Geopolitics

Why organisations work with Gamal Fahnbulleh A working news anchor on ITV Granada Reports and ITV National News bulletins, which means the room gets the real calibre of live interviewer, not a retired name lending their profile. Chairs major sector conferences on the record, including the Advertising Association’s LEAD North and the Great Northern Conference at Cutlers’ Hall, Sheffield, which tells a booker he can hold a senior business audience. Comfortable across formats that most speakers are not: panel moderation, awards hosting, after-dinner remarks, keynote conversation, fireside Q and A, and virtual hybrid sessions. Brings a serious journalistic backbone to the hosting role: Manchester politics and international politics graduate, postgraduate broadcast journalism at City, an embed with the British Army in Afghanistan behind him, so the room trusts him on substantive subject matter. Recognised by his own industry for presenting craft: a 2021 Royal Television Society nomination for Best Regional Presenter, and a contributor to ITV Granada’s RTS North West Award for Best Regional Story in 2010. Biography highlights Co-presenter of ITV Granada Reports for North West England and the Isle of Man, anchoring alongside Lucy Meacock since January 2021. Relief presenter on ITV National News bulletins, including News at Ten. Former Sky News anchor across Sky News Breakfast, Sky News Tonight and Sky News at Ten. Chair and host at the Advertising Association’s LEAD North conference and the Great Northern Conference 2021 at Cutlers’ Hall, Sheffield. Nominated for Best Regional Presenter, Royal Television Society, 2021. Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism, City, University of London; BA Honours in Politics and History and MA in International Politics, University of Manchester. Biography Most conference agendas collapse at the join between sessions. The keynote lands, the panel files on, and the conversation loses altitude because no one in the chair knows how to translate energy from one format into the next. That translation is the craft a working news anchor brings to a live room, and it is why senior booker teams at the Advertising Association’s LEAD North and the Great Northern Conference in Sheffield have handed Gamal Fahnbulleh the microphone. He is a working journalist first. He co-presents ITV Granada Reports for the North West of England and the Isle of Man with Lucy Meacock, anchors relief shifts on ITV National News bulletins, and previously held anchor positions across Sky News Breakfast, Sky News Tonight and Sky News at Ten. His industry nominated him for Best Regional Presenter at the Royal Television Society Awards in 2021. The journalistic authority is earned. He read Politics and History at the University of Manchester, added an MA in International Politics, and trained in broadcast journalism at City, University of London before winning one of ten places on the ITV News Group Bursary Scheme. He later embedded with the 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment on a tour of Afghanistan, contributing to ITV Granada’s RTS North West Award for Best Regional Story in 2010. For corporate clients, the practical value is simple. He can host an awards night, chair a panel of chief executives, conduct a fireside interview, and moderate a hybrid session without the room feeling a change in gear. He is booked for hosting craft, and he treats every brief as live television. Key speaking topics Conference chairing and panel moderation Awards night and after-dinner hosting Fireside interviews with senior leaders Broadcast journalism and live news craft Reporting from conflict zones and embedded military journalism Regional economic and leadership conversations International affairs and global news context Ideal for Annual conferences requiring a chair who can hold a senior executive audience for a full day. Awards ceremonies and gala dinners that need a host with live-broadcast pacing and on-camera presence. Panel events where CEOs, investors or public-sector leaders expect real questions rather than polite ones. Media, advertising and regional-growth conferences where journalistic credibility matters to the room. Audience outcomes A tightly run agenda that stays on time across keynote, panel and audience-Q-and-A transitions. Sharper panel conversations, because the chair knows when to follow up and when to move on. Senior speakers drawn out on the specific points the audience came to hear, not the ones they rehearsed. A room that leaves feeling the event was serious, not stage-managed.

Why organisations work with Frank Gardner Direct line into the security and intelligence conversation. Gardner is the BBC’s Security Correspondent, with three decades of sourced reporting across the Middle East, counter-terrorism and state conflict, and he brings that network into the room. Arabic fluency and a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies give him a reading of the region that most Western commentators cannot match, particularly on Gulf politics, jihadist movements and Iran. First-hand authority on the personal cost of political violence. He was shot six times by al-Qaeda gunmen in Riyadh in 2004 and returned to full-time reporting in 2005; when he speaks about risk, resilience and continuing to operate, it is from lived experience. A published thriller novelist whose Luke Carlton series (Crisis, Ultimatum, Outbreak, Invasion, Ballistic, published by Bantam and Penguin) is built on real tradecraft, which makes him unusually effective at making intelligence work comprehensible to non-specialist audiences. Credibility signals that serious buyers recognise: OBE for services to journalism, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, honorary doctorates from five UK universities, the McWhirter Award for Bravery, Spain’s El Mundo Prize and the UAE’s Zayed Medal. Biography highlights BBC Security Correspondent; previously the BBC’s first full-time Gulf correspondent (1997) and BBC Middle East correspondent based in Cairo (from 1999). Author of Blood and Sand (Bantam, 2006), a Sunday Times top-three bestseller covering 25 years of reporting from the Middle East, and Far Horizons. Author of the Luke Carlton thriller series, featuring a former SBS officer turned MI6 operative: Crisis, Ultimatum, Outbreak, Invasion and Ballistic, published by Bantam and Penguin. Shot and seriously wounded by al-Qaeda gunmen in Riyadh in 2004; returned to full-time BBC reporting in 2005. OBE (2005) for services to journalism. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Honorary doctorates of law from the University of Nottingham, Staffordshire University, the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia and the Open University. Awards: McWhirter Award for Bravery, El Mundo Prize for International Journalism (Spain), Zayed Medal for Journalism (UAE), UK Press Gazette Person of the Year. Biography The security environment that boards now have to plan against, terrorism, state conflict, energy disruption, cyber, looks less like a set of discrete issues and more like a single interconnected risk map. Reading that map is the work. For nearly three decades, Frank Gardner has done it in public, on air, for the BBC. As the BBC’s Security Correspondent, he has covered the War on Terror since 2002, having previously served as the corporation’s first full-time Gulf correspondent and then as Middle East correspondent based in Cairo. A fluent Arabic speaker with a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, he reports from inside the region rather than about it, with sourcing across security services, militaries and political leadership. That authority was sharpened by events. In June 2004, reporting from the Al-Suwaidi district of Riyadh, he was shot six times by al-Qaeda gunmen; his colleague, cameraman Simon Cumbers, was killed. After fourteen operations and seven months in hospital, Gardner returned to full-time BBC reporting in 2005 and has covered every major terrorism and security story since. He was appointed OBE that year for services to journalism. His published work tracks the same terrain from two angles. Blood and Sand, a Sunday Times top-three bestseller, is the non-fiction record of a reporting career built in the Middle East. The Luke Carlton thrillers, Crisis, Ultimatum, Outbreak, Invasion and Ballistic, use the mechanics of real intelligence tradecraft to dramatise the threats he covers on air, and have made him one of the few security commentators equally at home briefing a board and a mass readership. Key speaking topics Geopolitical and security risk Terrorism and counter-terrorism The Middle East and the Gulf Intelligence, espionage and tradecraft Iran, Saudi Arabia and Gulf politics Resilience after serious adversity Global risk and business decision-making Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting strategy against geopolitical and security exposure Chief Risk Officers, Chief Security Officers and Heads of Corporate Security Leadership teams in energy, financial services, defence, aviation and critical infrastructure with Middle East or Gulf operations Annual conferences, client events and internal leadership offsites where a credible read of the threat landscape is the main ask Audience outcomes A working read of the current geopolitical and terrorism threat map, not a headline recap Sharper understanding of Middle East and Gulf dynamics, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and jihadist movements, from someone who reports the region in Arabic A sense of how intelligence services actually work, and what that means for corporate security, travel risk and crisis response A human account of surviving a near-fatal attack and continuing to operate at the top of a demanding profession

Why organisations work with Francis Fukuyama His thesis on political decay gives boards a usable lens for what is actually weakening in Western democracies, beyond the daily news cycle. He has direct policy experience from the US State Department and RAND, so the analysis lands as institutional reading, not commentary. The End of History and the Last Man has appeared in over twenty foreign editions and remains the reference point for debates on liberal democracy, which makes him a credible keynote for global audiences. As Mosbacher Director of Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, he is running a live research programme on the questions leaders are asking about. Few speakers can connect populism, identity politics, and geopolitical realignment inside a single coherent framework grounded in thirty years of published work. Biography highlights Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; Director, Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy, Stanford. Author of The End of History and the Last Man, The Origins of Political Order, Political Order and Political Decay, Trust, Identity, and Liberalism and Its Discontents. Former Policy Planning Staff, US Department of State; former Political Science Department, RAND Corporation. Recipient of the 2024 Fred Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration. Chair of the editorial board of American Purpose; columnist of Frankly Fukuyama on Substack. Board member at RAND, Freedom House, and the Volcker Alliance; fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration; member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Biography The institutions that underwrite Western market economies were built to be predictable. They are now a source of risk. Francis Fukuyama has spent three decades tracing why, and the work is the reason serious leaders bring him into strategic conversations. His 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man argued that liberal democracy paired with market economies would become the governing template for modern societies. The argument was widely misread as triumphalism. The later work, The Origins of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay, sets out a far more demanding account of how states, rule of law, and accountable government hold together, and how they come apart. From Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute, where he is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow and Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, he now runs a live research programme on governance and institutional quality. His recent books Identity and Liberalism and Its Discontents take the framework into the territory boards actually need to understand: populism, identity politics, the sources of democratic backsliding, and what a defensible liberalism looks like under pressure from both flanks. The credibility is not only academic. He served on the Policy Planning Staff at the US State Department and at RAND, sits on the boards of RAND, Freedom House, and the Volcker Alliance, and in 2024 received the Fred Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration. That record is why a senior leadership team reading his analysis on the trajectory of a democracy can treat it as institutional judgement, not punditry. Key speaking topics Liberal democracy and political order Geopolitical realignment and US-China competition Populism, identity politics, and democratic backsliding Governance, state capacity, and institutional quality Rule of law and economic development The long-term outlook for the liberal international order Technology, platform power, and democratic institutions Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting long-horizon strategy across the US, Europe, and Asia. Chief strategy officers, chief risk officers, and heads of government affairs who need political risk framed at an institutional level. Investor and LP audiences building views on sovereign, regulatory, and geopolitical exposure. Public-sector leadership programmes, foreign ministries, and multilateral institutions working on governance reform. Audience outcomes A clearer reading of which pressures on liberal democracies are cyclical and which are structural. A framework for thinking about state capacity, rule of law, and accountability as distinct variables when assessing country risk. A more precise account of how populism and identity politics translate into policy volatility. A sharper view of the US-China competition beyond the usual trade and technology headlines. Vocabulary and concepts leaders can carry back into strategy discussions with their own teams.

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 Enrico Letta He authored the defining European policy document of the decade. The Letta Report, commissioned by the European Council in 2024, now frames every serious conversation in Brussels on capital markets, industrial strategy, and the Savings and Investments Union. He has run a G7 government. Leaders in a room with him get a view of European decision-making from inside the Council chamber, not from a commentator’s distance. He sits at the centre of the institutional network that matters. President of the Jacques Delors Institute, Dean at IE University, former Dean at Sciences Po: the same network that produces the people who will implement what he has proposed. He brings a defensible point of view on the one question boards cannot answer on their own. What European reform will actually ship, and what that means for capital allocation, M&A strategy, and regulatory exposure in the next three years. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Italy, April 2013 to February 2014, leading a national unity coalition. Author of “Much More Than a Market,” the April 2024 report to the European Council on the future of the EU Single Market. Dean, IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs, IE University, Madrid. President, Jacques Delors Institute, Paris, since 2016. Former Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po, 2015 to 2021. Commander of the French Legion of Honour; Gran Cruz of the Order of Civil Merit, Kingdom of Spain. Biography The Letta Report landed on the European Council’s desk in April 2024 and changed the terms of the argument. Commissioned by EU heads of state and written by a former Prime Minister of Italy, “Much More Than a Market” proposed a Savings and Investments Union, a Fifth Freedom for research and innovation, and a Single Market designed for scale rather than fragmentation. It is now the reference document for every serious policy file in Brussels touching capital markets, industrial strategy, and competitiveness. Enrico Letta ran a G7 government through one of the most difficult passages in recent Italian politics, serving as Prime Minister from April 2013 to February 2014 at the head of a national unity coalition. Before the premiership he held portfolios for European Affairs and for Industry, Commerce and Crafts, and sat in the Chamber of Deputies across multiple terms. The experience gives him a particular kind of authority: he has written policy and he has had to deliver it against a political calendar. He now anchors the European institutional network from the inside. As Dean of the IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs at IE University, Madrid, and as President of the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris since 2016, Letta works at the intersection of policy formation and executive education. He was Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po from 2015 to 2021 and served as President of APSIA, the Washington-based association of professional schools of international affairs. The recognition is from the institutions that matter to the argument. France made him a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 2017. Spain awarded him the Gran Cruz of the Order of Civil Merit. He chairs the Diplomatic Forum of GESDA in Geneva and speaks in English, French, and Italian. For a board trying to understand where European policy is going, few speakers can say, with evidence, that they have written the document everyone in the room will be working from. Key speaking topics European Union policy and strategic direction The future of the EU Single Market Capital markets, the Savings and Investments Union, and European competitiveness European industrial strategy in a US and China context Transatlantic relations and geopolitical positioning for European business Coalition government and political decision-making at the national level Ideal for CEOs, CFOs, and boards of multinationals with material EU exposure weighing capital allocation against regulatory direction. Heads of European public affairs, government relations, and regulatory strategy at financial institutions, industrial groups, and technology platforms. Investment committees, asset managers, and private equity leadership teams tracking the Savings and Investments Union and capital markets reform. University, think-tank, and policy audiences working on European integration and transatlantic relations. Audience outcomes A specific read on which elements of the Letta Report are likely to move through the Council and Parliament, and on what timeline. A clearer view of how European industrial strategy is repositioning against US and Chinese competition, and what that implies for cross-border M&A and supply chain strategy. A sharper grasp of the political mechanics inside the European Council, from someone who has sat at that table as a head of government. A framework for thinking about European competitiveness that goes beyond the usual binary of Brussels versus national capitals.

Why organisations work with Enda Kenny He ran a national economy through its deepest post-war crisis and handed it over as the fastest-growing in the EU, with unemployment below 5 percent and full market access restored. He chaired the Council of the European Union during the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework negotiation, which gives him a working view of how Brussels, the Parliament, and national capitals actually reach agreement. He called and won the 2015 marriage equality referendum, the first national vote of its kind anywhere, and built the Citizens’ Assembly model that other democracies now study. He sits inside the Global Leadership Foundation alongside former heads of state and chairs the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital, so his current reading of Europe is informed by active advisory work rather than memoir. Biography highlights Taoiseach of Ireland, March 2011 to June 2017; first Fine Gael Taoiseach in history to be re-elected. Leader of Fine Gael, 2002 to 2017, the longest tenure of any leader in the party. Chaired the Council of the European Union during Ireland’s 2013 Presidency, delivering agreement on the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework, Erasmus+, and a negotiating mandate for TTIP. Elected to Dail Eireann at age 24 in 1975, re-elected in every subsequent general election until his retirement in 2020. Chair of the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital and its Impact Ireland fund. Member of the Global Leadership Foundation; recipient of the Golden Victoria European of the Year (2012) and the inaugural Trinity European Laureate Award (2025). Biography Ireland entered 2011 in an EU-IMF assistance programme with unemployment above 15 percent and sovereign borrowing rates near distressed levels. Six years later the country was the fastest-growing economy in the European Union, with rates on ten-year borrowing at zero and unemployment under 5 percent. Enda Kenny was Taoiseach for all of it. He led Fine Gael for fifteen years, the longest tenure in the party’s history, and became the first Fine Gael Taoiseach to win re-election. The substance of the government’s work was fiscal stabilisation, bank restructuring, and the orderly exit from the troika programme; the political work was holding a coalition together while doing it. In 2013 he chaired the Council of the European Union during Ireland’s Presidency, brokering the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework, the Erasmus+ settlement, a negotiating mandate for TTIP, and reforms of the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies. The same government called the 2015 marriage equality referendum, the first national vote anywhere to legalise same-sex marriage, and established the Citizens’ Assembly as a deliberative route for constitutional questions. He now chairs the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital and its Impact Ireland fund, sits within the Global Leadership Foundation alongside other former heads of state, and in 2025 received the inaugural Trinity European Laureate Award from Trinity College Dublin and Teneo for his contribution to European ideals. Key speaking topics European Union governance and the politics of the single market Economic recovery and fiscal stabilisation after crisis Political leadership in coalition and minority government Sovereign market confidence and investor relations Constitutional reform and citizen deliberation Ireland, the UK, and the post-Brexit settlement Impact investment and national economic strategy Ideal for Boards and executive committees of firms with material European exposure Financial services, asset managers, and sovereign-facing investors Policy, regulatory, and public affairs conferences focused on Europe CEO forums and leadership programmes addressing crisis and recovery Audience outcomes A working account of how a national government executes fiscal consolidation without losing the coalition or the electorate A first-hand read on how Brussels, the European Parliament, and national capitals actually negotiate multi-year budgets A clear view of the political mechanics behind the 2015 marriage equality vote and the Citizens’ Assembly model A sharper sense of where Ireland and the wider EU sit in the transatlantic relationship after Brexit Direct reflections on what holds under pressure when a country is being asked to take painful decisions quickly

Why organisations work with Douglas Alexander He has sat at four different Cabinet tables, including Transport, Scotland, International Development and most recently UK Trade Policy, which gives him a working knowledge of how governments actually make trade, development and security decisions. As Secretary of State for International Development he ran a department operating in 39 countries with more than 2,500 staff and served as UK Governor to the World Bank, so he speaks about development finance and multilateral institutions from inside the system. His Harvard Kennedy School Senior Fellowship at the Future of Diplomacy Project and his visiting seat at King’s College London’s Policy Institute give him a live academic-policy network that most former ministers do not maintain. He edited Rethink: How We Can Make A Better World, a 2021 essay collection with Pope Francis, Samantha Power, Niall Ferguson and Paul Krugman, which signals the level of international interlocutor he convenes. As a strategic adviser to Pinsent Masons since 2016 he has translated political judgement into usable counsel for corporate clients, not just policy commentary. Biography highlights Four Cabinet roles under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown: Transport Secretary, Scotland Secretary, International Development Secretary, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2011 to 2015. Senior Fellow, Future of Diplomacy Project, Harvard Kennedy School. Visiting Professor, Policy Institute, King’s College London. Strategic adviser, Pinsent Masons, from 2016. Editor, Rethink: How We Can Make A Better World (2021), with contributions from Pope Francis, Niall Ferguson, Samantha Power and Paul Krugman. Bylines in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and The Boston Globe. Biography International development is where abstract policy meets a balance sheet and a border. For three years as UK Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander ran a department operating in 39 countries with more than 2,500 staff, represented the UK as Governor to the World Bank, and was the minister answering for British aid through the 2008 financial crisis. That was one of four Cabinet posts he held under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Transport Secretary and Secretary of State for Scotland came first, simultaneously, in 2006. He was also Minister for Europe and Minister for Trade earlier in his career. From 2011 to 2015 he served as Shadow Foreign Secretary, the opposition counterpart on UK foreign policy. After leaving Parliament in 2015, he was selected by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Future of Diplomacy Project as a Senior Fellow, took a visiting professorship at the Policy Institute at King’s College London, and became a strategic adviser to the international law firm Pinsent Masons. He edited Rethink: How We Can Make A Better World in 2021, a collection of essays on the post-pandemic global reset with contributions from Pope Francis, Niall Ferguson, Samantha Power and Paul Krugman. He writes for a range of national titles in the UK and the US, including The New York Times, The Guardian and The Boston Globe. For boards pricing exposure to trade, development finance and European policy, that is the difference between reading the news and reading the brief. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and global political risk International trade and economic diplomacy International development and the World Bank system The transatlantic relationship and the future of Europe Populism and the erosion of democratic trust UK policy and Brexit implications for business Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing exposure to trade, tariffs, sanctions and European policy CEOs, CFOs and heads of strategy in financial services, industrials and infrastructure with active international development or emerging markets positions Policy forums, think tanks and multilateral institutions convening on geopolitics and the transatlantic relationship Professional services firms advising clients on political risk, Brexit and UK government direction Audience outcomes A read on how Cabinet-level decisions on trade, sanctions and development are actually made in the UK and alongside allies A clearer view of where the transatlantic relationship, Europe and UK policy are moving in the next cycle An honest account of where populism has changed the political terrain for business and for government A sharper framework for thinking about political risk as a board agenda item rather than a government affairs footnote A line of sight into the Harvard, King’s and Westminster conversations that shape the next wave of foreign and trade policy

Why organisations work with Dominique Strauss-Kahn His account of the 2008 global financial crisis comes from inside the institution that managed it – not from research or observation, but from running the IMF through its most consequential period in decades. He chaired the multilateral process that produced the IMF’s early call for a coordinated global fiscal stimulus. The practical mechanics of that coordination – and its limits – are not recoverable from any published analysis. He has developed an analytical framework that maps the structural tensions between national sovereignty, democratic accountability, and deep global economic integration – giving organisations a precise vocabulary for the governance dilemmas that now shape trade strategy, capital allocation, and regulatory planning. He has worked on both sides of the government-institution relationship: as a national finance minister who negotiated with international bodies, and as the head of the body those ministers negotiated with. That dual vantage point is genuinely rare. Post-IMF, he has advised governments on sovereign debt restructuring, giving him current applied knowledge of how creditors, debtors, and international institutions interact under financial pressure. Biography highlights Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (2007-2011), selected by consensus of the IMF Executive Board with the backing of the European Union, the United States, China, and most of Africa Led the IMF’s institutional response to the 2008 global financial crisis, including its influential early call for a coordinated global fiscal stimulus French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry (1997-1999), responsible for national economic policy during France’s transition to the euro; also served as Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade (1991-1993) Member of the French National Assembly across multiple terms; chaired the parliamentary finance committee (1988-1991) Professor of Economics at Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies) and the University of Paris (Nanterre) PhD in economics from the University of Paris (Nanterre); graduate of HEC Paris and Sciences Po Biography The international monetary system was not designed for the world it now governs. Capital moves faster than treaties can be renegotiated. Sovereign debt crises spread before early warning systems respond. Dominique Strauss-Kahn served as IMF Managing Director during the 2008 global financial crisis, the sharpest test the institution had faced in decades. Under his leadership, the IMF moved early to advocate a coordinated global fiscal stimulus, placing the institution at the centre of the crisis response. He led quota reforms that gave emerging economies a larger voice in IMF governance. He also supervised a significant reversal of the institution’s longstanding position on capital controls, recognising them as a legitimate tool of macroeconomic management. These were not technical adjustments but substantive shifts in how the world’s principal international financial institution understood its own role. Before the IMF, Strauss-Kahn served as France’s Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry, overseeing national economic policy during France’s transition to the euro. He also held the portfolio of Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade, and chaired the National Assembly’s finance committee across an earlier parliamentary term. Few speakers have held senior responsibility on both sides of the relationship between national governments and international economic institutions. He has held academic positions at Sciences Po and the University of Paris, and holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Paris. He has developed a publicly presented analytical framework – drawing on the Mundell-Fleming impossible trinity, the Rodrik globalisation trilemma, and the European fiscal-monetary dilemma – that gives organisations a structured way to map the governance tensions that now affect trade, investment, and regulatory strategy. Key speaking topics International economic governance and its limits Sovereign debt, financial crisis, and multilateral response The international monetary system and its reform Global fiscal and monetary policy coordination European economic integration Geopolitical risk and economic stability Emerging economies and the shifting balance of global economic power Ideal for CFOs, treasurers, and investment committees at global organisations managing currency, sovereign, and systemic risk Board-level and C-suite audiences at banks, financial institutions, and multinational corporations Government, central bank, and regulatory audiences engaged in international policy Economic policy forums, sovereign wealth fund conferences, and global business summits Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how the IMF and comparable institutions make decisions under pressure, and what those decisions cannot achieve Practical insight into the mechanics of sovereign debt negotiation and cross-border financial crisis management A framework for mapping structural tensions between national economic policy and global integration, and what those tensions mean for corporate and government strategy Context for how international monetary reform debates – over reserve currencies, capital controls, and fiscal coordination – are likely to develop A sharper grasp of where global economic governance is most fragile, and why

Why organisations work with Diego Gilardoni He reads China the way a board needs it read: as a commercial relationship shaped by political signalling, cultural code and reputational exposure, not as a marketing opportunity that can be project-managed. He held a seat on the International Advisory Board of the National Image Research Centre at Tsinghua University, which gave him direct line of sight into how Chinese institutions think about Western corporate behaviour, a vantage point few external advisors actually have. His Oxford postgraduate work focused specifically on global reputation and corporate diplomacy, so he can move a leadership team from “we have a public affairs problem” to “we have an operating-model problem” without the usual translation costs. His strategic foresight training spans the Institute for the Future, Kairos Future, the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and the Oxford Scenarios Programme, which means scenarios for the room are built on recognised methodology rather than improvised futures language. Former broadcast journalist, current advisor, working trilingually across English, French and Italian, with lived professional experience across Europe, the US and China. The geopolitical reading carries the texture of someone who has actually operated inside these systems. Biography highlights Author, Decoding China: Cross-cultural strategies for successful business with the Chinese (2017). Former member, International Advisory Board, National Image Research Centre, Tsinghua University, Beijing. Former Visiting Professor in global business and corporate diplomacy, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), Beijing. Postgraduate Diploma in Global Business, University of Oxford; Oxford Scenarios Programme, Saïd Business School. Strategic foresight certifications from the Institute for the Future (Palo Alto), Kairos Future Academy (Stockholm) and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. Contributor to the South China Morning Post and TEDx speaker on cross-cultural business. Biography The rules-based global economy that European and North American boards were trained inside no longer holds. China is a strategic relationship, not a market. Supply chains are political instruments. Reputation in one jurisdiction now creates legal and commercial exposure in another. Senior teams are still making capital decisions with a mental model from a different era. Diego’s work sits inside that gap. His Oxford postgraduate diploma in global business focused on reputation and corporate diplomacy, his subsequent foresight training runs through the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Kairos Future in Stockholm and the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. The methodology is recognised. The application is commercial. China is the spine of his expertise. He served on the International Advisory Board of the National Image Research Centre at Tsinghua University and was Visiting Professor in global business and corporate diplomacy at UIBE in Beijing. Decoding China (2017) is the working manual for executives who need to operate inside the Chinese commercial system rather than perform competence at distance. Before the advisory work, he spent the first 15 years of his career as a journalist with Switzerland’s national broadcaster, reporting from Europe and the United States. He writes for the South China Morning Post and has authored two earlier books in Italian, one on the reputational fallout of the Swiss banks’ WWII assets crisis, one on US foreign policy in a multipolar world. The reputation thread runs the length of the career. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and global business in a fragmented order China strategy and cross-cultural commercial decision-making Corporate diplomacy and reputation across jurisdictions Strategic foresight and scenario thinking for boards Cultural intelligence as a board-level capability Strategic narrative and executive communication Ideal for CEOs, boards and executive committees with material China or wider Asia exposure Heads of strategy, corporate affairs and public affairs in multinational organisations Risk, supply chain and corporate development leaders re-pricing geopolitical exposure Leadership programmes inside global financial services, industrials, luxury and hospitality groups Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the China relationship is going and what that means for specific commercial decisions in the room. A working vocabulary for corporate diplomacy that closes the gap between public affairs, strategy and operations. Scenario logic the leadership team can take back into capital allocation and supply chain decisions. Concrete cross-cultural cues for negotiating, partnering and managing reputation across the China-West divide.

Why organisations work with Desmond Lachman Three careers in one seat: IMF crisis rooms, Salomon Smith Barney’s emerging-markets strategy desk, and two decades of published analysis at AEI. Very few macro commentators have worked the lender, the investor, and the think-tank perspectives on the same problem. A track record of specific named calls, not generic warnings. Argentina’s default, the US housing bust, and the eurozone sovereign-debt stress were all argued in print before they broke. Active columnist at Project Syndicate with regular bylines in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Barron’s. What a client hears in a private session is the same argument serious financial readers are getting in print that week. A clear, unhedged house view on US fiscal sustainability, tariff shocks, and dollar risk. Useful for boards that want a counterweight to consensus forecasts from sell-side research. Fluency in the multilateral architecture. When the IMF, World Bank, or G20 becomes the story, he can explain what those institutions will and will not do, from direct experience inside them. Biography highlights Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, since 2003 Former Deputy Director, IMF Policy Development and Review Department; earlier Senior Advisor in the Western Hemisphere and European Departments Former Managing Director and Chief Emerging Market Economic Strategist, Salomon Smith Barney Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and Georgetown University Columnist at Project Syndicate; regular contributor to the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, The Hill BBC Newsnight “Chart of the Year”, 2011, for his 10-year euro yields graph; credited by Bloomberg with calling the global credit crisis and eurozone stress PhD in Economics, Cambridge University; BA, University of the Witwatersrand Biography The argument that US debt dynamics and the dollar’s reserve status are unassailable is exactly the assumption Desmond Lachman has been dismantling in print for years. His Project Syndicate columns and AEI essays make the case that America is beginning to show the fiscal and currency signatures of a troubled emerging-market economy, and that the response from the IMF and major central banks will be slower and more constrained than markets are pricing. The credibility of that view rests on a career built across the three institutions that shape these outcomes. At the IMF, Lachman rose to Deputy Director of the Policy Development and Review Department after a decade as Senior Advisor in the Western Hemisphere and European Departments, the years that included the Mexican peso crisis and the build-up to Argentina’s default. He then moved to Salomon Smith Barney as Managing Director and Chief Emerging Market Economic Strategist, advising institutional investors on the same sovereign risks from the buy side. Since 2003 he has been a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, with adjunct chairs at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown. He writes regularly for the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s, and The Hill, and is interviewed on CNBC, BBC, NPR, and CNN when the story is sovereign debt, tariffs, or currency stress. BBC Newsnight picked his 10-year euro yields chart as Chart of the Year in 2011; Bloomberg credited him with calling the global credit crisis and the strains that the euro would create among member states. For a board or investment committee, the value is pointed: Lachman will name the scenarios, the trigger variables, and the policy responses he expects, and he will tell a room why the official forecasts are wrong when he believes they are. Key speaking topics US fiscal sustainability and sovereign debt risk The dollar and global reserve currency dynamics Eurozone macro and sovereign stress Emerging-market crises and capital flows Tariffs, trade policy, and the global economy The IMF, World Bank, and multilateral lender behaviour Inflation, interest rates, and central bank policy Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting multi-year capital allocation against macro and currency risk CFO, treasurer, and corporate-risk audiences stress-testing sovereign, FX, and rate exposure Asset managers, banks, and insurers briefing clients on emerging-market and eurozone outlooks Policy, trade, and government-affairs leaders tracking tariff and multilateral-lender dynamics Audience outcomes A specific read on where US fiscal and dollar risk sits in the current cycle, with the variables to watch A working mental model of how sovereign debt crises actually unfold, drawn from cases Lachman worked at the IMF and from Wall Street A candid view on what the IMF and major central banks will and will not do in the next stress episode Sharper questions to put to sell-side research and in-house economists on tariffs, currency, and emerging-market exposure

Why organisations work with Dermot Murnaghan Four decades of live news anchoring, from ITV News at Ten to BBC Breakfast to Sky News, give him the composure to handle a difficult room, a running schedule, or a senior panel that needs steering. Royal Television Society Interviewer of the Year for the Peter Mandelson interview that unseated a cabinet minister, a credential that buys him latitude with senior speakers and difficult subjects. He has anchored some of the defining live moments of the last thirty years, including Princess Diana’s death in 1997 and Queen Elizabeth II’s death in 2022, which is the kind of pedigree that calms a nervous client on the day. Corporate hosting CV across the Police Federation, Eurostar, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Which? and Royal Mail, with consistent client feedback on professionalism and ease of working. Active interviewer on his podcast Legends of News, with recent guests including Sir Trevor McDonald, Nick Robinson and Jonathan Dimbleby, so the craft is current, not retired. Biography highlights Main presenter, BBC Breakfast, 2002 to 2007. Main anchor, Sky News, 2007 to 2023, including the Sunday Murnaghan show and Sky News Tonight. Host, BBC Two’s Eggheads, 2003 to 2014. Royal Television Society Interviewer of the Year, 1999. TRIC Newscaster of the Year, 2000. Host of Legends of News, an Acast podcast on the history of British broadcast journalism. Ambassador, Prostate Cancer Research, since June 2025. Biography Live news is unforgiving. The autocue breaks, the politician dodges, the breaking story lands in the middle of a different segment, and the anchor still has to be coherent, calm and on time. Dermot Murnaghan spent four decades doing exactly that across Channel 4, ITV, BBC and Sky News. The credentials sit behind the craft. The Royal Television Society named him Interviewer of the Year in 1999 for the Peter Mandelson interview that exposed the Geoffrey Robinson loan affair and pushed Mandelson out of the cabinet. TRIC named him Newscaster of the Year in 2000. On ITV he was the anchor who broke the news of Princess Diana’s death in 1997. On Sky News he announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. For corporate audiences, that lineage translates into conference chairing, awards hosting and panel moderation. He has worked the room for the Police Federation, Eurostar, the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Which? and Royal Mail. Clients consistently note that he is easy to work with on the day, briefed properly, and able to handle senior contributors without flattening them. The craft is still active. His Acast podcast Legends of News features long-form interviews with Sir Trevor McDonald, Nick Robinson, Martha Kearney, Jonathan Dimbleby and Tim Marshall, among others. Since June 2025 he has also been an ambassador for Prostate Cancer Research, following his own stage four diagnosis, and speaks publicly about screening and early detection. Key speaking topics Conference chairing and facilitation Awards hosting Panel moderation In-conversation interviews with senior figures After-dinner speaking on a career in broadcast news Men’s health and prostate cancer awareness The craft and ethics of broadcast journalism Ideal for Corporate and association annual conferences that need an external chair to hold the agenda together Industry awards nights requiring a recognisable, senior host Leadership offsites and client events that include a fireside chat or in-conversation format Internal communications, charity and CSR events on men’s health, screening and patient advocacy Audience outcomes A conference that runs on time, with senior contributors handled with judgement and warmth. A panel that interrogates the topic rather than drifting, with the chair reading the room and steering it. A fireside chat that lands the headline points the client cares about, in language the audience can quote. For health-themed events, a candid first-person account of a stage four prostate cancer diagnosis and a clear case for earlier screening.

Why organisations work with David Thomas He lives in Cebu and works on active cross-border deal flow through Mabuhay Capital Corporation, the Philippines M&A advisory firm, so what he says about emerging Asia is being tested in live transactions rather than retrieved from a desk in London. His reading of Hong Kong and Greater China carries family proximity that other Asia speakers cannot match. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Attorney General of Hong Kong from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the Sino-British Joint Declaration. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, sat on Hong Kong’s Executive and Legislative Councils and went on to sit in the UK House of Lords. He has spent two decades running capital and investment delegations across emerging Asia, including the BRIC+ Program he co-founded (Brazil, Russia, India and China), so when he points at a corridor opening, he is usually already moving founders or capital through it. His North-South Corridor framework maps how capital and supply chains are moving between the Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand. It is the lane that most of the cross-border activity of the next decade will be priced along, and it is the lane that most Western strategy decks still skip. His Three Cups of Tea framework, drawn from the book of the same name, gives Western leaders a working method for how commercial trust actually builds in Asian markets: Stranger, Friend, Family, in that order. Biography highlights Author of Three Cups of Tea: A 3 Step Guide to Doing Business in China and Year of the Rat, alongside further writing on Asian commerce. Lived and worked in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s; ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. Father Michael Thomas QC CMG, Attorney General of Hong Kong (1983–1988); stepmother Baroness Lydia Dunn, senior unofficial member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and Legislative Council, and a UK House of Lords cross-bencher. Co-founder of the BRIC+ Program (2005–2010), running five years of Australian investment study tours into Brazil, Russia, India and China. Consultant to Mabuhay Capital Corporation (Philippines) on cross-border M&A and ASEAN capital flows. Founding President of the Australia China SME Association. Founder/CEO of Think Global Consulting. Graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing (2019). Has spoken at corporate events for Deloitte, Westpac, Telstra, DHL, BT Financial Group, RMA Australia and others across Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK. Biography Western boards are still reading Asia through a US-China lens. The next two decades of cross-border capital and supply chain activity will move along a different lane: the corridor connecting the Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong, down through the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN, to Australia and New Zealand. That lane is what David Thomas calls the North-South Corridor, and he has spent three decades inside it. That perspective begins with family. His father, Michael Thomas QC CMG, was Hong Kong’s Attorney General from 1983 to 1988 and contributed to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that determined the territory’s future. His stepmother, Baroness Lydia Dunn, was a senior member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council and went on to sit as a cross-bencher in the UK House of Lords from 1990 to 2010. David lived in Hong Kong through the 1980s and 1990s and ran his own wealth management firm there from 1988 to 1995. He made his first trip to Beijing in 1989. What followed was three decades of running capital and trade work across emerging Asia. He co-founded the BRIC+ Program, an Australian investment delegation that ran for five consecutive years into Brazil, Russia, India and China and gave senior financial advisers structured access to all four markets simultaneously. His book Three Cups of Tea introduced a model now used by Western executives entering Asian markets: relationships build through three stages, Stranger, Friend and Family, and the real commercial work begins only at the third. He served as founding President of the Australia China SME Association and founded Think Global Consulting. He works with Mabuhay Capital Corporation on active cross-border M&A and capital flows across the Philippines and ASEAN. He is a graduate of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business CEO Program in Beijing, and recent client work has included executive briefings for senior freight and logistics teams gathered in Ho Chi Minh City and curated investor introductions for Australian and New Zealand founders raising into Asia-Pacific capital. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the North-South Corridor ASEAN as the next commercial growth axis Cross-border capital flow between developed markets and emerging Asia Supply chain repositioning under US-China decoupling Cross-cultural negotiation and trust architecture in Asian markets Strategic foresight on Asia for Western boards Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors with current or planned commercial exposure to Hong Kong, Greater China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia or broader ASEAN. Investment committees, family offices and venture firms allocating capital across the Greater Bay Area, ASEAN and Australia/New Zealand. Corporate development, M&A and market entry teams running cross-border transactions or joint ventures in emerging Asia. Industry associations and trade bodies briefing members on supply chain risk and the capital corridor connecting developed markets to ASEAN. Audience outcomes A working map of the North-South Corridor and where capital, supply chains and political risk are actually being repriced. A method for building commercial trust in Asian markets (Stranger, Friend, Family), and a clear view of why transactional Western approaches consistently fail there. A sharper read of US-China-ASEAN dynamics and where they intersect with their own organisation’s market and supplier exposure. An applied frame for market entry, joint venture and capital partner decisions across the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and broader ASEAN.