ESG Strategy

Why organisations work with Jean Todt He took over a Ferrari racing operation that had not won a Drivers’ Championship in twenty-one years and produced five consecutive titles for Michael Schumacher between 2000 and 2004. Few living executives can speak to a turnaround at that scale and that level of public scrutiny. He has run three different kinds of high-stakes organisation, a manufacturer racing programme at Peugeot, a listed sports car business at Ferrari, and a 145-country federation at the FIA. The leadership lessons translate across commercial, governance, and political environments. He holds a live UN mandate. As Special Envoy for Road Safety since 2015, he negotiates directly with heads of state on a public health crisis that kills roughly 1.19 million people a year. Boards working on ESG, public-private partnership, or regulated-industry strategy get a practitioner, not a commentator. He co-founded the Paris Brain Institute with neurosurgeon Gerard Saillant, putting institutional capital and racing-industry networks behind one of Europe’s largest neuroscience research centres. The pattern, building durable institutions from convening power, is rare. Biography highlights Director of Peugeot Talbot Sport, 1981 to 1993, delivering four World Rally Championship titles, four Paris-Dakar wins, and two Le Mans 24 Hours victories. General Manager of Ferrari’s Racing Division from 1993; CEO of Ferrari S.p.A. from 2004 to 2008. Ninth President of the FIA, 2009 to 2021, three full terms; now FIA Honorary President. UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Road Safety since April 2015, reconfirmed under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Co-founder and board member, Paris Brain Institute, ICM, with Professor Gerard Saillant. Author, “The Silent Pandemic On the Road,” Assouline. Grand-Croix de la Legion d’Honneur. Recipient of the Olympic Order. Biography Scuderia Ferrari had not won a Formula One Drivers’ Championship since 1979 when Jean Todt arrived in 1993 as General Manager of the Racing Division. He brought in Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn, and Rory Byrne, rebuilt the technical organisation around them, and produced the most dominant run in modern Formula One: five consecutive Drivers’ titles between 2000 and 2004 and six Constructors’ titles in seven years. In 2004 he was promoted to CEO of Ferrari S.p.A., responsible for the road car business as well as the racing operation, until 2008. The Ferrari work followed a twelve-year stint at Peugeot Talbot Sport from 1981, where he built the rally programme that produced four World Rally Championship titles, four Paris-Dakar wins, and two Le Mans 24 Hours victories. The pattern across both jobs was the same: take a manufacturer’s competition arm, set a clear technical direction, and hold it long enough for compounding to work. Elected ninth President of the FIA in 2009, Todt served three four-year terms running motor sport’s global governing body across 145 national federations and 245 member organisations. He launched the FIA Action for Road Safety campaign in 2011, which became the platform for his next role: in April 2015, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed him Special Envoy for Road Safety, a brief he still holds, working with governments to halve road deaths by 2030. Outside motor sport, Todt co-founded the Paris Brain Institute, ICM, with Professor Gerard Saillant; the institute is now one of the largest neuroscience research centres in Europe. He is a Grand-Croix de la Legion d’Honneur and a recipient of the Olympic Order. His most recent book, “The Silent Pandemic On the Road,” collects more than fifty road safety case studies from the partners and governments he has worked with as UN Envoy. Key speaking topics Turnaround leadership in legacy organisations High-performance team building under public scrutiny Sports governance and federation reform Global road safety policy Public-private partnership for social outcomes Building institutions: from racing to neuroscience Crisis management and decision-making at speed Ideal for CEOs and executive committees running multi-year turnarounds where culture and technical excellence both have to move Boards and chairs working on governance reform, federation oversight, or regulated-industry strategy ESG, public affairs, and sustainability leaders building credible public-private programmes Automotive, mobility, and insurance leadership audiences working on safety, risk, and the energy transition Audience outcomes A working model for rebuilding a senior team when the inherited talent and the public narrative are both against you A clearer view of how political authority, technical authority, and commercial authority interact in regulated industries A first-hand account of negotiating with heads of state on a public health mandate, with the mechanisms that have moved policy and the ones that have not A serious answer to the question of how a leader sustains performance across forty years and three very different institutional roles

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

Key speaking topics Circular economy business models Sustainable fashion and textiles Recycling and material innovation Corporate sustainability strategy Environmental impact of the fashion industry Cross-sector collaboration for environmental action Social entrepreneurship Ideal for Sustainability and ESG leaders Fashion and retail executives Corporate strategy teams exploring circular models Organisations seeking practical examples of environmental innovation Audience outcomes Clear understanding of how recycled materials can be integrated into commercial products Insight into building a circular economy business model Practical examples of cross-industry environmental collaboration Perspective on aligning brand, product design, and sustainability Why organisations work with Javier Goyeneche Direct founder experience building and scaling a circular fashion brand. Recognised by international institutions for social innovation and sustainability leadership. Practical case study of recycling, material innovation, and supply chain collaboration. Relevant insight for organisations addressing environmental impact within commercial operations. Biography Javier Goyeneche is the founder and executive leader of ECOALF, a fashion brand built on circular economy principles and the large-scale use of recycled materials. Under his leadership, ECOALF has developed textiles and products from waste streams including PET bottles, discarded fishing nets, used tyres, coffee grounds, and post-industrial cotton and wool, demonstrating how environmental responsibility can be integrated into commercial design and supply chains. His work sits at the intersection of sustainability, material innovation, and business strategy. ECOALF positions itself as a circular-economy brand and has been profiled by major business and sustainability institutions, reflecting its relevance to organisations seeking practical models for reducing environmental impact while maintaining product performance and brand integrity. In addition to building ECOALF, Javier founded and later sold a fashion accessories company, providing him with first-hand experience of scaling and exiting a consumer brand. He has been recognised by the Thinkers50 Radar and named a Schwab Foundation Social Innovator of the Year, underscoring the broader business and social significance of his approach. Through the ECOALF Foundation, he also leads the Upcycling the Oceans initiative, partnering with fishing communities to recover marine litter for recycling and reuse. The programme began in Spain and expanded internationally, offering a clear example of cross-sector collaboration to address environmental challenges. Educated in Spain, London and Paris, with a business degree from European Business School and postgraduate study in international marketing at Northwestern University, Javier combines international commercial training with entrepreneurial execution. His perspective is particularly relevant for senior leaders and founders seeking credible, commercially viable pathways to circular economy transformation and sustainable growth.

Why organisations work with James Chau He runs the room when the speakers are Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma or Bill Gates. Very few moderators on the circuit have repeated reps at that level of principal. As President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, he sits inside the working architecture of US-China dialogue rather than commenting on it from the sidelines. His credential stack on global health is institutional, not rhetorical: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the SDGs, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador. The China Current gives him a live interview record with Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Christine Lagarde, Ban Ki-moon and Jane Goodall. The editorial muscle is current, not historic. He reads a room built from heads of state, Nobel laureates and corporate chiefs the way a senior editor reads copy. The diplomatic temperature of a session is managed in real time. Biography highlights President, China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), Hong Kong. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goals and Health (appointed 2016). First UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador for China (appointed 2009). Host of The China Current, a global-affairs interview and storytelling platform. Former main English-language news anchor at China Central Television; guest presenter, BBC World News. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; U.S. National Press Foundation Fellow; Harvard Kennedy School executive education. Biography The room was Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma, Laura Bush. James Chau was chairing. That is the kind of session he has been asked to run for more than a decade, and the reason organisations book him is not broadcast gloss. It is the ability to keep a hard conversation productive when the participants are principals with careful positions. Chau is President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong-based NGO that convenes official-track and track-two dialogue between the two countries. The role places him inside the working machinery of one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world, not adjacent to it. That access shapes how he chairs: he knows where the lines are, and when to press. Before CUSEF, he spent years as the main English-language news anchor at China Central Television and a guest presenter on BBC World News. The interview record from The China Current, his own platform, runs through Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, Jane Goodall and Ban Ki-moon. His work on global health is formal: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals and Health since 2016, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador from 2009. He was educated at Cambridge, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Music, with executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. For a corporate summit, a multilateral plenary, an awards evening or a closed-room dialogue where the speakers are sensitive and the questions matter, Chau is a moderator whose standing is set by the company he keeps on stage. Key speaking topics US-China relations Global health and the Sustainable Development Goals China and the global economy International development and multilateralism Media, storytelling and public diplomacy High-level event hosting and moderation Ideal for Global summits and multilateral convenings where the principals on stage are heads of state, Nobel laureates or Fortune 100 chief executives CEO and board dialogues on China strategy, US-China risk and global health policy Awards ceremonies and flagship corporate events where a broadcast-grade host is required Foundations, NGOs and policy institutes working on the SDGs, HIV/AIDS and global public health Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the US-China relationship actually sits, from someone inside the dialogue A working framing of how global health policy, the SDGs and corporate strategy intersect A session that keeps pace and holds weight when the speakers are senior and the brief is sensitive A clearer view of how China is reported, mis-reported, and understood in international media

Why organisations work with Gunter Pauli He has run the experiment himself. As CEO of Ecover he built the first fully ecological factory in Malle, Belgium in 1992, and grew the business into a category-defining consumer brand before turning to systems work. The Blue Economy is a named, published framework, not a talk. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome catalogues 100 nature-inspired innovations with business cases attached, and has been translated into more than 30 languages. He sits inside the conversation that shapes long-range policy. Elected member of the Club of Rome and former executive committee member, with advisory roles for governments in Spain, Argentina, Italy and Bhutan. He converts sustainability from a cost line into a portfolio of revenue opportunities. The argument boards respond to: waste streams and local resources are unbooked revenue if you redesign around them. He founded and still leads ZERI, a working network of scientists and entrepreneurs testing zero-emissions business models in the field, which keeps the content grounded in what has actually been built. Biography highlights Founder of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives), established in 1994 at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Former Chairman and CEO of Ecover, Belgium; led the design and launch of the Malle ecological factory in 1992. Author of The Blue Economy: 10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs, commissioned as a report to the Club of Rome. Elected member of the Club of Rome; served on its executive committee. Recipient of the 2022 Goi Peace Award; honorary doctorate from the University of Pecs, Hungary. MBA, INSEAD Fontainebleau; economics, University of Antwerp. Biography Ecover was a detergent company when Gunter Pauli took it over in 1991. Four years later it was a global reference point for sustainable manufacturing, operating out of a wooden factory with a planted roof in Malle, Belgium, the first of its kind. The experience also taught him that a clean product built on palm oil was still destroying rainforest, and that the green movement of the early 1990s had not yet confronted the problem. That recognition is what produced the Blue Economy. Working from the United Nations University in Tokyo, Pauli founded ZERI in 1994 to test a different premise: that natural systems already solve most of the problems industry struggles with, and that redesigning around local resources and cascading waste streams produces better economics, not worse. The 2010 report to the Club of Rome set out 100 worked examples, from coffee-to-mushroom cultivation to stone paper, each with a business case. The framework has travelled. The Blue Economy has been translated into more than 30 languages, taught on MBA and policy programmes, and picked up by governments in Europe, Latin America and Asia as a basis for regional development strategy. Pauli was elected to the Club of Rome and served on its executive committee from 2017, and received the Goi Peace Award in 2022. What he brings to a senior audience is a practitioner’s account of how environmental and financial returns can be made to move together, with a portfolio of cases that have been built, sold and scaled. The argument is not that sustainability is a duty. It is that most industrial processes are inefficient on their own terms, and the companies that notice first will take the margin. Key speaking topics The Blue Economy Nature-inspired business model design Zero emissions manufacturing and circular supply chains Sustainable entrepreneurship Regional development and resource strategy ESG strategy and corporate sustainability Systems thinking for leaders Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors setting sustainability and capital allocation strategy Heads of innovation, R&D and operations rethinking product and factory design Government and public-sector leaders shaping regional development and industrial policy Investor audiences evaluating circular and regenerative business models Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Blue Economy framework and how it differs from recycling, offsetting and conventional CSR Named examples of companies and regions that have used nature-inspired design to cut cost and emissions at the same time A sharper lens for spotting waste streams and local resources that can be turned into revenue Language to use with boards and investors when sustainability investments have to compete for capital A reading of where sustainability policy and markets are heading over the next decade, drawn from Club of Rome and government advisory work

Why organisations work with Goutam Challagalla His book “Clean Winners” (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2026) gives leadership teams a named framework – the Resonator model – for redesigning sustainability around customer value rather than compliance, using cases from Michelin, Schneider Electric, Nespresso, and John Deere. His HBR argument for “deep and narrow” AI adoption – published November-December 2025 and developed with the former global CMO of Reckitt – gives executive teams a direct counter to the scattered pilot approach that has produced cost without strategic return. He holds the dentsu Group Chair in Sustainable Strategy and Marketing at IMD – an endowed position created specifically to research the commercial impact of sustainability strategy. His case study on Nespresso’s strategic reset won the Overall Award at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2025, the most rigorous global recognition for real-world business teaching material, judged across the full range of business school cases worldwide. He directs IMD’s Advanced Management Program and the Strategy Governance for Boards programme, which means his frameworks are tested with C-suite executives and board directors, not MBA students. Biography highlights dentsu Group Professor of Strategy and Marketing and holder of the dentsu Group Chair in Sustainable Strategy and Marketing, IMD Business School, Lausanne Director, IMD Advanced Management Program and Strategy Governance for Boards programme; co-director, Integrating Sustainability into Strategy programme Author, “Clean Winners: Sustainability Strategy That Puts Customers First” (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2026, with Frederic Dalsace) HBR contributor: “Stop running so many AI pilots” (November-December 2025); “How to Market Sustainable Products” selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2025 Maynard Award (2015), American Marketing Association; Overall Award, The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2025 Former Principal, The Monitor Group; former Associate Dean for Executive Education and marketing department head, Georgia Institute of Technology Biography Most organisations have committed to sustainability and launched AI experiments. Few have connected either to commercial growth. Goutam Challagalla, dentsu Group Professor of Strategy and Marketing at IMD Business School, has built his research programme around exactly that gap. His book “Clean Winners” (Harvard Business School Publishing, 2026), co-authored with IMD colleague Frederic Dalsace, makes a specific and counterintuitive argument. Companies that succeed with sustainability do not ask “how do we make our products greener?” They ask “how can sustainability make our products perform better or cost less?” The book names companies that have figured this out – Michelin, Schneider Electric, Nespresso, John Deere – as Resonators. An earlier HBR article developing the same thesis was selected for HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2025. His HBR article “Stop running so many AI pilots” (November-December 2025) draws the same logic into AI strategy. Organisations that spread AI experiments across departments generate marginal efficiencies. Those that concentrate investment in a single strategic domain – going deep and narrow – generate competitive advantage. The piece was developed in part from direct work with Reckitt’s former global chief marketing officer. At IMD, Challagalla directs the Advanced Management Program and the Strategy Governance for Boards programme. His research appears in the Journal of Marketing, the Strategic Management Journal, and the Journal of Applied Psychology. His Nespresso case study won the Overall Award at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2025; the Journal of Marketing’s Maynard Award recognised his best paper in 2015. Before IMD, he spent twenty years at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he served as Associate Dean for Executive Education, and was a Principal at The Monitor Group. Key speaking topics AI implementation strategy for executives and boards Sustainability as commercial growth strategy Go-to-market design in digital environments Strategy governance for boards Pricing and commercial performance Business model adaptation under digital and sustainability pressure Customer value creation through technology and sustainability Ideal for Chief marketing officers and commercial leaders responsible for growth strategy and go-to-market performance Board directors and chairs governing AI investments and sustainability commitments Executive leadership teams navigating digital transformation alongside sustainability pressure Chief strategy officers and heads of corporate development evaluating competitive positioning Audience outcomes A reframing of sustainability strategy from compliance cost to customer value driver, with named company examples and a tested framework for redesigning product and market approach A specific, evidence-based framework for AI adoption that counters the scattered pilot approach and identifies where deep investment generates strategic return Structured criteria for evaluating whether a current strategy is genuinely defensible rather than merely coherent on paper Practical guidance on what boards should be asking about AI governance – including the accountability gaps and blind spots that conventional oversight structures miss A sharper language for connecting sustainability, marketing, and AI investments to commercial outcomes in board and executive team conversations

Why organisations work with Ernesto Zedillo He has run a major economy through a currency crisis and a peaceful democratic transition, and can speak to macroeconomic decision-making with first-hand authority rather than commentary. He directs Yale’s globalization programme, which gives his reading of trade policy, capital markets and multilateral institutions an analytical base that short-horizon geopolitical speakers cannot match. His service on The Elders, the Group of Thirty and the Global Commission on Drug Policy puts him inside the rooms where international policy is actually debated, not outside them. Twenty years of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble mean he understands how boards translate geopolitical risk into capital allocation, and speaks to corporate audiences in their terms. He is the architect of Progresa, the conditional cash-transfer model later adopted from Brazil to New York City, which gives him a credible track record on social policy design as well as macro policy. Biography highlights President of Mexico, 1994 to 2000, following senior roles as Secretary of Education, Secretary of Economic Programming and the Budget, and Deputy Director of the Central Bank of Mexico. Frederick Iseman ’74 Director of the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, with professorships in International Economics and Politics and at the Yale School of the Environment. Member of The Elders, the Group of Thirty, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. Independent Director of Citigroup (since 2010), Alcoa (2002 to present in current form) and Procter and Gamble (2001 to 2019); international advisory board member at BP. Editor of influential volumes including Trade in the 21st Century (2021), The Future of Globalization (Routledge, 2008), Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto (Brookings, 2008) and Reforming the United Nations for Peace and Security (2005); Forbes columnist, 2001 to 2007. Recipient of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom from Fear Award, the Berkeley Medal, Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal, and honorary degrees from Yale, Harvard and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, among others. Biography Mexico entered 1995 with a collapsing peso, dollar-denominated short-term debt the government could not roll over, and an incoming president six weeks into office. The policy response shaped how emerging-market crises have been handled since. Ernesto Zedillo led that government, and six years later handed power to an opposition candidate in the country’s first democratic transition of the modern era. That experience sits behind the work he has done at Yale since 2002, where he directs the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. The programme has produced a stream of edited volumes on the live questions in trade, climate policy, UN reform and drug policy, with Zedillo as editor and author. His Forbes column ran for six years. His reading of globalization is not theoretical; it is built on governing through one of the defining episodes of the era and staying close to the policy conversation ever since. What makes him useful to corporate audiences is the combination of that academic base with two decades of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble. He has sat on the audit and risk side of multinational boards through the 2008 crisis, the rise of trade friction with China, and the reorganisation of supply chains. He knows how geopolitical analysis translates, or fails to translate, into capital decisions. He continues to serve on The Elders, the Group of Thirty, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s work on planetary health. He was the architect of Progresa, the Mexican conditional cash-transfer programme that Brazil, Colombia and dozens of other governments later adapted. The range matters because the argument he brings to a board or executive audience is not a topic briefing. It is a view of where the international system is heading from someone who has governed inside it, taught it, and helped steer large companies through it. Key speaking topics Globalization and the future of the international trading system Macroeconomic policy and emerging-market risk Geopolitical shifts and multilateral institutions US-Mexico relations and North American economic integration Climate policy and international cooperation Social policy design and conditional cash-transfer programmes Global governance reform Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences weighing country risk, trade exposure and cross-border capital allocation Financial services, industrial and consumer-goods companies with significant emerging-market or Latin American footprints CEO forums, investor conferences and policy gatherings that need a credible read on globalization and geopolitical risk Public sector and multilateral audiences working on trade policy, development finance or social policy design Audience outcomes A sharper read on what the unwinding of the post-1990 trade order means for corporate strategy A direct account of how a government actually makes decisions during a currency and debt crisis, and what that implies for today’s sovereign risk A realistic view of where multilateral institutions still function and where they do not An informed perspective on US-Mexico economic relations and North American supply chain strategy A grounded framework for thinking about social policy design, drawn from the Progresa experience

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 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