ESG Strategy

Key speaking topics Climate anxiety and eco-anxiety Youth engagement in climate action Gen Z and organisational response Climate leadership and responsibility Corporate engagement on sustainability Mental health and climate change Ideal for Corporate leadership teams addressing sustainability and workforce engagement HR and people leaders focused on Gen Z employees ESG and sustainability teams Organisations seeking to understand youth perspectives on climate action Audience outcomes Clear understanding of climate anxiety and its impact on young people Insight into Gen Z expectations of organisations on climate issues Practical approaches to turning climate concern into constructive action Greater awareness of the link between climate change and youth mental health Why organisations work with Clover Hogan Brings direct experience founding and leading an international youth climate organisation. Connects climate strategy with youth engagement and workforce expectations. Provides informed perspective on Gen Z climate concerns relevant to global brands. Offers a grounded, practical lens on climate anxiety and organisational responsibility. Biography Clover Hogan works at the intersection of climate action, youth engagement and organisational responsibility. As the founder of Force of Nature, she has built an international non-profit focused on equipping young people to move from climate anxiety to constructive action, creating practical pathways for engagement rather than disengagement. Under her leadership, Force of Nature delivered programmes reaching young people across more than 50 countries. Her work has centred on helping organisations understand how climate change and eco-anxiety are shaping the expectations, wellbeing and decision-making of the next generation. Clover is a TED speaker, known for her talk “What to do when climate change feels unstoppable,” which has reached a global audience online. She was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list for Social Impact, recognising her contribution to youth-led climate engagement. Alongside her non-profit leadership, she has advised global companies including PepsiCo and Unilever on responding to Gen Z climate concerns. Her perspective is grounded in direct experience with young people worldwide, combined with practical insight into how organisations can address climate responsibility, workforce expectations and long-term engagement. Clover now supports Force of Nature in an advisory capacity while continuing to speak internationally on climate anxiety, youth leadership and the role organisations play in shaping a credible, future-focused response to climate change.

Why organisations work with Diana Verde Nieto Diana is a rare leader who marries high-level strategic foresight with deep operational acumen. She has built a career on “seeing the markets before the markets arrive,” positioning her as a premier brand builder who doesn’t just predict trends but builds the infrastructure to capitalise on them. From pioneering sustainability consultancy in the early 2000s to defining luxury ESG standards, she excels at taking complex, future-leaning ideas and turning them into high-performing, reality-based business models. “Reimagining Luxury” (Kogan Page, 2024) was built on direct access to chief sustainability officers at LVMH, Kering, and L’Oreal, the frameworks it delivers are drawn from how the world’s major luxury houses actually run sustainability, not how they aspire to. Having founded and exited two ESG-focused businesses, Diana’s perspective on innovation and commercial strategy has been rigorously tested by real capital and real markets. She does not advocate for business transformation in theory; she has proven its commercial value in practice. Through Edify, she is now bridging the critical gap she identified during her previous ventures, the disconnect between board-level strategy and frontline workforce execution. By creating an AI-native productivity engine, she is providing the infrastructure necessary to turn high-level commitments into consistent, real-world action. She holds Non-Executive Director roles at the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. She is a former adviser to United Nations DESA and La Prairie Biography highlights Co-Founder and CEO of Edify Collective, Edify is an AI-native frontline performance engine designed to replace fragmented legacy tools with a single, unified workflow. It is built to solve the “final mile” of business transformation by bridging the gap between board-level strategy and frontline execution. Co-founder of Positive Luxury (2011) and  Founded Clownfish (2002), one of the world’s first dedicated sustainability communications consultancies; 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; advisory roles, United Nations DESA and UN Conscious Fashion and Lifestyle Network. Biography Diana is a rare leader who marries high-level strategic foresight with deep operational grit. Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a unique ability to see markets before they arrive, anticipating the global shift toward sustainability decades before it became a boardroom mandate. This foresight has established her as a premier brand builder who excels at taking future-leaning ideas and transforming them into high-performing, reality-based business models. Having founded and exited two major ESG-focused businesses, Diana’s perspective on innovation and commercial strategy has been rigorously tested by real capital and global Through Edify, Diana is now bridging the critical gap she identified during her previous ventures, the disconnect between board-level strategy and frontline workforce execution. As Co-Founder and CEO, she has built an AI-native performance engine that embeds brand standards, SOPs, and sustainability mandates directly into the flow of work. By translating strategy into real-time, executable actions, Edify provides the infrastructure for consistent global execution. Global Leadership & Advocacy A World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Harvard Kennedy School graduate, Diana serves as a Non-Executive Director for the British Beauty Council and Watts 1874. She also advises the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, addressing accountability from brand governance to international policy. Diana doesn’t just make the case for business transformation in theory; she provides the tools to prove it in practice. Key speaking topics Leadership in a Volatile World: Seeing Markets Before They Arrive Beyond Automation: The Future of Human Augmentation The AI-Native Workforce: Moving the conversation from “AI replacing people” to “AI empowering people” by embedding intelligence directly into the flow of work. Business Transformation: When Strategy Meets Reality OperationalizinhPurpose: Moving beyond “comms-heavy” transformation to create embedded operating standards that survive contact with daily operations. Lessons from the Luxury Sector: How the world’s leading houses (LVMH, Kering, L’Oreal) transform corporate culture to make social and environmental sustainability a core commercial strategy. Radical Accountability: Building Trust in a Transparent Age Trust as a Primary Asset: Why the gap between board-level commitments and operational reality is a brand’s greatest commercial and reputational risk. The Entrepreneurial Journey: Building, Scaling, and Exiting Purpose-Driven Entrepreneurship: How to build businesses that solve global problems while remaining attractive to real capital and competitive markets. Building for the Future: How to maintain a “founder’s mindset” while institutionalizing a company for global scale and long-term impact. Ideal for CEOs and Brand Leaders: Executives who need to bridge the gap between their strategic vision and the reality of their daily operations. Chief Operations & Transformation Officers: Leaders tasked with overhauling legacy systems to create a more agile, high-performing, and accountable workforce. Boards and Non-Executive Directors: Those responsible for governance and oversight who need to understand how operational failures create reputational and commercial liability including Venture Capital and Founders: Investors and entrepreneurs interested in market-entry strategies, building resilient brands, and the journey toward successful exits. Institutional Bodies & Industry Associations: Organizations like the UN or British Beauty Council where strategy, policy, and brand-level execution intersect. Audience outcomes Most speakers talk about what needs to change; Diana shows you how to change the way you work. She believes a business’s greatest liability isn’t a volatile market—it’s the integrity gap between the vision in the boardroom and the reality of the frontline. As a founder who has twice scaled and exited businesses in complex global markets, her focus is on the ‘final mile’ of leadership. She helps organizations move beyond ‘comms-heavy’ strategy to build the operational engines that deliver results. Audiences will learn to move beyond market trend reports and develop the “visionary operator” instinct to spot mandatory market shifts years before they become boardroom crises. You will learn how to institutionalize a founder’s grit into a global scale operation, ensuring the brand’s mission survives and thrives through every stage of the entrepreneurial journey. Shift the conversation from AI as a threat to AI as an ally. Audiences will understand how to embed intelligence directly into daily operations, turning the “AI-native workforce” into a high-performance reality. Learn how to use human augmentation to bridge the capability gap, putting the wisdom of your most experienced leaders into the hands of every frontline worker in real-time. Discover why brilliant strategies often die at the point of work and how to build the operational infrastructure that ensures board-level vision survives daily contact with reality. Drawing on the operational secrets of houses like LVMH and Kering, leaders will learn how to move beyond “comms-heavy” ESG to make responsibility a core, verifiable commercial strategy. Audiences will learn to identify the “Credibility Gap”, the space between corporate promises and frontline reality—and how to close it before it becomes a reputational or financial liability. Learn how to build a brand that doesn’t just ask for trust but proves it through radical accountability, turning transparency into a tool for premium market positioning.

Why organisations work with Juan Verde Holds first-hand US trade policy experience across three administrations (Clinton, Obama, Biden), including as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia with commercial responsibility for 52 countries. Operates fluently on both sides of the Atlantic, giving executives a practical read on how US and European policy environments shape the same investment decision differently. Frames sustainability as a commercial question, showing boards how climate strategy connects to capital access, pricing power, regulatory positioning, and export competitiveness. Brings live board-level context from HISPASAT and the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors, alongside advisory work with Google, Cisco, Banco Santander, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Currently serves on the President’s Export Council under President Biden, the White House advisory body whose members include the chief executives of Ford, Disney, Citibank, and Starbucks. Biography highlights Member of the President’s Export Council, the White House’s principal advisory committee on international trade and US competitiveness. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the US Department of Commerce, with commercial policy responsibility across 52 countries. Earlier international trade roles at the US Department of Commerce during the Clinton Administration. Founder and President of the Advanced Leadership Foundation, which has trained over 10,000 emerging green leaders across more than 10 countries. Board of Directors at HISPASAT, the satellite communications operator for Spain, Portugal, and Latin America; member of the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors. Master’s in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; BA in Political Science and International Relations, Boston University. Biography Trade policy used to move slowly enough that executives could treat it as weather. That no longer holds. Tariff regimes, export controls, and climate-linked regulation now reshape commercial plans in quarters, not decades, and the decisions are made in rooms Juan Verde has spent three decades working in. Appointed by President Obama in 2009, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia at the US Department of Commerce, with commercial policy responsibility across 52 countries. Under the Clinton Administration he held earlier international trade roles at Commerce. In 2023 President Biden appointed him to the President’s Export Council, the White House’s principal advisory committee on trade competitiveness, alongside the chief executives of companies including Ford, Disney, Citibank, and Starbucks. The through-line in his commercial work is a specific argument about sustainability. He treats climate action as a commercial question, which is the organising idea of his Profit Meets Planet keynote series on corporate climate, geopolitical arbitrage, and leading through disruption. That thesis draws on co-founding Climate Reality Project chapters with Al Gore in Spain and Argentina, and on advisory engagements through Alamo Solutions with Google, Cisco, Banco Santander, and the Inter-American Development Bank. His doctoral research at Universidad Camilo José Cela, on green economy strategies for small island nations, gives the argument academic grounding. For senior leaders, this translates into a speaker who can move between a boardroom question about European market entry and a policy question about US trade posture without losing commercial specificity. He sits on the Board of Directors of HISPASAT, the satellite communications operator for Spain, Portugal and Latin America, and on the Airbus Foundation Board of Advisors. His keynote platforms include the World Economic Forum, Harvard Kennedy School, the World Bank, and successive UN Climate Conferences, most recently COP25 and COP26. Key speaking topics International trade policy and market access Transatlantic economic relations Sustainability as commercial advantage Foreign direct investment and green export strategy Geopolitical risk for global businesses Public-private collaboration in international markets Ideal for Boards and CEOs planning international expansion or transatlantic market entry Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads connecting climate commitments to growth strategy Investment attraction agencies, trade bodies, and government ministers Corporate delegations at policy summits, sustainability events, and international conferences Audience outcomes How Washington and Brussels are reshaping what corporate sustainability commitments actually cost in commercial terms Why climate strategy should be treated as an export competitiveness question, with examples drawn from specific national markets Where the next flows of green foreign direct investment are likely to move, and what that means for growth planning Language that links trade policy shifts to board-level decisions on capital allocation and market entry

Why organisations work with Jan Peter Balkenende Eight years leading a G20 economy through financial crisis, EU enlargement and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gives him a view from inside the machine that almost no executive adviser can match. His book with Govert Buijs, “Capitalism Reconnected” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024), sets out a specific European alternative to both Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism, which boards can use as a reference point for their own strategy. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he convenes AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever around common sustainability positions, so he speaks with current standing, not archive authority. Minister of State status in the Netherlands and membership of Club de Madrid keep him close to working heads of government, which gives audiences a read on political risk that goes beyond press coverage. He pairs the institutional authority of a former PM with the working vocabulary of a senior adviser at EY and Hague Corporate Affairs, so corporate audiences get policy insight translated into commercial language. Biography highlights Prime Minister of the Netherlands 2002 to 2010, across four cabinets. Held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2004. Professor Emeritus of Governance, Institutions and Internationalisation, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Minister of State, Kingdom of the Netherlands, since October 2022. Chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition; Chair of the Noaber Foundation; Executive Board member, Global Center on Adaptation; Member, Club de Madrid. External Senior Advisor to EY; Associate Partner at Hague Corporate Affairs. Co-author, “Capitalism Reconnected: Toward a Sustainable, Inclusive and Innovative Market Economy in Europe” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024). Biography European economies are being asked to reinvent themselves at the same time as they govern themselves. Jan Peter Balkenende has spent more than two decades inside that tension, first as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2002 to 2010 and then as an adviser, academic and convenor of corporate leaders. Four successive cabinets and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gave him direct experience of how EU decisions are actually made, from enlargement to financial crisis response. That institutional memory now sits alongside a current role as Minister of State and as a member of Club de Madrid, the association of former heads of government. His intellectual contribution is set out in “Capitalism Reconnected,” co-written with political philosopher Govert Buijs and published by Amsterdam University Press in 2024. The book argues that Europe should stop defending its model defensively and instead frame a sustainable, inclusive and innovative market economy as a distinct offer, positioned between Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism. The argument is not theoretical for him. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he works with the CEOs of AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever on shared positions around climate, circularity and social equality, supported by VNO-NCW and facilitated by Accenture. Erasmus University Rotterdam, EY and Hague Corporate Affairs provide the academic and advisory base. The through-line, across government, campus and corporate rooms, is the same: Europe can only lead on sustainability if its companies and its institutions work from the same playbook. Key speaking topics European market-economy reform Sustainable and inclusive growth strategy Governance and public-private collaboration ESG and corporate responsibility in European context Geopolitical and policy risk for business Institutional leadership and long-term decision making Climate adaptation and the role of business Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting European sustainability and ESG strategy CEOs and CFOs navigating EU regulation, climate policy and geopolitical risk Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on public-private cooperation Leadership and strategy summits with a European or transatlantic agenda Audience outcomes A concrete reference framework, drawn from “Capitalism Reconnected,” for positioning a European business between state-led and shareholder-led models. A clearer read on how EU-level decisions are made, and where corporate influence actually lands. Live examples of how eight Dutch multinationals translate sustainable growth commitments into joint positions. A sharper sense of which political risks matter for strategy, and which are noise. Direct perspective from a former head of government on leading through crisis with contested public trust.

Why organisations work with Helle Thorning-Schmidt She brings direct, first-hand experience of governing at national level – the pressures, trade-offs, and decision logic of political leadership that no management theory course can replicate. Her role as co-chair of the Meta Oversight Board is live, not historical. She is actively making binding, precedent-setting decisions on content moderation, AI-generated material, and free speech – and publicly challenging Meta’s leadership where she disagrees. That currency is rare in any speaker on digital governance. Her current board seats span cybersecurity (Palo Alto Networks, Governance and Security Committees), clean energy (Vestas Wind Systems), and communications (Edelman). She is not describing corporate governance from the outside; she is practising it across sectors simultaneously. She can translate the logic of European regulatory thinking – from platform accountability to energy policy to humanitarian law – into terms a corporate board can act on, drawing on relationships across the US Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board. Her three years leading Save the Children International – 17,000 staff, 120 countries, active conflict zones – gives her an operational understanding of how international systems function and where they fail that is directly relevant to any organisation with complex, exposed global operations. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Denmark, 2011-2015; Denmark’s first female Prime Minister and first female leader of the Social Democratic Party Member of the European Parliament, 1999-2004; Member of the Danish Parliament, 2005-2015 CEO, Save the Children International, 2016-2019, overseeing 17,000 staff across 120 countries Co-chair, Meta Oversight Board, since 2020 – the independent body issuing binding content moderation decisions for Facebook and Instagram Board member, Palo Alto Networks (Governance and Sustainability Committee; Security Committee); board member, Vestas Wind Systems; board member, Edelman Named to Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, 2017; co-chair, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos, 2017 Member: US Council on Foreign Relations, European Council on Foreign Relations, Atlantic Council International Advisory Board, Berggruen 21st Century Council Biography The decisions that most challenge senior leadership teams today – how to govern AI, how to navigate geopolitical disruption, how to respond when digital regulation rewrites the rules of global commerce – were once considered the exclusive domain of governments. Helle Thorning-Schmidt has worked on both sides of that divide. As Denmark’s first female Prime Minister from 2011 to 2015, she led a government through the aftermath of the financial crisis while managing complex European and international relationships from the highest level of executive authority. From 2016 to 2019, she served as CEO of Save the Children International, overseeing 17,000 staff in 120 countries and engaging governments, multilateral institutions, and civil society on live humanitarian crises in Yemen, Syria, and Myanmar. That experience gave her an operational understanding of how international systems function – and where they fail – that no advisory role provides. Since 2020, she has co-chaired the Meta Oversight Board, the independent body that makes binding content moderation decisions for Facebook and Instagram and issues policy recommendations directly to Meta’s leadership. She has publicly challenged Meta’s practices where the board disagrees – including on the company’s 2025 decision to drop independent fact-checking – making her perspective on platform accountability distinctly independent. Her appointment in February 2025 to the board of Palo Alto Networks, where she sits on both the Governance and Sustainability Committee and the Security Committee, extends that reach into live cybersecurity governance. She also serves on the boards of Vestas Wind Systems and Edelman. Her foreign policy engagements include membership of the US Council on Foreign Relations, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the International Crisis Group, and the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board. Named to Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in 2017, she co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos that same year. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and international governance Corporate governance and board accountability Platform governance and digital regulation Leadership under political and institutional pressure Cross-sector governance across government, business, and civil society Diverse and inclusive board leadership Humanitarian risk and operating in complex global environments Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors navigating geopolitical complexity and regulatory pressure Senior leadership teams in technology, energy, financial services, and other heavily regulated sectors Public affairs, government relations, and risk functions in multinational organisations International policy forums, governance conferences, and executive leadership summits Audience outcomes Clearer understanding of how political and regulatory decisions affecting business are actually made at government level Practical context for board-level governance in an environment of increasing digital, geopolitical, and regulatory complexity Insight into the logic of platform regulation and what it means for corporate accountability and communications strategy A more grounded framework for assessing geopolitical risk and its direct implications for organisational decision-making Perspective on what effective leadership under genuine institutional pressure – rather than corporate simulation of it – actually looks like

Why organisations work with Benedikt Böhm A working CEO, not a retired one. He runs an international outdoor brand and continues to ski 8,000-metre peaks, so the leadership material is current and tested, not memoir. A documented record in the most unforgiving operating environment in sport. Speed ascents of Muztagata, Gasherbrum II and Manaslu without oxygen are public, verifiable proof points for the arguments he makes about preparation, role clarity and team recovery. A peer-reviewed intellectual platform. His Routledge book with ESSEC professor Stefan Gröschl frames the work as leadership scholarship, which gives the content credibility with HR, executive development and L&D buyers who screen out motivational content. A live test case for sustainability as commercial strategy. The DYNAFIT lifetime guarantee and the Helping Band WWF partnership are operating decisions, not communications. Survivor and rescuer in the 2012 Manaslu avalanche. The account of decision-making in and after that event is one of the few first-hand executive narratives of catastrophic shock and sustained recovery. Biography highlights International Managing Director of DYNAFIT, the ski-touring brand he led from insolvency in 2003 to global category leadership. Co-author with Professor Stefan Gröschl of ESSEC Business School of “From the Death Zone to the Boardroom” (Routledge, 2019). Speed records on Muztagata (7,546m, 2005) and Gasherbrum II (8,035m, 2006) with Sebastian Haag; speed ascent and ski descent of Manaslu (8,163m, 2012) without supplemental oxygen. WWF Foundation ambassador for the Himalaya region and snow leopards. Founder of Helping Band, a wristband initiative committing approximately 60,000 euros per year to WWF. Former member of the German national ski mountaineering team. Biography DYNAFIT was effectively insolvent when Benedikt Böhm joined its marketing team in 2003. Two decades later the brand is the international category leader in ski touring, with a lifetime product guarantee and an institutional partnership with WWF that he built personally. The arc is unusual because it has been run in parallel with an active expedition career at 8,000 metres. That second career is the source of his leadership material. Speed ascents of Muztagata, Gasherbrum II and Manaslu without supplemental oxygen require a precision of role allocation, recovery management and judgement under hypoxia that ordinary corporate planning does not test for. Böhm has spent twenty years moving between the two settings, and the comparison is what makes the work substantive. His 2019 book with ESSEC professor Stefan Gröschl, “From the Death Zone to the Boardroom,” published by Routledge, is the formal statement of that work. The book sits deliberately outside the usual business-and-management canon, drawing on research into fear, pain, suffering and failure to argue that conventional models of executive resilience are too clean to describe how senior leaders actually behave under sustained pressure. The 2012 Manaslu avalanche, which killed eleven climbers and which Böhm and his climbing partner survived and helped rescue from, anchors much of the recovery and decision-making content. It is the rare case where the speaker has lived the catastrophic-shock material he discusses, and continued, after a deliberate pause, to operate at the same altitude and at the head of the same company. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under extreme uncertainty Resilience and recovery after operational shock Team performance in high-stakes environments Risk management and the discipline of preparation Sustainability as commercial strategy Change leadership and organisational reinvention Personal performance and self-leadership at executive level Ideal for Executive committees and boards rebuilding after restructure, crisis or sustained pressure CHROs and heads of executive development designing leadership programmes with substance under the keynote CEOs and senior commercial leaders wrestling with sustainability as an operating decision rather than a communications line Senior teams preparing for major change, market entry or expedition-style strategic bets Audience outcomes A language for separating preparation, role discipline and recovery as three distinct leadership capabilities rather than one blurred idea of “resilience” A clearer view of how senior teams should behave in the first hours and days after a serious operational shock A working example of a CEO who has run sustainability as a product decision, not as a marketing position A grounded counterweight to motivational adventure content, with named expeditions, named outcomes and a named peer-reviewed text behind the argument

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

Why organisations work with K D Adamson She has named and framed the shift. Her concept of “nobleization” – the argument that the next phase of business is not globalisation but morally accountable, purpose-led value creation – gives leadership teams a precise, shareable thesis rather than a trend briefing. She challenges the techno-optimist default from a position of intellectual rigour. When AI, automation and digital transformation dominate the conversation, Adamson’s argument that tomorrow is a value problem, not a technology problem reframes the strategic question at board level. This is a harder case to make but her broadcast record on BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN and the Financial Times confirms it holds up under interrogation. Her “Seismotectonic” model gives leaders a practical foresight tool, not just a perspective. The three-movement framework of what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, what appears not to change at all is actionable in strategic planning contexts and transfers directly from a keynote into workshop and executive briefing formats. Her client base spans sectors where the future-of-value argument has immediate strategic urgency including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, and PwC, which gives her the commercial credibility to speak to mixed leadership audiences without being narrowed to a single industry vertical. Her ecocentrist positioning is analytically distinct. Placing ecological systems rather than human enterprise at the centre of value creation is not rhetorical positioning. It is the foundation of her ESG and circular economy arguments, and it produces conclusions that differ meaningfully from those of speakers whose sustainability work begins and ends with reporting frameworks. Biography highlights Founder and former CEO, Futurenautics Group; former Futurist, The Futures Agency Author of Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), the foundational foresight text on digital transformation in the shipping and maritime industry Broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, Financial Times, Al Jazeera, Channel News Asia, and BBC R4 Today Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts; stated member of Chatham House, The Aristotelian Society, the Society of Antiquaries, CERN Open Quantum Institute, and the International Society for the Circular Economy Global client roster includes Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, PwC, Deloitte, Capgemini, Rolls-Royce, Vodafone, Oracle, and Pfizer Biography The thesis K D Adamson has built over two decades is a direct challenge to the most widely held corporate assumption about the future: that it is, above all, a technology problem. In a landscape where most foresight is organised around what AI, automation, or quantum computing will do to a given industry, Adamson argues that what actually determines where organisations end up is what they believe about value, about purpose, and about who business is ultimately for. Her concept of “nobleization” names this argument precisely. Where globalisation provided the operating logic of the late twentieth century, Adamson contends that the defining shift of the current era is from a global business to a noble one, where ESG, the circular economy, and purpose-led strategy are not peripheral compliance exercises but the competitive architecture of the world arriving. The implication for leadership is significant: the strategic planning tools built for the previous era are no longer sufficient guides. Adamson founded and led Futurenautics Group, where her work on the digital transformation of the shipping and maritime industry made her the sector’s authoritative futurist – a standing substantiated by Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), which set the analytical agenda for how one of the world’s most conservative global industries understood its own disruption. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a regular broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, the Financial Times, and Al Jazeera, which means her frameworks are tested in real time against the hardest current questions, not only in controlled conference settings. Her “Seismotectonic” model of change, mapping three simultaneous rates of disruption: what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, and what appears not to change at all, gives senior teams a working tool for strategy under deep uncertainty. It is this combination of named intellectual frameworks, commercial range across clients including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, and CHANEL, and the ecocentrist perspective that places ecology rather than enterprise at the centre of value analysis, that separates Adamson from speakers covering adjacent territory. Key speaking topics Future of business value and sustainable transformation The limits of techno-optimism ESG as competitive strategy, not compliance Geopolitics and the end of globalisation AI: belief, systemic risk, and organisational response Leadership beyond control Strategic foresight and scenario planning Ideal for C-suite and board audiences navigating how to reframe business strategy as stakeholder expectations, geopolitical pressures, and ecological imperatives converge Chief Sustainability Officers and strategy leads responsible for translating ESG from reporting obligation into organisational design Global leadership conferences convening senior executives across multiple sectors and geographies, where a macro-systemic perspective is required rather than a sector-specific one Executive leadership teams of multinationals at significant inflection points – where the question is not only operational but concerns organisational identity and the long-term logic of value creation Audience outcomes A named conceptual framework, “nobleization”, for articulating why business strategy must move beyond profit primacy, framed as competitive logic rather than ideology Clarity on why the next wave of disruption is a value problem rather than a technology problem, and what that distinction means for strategic planning and capital allocation A working model for reading simultaneous, differently-paced change: the Seismotectonic framework, applicable in strategy sessions and scenario planning processes A more rigorous way to frame AI risk: focused on collective belief and systemic dependency rather than technical capability alone Greater confidence in articulating an alternative vision of organisational purpose to boards, investors, and internal leadership audiences

Why organisations work with Luiz Barroso He has held three seats that almost no one else holds together: national energy planner (CEO of Brazil’s EPE), market designer and consultant across 30 countries, and partner in Latin America’s largest investment bank. That gives him a view of energy decisions from the policy desk, the operator’s desk and the capital allocator’s desk simultaneously. His work answers the question most energy speakers avoid: how does decarbonisation actually get financed and priced in markets that do not look like Western Europe? Investors and regulators in Latin America, Asia and Africa book him for that reason. He sits inside the IEA conversation on emerging-economy transition, having been a visiting researcher in Paris on exactly that question. That places him close to where international finance and national policy intersect. IEEE Fellow status, granted for contributions to electricity market design, signals a rare technical depth for an industry speaker. Most transition commentators cannot model what they recommend. Biography highlights CEO of PSR Energy Consulting and Analytics, the BTG Pactual-owned firm Former CEO of Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica (EPE), Brazil’s national energy planning agency Visiting researcher, International Energy Agency, Paris Associate researcher, Institute for Research in Technology, Comillas University, Madrid IEEE Fellow; IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award recipient Author of one book, three book chapters and more than 70 peer-reviewed papers on electricity and gas market design Biography The energy transition has stopped being a question of ambition and become a question of capital. Boards have set decarbonisation targets; the harder problem is financing them through power markets that work differently in every country an investor touches. Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Indonesia do not have the same grid, the same regulation or the same risk pricing. Luiz Barroso has spent his career inside that problem. As CEO of PSR Energy Consulting and Analytics, a BTG Pactual-owned firm, he advises private investors, public lenders, governments and regulators in around 30 countries on market design, financing and risk in electricity and gas. Before that, he ran Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica, the Brazilian government body responsible for national energy planning, a role equivalent to deputy minister. His research credentials are unusual for someone operating in industry. He is an IEEE Fellow, recognised specifically for contributions to electricity market regulation and design, and an associate researcher at the Institute for Research in Technology at Comillas University in Madrid. In 2018 he spent a year at the International Energy Agency in Paris, working on the question of how energy transition unfolds in emerging economies. That combination matters because most senior leaders hearing about energy transition are hearing from policy commentators, academic modellers or industry executives. Barroso has held all three roles. His work helps capital allocators, board directors and regulators see where the transition narrative meets the actual structure of power and gas markets, and where the money has to go for it to function. Key speaking topics Energy transition in emerging economies Electricity and gas market design Investment and financing under decarbonisation Regulation and policy in liberalised power markets Risk management in energy infrastructure Power system economics Ideal for Board directors and investment committees with energy exposure outside Western Europe and North America Infrastructure investors, development banks and sovereign wealth funds allocating to the transition Energy regulators, system operators and policy bodies in emerging markets Senior leaders in utilities, oil and gas, and large industrial energy buyers Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how energy transition is actually financed and priced in emerging-economy power and gas markets A working understanding of why decarbonisation pathways diverge across jurisdictions, and what that means for cross-border capital Practical exposure to the trade-offs regulators face when designing markets that must attract investment and deliver reliability simultaneously A grounded view of which transition assumptions hold up when tested against grid reality and which do not

Why organisations work with Isaac Kenyon He carries three credentials in one room: working energy-transition geoscientist, trustee of Mind, and record-setting endurance athlete. That triangulation lets him speak to wellbeing, sustainability and performance without losing the audience on any of them. His lived mental health story is paired with a formal governance role at a national mental health charity, which raises the credibility floor for sessions on burnout and men’s mental health well above the standard adventurer-speaker offer. The Climate Explorers CIC platform gives him a real operating context for sustainability content. He is talking about ESG and nature-based solutions as a founder running campaigns, not as a commentator. Kenyon’s expedition material (Atlantic row, waterbike crossing, weighted Ironman) is used as evidence for specific arguments about teaming, recovery and decision-making, rather than as standalone motivation. Biography highlights Co-founder of Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company campaigning on nature-based climate solutions. Trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of national mental health charity Mind. BSc (Hons) Geology and MSc Geoscience, Royal Holloway, University of London; works as an energy transition geoscientist. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London, and member of the Scientific Exploration Society. Completed the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge in 40 days, finishing sixth in 2019. World-record London Marathon run in a brain costume, raising funds and awareness for men’s mental health. Biography Most workforces are not short of wellbeing content. They are short of credible voices who can connect resilience, purpose and sustainability without sliding into slogans. That is the gap Isaac Kenyon fills, with a portfolio that holds together because every claim is backed by a role he actually performs. He is a working energy-transition geoscientist trained at Royal Holloway, University of London, with a BSc in Geology and an MSc in Geoscience. He co-founded Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company that builds campaigns around nature-based climate solutions and eco-adventure. The sustainability content in his keynotes is grounded in that operating reality, not in commentary. The wellbeing line is anchored just as concretely. Kenyon is a trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of the national mental health charity, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London and Scientific Exploration Society. His own experience of burnout sits alongside a governance role at a mental health charity, which is what raises the credibility floor on his men’s mental health and resilience material. The expeditions are where the arguments land. A 40-day row across the Atlantic, finishing sixth in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. A London Marathon was completed in a brain costume to set a record for men’s mental health. A waterbike crossing of the UK from Orkney to the Isles of Scilly. Kenyon uses each one to make a specific point about decision-making under fatigue, team behaviour at the limit, and what sustainable performance actually costs. Key speaking topics Resilience and burnout recovery Sustainable high performance Mental health and men’s wellbeing Climate action and nature-based sustainability Purpose-driven culture Team performance under pressure Energy transition and ESG storytelling Ideal for CHROs, heads of people and wellbeing leads dealing with workforce burnout and engagement. ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility teams are looking for a credible voice that links climate to culture. Leadership offsites and conferences where resilience and purpose need to land in the same session. Organisations running men’s mental health, Mental Health Awareness Week or sustainability campaigns that need a named, accredited voice. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how burnout shows up in teams and what leaders can actually do about it. A working language for talking about sustainability and wellbeing as a single agenda, not two parallel ones. Specific decision-making lessons drawn from extreme endurance contexts and applied to workplace pressure. Practical entry points for men’s mental health conversations that often stall in corporate settings. A reframing of purpose that connects individual resilience with organisational and environmental responsibility.

Why organisations work with Graham Weale Nine years as Chief Economist of RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, through the sharpest phase of the Energiewende. Few speakers have read the transition from inside a utility of that scale. Active academic output on the questions boards are asking now, including a 2023 Energy Policy paper on whether energy-only markets can remunerate investment and a 2024 EnWZ piece on hydrogen supply contract design. Cross-border fluency in European energy policy through the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine, the German-French Office for Energy Transition, and advisory work for the Energy Transitions Commission. Used as an expert witness in natural gas and power arbitration, which sharpens the precision he brings to contract structure, price review, and regulatory risk. Comfortable translating between the energy-intensive industry lens (through VIK) and the utility and investor lens. Useful when a room contains both sides of the decarbonisation cost argument. Biography highlights Honorary Professor of Energy Economics and Politics, Ruhr University Bochum (Centre for Environmental Management, Resources and Energy). Chief Economist, RWE AG, 2007 to 2016. Senior Advisor, Energy Transitions Commission, 2017 to 2018. Former Director of European Energy Services, Global Insight (now S&P Global), 2000 to 2007. Steering Committee member, Chaire European Electricity Markets, Universite Paris-Dauphine. Published in Energy Policy, Intereconomics, Oxford Energy Forum, EnWZ, and the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law. Biography European power markets were designed in a world of predictable demand and marginal-cost dispatch. That world has gone. The question now is how to remunerate the flexible capacity a decarbonised system needs, and whether the current market design can fund it without another round of state intervention. This is the terrain Graham Weale has worked in for four decades, first as a practitioner and now as an academic. The operator credentials are specific. Weale was Chief Economist at RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, from 2007 to 2016, the years in which the Energiewende reshaped the economics of thermal generation. Before that he ran European Energy Services at Global Insight, and earlier worked at ExxonMobil in supply and refining. His training spans physics at Oxford, an MSc in Systems Engineering, and an MBA. The academic record sits alongside the operator one. As Honorary Professor at Ruhr University Bochum, he has published on power market remuneration in Energy Policy, on hydrogen contract design in EnWZ, and on European power market reform in Intereconomics. He advised the Energy Transitions Commission under Adair Turner between 2017 and 2018, and sits on the Steering Committee of the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine. That combination is useful in specific rooms. Boards deciding whether to sign a long-term hydrogen offtake, investors pricing capacity market risk, or policymakers weighing the next iteration of electricity market design get someone who has sat on both sides of the problem and still writes about it for a living. Key speaking topics Power market design and capacity remuneration Industrial decarbonisation and the economics of electrification Hydrogen contracts, supply chains, and the European hydrogen ramp-up German Energiewende and EU Green Deal implementation Natural gas markets and price review arbitration Energy geopolitics after the Ukraine invasion Nuclear, renewables, and the zero-carbon generation mix Ideal for Utility, grid, and generation boards setting capital allocation under decarbonisation targets. Infrastructure funds and institutional investors pricing European power and hydrogen assets. Energy-intensive industrial leaders (steel, chemicals, cement) planning decarbonisation roadmaps. Policymakers and regulators working on market design, capacity mechanisms, and hydrogen frameworks. Audience outcomes A clear view of where European power market design is heading and what that means for long-term generation investment. A realistic read on hydrogen: which use cases will scale, which contracts are bankable, and what the European ramp-up actually requires. Sharper framing of the political-economic risk attached to Energiewende-style transitions, drawn from inside a major utility. Specific vocabulary for talking to boards and investors about carbon pricing, capacity mechanisms, and industrial decarbonisation. A defensible basis for stress-testing internal energy transition plans against the economics, not only the targets.

Why organisations work with Aljan de Boer A structured research model, not trend commentary. TrendsActive’s trend model draws on two decades of social science research – psychology, sociology, anthropology – to convert cultural signals into strategic implications. Audiences receive a framework, not a list of observations. Direct access to what 400+ CMOs are actually doing. As Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth, de Boer works inside a practitioner network of senior marketing leaders navigating the same pressures he describes. His insight is tested against real decisions, not desk research. The IRG Growth and Impact Studies as evidence base. His talk on humanized growth draws on two large-scale global studies produced by IRG in partnership with the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford – giving commercial teams a peer-reviewed foundation for strategies that go beyond shareholder primacy. Translation from complexity to commercial action. Where other trend speakers describe what is happening, de Boer’s focus is on what organisations should do about it – specifically for brand strategy, customer understanding, and growth planning at C-suite level. Named-brand consulting experience behind the research. TrendsActive’s client list includes Disney, Vodafone, and Hugo Boss – organisations where the same analytical approach has been stress-tested against real strategic choices. Biography highlights Head of Inspiration, TrendsActive – Netherlands-based trend consultancy applying social science to brand and business strategy Community Director, Institute for Real Growth – leads CMO leadership programme and connects a global community of 400+ senior marketing leaders IRG Impact Study, produced in partnership with Saïd Business School, University of Oxford – foundational research underpinning his humanized growth framework Board member, Dutch Platform of Innovative Marketing, for close to a decade Regular speaker and moderator, Dutch Marketing Awards; three-time winner, Best of MIE Senior Lecturer (Hoofddocent), Iris Academy; advisory and teaching roles in marketing and trends Biography Brands lose relevance not because their products deteriorate, but because the people they serve quietly change around them. Aljan de Boer has spent the past two decades helping commercial leaders see that shift before it becomes a crisis – using social science, not sentiment analysis, as the primary instrument. As Head of Inspiration at TrendsActive, de Boer works with a methodology that draws on psychology, sociology, and anthropology to decode fundamental changes in how people think, trust, and make decisions. The consultancy’s client list runs to major international brands across consumer, financial services, and technology sectors. Its trend model is designed not to describe what is fashionable but to identify what is structurally different about the human context organisations are operating in. Alongside his work at TrendsActive, de Boer serves as Community Director at the Institute for Real Growth, where he leads a global CMO leadership programme and connects a practitioner network of more than 400 senior marketing leaders. The IRG’s work – including its Growth and Impact Studies, developed in partnership with the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford – provides the empirical backbone for his argument that durable commercial growth requires creating value for colleagues, customers, communities, and capital markets simultaneously. He calls this humanized growth; the research quantifies why it outperforms narrower models. The result is a speaker who brings an evidence base to questions that typically attract only opinion: what is actually changing in consumer behaviour, why geopolitical and generational pressure shifts brand expectations at a structural level, and what a marketing or commercial leadership team should concretely do next. Key speaking topics Sociocultural trends and brand strategy Humanized growth and multi-stakeholder value creation Consumer behaviour under economic and geopolitical pressure Generation Z and generational change Future-proofing organisations through social science ESG and sustainability as commercial strategy The polycrisis and its implications for business Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leadership teams Chief Commercial Officers and growth strategy leaders Executive committees preparing for medium-term strategic planning Corporate conference programmes focused on brand relevance, customer strategy, or commercial resilience Audience outcomes A structured framework for identifying which sociocultural shifts are commercially significant, and which are noise Clearer understanding of the specific psychological, sociological, and generational forces reshaping customer and employee expectations Language and evidence for making the case internally for human-centred growth strategies, grounded in the IRG research base Sharper perspective on what Generation Z’s formative context – climate anxiety, political polarisation, pandemic – means for brand and product strategy A practical lens for translating societal complexity into near-term decisions on brand positioning, customer engagement, and organisational priorities