Geopolitics speakers

Why organisations work with Peter Frankopan His central argument in The Silk Roads – that Eurasian trade routes, not Western nation-states, were the real axis of wealth and power for most of human history – gives leaders a structurally different mental map for reading where global economic gravity is moving. This is not commentary; it is a published, peer-reviewed thesis that has sold over two million copies across forty languages. The Earth Transformed makes a specific and uncomfortable argument for boards: that climate and the natural environment are not a policy consideration layered onto geopolitics, but the primary driver of the rise and fall of economies and empires. It resets how serious organisations should be thinking about long-term risk, not just ESG compliance. His advisory work for the World Bank on South Asian transport corridors and with UNIDO on Belt and Road infrastructure means his analysis of global connectivity is grounded in live geopolitical and economic reality – not theoretical. Named one of Prospect Magazine’s World’s 50 Top Thinkers in 2019, his work is positioned at the intersection of serious scholarship and applied strategic relevance – carrying weight with both policymakers and corporate boards. His geographic scope is genuinely unusual: he works across the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Iran, Central Asia, and China as an integrated system – making him the rare authority on Eurasian dynamics as a whole rather than a single-region specialist. Biography highlights Professor of Global History, Oxford University; Stavros Niarchos Foundation Director, Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research; Senior Research Fellow, Worcester College UNESCO Professor of Silk Roads Studies; Bye-Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge Author of The Silk Roads (Bloomsbury) – No.1 Sunday Times bestseller, Sunday Times Book of the Decade 2010–19, translated into more than 40 languages, 2m+ copies sold Author of The Earth Transformed (Bloomsbury) – The Times History Book of the Year; Financial Times and Guardian/Observer Book of the Year Named one of Prospect Magazine’s World’s 50 Top Thinkers (2019); recipient of the Calliope Prize, German Emigration Center, and the Carical Foundation Human Sciences Prize Senior Advisor to the World Bank on South Asian transport corridors; involved with UNIDO’s Bridge for Cities Programme on Belt and Road and sustainable urban development Regular contributor to the Financial Times, Guardian, and New York Times; co-host of the Legacy podcast (Goalhanger/Wondery) with Afua Hirsch Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Royal Historical Society, Royal Asiatic Society, and Royal Geographical Society Biography The Silk Roads were not a romantic footnote to European history. They were the main event. That is the argument Peter Frankopan – Professor of Global History at Oxford and Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research – has spent two decades building: that the trade routes running through Central Asia, Persia, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean were the real axis of wealth, power, and exchange for most of recorded history, and that the West’s period of dominance was the exception, not the rule. His book The Silk Roads made that case to a global readership – No.1 in the Sunday Times, named Book of the Decade, translated into more than forty languages. The New Silk Roads brought the argument into the present, reading China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the re-emergence of Central Asian states, and the reconfiguration of energy markets not as emerging-market news but as the return of structural patterns. His most recent work, The Earth Transformed – The Times History Book of the Year 2023 – extends the argument further still: climate and the natural environment, he argues, are not a policy layer on top of geopolitics but the defining force in the rise and fall of civilisations and economies. Frankopan does not only write about geopolitics. He advises on it. He has served as Senior Advisor to the World Bank on South Asian transport corridors and worked with UNIDO on the future of sustainable cities along Belt and Road. Named one of Prospect Magazine’s World’s 50 Top Thinkers in 2019, he contributes to the Financial Times, Guardian, and New York Times, and advises governments, multilateral institutions, and multinational organisations on geopolitical risk. For boards navigating what is, by any historical measure, a genuine structural shift in where power, trade, and risk are concentrated, Frankopan offers something rarer than expertise: a framework for distinguishing what is structurally new from what has happened before, and knowing which is which. Key speaking topics Global power shifts and the rebalancing between East and West The Silk Roads: Eurasian trade, connectivity, and long-term economic patterns China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the new geography of global commerce Geopolitical risk: Russia, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Iran Climate and environment as long-term drivers of economic and geopolitical change The limits of Western strategic assumptions and the rules-based order BRICS, the global majority, and the emergence of new economic frameworks Ideal for Board members and C-suite teams assessing geopolitical risk in international trade, investment, or expansion Financial services, investment, and sovereign wealth fund audiences analysing long-term global economic trends Government, policy, and public sector leaders navigating strategic realignment between West and East International affairs forums and CEO-level summits seeking rigorous historical context for decisions with long time horizons Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of where global economic and political gravity is moving – grounded in historical evidence rather than current news cycles Clearer thinking about China, Central Asia, and the Middle East as structural actors, not simply emerging markets or risk zones to monitor A historical framework for treating climate and environmental factors as long-term geopolitical and economic forces rather than compliance issues Greater ability to distinguish structural shifts in the global order from cyclical volatility when making decisions that extend beyond the short term Specific historical precedents and patterns that challenge Western-centric assumptions embedded in most strategic planning frameworks

Why organisations work with Phil Osborn He ran UK Defence Intelligence at four-star level from 2015 to 2018, including the period covering Russia, China, Iran and the operationalisation of state cyber. Few civilian advisers have sat in that seat. He led UK Defence’s offensive and defensive cyber capability, so the boardroom conversation about hostile-state cyber risk is not theoretical for him. It is something he commanded. He sits inside the same problem from three angles at once: as Director of Universal Defence and Security Solutions, Senior Advisor to Lockheed Martin UK, and Senior Advisor to DXC Technology. That triangulation is rare. He established and ran the £2.5 billion annual Joint Forces Command Capability Portfolio, so capital-allocation conversations about resilience and sovereign capability are grounded in operating reality. CBE, Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Chair of the RAF Charitable Trust. The credentials sit on substance, not the other way round. Biography highlights Air Marshal (Retired), Royal Air Force, 1982 to 2019; Tornado navigator, station commander, deployed operational commander. Chief of Defence Intelligence, 2015 to 2018: strategic intelligence to UK Defence and Government, ISR coordination, counter-intelligence, and Defence cyber leadership. Air Officer Commanding No. 2 Group RAF, 2010 to 2012; Director Capability at Joint Forces Command, 2013. Director, Universal Defence and Security Solutions; Senior Advisor to Lockheed Martin UK and DXC Technology; Non-Executive Director, Inzpire. Chair, Royal Air Force Charitable Trust. CBE (2009 New Year Honours); Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Biography The boardroom conversation about geopolitics has changed. Sanctions, hostile-state cyber, supply-chain coercion, sovereign technology dependencies: these have moved from external context to first-order strategic risk. Most leadership teams do not have an intelligence-grade read on any of them. That is the seat Phil Osborn occupied at national level. As UK Chief of Defence Intelligence from 2015 to 2018, he was responsible for the strategic intelligence picture supplied to UK Defence and Government, for the coordination of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and for Defence’s leadership of offensive and defensive cyber. He did this through a period in which Russia, China, Iran and non-state actors all changed posture in observable ways. The career under that role matters. Thirty-seven years in the Royal Air Force, originally as a Tornado navigator, then through squadron and station command, then as Air Officer Commanding No. 2 Group, then at Joint Forces Command where he set up and ran the £2.5 billion annual Capability Portfolio that became part of Strategic Command. The capital-allocation muscle is real, not anecdotal. Since retiring as Air Marshal in 2019 he has worked the same problem from the commercial side: Director at Universal Defence and Security Solutions, Senior Advisor to Lockheed Martin UK and to DXC Technology, Non-Executive Director at Inzpire, and Chair of the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust. Boards looking for somebody who can connect the geopolitical signal, the cyber threat picture and the sovereign-capability question, in language a Chair can use, find one of the few people in the UK who has run all three. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and national security Defence intelligence and the strategic threat picture State and non-state cyber risk Sovereign capability and supply chain resilience Force design, capability portfolios and capital allocation Leadership and command in high-stakes environments Ideal for Boards and audit and risk committees confronting geopolitical and cyber exposure CEOs, CFOs and CSOs in defence, aerospace, critical infrastructure and government-facing industries Investors and capital allocators with sovereign-capability or sanctions-sensitive portfolios Senior leadership offsites in regulated industries where state-level risk is now a board agenda item Audience outcomes A clearer read on the geopolitical and security drivers that will most affect the next planning cycle A sharper distinction between hostile-state cyber risk and the generic cyber narrative A practical sense of how national-level intelligence assesses adversaries, applied to corporate risk A working view on sovereign capability, supply-chain dependency and what resilience actually costs The vocabulary to brief a Chair or audit committee on geopolitical and cyber exposure with confidence

Why organisations work with Pippa Malmgren She has sat inside the room where US economic policy is set. As Special Assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Economic Council, she advised on the response to 9/11 from a financial markets and Pentagon technology procurement standpoint, which is a different vantage point from any academic economist. She bridges currency markets and geopolitics in a way few speakers can. She ran Bankers Trust Asset Management in Asia and was Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS, which means her geopolitical reads land with FX, fixed income and treasury audiences. She is a working operator, not just a commentator. Co-founding H Robotics, a CogX and National Technology Award winning industrial drone business, gives her a real seat at the table on industrial AI, autonomous systems and the defence-tech investment cycle. Her book The Leadership Lab won UK Business Book of the Year 2019 and her follow-up The Infinite Leader won the International Press Award for Best Book on Leadership 2021, which means leadership-track briefs are met with credentialed material rather than improvisation. She holds a Senior Associate Fellowship at RUSI, the UK defence and security institute, and judges the King’s Awards for Enterprise. Boards using her for geopolitics get an analyst whose reads are taken seriously inside the UK security and industrial establishment. Biography highlights Special Assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Economic Council and member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. Former Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS and head of Bankers Trust Asset Management in Asia. Author of Signals (Weidenfeld and Nicolson), Geopolitics for Investors, The Leadership Lab and The Infinite Leader. Co-founder of H Robotics, winner of the CogX Award for Autonomy and the 2020 National Technology Award. Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a Fellow of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation 2022 to 2024. PhD and MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics. Biography The job of reading geopolitics for boards used to belong to a small circle of former diplomats and bank chief economists. That circle is no longer wide enough. Currency moves now sit downstream of sanctions decisions, supply chain costs sit downstream of industrial policy, and AI capex sits downstream of export controls. Reading those linkages is a working discipline, not a generalist’s hobby. Malmgren was inside that linkage early. She advised President George W. Bush on the National Economic Council and served on the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, including the post-9/11 work on terrorism risk to the economy and Pentagon technology procurement. Before the White House, she ran Bankers Trust Asset Management in Asia and was Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS. The combination of policy seat and trading-floor seat is rare, and it shapes how she briefs. The published work makes the argument visible. Signals reads consumer behaviour, magazine covers and shop fronts as evidence about inflation, social pressure and political risk. The Leadership Lab, co-written with Chris Lewis, won UK Business Book of the Year 2019. The Infinite Leader followed it with the 2021 International Press Award for Best Book on Leadership. None of these are commentator books. They argue specific theses about how decisions get made under volatile conditions. She also runs an operating business in the territory she briefs on. H Robotics, the industrial drone company she co-founded, won the CogX Award for Autonomy and the 2020 National Technology Award. She holds a Senior Associate Fellowship at RUSI, sits on the judging panel of the King’s Awards for Enterprise and was a Fellow of the Bertelsmann Stiftung from 2022 to 2024. When she briefs a board on industrial AI, defence-tech, the new space economy or the strategic-minerals fight, she is briefing as a participant, not a watcher. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the global economy Macroeconomic volatility and capital allocation Industrial AI, autonomous systems and defence technology Currency markets and inflation signals The new space economy and strategic infrastructure Leadership under conditions of disruption Political risk and sovereign decision-making Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CFOs setting capital allocation policy under sanctions, currency and supply chain pressure. Treasury, FX and asset management leadership teams whose mandates now hinge on geopolitical reads. Strategy and corporate development teams in defence, energy, industrials, semiconductors and infrastructure. Investment committees of pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and family offices reassessing global exposure. Audience outcomes A working framework for translating geopolitical events into specific capital, currency and operating consequences. A clearer reading of where US, Chinese and European industrial policy is forcing reallocation of supply chains and capital. Specific signals to track in commodities, currencies and consumer behaviour as leading indicators of macro stress. A grounded view of where AI, autonomous systems and the space economy intersect with national security and corporate strategy. Confidence at board level that geopolitical scenarios have been pressure-tested by someone who has briefed at presidential level.

Why organisations work with Rachel Scott A direct line into the reporting that defines how the world reads Washington, from a correspondent who has covered the Trump campaign, the Biden White House, Capitol Hill and the 2024 election from the front row. The same interviewer who pressed Vladimir Putin on jailed opponents at the 2021 Geneva summit and questioned Donald Trump on the NABJ stage in Chicago. Senior leaders get a moderator who can hold any panellist to the substance. A correspondent whose Peabody-winning Nightline reporting on the Roe v. Wade aftermath and Murrow-winning coverage of the George Floyd protests show range beyond electoral politics into the social pressures shaping the US operating environment. A clear, plain-language read of US political risk for boards and executive committees that have to plan against it, calibrated for an audience that does not live inside Washington. A natural fit for events that need an authoritative American journalist on stage: keynote interviews with executives or political guests, election-period briefings, and conference moderation of complex panels. Biography highlights Senior Political Correspondent, ABC News, reporting across Good Morning America, World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, 20/20, ABC News Live and ABC Audio. Lead ABC News campaign correspondent for the 2024 US presidential election; previously Senior Congressional Correspondent and White House correspondent. Peabody Award winner (Nightline: The Appointment, 2021) and Peabody finalist (IMPACT x Nightline: On the Brink, 2023) for reporting on the Roe v. Wade decision and its aftermath. Inaugural News and Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Emerging Journalist (2022); multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards including coverage of the George Floyd protests and the Accountable podcast. Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award; NABJ Emerging Journalist of the Year (2020); Forbes 30 Under 30 (2020); Washingtonian Outstanding Journalist in Broadcast Television (2024); RTDNA First Amendment Award honoree (2025). Graduate of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Biography Washington is harder to read from the outside than it has ever been. The institutions that international businesses have priced as stable, regulators, courts, Congress and the conventions around the presidency, are now contested in public daily. Executive teams making US capital, hiring and supply commitments need a working interpretation of what is actually happening, not the broadcast version. That is the territory Rachel Scott reports from for ABC News. As Senior Political Correspondent she covers the Trump second term, Capitol Hill and the administration across the network’s full output, from World News Tonight with David Muir to Nightline and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. She served as ABC’s lead campaign correspondent through the 2024 election and was previously the network’s Senior Congressional Correspondent and White House correspondent. Her reporting has been recognised across the highest honours in American journalism. She is a Peabody winner for Nightline’s reporting on the Roe v. Wade decision, holder of the inaugural Emmy for Outstanding Emerging Journalist, and a multiple Edward R. Murrow Award winner for coverage of the George Floyd protests and the Accountable podcast with Mary Bruce. She has been named NABJ Emerging Journalist of the Year, a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and Washingtonian’s Outstanding Journalist in Broadcast Television. What corporate audiences book her for sits on top of that record. She is a working political interviewer who has pressed Vladimir Putin in Geneva and Donald Trump on the NABJ stage. For boards, executive offsites and conference programmes during a US election cycle, that produces a specific value: a moderator and on-stage interpreter who can take the day’s American political news, however unstable, and convert it into something senior business audiences can actually use. Key speaking topics US political risk and the second Trump administration The 2024 election cycle and its consequences for global business Washington reporting and the American media environment The state of US democratic institutions Capitol Hill, the courts and US regulatory direction Race, gender and the social pressures shaping US politics Keynote interviewing and conference moderation Ideal for International boards and executive committees with US capital, customer or supply chain exposure during an election cycle Public affairs, government relations and corporate communications leadership teams Annual conferences and CEO summits needing an authoritative on-stage interviewer or moderator Investor and partner events that want a sharp Washington read alongside their own programming Audience outcomes A grounded read of where US politics is actually going, separated from cable-news framing A working sense of the political risks worth pricing into US strategy over the next twelve to twenty-four months Direct, in-room exchange with a correspondent who interviews the principals her audience reads about A higher standard of moderation: panels that stay on substance and produce something a senior audience can use afterwards

Why organisations work with Raekwon Chung The Low Carbon Green Growth Roadmap, a UN publication Chung directed at ESCAP provides a named, five-track policy architecture for pursuing growth while reducing carbon intensity; organisations that understand this framework can make the economic case for climate investment, not just the compliance case. Very few speakers have shaped the rules of international climate governance from inside the room; Chung has participated in UN climate negotiations since 1991, advised a UN Secretary-General directly, and co-authored the IPCC’s foundational report on technology transfer. His specific IPCC contribution; the Technology Transfer Report addresses one of the least resolved tensions in corporate climate strategy: how emerging-market operations can access and deploy clean technologies at scale. The Green Growth argument Chung developed is an economic one, not a moral one; he shows how resource efficiency and low-carbon investment can generate a double dividend; higher growth with lower environmental impact, a position grounded in a verifiable UN policy architecture rather than consulting opinion. As Board Director for Climate and Energy at the Ban Ki-moon Foundation for a Better Future, he remains an active participant in the international climate architecture rather than a commentator on it. Biography highlights Korea’s first Climate Change Ambassador; engaged in UN climate negotiations since 1991 Principal Climate Change Advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Director, Environment and Development Division, UN ESCAP; led development of the Low Carbon Green Growth Roadmap for Asia and the Pacific (2012) IPCC Lead Author, Technology Transfer Report; received personal copy of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC Chairman, International Award Committee, Global Energy Prize Board Director for Climate and Energy, Ban Ki-moon Foundation for a Better Future; Professor Emeritus, Incheon National University, Korea Biography Whether climate action and economic growth can be pursued simultaneously is no longer a theoretical question: it is the defining tension in development strategy. Raekwon Chung has spent three decades not analysing that question but helping to answer it, from South Korea’s first climate ambassador to the UN official who directed the Low Carbon Green Growth Roadmap. The Roadmap, published in 2012 under Chung’s leadership at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, set out a five-track policy architecture for governments pursuing growth while reducing carbon intensity. It became a reference document for Asia-Pacific policymakers and shaped how international institutions framed the relationship between development economics and climate obligations. The core argument is economic: resource efficiency and low-carbon investment generate a double dividend: higher growth alongside lower environmental impact. His direct involvement in the institutions that set climate rules is unusual. He served as Principal Climate Change Advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and was Lead Author on the IPCC’s Technology Transfer Report. The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007; Chung received a personal copy in recognition of his contribution. He also proposed the concept of unilateral CDM, enabling developing countries to initiate emissions reduction projects independently, without waiting for partner-country involvement. He now chairs the International Award Committee of the Global Energy Prize and serves as Board Director for Climate and Energy at the Ban Ki-moon Foundation for a Better Future. His perspective is that of a practitioner inside the international climate architecture, not an observer of it. Key speaking topics Low-carbon development policy Green Growth as economic strategy International climate governance Climate diplomacy and multilateral negotiation Energy transition in emerging economies Technology transfer and clean energy access ESG strategy and climate-aligned investment Ideal for Government ministers, senior civil servants, and diplomats engaged in climate policy or international negotiations Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads at multinationals with Asia-Pacific exposure or supply chain decarbonisation mandates Boards and executive committees making the economic case for net-zero commitments International organisations and multilateral institutions working on development finance or energy transition Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how international climate frameworks are designed, and how organisations can position themselves within them rather than simply react to them The economic logic of Green Growth as a lens for reframing climate investment as a development opportunity rather than a compliance cost Insight into the real dynamics of multilateral climate negotiation and what drives national ambition levels Practical perspectives on technology transfer and clean energy access, particularly relevant for emerging-market operations and supply chain decarbonisation Context for the convergence of climate policy, development economics, and energy transition across the Asia-Pacific region

Why organisations work with Rageh Omaar A reporting record built on the ground in Baghdad, Kabul, Darfur and across the wider Middle East and Africa, not a studio commentator with borrowed authority A Peabody for BBC dispatches from Darfur and a BAFTA for the BBC’s Afghanistan coverage, two of the most demanding awards in international news A daily editorial seat at ITV News that keeps his read on conflict, sanctions and the international order current rather than retrospective A track record chairing senior-stakes events for Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, The Economist and DNV in Oslo, where the brief is to keep a difficult conversation moving without flattening it Biography highlights International Affairs Editor, ITV News, and presenter on ITV News at Ten and the current affairs strand On Assignment Former senior BBC foreign correspondent, the lead face of BBC News during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the only western television journalist inside Taliban-held Kabul as it fell in 2001 Peabody Award winner for BBC reporting from Darfur, BAFTA winner for the BBC’s coverage of the invasion of Afghanistan Presenter of Witness and The Rageh Omaar Report on Al Jazeera English between 2006 and 2010 Author of Revolution Day: The Real Story of the Battle for Iraq (Penguin) and Only Half of Me: Being a Muslim in Britain (Viking) Authored long-form documentary series for the BBC including The Life of Muhammad (BBC Two) and The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors (BBC Two) Biography Baghdad in March 2003 was the first conflict of the modern news cycle, fought as much through television as through the air. Rageh Omaar led the BBC’s coverage from inside the city as the bombing began, and his nightly dispatches became, for British and international audiences, the picture of how the war was unfolding. The reporting won him an international audience and a permanent association with the most difficult kind of foreign coverage, journalism done from the place the story is happening. The career sits on a longer record. Omaar was the only western television journalist inside Taliban-held Kabul as it fell in 2001, work that earned the BBC a BAFTA. His subsequent reporting from Darfur for the BBC was recognised with a Peabody, the most stringent broadcast journalism prize awarded in the United States. After a period at Al Jazeera English presenting Witness and The Rageh Omaar Report, he moved to ITV News in 2013 and was promoted to International Affairs Editor a year later. Beyond breaking news, his work has consistently turned to the long story of the Islamic world and its relationship with Europe. Documentary series including The Life of Muhammad and The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Emperors, both for BBC Two, sit alongside his books Revolution Day and Only Half of Me, the second a study of British Muslim identity drawn partly from his own Somali-British background. That body of work is what differentiates him from a general-purpose news anchor when corporate audiences want a serious on-stage conversation about the Middle East, Africa or the wider rules-based order. On the platform, he is engaged most often as moderator, chair and interviewer for senior audiences at firms including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, The Economist and DNV. The brief in those rooms is to handle a sensitive subject in front of a room that knows the surface of it, and to draw out a guest or a panel without letting the conversation drift. That is the craft he brings, supported by reporting credentials that let him hold the room when the topic is geopolitics rather than industry talk. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and international affairs The Middle East and the rules-based order Africa, conflict and economic development Foreign reporting and the modern news cycle Islam, identity and the West Conference moderation, panel chairing and on-stage interviewing Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning a serious on-stage conversation on geopolitical risk, the Middle East or Africa Annual conferences and global leadership offsites that need a credible chair for the international-affairs session Policy, energy and financial-services events where the moderator must hold authority on conflict, sanctions and political risk Corporate award ceremonies and after-dinner formats that require a recognisable broadcaster with substance behind the name Audience outcomes A grounded read on the international story currently shaping board-level decisions, drawn from a working editor’s seat rather than archive material A clearer sense of how the Middle East and Africa look from inside the reporting, beyond the cable news framing An on-stage conversation or panel that holds together at the level senior audiences expect, with difficult questions asked and not avoided A frame for thinking about Islam, identity and the West that comes from sustained reporting and writing, not commentary

Why organisations work with Raghuram Rajan The Fault Lines framework – winner of the 2010 FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year – gives organisations a specific, named diagnostic for distinguishing structural economic imbalance from cyclical volatility. That is a different tool from scenario planning or macroeconomic outlook, and more useful at board level. He is the only prominent economist to have publicly and formally predicted the 2008 financial crisis in advance – at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium in 2005 – and been dismissed at the time. That track record is a credential no other economics speaker holds. He governed a major central bank through a period of acute currency stress and capital flight, giving senior audiences access to decision-making insight from inside a monetary authority under pressure – not retrospective academic analysis of one. His Third Pillar argument – that markets and states, operating without healthy communities, produce the political backlash that now defines operating risk for global organisations – provides a structural explanation for the instability that most business risk frameworks treat as noise. As Chairman of the Group of Thirty, the senior body that shapes global monetary and financial policy thinking, his analysis is current and policy-facing, not retrospective. Biography highlights Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (2013–2016); Vice-Chairman, Board of the Bank for International Settlements (2015–2016) Chief Economist and Director of Research, International Monetary Fund (2003–2006) Presented research at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium in 2005 warning of structural financial risk – widely recognised as a prescient forecast of the 2008 global financial crisis Author of Fault Lines (FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year, 2010) and The Third Pillar (shortlisted, FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, 2019); co-author of Breaking the Mould (Princeton University Press, 2024) Chairman, Group of Thirty; Chairman, Per Jacobsson Foundation; Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fischer Black Prize, American Finance Association (inaugural, 2003); Deutsche Bank Prize for Financial Economics (2013); Euromoney Central Banker of the Year (2014); Banker Magazine Central Banker of the Year (2016) Regular contributor to Project Syndicate on global economic and monetary policy Biography Financial crises don’t arrive without signals – they arrive without being believed. In 2005, at the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium, Rajan presented research identifying structural risks in the financial system that could, if unaddressed, precipitate a major crisis. The then-US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers dismissed the analysis publicly. Three years later, the 2008 financial crisis unfolded. That episode anchors Rajan’s central argument, developed in Fault Lines – the 2010 FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year – that global financial crises are rooted in structural political and economic imbalances, not isolated market failures. He applied this framework at the level of actual policy: as Chief Economist at the IMF from 2003 to 2006, shaping global economic analysis across a period of significant financial stress; and as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, managing monetary policy through currency pressure and capital outflows that tested emerging market resilience. His 2019 book The Third Pillar, shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, extends the argument into political economy. The conventional debate between markets and the state, Rajan contends, ignores the community as a third and equally necessary foundation of economic stability. When that pillar erodes – as globalisation concentrates gains and disperses costs – the political backlash follows. That dynamic now constitutes a primary operating risk for organisations across every sector. As Chairman of the Group of Thirty, a regular contributor to Project Syndicate, and co-author of Breaking the Mould (Princeton University Press, 2024) – which proposes a new economic development path for India as the traditional manufacturing-led growth model becomes less viable – Rajan continues to work at the intersection of economic analysis and practical policy, where the consequences of getting the diagnosis wrong are most clearly visible. Key speaking topics Global macroeconomics and financial stability Structural risk and the conditions that precede financial crises Central banking and monetary policy Emerging markets and economic development Political economy: globalisation, populism, and community India’s economic trajectory and structural reform ESG, corporate disclosure, and responsible capitalism Ideal for Boards and executive leadership teams at multinational organisations assessing macroeconomic and geopolitical risk Senior leadership in financial services – banking, asset management, insurance, and central banking institutions Chief strategy officers and chief risk officers stress-testing global market assumptions Government bodies, policy forums, and international economic organisations Audience outcomes A specific framework for reading structural fault lines in the global economy, distinct from standard macroeconomic forecasting Grounded understanding of how central banks weigh political pressure against policy mandates – from someone who managed that tension in office A clearer account of why globalisation generates political backlash, and what that means for organisations operating across different political environments Context for emerging market risk – particularly India – built on policy experience rather than external analysis A more rigorous basis for stress-testing the macroeconomic assumptions embedded in corporate strategy and investment decisions

Why organisations work with Raheela Mahomed A working anchor’s interview discipline applied to corporate panels: senior speakers get pressed cleanly on the questions an audience actually wants answered, without the host losing the room. Subject fluency across digital transformation, climate and sustainability, geopolitics and DEI, built from live news coverage rather than a single specialism, useful for agendas that span more than one track. International newsroom credibility from Al Jazeera English, CNN International and DW News, including a co-presented Emmy-nominated programme, NewsGrid, that translates immediately for global audiences. A studio operator who can hold a live, multi-camera broadcast format on stage, demonstrated on SAP’s Sapphire Now and at the Future of Media Leaders Summit in Doha. Biography highlights News anchor, Deutsche Welle (DW News), Berlin, since 2021; presenter of hourly bulletins and DW News Africa. Eight years at Al Jazeera English in Doha, anchoring the flagship Newshour and serving as Indonesia correspondent. Co-presenter and producer of NewsGrid, Al Jazeera English’s interactive news programme, International Emmy nominee in News, 2018. Earlier roles at CNN International, including contribution to the launch of the CNN Freedom Project on human trafficking. Current contributor to BBC World News on Ukraine, Israel and Gaza, and Iran. Conference host and moderator for SAP’s Sapphire Now and the Future of Media Leaders Summit, Doha; UN conference speaker at Shoko Festival Hub in Harare. BA Journalism, University of Westminster; MA International Public Policy, University College London; BRIT School alumna. Biography A live news desk is the closest professional analogue to a complex corporate stage. Both demand fluency across unfamiliar subjects, the ability to ask a sharper question than was scripted, and the composure to keep an audience inside a story that could otherwise unravel. Raheela Mahomed has worked that desk for more than a decade. Her anchoring career runs through three of the major international broadcasters. At CNN International she covered the 2012 Olympics, the Arab Spring and Egypt’s elections, and contributed to the launch of the CNN Freedom Project on human trafficking. From 2012 to 2020 she was based in Doha for Al Jazeera English, presenting the flagship Newshour, serving as Indonesia correspondent, and co-presenting NewsGrid, an interactive news show nominated for an International Emmy in News in 2018. Since 2021 she has been a news anchor at Deutsche Welle in Berlin, hosting hourly English-language bulletins and DW News Africa across the pandemic, Sudan, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the war in Ukraine. She also contributes to BBC World News on Israel and Gaza and on Iran. The same instincts carry into corporate work: hosting SAP’s Sapphire Now in 2021, moderating Digital Transformation at the Future of Media Leaders Summit in Doha, and speaking on the future of broadcasting at the UN’s Shoko Festival Hub in Harare. Her academic grounding is in international public policy, with a master’s from UCL on top of a journalism degree from the University of Westminster and time at the BRIT School. The combination matters at the front of a room: enough policy literacy to chase a serious answer, enough broadcast technique to keep the show moving when a panellist runs long. Key speaking topics Conference hosting and emcee Panel moderation Digital transformation Climate and sustainability International affairs and geopolitics Diversity, equity and inclusion Future of broadcasting and media Ideal for Corporate summits and customer conferences needing a credible main-stage host across a multi-track agenda. Communications, marketing and corporate affairs teams running flagship industry events with senior external speakers. ESG, sustainability and DEI forums where panel discussion needs to be pressed harder than a friendly chair would. Internal leadership town halls and global all-hands where a working broadcast anchor can hold a live format on camera. Audience outcomes A main-stage event that holds shape across keynotes, panels and Q&A, with timing kept and senior speakers asked the questions the audience came for. Panel sessions that surface the actual disagreement on stage rather than a round of prepared statements. A broadcast-grade hosting register suitable for streamed, hybrid and on-camera formats, not only in-room. Coverage of digital, geopolitical and sustainability sessions by a host with the literacy to follow the substance, not only the script.

Why organisations work with Rain Newton-Smith She makes the affirmative economic case that net-zero and growth are reinforcing – not competing – priorities, with CBI and OBR data showing the cost of failing to decarbonise is five times the cost of acting early. This reframes a question most boards are still treating as a trade-off. Her analysis of UK investment conditions is not retrospective commentary: as head of the CBI she is actively co-designing the UK Industrial Strategy with government, giving organisations access to intelligence that is live and consequential. Her China and emerging markets expertise – built as lead specialist at Oxford Economics – gives her a credible basis for the counter-consensus argument that full decoupling from China is economically untenable and inconsistent with any serious free-trade commitment. She bridges central bank monetary discipline (nine years at the Bank of England, IMF secondment) with the strategic language of the boardroom – a combination that is rare among economists who speak on UK macroeconomic and geopolitical risk. As Policy Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Economics and Non-Executive Director of F&C Investment Trust, she operates simultaneously inside academic economic policy debate and at the institutional investor level. Biography highlights Chief Executive of the Confederation of British Industry – the UK’s principal business advocacy body, representing over 170,000 firms Former Chief Economist at the CBI (2014–2023); led economic analysis, policy teams, and HM Treasury engagement Nine years at the Bank of England, including global forecasting for the Monetary Policy Committee; seconded to the IMF as adviser to the UK Executive Director (2004–2006) Former Head of Emerging Markets at Oxford Economics; lead expert on China and Asia Former Managing Director, Strategy and Policy, Sustainability and ESG at Barclays Policy Fellow, Department of Economics, University of Oxford; Council Member, Royal Economic Society; Member, LSE Centre for Economic Performance Policy Committee Non-Executive Director, F&C Investment Trust WEF Young Global Leader (2012); WEF Global Future Council on Monetary and Fiscal Policy (2020) Management Today 35 Women Under 35 (2010) PPE, University of Oxford; MSc Economics, London School of Economics Biography The question of whether UK business can afford the green transition is being asked backwards. Rain Newton-Smith, Chief Executive of the Confederation of British Industry, has built the evidence to reframe it. OBR projections show the cost of failing to decarbonise is five times the cost of acting early – making this a capital allocation question, not an environmental one. Her analytical foundation spans nine years at the Bank of England preparing forecasts for the Monetary Policy Committee, followed by a secondment to the IMF as adviser to the UK Executive Director. She then led the emerging markets practice at Oxford Economics as its lead expert on China – work that now informs her publicly stated position that full decoupling from China is economically untenable and inconsistent with a commitment to free trade. Before becoming CBI Chief Executive in 2023, she served as CBI Chief Economist for nine years, leading its economic analysis and policy teams and its engagement with HM Treasury, and as Managing Director of Strategy, Policy, Sustainability and ESG at Barclays. The combination – central bank economist, institutional strategist, and now the UK’s leading business advocate – places her above the policy debate rather than within it. She is a Policy Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Economics, a Council Member of the Royal Economic Society, and a Non-Executive Director of F&C Investment Trust. The World Economic Forum named her a Young Global Leader in 2012 and invited her to join its Global Future Council on Monetary and Fiscal Policy in 2020. Key speaking topics UK economic outlook and investment conditions Global trade, protectionism, and the China question Net-zero growth: the economic case for the green transition UK industrial strategy and business-government partnership Geopolitical risk and its consequences for capital allocation Emerging market dynamics and Asia ESG strategy and the business case for sustainability Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership evaluating UK investment and growth strategy CFOs, CSOs, and heads of strategy in financial services, energy, and manufacturing Government affairs and regulatory teams navigating post-Brexit trade and policy Institutional investors and pension funds assessing UK macroeconomic and ESG risk Audience outcomes A framework for understanding how fiscal pressure, geopolitical risk, and the green transition interact as a single investment decision Clarity on the UK-EU, US tariff, and China dynamics that are directly affecting corporate capital allocation An evidence-based rebuttal to the assumption that net-zero and economic competitiveness are in conflict Better understanding of how UK industrial strategy is being shaped and what it means for investment planning Context on how financial stability risks – sovereign debt, monetary tightening, energy costs – are translating into business conditions in the near term

Why organisations work with Rebecca Harding A working command of the machinery of trade finance and trade data, built through founding Coriolis Technologies and serving as Chief Economist at UK Finance, that few geopolitics speakers can match. The author of The World at Economic War, selected by Martin Wolf in his Financial Times best economics books of 2025, with a defined argument about how the market system itself has become a tool of great-power conflict. A current operating role: CEO of the Centre for Economic Security and Chief Economic Adviser to the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank Development Group, which puts her inside the institutions building the new trade and security architecture. Equally credible in a C-suite keynote, a regulator-level workshop, or a wargaming session, having designed formats for finance, defence and policy audiences. A specific point of view on sustainable trade and digitalisation, grounded in advisory work with banks, corporates and parliamentary committees rather than in commentary alone. Biography highlights CEO, Centre for Economic Security, leading research on economic threats, supply chain resilience and the weaponisation of trade. Chief Economic Adviser, Defence, Security and Resilience Bank Development Group. Founder and former CEO of Coriolis Technologies, a trade data and analytics business serving the trade finance sector, acquired by TradeSun. Author of The World at Economic War (2025) and co-author of The Weaponization of Trade (2017), published by London Publishing Partnership. Former Chief Economist at UK Finance, Chief Economist at the Work Foundation, Head of Corporate Research at Deloitte, and Senior Fellow at London Business School. Regular contributor to BBC, Bloomberg, Sky News, CNBC, BBC Radio 4 and Times Radio on trade and economic security. Biography Trade is now a security question. Sanctions regimes, export controls, the digitalisation of payments and the contest over critical minerals have collapsed the old boundary between commercial trade policy and national security. Boards and finance ministries are trying to make capital, supplier and counterparty decisions inside a system whose rules are being rewritten in real time. Rebecca Harding’s career has been built on this seam. She is CEO of the Centre for Economic Security and Chief Economic Adviser to the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank Development Group, two institutions designed for exactly this terrain. Earlier she founded Coriolis Technologies, a trade data and analytics business that gave the trade finance sector a clearer view of risk in cross-border flows, and served as Chief Economist at UK Finance, Chief Economist at the Work Foundation, Head of Corporate Research at Deloitte, and Senior Fellow at London Business School. Her argument is set out in The World at Economic War: How to Rebuild Security in a Weaponized Global Economy, published in 2025 and selected by Martin Wolf in the Financial Times among his best economics books of the year. The thesis, developed from her earlier book The Weaponization of Trade with Jack Harding, is that the market system itself has become a means of great-power competition, and that defence, finance and trade can no longer be governed as separate domains. For senior audiences this matters because the operational consequences are concrete. They show up in supplier dependencies, in sanctions exposure, in the cost and direction of trade finance, and in where capital can credibly be deployed for the next decade. Harding works through those questions with banks, corporates, regulators and parliamentary committees, and her keynotes, panels and wargaming sessions are designed to leave decision-makers with a clearer read of what economic security requires of them. Key speaking topics Economic security and the weaponisation of trade Geopolitics and geoeconomics Trade finance and supply chain finance Supply chain resilience and reshoring Digital and sustainable trade Defence and security finance Macroeconomic outlook and global markets Ideal for Boards and executive committees of banks, insurers and large corporates with cross-border exposure Heads of trade finance, treasury, supply chain and procurement Policy, regulatory and public affairs leaders working on sanctions, export controls and economic security Defence, security and resilience investors and the institutions financing them Audience outcomes A clearer working definition of economic security and what it asks of capital allocation, supplier strategy and trade finance A read on how sanctions, export controls and reshoring are reshaping cross-border risk for specific sectors A framework for separating geopolitical noise from the structural shifts that change long-range plans A view of where digital and sustainable trade infrastructure is heading, and the implications for banks and corporates Questions and pressure tests that a leadership team can take straight into its strategy and risk discussions

Why organisations work with Reged Ahmad Two decades of live international news at the BBC and Guardian Australia, which means a panel chair who can run a difficult conversation on geopolitics or US politics without losing the room. Active editorial role as Host and Senior Producer of Guardian Australia’s Full Story podcast, so the questions she asks come from the same daily news cycle the audience is reading that morning. Experience anchoring BBC World News TV and BBC World Service Radio, including The Newsroom and the Global News Podcast, which translates directly into composure on a live stage with a corporate audience. Bilateral perspective on Australia, the UK and the United States, useful for events with leadership audiences spanning APAC, EMEA and North America. Voice over and event hosting practice that means scripted segments, sponsor reads and award announcements are handled to broadcast standard. Biography highlights Host and Senior Producer, Full Story, Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast, with co-host Nour Haydar. Co-host, Decoding America, Guardian Australia’s US politics podcast, with Jonathan Yerushalmy. Former international news anchor, BBC World News TV. Former presenter, BBC World Service Radio, including The Newsroom and the Global News Podcast. Former presenter and senior producer, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney. Bachelor of Media, Macquarie University, Sydney. Biography International news has rarely been harder to chair. A single panel on the global economy now has to take in US political volatility, sanctions exposure, supply chain decoupling and a media environment where every claim is contested. The skill that the room needs is editorial: the ability to keep a conversation moving while keeping it accurate. That is the working day of a senior broadcast journalist. Reged Ahmad has spent twenty years inside it, first in Australian community radio, then at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Sydney, and then in London at the BBC, where she anchored BBC World News TV and presented BBC World Service Radio programmes including The Newsroom and the Global News Podcast. She now sits at Guardian Australia, where she is Host and Senior Producer of Full Story, the masthead’s daily news podcast, with co-host Nour Haydar. She also co-hosts Decoding America with Guardian Australia’s US site editor Jonathan Yerushalmy, a brief that keeps her close to US politics, polling and policy as they move. For a corporate audience, the value is the chair, not the keynote. She is booked to host conferences, moderate executive panels and run Q and A on stage. The benefit is a conversation that holds together under live conditions: a journalist’s instinct for the next question, a presenter’s discipline on time, and a working knowledge of the global news cycle the audience cares about. Key speaking topics International news and current affairs Geopolitics and world affairs US politics and policy Global economic trends and markets Conference hosting and event moderation Panel chairing and on-stage interviews Media, journalism and the public sphere Ideal for Corporate conferences and leadership summits requiring a senior moderator across geopolitics, economics and US politics. Boards, executive committees and investor events running closed-door panels on global risk. Industry awards, gala dinners and brand events that need a broadcast-standard host. Communications, public affairs and ESG functions running stakeholder events with mixed media and policy audiences. Audience outcomes A panel that stays on time, on topic and on the record, with sharper answers from senior speakers. A clean editorial through-line that an audience can recall and repeat after the session. Difficult or sensitive questions handled in a way that protects the speaker, the brand and the agenda. A live event that reads at broadcast standard for film crews, sponsors and internal communications teams.

Why organisations work with Ricardo Hausmann He built the frameworks. Economic Complexity and Growth Diagnostics, now used by the IMF, the World Bank, and governments from South Africa to Sri Lanka, are his work. Audiences hear them from the person who originated them. Fifty country engagements deep. The Harvard Growth Lab has run more than 50 research initiatives across nearly 30 countries since 2006, under his direction. He brings what those projects revealed about why standard reform packages fail and where productive capability actually compounds. He has held the brief. Former Minister of Planning of Venezuela and the first Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, where he founded the Research Department. He speaks to ministers, central bank governors, and global CFOs as someone who has been on their side of the table. Powershoring is his framing. The argument that energy-intensive production will migrate to countries with abundant green electricity, and that this rewires comparative advantage, originated in his Growth Lab work. Boards working out where to put the next decarbonised plant get the underlying logic from him. The vocabulary traces back to him. Original Sin, Dark Matter, Self-Discovery, and Powershoring are his coinages, now standard in IMF and central bank discourse on sovereign risk and the energy transition. Biography highlights Founder and Director of Harvard’s Growth Lab; Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. Originator with César Hidalgo of the Economic Complexity methodology, published as The Atlas of Economic Complexity: Mapping Paths to Prosperity (MIT Press, 2014). Originator with Dani Rodrik and Andrés Velasco of the Growth Diagnostics framework, adopted by the World Bank as a long-running executive education course. First Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (1994-2000), where he founded the Research Department. Former Minister of Planning of Venezuela; former Chair of the IMF-World Bank Development Committee. Monthly columnist for Project Syndicate; research cited more than 60,000 times and covered by The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Biography Most standard development indicators fail to predict which economies will actually grow. They measure outputs and surface conditions, not the underlying productive capabilities that generate them. That gap is what Economic Complexity, the framework Ricardo Hausmann built with César Hidalgo at Harvard’s Growth Lab, set out to close. Hausmann founded the Growth Lab at Harvard Kennedy School in 2006. It has since run more than 50 country engagements across nearly 30 countries, identifying the binding constraints on growth and the industries that existing capabilities make possible. The Growth Diagnostics methodology, developed with Dani Rodrik and Andrés Velasco, is now taught at the World Bank and used by governments worldwide. Before Harvard he was on the other side of the brief. He served as Minister of Planning of Venezuela in the early 1990s, then became the first Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, where he founded the Research Department. He has seen which policy frameworks survive contact with fiscal and political reality, and which collapse on first contact. His more recent work has moved into the geography of decarbonisation. Powershoring, a concept developed in the Growth Lab, argues that energy-intensive production will migrate to countries with abundant green electricity, rewiring global supply chains in the process. He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate; the Growth Lab’s recent client roster runs from Bolivia and the UAE to Wyoming and Western Australia. Key speaking topics Economic complexity and country diversification Growth diagnostics Powershoring and the energy transition Sovereign risk, original sin, and dark matter Industrial policy in a decarbonising economy Latin American political economy Global supply chain reconfiguration Ideal for Boards and CEOs setting country exposure and supply chain strategy. CFOs and treasurers managing sovereign and currency risk in emerging markets. Heads of corporate strategy planning industrial investment under the energy transition. Multilateral institutions, finance ministries, and central bank leadership. Audience outcomes A working diagnostic for why some economies grow and others stall, built on the Economic Complexity framework. A sharper read on where productive capability is compounding and where it is decaying, with implications for supply chain placement and country exposure. The case for powershoring and the structural logic that will move energy-intensive production toward countries with abundant green electricity. What 50+ Growth Lab country engagements have revealed about why standard reform packages fail. The vocabulary that finance ministries and central banks now use to discuss sovereign risk: original sin, dark matter, self-discovery.