agenda landed. Panel discussions with clearer editorial framing and sharper questions than an internal moderator typically delivers. On-stage CEO interviews that read as credible to journalists, analysts and investors in the room. Sessions on geopolitics and sustainability that are chaired with working knowledge of the vocabulary, not a briefing document read aloud.

Why organisations work with Andrew Sheng He has sat inside the institutions most leaders only read about. Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, World Bank, and as Chief Adviser to the China Banking Regulatory Commission. He speaks from the regulator’s chair, not the commentator’s. His book From Asian to Global Financial Crisis (Cambridge University Press) is the standard insider account of how the 1997 Asian crisis and the 2008 global crisis share common causes. Boards use his framing to stress-test their own assumptions about financial stability. He is one of a very small group of Western-trained economists with direct, ongoing advisory access to Chinese financial policymakers. For organisations exposed to China, that is a perspective almost impossible to replicate. TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 for helping leaders understand the rebalancing of the global economy. His Project Syndicate and South China Morning Post columns remain a reference point for finance ministers and institutional investors. He translates technical finance into strategic language. Boards come away with a clearer view of what Chinese shadow banking, sustainable finance, and US-China capital tensions mean for their own capital allocation. Biography highlights Chairman, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, 1998 to 2005 Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Adviser, China Banking Regulatory Commission (later China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission) Distinguished Fellow, Asia Global Institute, University of Hong Kong Author, From Asian to Global Financial Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2009); co-editor, Shadow Banking in China (Wiley, 2016) Named to the TIME 100 Most Influential People, 2013 Featured interviewee in the Academy Award-winning documentary Inside Job (2010) Pro-Chancellor, University of Bristol; columnist, Project Syndicate and South China Morning Post Biography The 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global crisis were not separate events. They shared the same causes: loose money, lax supervision, market fundamentalism, and an appetite for financial engineering that outran the regulators watching it. Andrew Sheng made that argument from inside the system, as a regulator who had watched both crises unfold from Asian capitals and Washington. His career is the reason the argument carries weight. He chaired the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission from 1998 to 2005, served as Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, spent four years at the World Bank, and began his career at Bank Negara Malaysia. Since 2013 he has been Chief Adviser to the China Banking Regulatory Commission, giving him an active seat inside the policy apparatus shaping the world’s second-largest financial system. That access sits alongside a serious body of written work. From Asian to Global Financial Crisis, published by Cambridge University Press in 2009, remains a standard insider account of how unfettered finance produced two systemic shocks in a decade. Shadow Banking in China, co-edited for Wiley in 2016, is one of the few book-length treatments of Chinese off-balance-sheet finance written by authors with direct regulatory knowledge. His Project Syndicate column, running since 2011, is read by finance ministers and institutional investors. For boards exposed to Asia, the value is specific. Sheng does not describe China from the outside or financial regulation in the abstract. He explains how Beijing’s policymakers think about capital, what Western assumptions about Chinese finance tend to miss, and where the global monetary order is most likely to fracture next. TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 for doing exactly this work. Key speaking topics Global financial stability and systemic risk China’s financial system and policy direction US-China economic and financial decoupling Asian capital markets and cross-border flows Central banking and financial regulation Sustainable finance and green capital The future of the international monetary order Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material exposure to Asian markets Central banks, financial regulators, and ministries of finance CIOs, CFOs, and treasurers at global financial institutions Policy, strategy, and sovereign wealth audiences evaluating China and the multilateral order Audience outcomes A regulator’s read on where the next systemic shock is most likely to originate A more accurate mental model of how Chinese financial policy is made and what it prioritises Sharper questions to ask about counterparty, currency, and capital-flow risk in Asia A structured way to think about sustainable finance beyond disclosure and taxonomy debates Language for the board on what decoupling, sanctions, and capital-market fragmentation mean for strategy

Why organisations work with Salvatore Cantale He directs IMD’s Finance for Boards programme, the sitting reference point for non-executive directors who need to challenge financial strategy with authority rather than deference to the CFO. His work sits at the intersection of strategy and finance, so leadership teams leave with a clearer view of which growth bets, acquisitions and restructurings will actually compound value, and which are expensive to justify. He has built a substantive ESG-finance practice covering green bonds, sustainability-linked instruments and climate tech, addressing the question most boards are quietly avoiding: what does sustainability policy do to the numbers. His consulting track record spans global banks (MUFG, UniCredit, ICBC, Development Bank of Japan, APG) and operating businesses (Unilever, Kering, Maersk, Pernod Ricard, Lacoste), which translates into sessions grounded in how the work is done, not how it is theorised. He teaches finance as a language of leadership, not a specialist function, which is what senior executives from non-finance backgrounds usually need and rarely receive. Biography highlights Professor of Finance at IMD Business School, Lausanne Directs IMD’s Finance for Boards, Business Finance and Driving Sustainability from the Boardroom programmes PhD in Finance and MSc in Management, INSEAD; BA in Economics and Finance, University of Catania Former faculty director of the Master’s in Finance at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business Recipient of the Global Finance Association Best Paper Award and the Southern Finance Association Outstanding Paper Award Contributor to I by IMD, World Economic Forum Agenda, MIT Sloan Management Review, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal Biography Boards are being asked to sign off on strategies, acquisitions and ESG commitments whose financial consequences are only vaguely understood in the room. Salvatore Cantale’s work is built around the gap that opens when strategic ambition outruns financial literacy at the top of the organisation. As Professor of Finance at IMD, he runs the programmes, Finance for Boards and Business Finance among them, that senior leaders attend when they cannot afford to keep outsourcing that judgment. His intellectual territory is the join between strategy, business models and financial outcomes. The question that animates his teaching is practical: how does a stated strategy actually show up in the P&L, the balance sheet and the cost of capital, and what should a board be able to see that a management deck hides. That framing draws on research in value creation, capital structure and corporate financing choices, work that has been recognised by the Global Finance Association and the Southern Finance Association. A second stream of his work focuses on the relationship between ESG policy and financial performance. Green bonds, sustainability-linked instruments, climate tech investment, investor activism, these are presented to boards as moral or regulatory questions and funded as financial ones. Cantale treats them as both, so executives can defend their choices in either room. His writing on CFO roles, the CEO-CFO-board triumvirate and CSRD compliance sits in I by IMD, the World Economic Forum Agenda, MIT Sloan Management Review and the financial press. The consulting record gives the work texture. Cantale has advised APG, MUFG, UniCredit, ICBC and the Development Bank of Japan on the financial institutions side, and Unilever, Kering, Maersk, Coca-Cola Hellenic, Pernod Ricard and Lacoste on the corporate side. That range is why senior audiences recognise themselves in his examples: the tension between a sustainability roadmap and a quarterly earnings call is not abstract when the person teaching it has sat on both sides of it. Key speaking topics Value creation and capital allocation Finance for boards and non-executive directors The strategic role of the CFO ESG, green finance and sustainability-linked instruments Business models and financial performance Mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring Governance and financial regulation Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors sharpening their ability to challenge management on financial strategy CEOs, CFOs and senior executive teams working through capital allocation, M&A or business model change Leadership teams translating ESG and sustainability commitments into credible financial plans Banks, asset managers and financial institutions navigating governance, regulation and investor expectations Audience outcomes A sharper read of how a given strategic choice will land in the financial statements and the cost of capital Clearer language for boardroom debate on value creation, capital structure and investment trade-offs Specific frameworks for assessing ESG and sustainability initiatives on financial as well as non-financial grounds A more confident view of the CFO’s role as strategic partner rather than scorekeeper Practical reference points drawn from named financial and corporate institutions Cantale has advised