Geopolitics

Why organisations work with David McWilliams He publicly forecast the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, and the rise of US trade nationalism – while the institutional consensus pointed elsewhere. That track record changes how boards receive his analysis. Money: A Story of Humanity was named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times and Book of the Year by The Economist in the same year. That combination of endorsements is rare and signals intellectual authority, not just popular appeal. He frames monetary and economic forces as historical and civilisational patterns rather than cyclical fluctuations, giving leadership teams a much longer analytical lens than conventional macro forecasting provides. His podcast has passed 40 million downloads across 130 countries – which means his frameworks have already been tested against non-economist audiences, and translate directly into board conversations without requiring prior economic knowledge. His festival Kilkenomics was described by the Financial Times as “simply, the best economics conference in the world” – a peer endorsement that signals the quality of dialogue he convenes and the seriousness with which other economists take his work. Biography highlights Adjunct Professor of Global Economics, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin; Masters in Economics, College of Europe, Bruges Former economist at the Central Bank of Ireland; subsequently Senior European Economist at UBS and Head of Emerging Markets Research at Banque Nationale de Paris Author of six books, including Money: A Story of Humanity – named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times, Book of the Year by The Economist and The Observer, Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and an international No.1 bestseller (2024) Weekly columnist, The Irish Times; regular contributor, Financial Times; contributor to TIME magazine TED2023 main stage speaker; “The Power of Unconventional Thinking” has exceeded one million views Founder of Kilkenomics; co-founder of the Dalkey Book Festival; World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Biography When organisations need economic foresight, they typically turn to the same institutions – banks, consultancies, research houses – whose consensus forecasts missed the 2008 crash, Brexit, and the rise of trade nationalism. David McWilliams, Adjunct Professor of Global Economics at Trinity College Dublin, was among the very small group who called all three in advance. He trained at Trinity College Dublin and the College of Europe in Bruges, and worked as an economist at the Central Bank of Ireland before moving to UBS and Banque Nationale de Paris, where he held senior roles in European and emerging markets research. His most recent book, Money: A Story of Humanity, argues that money is not a financial instrument but a civilisational technology – the primary force shaping power, politics, and social structure across five millennia of human history. Named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times and Book of the Year by The Economist in 2024, it became an international No.1 bestseller translated into 21 languages. Its central argument – that the stability of today’s monetary system is largely illusory, built on mechanisms most decision-makers do not understand – speaks directly to organisations navigating interest rate risk, currency exposure, or fiscal stress. A weekly columnist in The Irish Times and regular contributor to the Financial Times, McWilliams has built one of the broadest non-specialist economics audiences of any working economist. His podcast has passed 40 million downloads across 130 countries. His TED2023 main stage talk has exceeded one million views. The reach matters in leadership settings: his frameworks have been tested against audiences who are not economists, which means they translate directly into board conversations. He founded Kilkenomics on the premise that the best economic thinking happens when it is challenged from outside the discipline – a view the Financial Times endorsed by calling it “simply, the best economics conference in the world.” The same argument runs through his TED talk, “The Power of Unconventional Thinking”: that institutions which reward consensus produce the overconfidence that precedes every major economic failure. For leadership teams navigating the current period of monetary, geopolitical, and structural instability, that is not an abstract point. Key speaking topics Monetary systems and the history of money Global macroeconomic trends and forecasting Geopolitics and the political economy of trade Financial market dynamics and systemic risk The future of currencies and digital money Economic nationalism and the fracturing of global trade Unconventional thinking and institutional groupthink Ideal for Board-level and C-suite leadership conferences focused on strategic risk, long-range planning, or capital allocation in conditions of macro uncertainty Financial services and banking audiences navigating monetary policy, interest rate cycles, and regulatory change Corporate strategy and scenario planning forums requiring grounded macroeconomic and geopolitical context Economic policy and public affairs conferences where eurozone dynamics, EU-UK relations, or global trade architecture are on the agenda Audience outcomes A structured understanding of how monetary systems and debt cycles create predictable patterns of economic stress – and what indicators to watch for A longer historical lens for interpreting current macro conditions, including inflation, currency risk, and fiscal instability Practical context for the geopolitical and structural forces driving trade nationalism, eurozone tensions, and dollar dependency Confidence in interrogating economic consensus rather than deferring to it uncritically A framework for communicating economic complexity to non-specialist boards, investors, or stakeholders

Why organisations work with David Goodhart His Anywheres-Somewheres framework – originated in The Road to Somewhere and now widely cited in policy and board-level discourse – gives leadership teams a precise vocabulary for the value divide driving political volatility, workforce disengagement, and brand risk, and a basis for strategic response that goes beyond reactive communication. His Head, Hand, Heart typology reframes the talent and automation debate: it argues that cognitive work has been systematically over-valued at the expense of manual and care-based vocations, giving organisations a rigorous basis for rethinking workforce design, skills investment, and the distribution of dignity and status at work. His trilogy – The Road to Somewhere, Head, Hand, Heart, and The Care Dilemma – maps three decades of social disruption as a connected analytical story, giving boards a through-line from the Brexit-era value fracture to current debates on care, fertility, and workforce sustainability. He draws on live research at Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit rather than a fixed single-book thesis – his analysis tracks current demographic, policy, and political data and adjusts accordingly. His range is structurally unusual: 12 years as a Financial Times correspondent, founder and editor of Prospect magazine, Director of Demos, and current Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission – he holds the argument across journalism, think tank research, and regulatory governance in a combination that very few analysts in this space can match. Biography highlights Head of Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit and Director of the Integration Hub Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission Founder and former editor of Prospect magazine (established 1995); Financial Times correspondent for 12 years, including a posting in Germany during reunification Former Director of the think tank Demos Author of The Road to Somewhere (Sunday Times bestseller; longlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018), Head, Hand, Heart (Financial Times and Telegraph Book of the Year 2020), The Care Dilemma (Financial Times and Spectator Book of the Year 2024), and The British Dream (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2014) Contributor to the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, and the Financial Times; presenter of BBC Radio 4 Analysis programmes Biography David Goodhart founded Prospect magazine in 1995 and spent 12 years as a Financial Times correspondent – including a posting in Germany during reunification. The Road to Somewhere (2017) named the divide between mobile Anywheres and rooted Somewheres: a framework now standard in policy and board-level analysis of political risk. That book launched a trilogy. Head, Hand, Heart (2020) extended the argument to work and status, making the case that cognitive elites had systematically captured the labour market at the expense of manual and care-based vocations. A Financial Times and Telegraph Book of the Year, it identified the dignity deficit that now drives workforce disengagement and vocational underinvestment. The Care Dilemma (2024), also a Financial Times Book of the Year, completed the arc – examining how rapid social change has produced structural deficits in care, family stability, and demographic renewal. His institutional base spans journalism, policy, and governance. He served as Director of Demos before heading Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit. He sits as a Commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission – a combination that allows him to hold the argument across research, regulatory practice, and public media with unusual coherence. The frameworks Goodhart has built are reference points for boards and leadership teams trying to understand why workforces, consumer bases, and political environments are pulling in different directions. His contribution is analytical rigour applied to the forces most organisations feel but struggle to name. Key speaking topics The Anywheres-Somewheres divide and political risk Immigration, integration, and social cohesion Populism, value-based political fractures, and elite distrust Status, dignity, and the cognitive-skills divide in modern economies Demography, fertility, and the care deficit The future of vocational work and skills systems National identity and the politics of belonging Ideal for C-suite and board audiences mapping the political and social risks shaping the operating environment Government, public sector, and policy leadership teams working on immigration, integration, demographic change, or social cohesion HR, talent, and workforce strategy leaders reassessing skills frameworks, vocational pathways, and workforce dignity in the context of automation Public affairs, corporate affairs, and ESG functions managing social licence, institutional trust, and stakeholder relations Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the Anywheres-Somewheres divide and its concrete implications for workforce, consumer, and political behaviour A structural account of why political volatility is a durable feature of the operating environment, not a temporary disruption A framework for auditing how organisations distribute status, dignity, and investment across cognitive, manual, and care-based roles – and the strategic consequences of imbalance Clearer analytical thinking about demographic change – falling birthrates, ageing populations, and the emerging care deficit – as strategic planning factors rather than background noise A more grounded, evidence-based framing of immigration and integration as policy and social licence issues, accessible across the political spectrum

Why organisations work with David Daokui Li His 2023 research found China’s local government debt to be 50% higher than IMF and World Bank estimates – using a new measurement methodology – making him one of the few analysts whose China numbers organisations have reason to trust over consensus figures He has attended high-level meetings with figures including Xi Jinping, giving him direct, first-person insight into how China’s senior leadership frames decisions – not inference from official statements His book «China’s World View» (W. W. Norton, 2024) frames Western misunderstanding of China as a systemic risk in itself – shifting the question from «what will China do?» to «why do we keep misreading it?» As a Harvard-trained economist who returned to lead China’s most prominent economic research centre, he can translate between two fundamentally different frameworks for economic reasoning – not just describe one to an audience fluent in the other His co-presidency of the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics alongside Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin signals that his analytical framework for understanding state-driven economies is taken seriously at the highest level of the discipline Biography highlights Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor of Economics and Director of ACCEPT, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management PhD in Economics, Harvard University; BS from Tsinghua University, 1985, as a member of the first graduating cohort of the School of Economics and Management Member, Monetary Policy Committee, People’s Bank of China (2016-2018); former external adviser to the International Monetary Fund; member, CPPCC (2008-2023) Founding Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University Co-President, Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics (SAGE), alongside Eric Maskin, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics Author, «China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict» (W. W. Norton, 2024), endorsed by Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Niall Ferguson, and Mark Leonard Regular contributor to Project Syndicate; cited in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, and New York Times; appears on CNBC and Bloomberg TV Named one of China’s 10 most influential economists by Wall Street Wire (2006) Biography China’s economy confounds Western observers not because it is opaque, but because it operates on a different logic – one shaped by two thousand years of Confucian governance philosophy, decades of directed industrial policy, and a political system with incentives that bear little resemblance to liberal democratic models. David Daokui Li is the Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor of Economics at Tsinghua University and Director of the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking (ACCEPT). He holds a PhD from Harvard and was a member of the first graduating cohort from Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management in 1985. Li’s career has been built at the intersection of academic economics and active policy. He served on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China from 2016 to 2018, was a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference for fifteen years, and was an external adviser to the IMF. He has attended high-level government meetings with figures including Xi Jinping. The founding dean of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua, he also co-presides over the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics alongside Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin – a pairing that reflects where his intellectual ambition sits: building a rigorous framework for understanding economies in which the state is a primary actor. His 2023 research, conducted at ACCEPT with co-author Zhang He, concluded that China’s local government debt stood 50% higher than IMF and World Bank estimates – a finding that challenged the methodologies on which most international assessments of China’s fiscal position rely. His 2024 book, «China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict,» published by W. W. Norton, makes the case that Western strategic miscalculation on China stems not from a lack of information but from a failure to understand how China’s leadership thinks. The book was endorsed by Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Niall Ferguson, and Mark Leonard. For organisations navigating decisions about China – whether on investment exposure, supply chain design, or geopolitical positioning – Li offers something genuinely rare: the analytical rigour of a Harvard-trained economist, direct access to China’s senior policy deliberations, and the ability to articulate what China’s government actually believes about its own economic model and its place in the world. Key speaking topics China’s economic strategy and the logic of state-directed capitalism US-China economic competition and the risks of strategic misreading China’s local government debt and systemic financial risk The internationalisation of the RMB and China’s role in global finance Geopolitical risk and its economic consequences for multinationals China’s governance model – history, incentives, and decision-making Global economic rebalancing and the future of multilateral institutions Ideal for Boards and C-suites of multinationals with significant China exposure or supply chain dependencies Chief Risk Officers and Chief Strategy Officers navigating US-China decoupling scenarios Investment committees and asset managers with emerging market or Asia-Pacific mandates Senior government and policy audiences working on trade, geopolitical risk, or international economic governance Audience outcomes A clearer model for how China’s senior leadership actually frames economic decisions – not derived from official statements alone A more accurate picture of China’s structural fiscal risks, including the scale and composition of local government debt A framework for distinguishing between China’s stated policy positions and the underlying strategic logic that drives them A calibrated view of where US-China economic tension is most likely to produce disruption, and where convergence remains possible Practical reference points for pressure-testing internal assumptions about China in investment, supply chain, and strategic planning contexts

Why organisations work with Daniel Thorniley He has spent more than three decades inside the operational reality of CEEMEA business, first as Senior Vice President at The Economist Group in Vienna for 23 years, now as President of DT-Global Business Consulting. The intelligence is primary, not secondary. Through DT-Global and the CEEMEA Business Group, he convenes a standing network of country managers and regional executives from multinationals across the region, which means briefings are grounded in what operators are actually seeing. He translates political and macroeconomic shifts into commercial decisions: pricing, distribution, partnerships, headcount, capex. Regional MDs can use the output the week they hear it. Oxford-trained in Soviet political economy with a doctorate, and co-author of “Emerging Markets: Lessons for Business Success” (Profile Books, The Economist series), so the regional judgement is backed by published work and academic credentials, not just consultancy experience. Non-executive member of the Global Advisory Board of AECOM, with long-standing advisory relationships across major European and US corporations. He is used to speaking in the idiom of the board. Biography highlights Oxford University: BA, diploma and doctorate in Soviet political economy. Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant, The Economist Group, Vienna office, for 23 years. Founder and President, DT-Global Business Consulting GmbH, Vienna. Co-founder, CEEMEA Business Group, an advisory network for regional executives operating across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Co-author, “Emerging Markets: Lessons for Business Success and the Outlook for Different Markets” (Profile Books / The Economist, 2004) with Nenad Pacek; author of a Palgrave Macmillan study on Soviet rural political economy. Member, Global Advisory Board, AECOM. Has briefed audiences including NATO, the United Nations, and corporate clients such as Coca-Cola, Procter and Gamble, Ernst and Young, Robert Bosch and Raiffeisen. Biography CEEMEA markets do not reward general-purpose economic commentary. A multinational running operations across Poland, Turkey, the Gulf, South Africa and, until recently, Russia needs someone who can say what the next two quarters look like in each of those environments and what to do about it. That is the gap Thorniley has built his career around. For 23 years he was Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant at The Economist Group in Vienna, covering global corporate trends and emerging markets. When the Vienna office closed in 2008, he founded DT-Global Business Consulting and co-founded the CEEMEA Business Group. Both serve the same buyer: a regional executive or board member who needs primary-source intelligence on CEE, CIS and MEA, not a repackaged macro report. The distinctive asset is the network. DT-Global and CEEMEA Business Group convene country managers and senior executives from multinationals with a regional presence, which means the analysis he delivers is built on what operators are seeing in their own P&Ls. That shows up in how the briefings are pitched, with specific guidance on pricing, distribution, staffing and capital allocation rather than high-altitude commentary. The academic foundation matters because the region rewards it. His Oxford doctorate in Soviet political economy and his Palgrave Macmillan monograph sit behind three decades of reading Russia and its neighbours; his co-authored Profile Books volume on emerging markets, written with Nenad Pacek under The Economist imprint, distilled the operational playbook for multinationals entering frontier economies. Sir John Major has publicly called him the world’s leading business expert on emerging markets. Key speaking topics CEEMEA economic and political outlook Russia, CIS and Central Asia business environment Central and Eastern Europe corporate strategy Middle East and Africa market entry and growth Global emerging markets risk and opportunity Multinational operating models in frontier economies Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material CEEMEA exposure Regional presidents, country managers and EMEA leadership teams Corporate strategy, risk intelligence and government affairs functions Annual leadership offsites and investor or partner conferences focused on emerging markets Audience outcomes A clear read on where CEE, CIS and MEA economies are heading in the next two to four quarters A practical view on how political risk is translating into pricing, distribution and hiring decisions on the ground Specific guidance on which markets in the region to lean into, which to hold, and which to reassess A framework for stress-testing corporate assumptions about Russia, Turkey, the Gulf and Sub-Saharan Africa Candid answers on how peer multinationals are adjusting their regional operating models

Why organisations work with Daniel Gros Direct lineage to the euro’s creation. As Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, he worked on the blueprint that became Europe’s monetary union, and still publishes on its unfinished architecture. Two decades steering CEPS, Europe’s leading independent economic policy think tank, give him a working map of Brussels, Frankfurt, and national capitals that few outside economists can match. Current director of the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, with live research output on EU competitiveness, defense financing, and the middle-technology trap. Adviser to the European Parliament and former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board, with standing counsel histories to governments in Greece, the UK, and the US. A syndicated Project Syndicate columnist whose positions often move ahead of consensus, useful for boards trying to separate durable shifts from noise. Biography highlights Director, Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University. Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), 2000 to 2020. Economic Adviser to the Delors Committee, European Commission, on the design of the euro. Former economist at the International Monetary Fund. Adviser to the European Parliament; former member of the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board. Co-author of European Monetary Integration (with Niels Thygesen) and Open Issues in European Central Banking (with Lorenzo Bini Smaghi); syndicated columnist for Project Syndicate. Biography The euro was designed in the late 1980s inside a committee chaired by Jacques Delors. Daniel Gros was the economic adviser on that committee, one of the technical authors of a currency now used by more than 340 million people. That origin shapes how he reads every European crisis since. For twenty years he ran the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, the think tank most closely wired into EU institutions. Under his direction CEPS became a first reference for finance ministries, central banks, and the European Parliament on questions of monetary union, enlargement, and financial stability. He now directs the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University, where his research agenda has moved to EU competitiveness, defense financing, Chinese industrial policy, and what he calls the middle-technology trap. His authority rests on two things working together. The first is technical depth: a University of Chicago PhD, a career inside the IMF and European Commission, co-authorship of the standard textbook on European monetary integration. The second is access. He advises the European Parliament, has counselled governments in Greece, the UK, and the US, and sat on the Advisory Scientific Council to the European Systemic Risk Board. What he gives a senior audience is the ability to distinguish structural change from cyclical noise in the European economy. His Project Syndicate columns often take positions ahead of the Brussels consensus, which is the useful test of whether a commentator is describing reality or repeating it. Key speaking topics Eurozone economic policy and monetary union EU competitiveness and industrial strategy European defense financing and fiscal capacity Geopolitical economic risk and EU-China relations The international role of the euro European banking, financial stability, and capital markets EU enlargement and the political economy of integration Ideal for Boards and executive committees of European financial institutions, asset managers, and insurers pricing eurozone and sovereign risk. CEOs, CFOs, and strategy leads at multinationals reassessing European market exposure against US and Chinese policy shifts. Government relations, policy, and public affairs leaders tracking Brussels and Frankfurt decisions that affect capital allocation. Investor conferences and economic outlook events briefing senior audiences on EU macro conditions. Audience outcomes A sharper read on where the eurozone’s architecture is still fragile and where it is more resilient than headlines suggest. A working view of the EU competitiveness agenda, including industrial policy, defense spending, and the middle-technology trap. Clarity on how European responses to Chinese industrial policy and US tariff shifts will reshape capital flows and trade. A named set of indicators and policy triggers to watch over the next 12 to 24 months. Answers calibrated to senior decision-makers, drawing on direct experience advising parliaments, central banks, and governments.

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 Dana Lewis Three decades of frontline reporting across more than 50 countries, including Moscow, Jerusalem, Iraq, and Afghanistan, bring first-hand authority to any panel on geopolitical risk. Twelve years based in Russia and fluent Russian give him context on Moscow, the Kremlin, and the wider post-Soviet space that few moderators in the market can match. Embedded assignments with the 101st Airborne, 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain Division, and U.S. Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan make him credible on military and security subjects that often defeat generalist hosts. Interviews with heads of state including Vladimir Putin, King Hussein of Jordan, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shimon Peres translate directly into the composure and pace required to hold a senior panel. Overseas Press Club awards for coverage of the Kursk submarine disaster and the Kosovo war, plus an Emmy nomination for his reporting on Russian orphans, back the billing with recognition from named bodies. Biography highlights Former Moscow correspondent for NBC News and Moscow Bureau Chief for Fox News, one of the longest-serving Western reporters based in Russia. Jerusalem-based Middle East Bureau Chief for CTV, covering Israel, the Palestinian territories, and the wider region. Correspondent credits with Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, CBC News, and CTV National News; contributor to Al Jazeera America. Embedded with U.S. forces for the 2003 Iraq invasion with the 101st Airborne and on multiple Afghanistan rotations including Helmand Province. Host of BACK STORY With DANA LEWIS, a world affairs podcast featuring interviews with former officials and subject experts. Overseas Press Club awards for the Kursk submarine disaster and the Kosovo war; Emmy nomination for Russian orphans reporting. Biography Moscow, Jerusalem, Kabul, and Baghdad are not datelines Dana Lewis covered from a hotel balcony. He lived in Russia for 12 years as NBC News Moscow correspondent and later Fox News Moscow Bureau Chief, one of the longest continuously based Western reporters in the country. Before that he ran CTV’s Middle East bureau out of Jerusalem through the 1990s. That grounding matters when a board is asked to think about Russia, Ukraine, Iran, or the Gulf. Lewis has interviewed Vladimir Putin, King Hussein of Jordan, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Shimon Peres. He was embedded with the 101st Airborne for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and with the 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain Division, and U.S. Marines across multiple Afghanistan tours including Helmand Province. He reports in English and Russian. The awards sit underneath the reporting, not in front of it. Overseas Press Club recognition for the Kursk submarine disaster and the Kosovo war, an Emmy nomination for a story on Russian orphans, and decades of assignments for Fox News, NBC News, CBS News, CBC News, CTV National News, and Al Jazeera America. Today he is based in London, hosts the BACK STORY With DANA LEWIS podcast on world affairs, and appears regularly on TRT World, LBC Radio, and ABC News Australia. For event organisers he works as a moderator, conference host, and interviewer, putting the same instincts that governed a live two-way from a war zone to work on a corporate stage. Key speaking topics Russia and the Kremlin Middle East conflict and security Geopolitical risk and foreign policy War reporting and frontline journalism International media and world affairs Event hosting, moderation, and executive interviews Ideal for Board and executive briefings on Russia, Ukraine, and the wider post-Soviet region Conferences requiring a moderator or host with authority on geopolitics and security Media panels and journalism programmes exploring war reporting and foreign correspondence Awards ceremonies and corporate events seeking a broadcast-trained presenter Audience outcomes A clearer read on the Kremlin’s logic and the constraints shaping Russian foreign policy A grounded sense of how Middle East conflicts connect to European and global risk An on-stage conversation moderated at the pace and standard of live network television First-hand colour from inside Moscow, Jerusalem, Kabul, and Baghdad that sharpens abstract risk discussions

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

Why organisations work with Carl Bildt He negotiated the Dayton Peace Accords as EU Special Envoy and went on to serve as the first High Representative in Bosnia. Few speakers have personally built a post-war political settlement from the inside. He has run a European country, then run its foreign policy through the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Arab Spring and the launch of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The view from a head of government and a foreign minister, in the same career, is rare on the geopolitics circuit. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, the largest pan-European foreign policy network. Briefings are informed by a continent-wide research operation, not one capital’s perspective. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post and is widely cited on Ukraine, Russia, China and transatlantic strategy. Audiences get the published thinker, not a generic former politician. He sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and was its first non-US trustee, giving him a working relationship with the US strategic research establishment that most European speakers do not have. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Sweden, 1991 to 1994. Foreign Minister of Sweden, 2006 to 2014. EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia and co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference, 1995. First High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995 to 1997. UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans, 1999 to 2001. Co-Chair, European Council on Foreign Relations. Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation. Senior Adviser to the Wallenberg Foundations. Author, “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Columnist for Project Syndicate, contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Biography The European security order that boards have priced into their strategy for thirty years is being rewritten in real time. Ukraine, sanctions regimes, US policy swings and renewed Chinese pressure are no longer foreign-affairs reading. They feed directly into capital allocation, country risk and supply chain decisions in Berlin, Paris, London and Stockholm. Carl Bildt has watched this shift from inside the rooms where it has been argued out. As Prime Minister of Sweden in the early 1990s, he led the negotiation of Sweden’s accession to the European Union. As EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia, he co-chaired the Dayton Peace Conference and then served as the first High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, building a peace settlement on the ground. Returning to office as Foreign Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, he was one of the architects of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and a vocal European voice through Russia’s war in Georgia and the early years of the Ukraine crisis. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation, and writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post. His “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” remains one of the few first-person accounts of building a post-war political order in Europe. Audiences book him for what that experience yields now: a direct, unsentimental read on Russia, the transatlantic relationship and the trajectory of the European project under pressure. Key speaking topics European geopolitics and the future of the EU The transatlantic relationship and US foreign policy Russia, Ukraine and the post-1989 security order China and the global rules-based system Sanctions, political risk and country exposure Post-conflict diplomacy and peace negotiation Northern European and Nordic political economy Ideal for Board and executive team off-sites where geopolitical risk has become a strategic variable International banks, asset managers and insurers reviewing country and sanctions exposure Industrial and energy groups with material exposure to Europe, Russia, Ukraine or China Public affairs, policy and government relations leadership in multinationals Audience outcomes A current, named read on Russia, Ukraine and the trajectory of European security from someone who has been in the room. A clearer view of how transatlantic policy shifts under successive US administrations translate into European corporate exposure. A working framework for thinking about sanctions, energy and supply chain risk through a geopolitical, not just regulatory, lens. A sense of where the EU is going as a foreign and security actor, from a head of government who negotiated his country into it.

Why organisations work with Bruno Giussani His book Our Minds Under Siege (2026) gives leadership teams a structured framework for understanding how AI systems reshape human judgment from within; a diagnosis of a risk that most governance frameworks do not yet address and that most AI ethics conversations skip entirely. Nearly twenty years as TED’s Global Curator, working with more than 1,000 speakers, including His Holiness Pope Francis (twice), Prince William, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, gives him a practitioner’s map of how ideas move through organizations and societies, and what stops them. He operates at the intersection of AI, geopolitics, and economics rather than inside any single discipline, which allows him to frame cognitive risk as a question of power and governance, not a technology-management problem. His analytical position is explicitly non-alarmist: shaped by three decades of pragmatic, no-hype technology journalism across the New York Times, The Economist, and Wired UK. Organizations that have moved past the introductory AI conversation find this register useful. Biography highlights Former Global Curator and European Director, TED (2005–2024); curated more than 1,000 TED Talks, including two by His Holiness Pope Francis and one by Prince William Author, Our Minds Under Siege: How to Avoid Being Manipulated in the Age of AI (University of Chicago Press / Scheidegger & Spiess, 2026); also author of Roam: Making Sense of the Wireless Internet (Random House, 2001) Host, Deftech Podcast («La menace cognitive»), 2025 – six episodes on cognitive sovereignty and the threats posed by AI and neurotechnology JSK Fellow, Stanford University; Affiliated Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Wired UK «Wired 100» (100 most influential Europeans): 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015; SwissAward Person of the Year 2015, Economy category Internet columnist, New York Times (1996–2000); contributor to The Economist, Wall Street Journal Europe, and Wired UK Biography The dominant AI conversation in most organizations is about automation, efficiency, and competitive disruption. The question of whether the same technology is simultaneously reshaping the judgment of the people making those decisions has largely been set aside. Bruno Giussani challenges that omission. Its argument: cognitive sovereignty – the capacity to think and decide independently – is the governance challenge organizations are not yet naming. Giussani was TED’s Global Curator and European Director for nearly twenty years, curating more than 1,000 talks, including two by His Holiness Pope Francis and one by Prince William, as well as leading figures in geopolitics, economics, and climate. That curatorial role, at the centre of the global ideas economy, built a practitioner’s understanding of how information environments shape what people believe and how they decide: not through force, but through design. Before TED, he wrote about technology for the New York Times (as its European internet columnist), The Economist, the Wall Street Journal Europe, and Wired UK. The consistent position across that work was pragmatic and non-alarmist; skeptical of both utopian and panic framings of technology. That editorial discipline anchors Our Minds Under Siege, which treats AI manipulation not as a consumer protection question but as a structural challenge to organizational thinking and governance. His Deftech Podcast (2025), produced in French, German, and Italian, explored cognitive threats from AI and neurotechnology before the book appeared in print. He advises public organizations and private companies and brings this analysis to boards and leadership teams where technology strategy, geopolitical risk, and organizational decision-making converge. Key speaking topics Cognitive sovereignty and AI manipulation The social and political impacts of algorithmic technologies How ideas spread in organizations and societies Technology, geopolitics, and the future of power AI governance beyond automation and compliance Curation and knowledge management in an era of information abundance The intersection of AI, neurotechnology, and human decision-making Ideal for Boards and senior leadership teams examining AI governance beyond operational and compliance risk CEOs, CSOs, and Chief AI Officers building strategic frameworks for AI’s cognitive and societal impacts Corporate affairs and communications leaders whose organizations operate in algorithmically shaped information environments Executive conferences and thought leadership forums requiring a moderator or host with demonstrated experience interviewing heads of state, Nobel laureates, and global institutional leaders Audience outcomes A clear framework for distinguishing operational AI risk (automation, disruption) from cognitive AI risk (the manipulation of judgment and belief) A working vocabulary for cognitive sovereignty; what it means at the organizational level, how it differs from AI ethics, and why it is becoming a governance issue Insight into how information environments are architecturally designed to shape attention and belief, drawn from twenty years of curating the world’s most-watched ideas platform A practitioner’s understanding of how consequential ideas are built, communicated, and adopted, and what makes organizations resistant or receptive to them A non-alarmist, analytically grounded perspective on AI’s social and political impacts, suited to senior teams that have already moved past the introductory conversation

Why organisations work with Bob Woodward First-hand reporting across ten U.S. presidents, from Nixon to the present, grounded in on-the-record transcripts with sitting presidents, cabinet officials, intelligence chiefs and military commanders. Author of more than twenty bestselling books on American power, including Fear, Rage, Peril and War, each built on contemporaneous interviews and primary documents rather than secondary commentary. A non-partisan frame for reading U.S. political risk: what the decision was, who made it, what information they had, and what it means for everyone downstream. The journalist who, with Carl Bernstein, broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post, earning the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and a second Pulitzer in 2002 for national reporting on September 11. A reading of the U.S. presidency as an institution under stress, valuable to any organisation whose strategy depends on the stability and direction of American policy. Biography highlights Associate Editor of The Washington Post since 1971. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner: 1973 Public Service (Watergate, with Carl Bernstein) and 2002 National Reporting (September 11 coverage). Author of All the President’s Men, The Final Days, Veil, Bush at War, Plan of Attack, Obama’s Wars, Fear, Rage, Peril and War. Fear: Trump in the White House holds Simon and Schuster’s first-week sales record at approximately 1.1 million copies. Recipient of the Heywood Broun Award, George Polk Award, Worth Bingham Prize, William Allen White Medal and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. Yale University graduate and former U.S. Navy communications officer before joining journalism. Biography The Watergate break-in was dismissed as a third-rate burglary before Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein traced it, through months of reporting in The Washington Post, to the re-election committee of a sitting American president. That reporting won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and forced a presidential resignation. Five decades on, Woodward is still doing the same work on the same beat. Since 1971 he has been a reporter and then Associate Editor at The Washington Post. His books, published by Simon and Schuster, have covered the Reagan-era CIA in Veil, the Clinton White House in The Agenda, the post-September 11 Bush administration in Bush at War and Plan of Attack, the Obama war cabinet in Obama’s Wars, and the Trump presidencies in Fear, Rage and Peril. War, published in 2024 with Robert Costa’s earlier collaboration extended, reports the decisions behind U.S. policy on Ukraine and the Middle East. The method is consistent and unusual in American journalism. Long on-the-record and background interviews with named principals, documented by notes, memos and contemporaneous records, assembled into a narrative of what was said in which room on which date. Fear sold approximately 1.1 million copies in its opening week, the largest first-week total in Simon and Schuster’s history at the time of publication. For boards and executive committees, the value of that method is specific. It replaces cable-news framing with a documentary account of how the American presidency has been making foreign policy, economic policy and national security decisions across a generation. A second Pulitzer, for national reporting on September 11, confirmed that the Watergate work was a method, not a moment. Key speaking topics American presidential decision-making U.S. foreign policy and national security The Washington policy process Political risk and the U.S. institutional landscape Investigative journalism and source-based reporting Watergate and the evolution of the presidency The state of American democracy Ideal for Boards and executive committees exposed to U.S. political and regulatory direction CEOs, CFOs and CSOs with strategic dependencies on American policy Public affairs, government relations and corporate communications leaders Financial services, defence, energy and technology firms reading Washington risk Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how recent U.S. presidents have actually made consequential decisions A non-partisan framework for reading Washington as a system rather than a news cycle Concrete examples of how intelligence, military and White House staff shape presidential choices Historical perspective on the U.S. presidency as an institution across five decades Questions to ask about the reliability and sourcing of political information

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