Geopolitics

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 Hasnain Kazim He has spent a decade testing, in public, what actually works when people shout at you. “Post von Karlheinz” turned his replies to hate mail into a national bestseller, and the method underneath it travels directly into how leaders and communications teams handle hostile audiences. He reports from inside the conditions most executives only read about. Six years as a Der Spiegel foreign correspondent in Islamabad and Istanbul, ended by the Turkish state refusing to renew his press credentials, gives him concrete material on authoritarian drift, migration and press freedom rather than abstract commentary. He speaks and writes in German and English with equal fluency, which matters for DAX and European-headquartered organisations briefing a single voice across jurisdictions on identity, integration and public discourse. He works as both author and moderator. The same person who wrote the argument can host the board dinner, chair the panel, or carry an awards night, which reduces briefing overhead for events that need a serious thinker on stage. His published rhetorical guide, “Auf sie mit Gebruell!”, is specifically about how to argue in public against populism without losing the room. That is a usable internal-comms and leadership-communication frame, not a lecture topic. Biography highlights Der Spiegel South Asia correspondent, Islamabad, 2009 to 2013. Der Spiegel Turkey correspondent, Istanbul, 2013 to 2016; left after the Turkish government refused to renew his press credentials. CNN Journalist Award winner, 2009. Bestselling author with Penguin Verlag, including “Post von Karlheinz” (2018) and “Auf sie mit Gebruell!” (2019). Studied political science in Hamburg; served as an officer in the German Navy, 1994 to 2000. Keynote speaker at re:publica 2022 on language in times of division; regular contributor to IPS Journal and Goethe-Institut publications. Biography The Turkish government refused to renew his press credentials in 2016, and with them his legal residency. Hasnain Kazim had been Der Spiegel’s Istanbul correspondent for three years. He moved his reporting on Turkey, and later on identity and migration across Europe, to Vienna. The work before and after that moment is unusually concrete. Four years as South Asia correspondent in Islamabad, three in Istanbul, a CNN Journalist Award in 2009, and a German Navy officer’s commission before any of that. For organisations trying to understand what authoritarian pressure, migration and press freedom actually look like on the ground, this is first-hand material rather than commentary. The second arc of the career is what makes him useful in a room of executives. Since 2018, as a full-time author with Penguin Verlag, he has built a public method for responding to hostility. “Post von Karlheinz” collected his replies to racist and abusive reader mail, became a long-running bestseller, and turned him into a case study for the Dangerous Speech Project. “Auf sie mit Gebruell!” followed, a rhetorical handbook for arguing with populists without surrendering the tone. That body of work gives him something most geopolitics speakers do not have: a practical grammar for how leaders, communications teams and frontline staff should actually speak in a climate where silence reads as complicity and escalation damages the brand. He writes and speaks in German and English, and works as both keynote speaker and moderator for events that need a single serious voice to carry the evening. Key speaking topics Counterspeech and responding to online hostility Language, polarisation and public discourse Migration, identity and integration in Europe Populism, extremism and democratic resilience Press freedom and authoritarian pressure Germany, Turkey and South Asia in geopolitical context Ideal for CHROs and internal-communications leaders dealing with polarisation inside the workforce. External communications, public affairs and brand teams briefing leaders on migration, identity and reputational risk. Boards and executive committees at European-headquartered organisations working through integration, DEI or social-cohesion questions in their markets. Conference organisers and awards committees looking for a serious bilingual moderator or host. Audience outcomes A concrete method for replying to hostile or abusive communication, drawn from a published and tested body of practice. A clearer read on how language choices in internal and external communication either defuse or deepen division. First-hand perspective on Turkey, South Asia and migration into Europe from someone who reported on them under pressure. A sharper sense of what leaders can say in public on contested social questions without conceding ground to populism.

Why organisations work with Ingo Zamperoni His understanding of US political polarisation is not academic. His American wife’s family includes Trump supporters – a dynamic he documented in the 2020 ARD film “Trump, meine amerikanische Familie und ich.” He has experienced the internal fault lines of American society from within a family, not as an observer from a distance. As an active anchor of Tagesthemen – Germany’s most-watched evening news programme – he offers current, institutionally grounded analysis. Organisations are not engaging a former journalist reflecting on what he once covered; they are engaging someone who continues to frame global events for a mass audience every week. His two Ullstein Verlag books on the US advance a specific, citable argument – that Europe systematically misreads America, and that correcting this misreading is a strategic necessity. That argument gives his presentations intellectual backbone that panel commentary rarely achieves. His Honorary Professorship at the Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart, where he teaches critical interviewing and political broadcast journalism, signals analytical rigour and a commitment to standards – a differentiator from media personalities who speak about journalism without continuing to practise it at the highest level. Biography highlights Main anchor of ARD’s Tagesthemen, Germany’s most-watched evening news programme, since October 2016 ARD Washington D.C. correspondent 2014-2016, covering US politics, the 2016 presidential campaign, and transatlantic affairs Author of “Fremdes Land Amerika” (Ullstein Verlag, 2016, bestseller) and “Anderland – Die USA unter Trump, ein Schadensbericht” (Ullstein Verlag, 2018) Honorary Professor at the Hochschule der Medien (HdM) Stuttgart, appointed January 2022 by unanimous senate vote Fulbright scholarship alumnus; Master’s degree from Boston University; studied American studies, law, and history at the University of Konstanz and in Berlin Anchor of ARD Nachtmagazin (2007-2013); host of ARD programme “Die 100 – Was Deutschland bewegt” ARD documentary “Trump, meine amerikanische Familie und ich” (2020), examining US political polarisation through direct family experience Biography ARD’s Tagesthemen is the evening news programme that Germany’s senior decision-makers rely on to interpret global affairs. Ingo Zamperoni has been one of its anchors since 2016, returning from two years as the network’s Washington correspondent at the moment US politics turned in a direction that European observers were not equipped to understand. He came back with a specific position: that Europe’s assumptions about America had stopped being accurate, and that the consequences of this misreading were serious. That position runs through both his books. “Fremdes Land Amerika” (Ullstein Verlag, 2016), which became a bestseller, made the case that the transatlantic relationship rests on European projections rather than American realities. “Anderland” (Ullstein Verlag, 2018) argued that Trump was not a cause of American division but a symptom of structural fractures that predated him and would outlast him. These are not dispatches from the road. They are attempts to replace a failing European frame with something more accurate. His authority is personal as well as analytical. His American wife’s family includes Trump supporters – a dynamic he documented in the 2020 ARD film “Trump, meine amerikanische Familie und ich.” Where most European commentators analyse the US political divide from the outside, Zamperoni has navigated it inside a family. That gives his analysis a texture that briefings and geopolitical reports rarely achieve. Appointed Honorary Professor at the Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart in 2022, he teaches critical interviewing and political broadcast journalism to the next generation of German journalists. He is a practitioner who has been asked to codify the standards of his practice – a distinction that matters when boards and leadership teams need geopolitical analysis they can actually use. Key speaking topics US politics and political polarisation Transatlantic relations and the US-Europe strategic partnership Geopolitics and the shifting global order Political communication and narrative in democracies Media credibility, public trust, and information quality Democracy under pressure: institutional resilience and the populist challenge Ideal for Senior leadership teams and boards with significant US or transatlantic business exposure Corporate strategy and political risk functions navigating US policy uncertainty Institutional, financial, or public-sector audiences requiring credible geopolitical framing Conference programmes focused on global affairs, political risk, or the future of the transatlantic relationship Audience outcomes A clearer framework for understanding what is structurally driving US politics, beyond the daily news cycle Concrete context for the fault lines in American society and what they mean for the transatlantic relationship over the medium term A more calibrated understanding of how political narratives are constructed in the US and why European coverage of America often misses the underlying dynamics Sharper awareness of the assumptions about the US that European organisations bring to their strategic decisions – and where those assumptions are no longer reliable

About Debarati Guha Debarati Guha is the Director, Programs for Asia, at Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster. Born in Kolkata, India, Debarati comes from a multiethnic, multilingual family, and developed an early interest in different cultures, religions, and politics. For Debarati, personal is political, which is why she likes to tell compelling stories about people’s lives and the challenges they face in society. These interests reflect in her academic training and journalistic career. She did her MA and MPhil in Political Science at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and wrote her dissertation on the ‘Representation of Women in Postcolonial literature: Exploring the Subaltern Studies Perspective.’ Debarati started working as a journalist in 2003 as an assistant to the Asia  correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in New Delhi. Later, she completed a training program in online, radio and television journalism at DW and joined its Bengali department as a senior editor and moderator in 2007. After working as the coordinating editor for Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu departments from 2009 to 2012, she was appointed as the Head of DW’s Bengali Service in 2013. In 2015, Debarati was given the responsibility to manage DW’s South and South-East Asian services. In 2018, she was promoted to the position of the Director Asia Programs, DW. Currently, she oversees nine Asian language departments, and additionally, Asia Desk – English and German. To hone her skills further as an administrator, Debarati undertook the Executive Management Program by EBU Academy in 2022. In 2023, she was chosen to do a course on ‘Politics of South-East Asia and its impact on Germany’ by the Federal Academy for Security Policy or BAKS. She was awarded as one of the top 10 ‘Women Leader in Germany’ in 2023 by Global Women Leader’ and ‘Most Influential Business Leader’ in 2024 by Business Frontier. In her two-decade-long journalistic career, Debarati has covered many international political events and has interviewed high-ranking politicians, activists, and intellectuals, including Bangladesh’s Ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Indian writer and diplomat Shashi Tharoor, and world-renowned economist Professor Amartya Sen. Apart from journalism, Debarati is involved in research. She also performs with Flinnworks, a Berlin-based theatrical company, to pursue her passion for arts. She has been living in Germany since 2005.

Why organisations work with Adjiedj Bakas His analytical framework tracks six categories of structural change simultaneously – economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security – giving leadership teams a coherent map rather than a trend list. No single category is read in isolation; the interactions between them are where the real strategic insight lives. His “#Forwardism” thesis reframes megatrend analysis as a source of opportunity rather than a catalogue of threat. This is a deliberate intellectual stance, not a motivational gloss – it changes how an organisation positions itself in response to disruption. His biography is genuinely differentiating in a field dominated by Western vantage points. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas brings a Global South perspective to questions about the shifting balance of economic and cultural power that most European or American futurists cannot replicate. His material has been tested against the most demanding institutional audiences on the circuit: the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, Shell’s major futures conferences, and central banking and financial institutions across Africa and Asia. A Shell audience of senior executives elected him one of the top two speakers from a field of fifty. His books – including World Megatrends and Beyond the Crisis – have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai, and the intellectual rigour of his framework has earned consistent media recognition from CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. Biography highlights Founder of Trend Office Bakas, Amsterdam – a trendwatching practice serving multinationals, financial institutions and governments internationally Author of more than ten books on global megatrends, distributed across 40+ countries; titles include World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis, Megatrends Europe and #Forwardism Elected Trendwatcher of the Year 2009 and Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 in the Netherlands Covered as a leading voice on global futures by CNN, BBC, The Guardian, Times of India and China Daily Keynote engagements include Shell, Deloitte, Google, Microsoft, ABN AMRO, KPMG, Rabobank, Credit Suisse and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Course material at CEIBS (China Europe International Business School, Shanghai) and Emory University, Atlanta Biography Most organisations run their long-term strategy on a three-to-five year horizon. The megatrends that actually reshape industries – demographic reordering, geopolitical power shifts, energy transitions, technological discontinuities – operate on timescales of twenty years or more. Adjiedj Bakas, founder of Trend Office Bakas in Amsterdam, has spent his career helping senior leaders read those slower, more consequential signals before they arrive as operational emergencies. His body of work – more than ten books published across 40 countries, including World Megatrends, Beyond the Crisis and Megatrends Europe – develops a consistent analytical lens across six categories of structural change: economic, technological, demographic, environmental, spiritual and security. His most recent work, #Forwardism, introduces the concept of “Happynomy” – the argument that the most powerful megatrends are better interpreted as sources of strategic opportunity than as threats to be mitigated. The perspective he brings is shaped by biography as much as by research. Of Indian descent, raised in Suriname and based in the Netherlands for three decades, Bakas has a genuinely non-Western vantage point on shifts in global economic and cultural power that most European futurists cannot replicate. His engagements span Shell, Deloitte, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the parliaments of Hungary, and financial institutions across Africa, Asia and Europe – audiences for whom a view of the future that goes beyond the Western horizon is not optional. Elected Trendwatcher of the Year in the Netherlands in 2009, his work has been covered by CNN, the BBC, The Guardian and China Daily. His books have been used as course material at CEIBS in Shanghai and Emory University in Atlanta. Key speaking topics Global megatrends and structural futures Geopolitical power shifts and the rise of the Global South Demographic change and its economic consequences Long-cycle economic forecasting and scenario planning Energy and environmental transitions Technology and innovation futures Opportunity-centred strategic foresight (#Forwardism / Happynomy) Ideal for C-suite and board leaders developing long-range organisational strategy Strategy and foresight teams in multinationals requiring a structured macro-trend framework Financial institutions and investment firms assessing long-term geopolitical and economic risk Government and public-sector organisations navigating demographic and geopolitical change Audience outcomes A structured, six-category framework for mapping structural megatrends across economic, technological, demographic, environmental and geopolitical dimensions Greater confidence in distinguishing long-cycle structural shifts from short-term cyclical noise Exposure to the Global South’s increasing influence on economic and cultural direction – a perspective absent from most standard futures briefings A reframed strategic posture: tools for reading disruption as a source of opportunity rather than purely a risk management challenge A renewed and evidence-based basis for organisational optimism in conditions of uncertainty

Why organisations work with Ivan Rogers He was in the room. As UK Ambassador to the EU from 2013 to 2017 and Cameron’s Chief EU Adviser before that, he led the UK side of the pre-referendum renegotiation and the opening phase of Brexit. He has worked every side of the Brussels-London axis: HM Treasury, Chef de Cabinet inside the European Commission, Principal Private Secretary to Tony Blair, and senior public sector roles at Citigroup and Barclays Capital. His analysis has shaped the serious public record on Brexit, including the book 9 Lessons in Brexit and set-piece lectures at UCL, Cambridge and Glasgow that are now standard reading for political economists. He briefs on what actually happens in negotiations, not on slogans. Boards leave with a clearer view of timelines, trade-offs and the realistic range of outcomes on regulation, trade and political alignment. KCMG in the 2016 Honours for services to British, European and International Policy, and a seat on the Council of the European Council on Foreign Relations, give his reading of the field independent credibility. Biography highlights UK Permanent Representative to the European Union, 2013 to 2017. Prime Minister’s Adviser on Europe and Global Issues, and UK Sherpa to the G8 and G20, 2011 to 2013. Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2003 to 2006. Chef de Cabinet to European Commission Vice-President Sir Leon Brittan; Director of European Strategy and Policy at HM Treasury. Head of UK Public Sector Group, Citigroup; Head of Public Sector Industry Group UK and Ireland, Barclays Capital. Author of 9 Lessons in Brexit (Short Books, 2019); KCMG, 2016; Council member, European Council on Foreign Relations. Biography Few people alive have seen the UK-EU relationship from as many vantage points. Ivan Rogers has served inside HM Treasury, inside the European Commission as Chef de Cabinet to Sir Leon Brittan, inside Number 10 as Principal Private Secretary to Tony Blair, and in Brussels as Britain’s Permanent Representative to the EU from 2013 until his resignation in January 2017. That sequence matters for a reason. Most commentary on Europe is written by people who have read the treaties. Rogers drafted the cables. He ran the UK side of Cameron’s pre-referendum renegotiation, prepared three Prime Ministers for summits as the UK’s G8 and G20 Sherpa, and was the senior British official in the first phase of the Article 50 machinery before he stepped down. Since leaving government he has become one of the most cited independent voices on Brexit and UK-EU relations. His book 9 Lessons in Brexit, set-piece lectures at UCL, Cambridge, Glasgow and the Institute of International and European Affairs, and podcast work with the European Council on Foreign Relations are built on the same discipline: strip out the politics, map the institutional machinery, tell the reader what is actually going to happen. For boards, that means usable judgement on trade terms, regulatory divergence, the Northern Ireland settlement, the Labour government’s posture toward Brussels, and the wider geopolitical setting in which all of this now sits. He was knighted KCMG in 2016 for services to British, European and International Policy. Key speaking topics UK-EU relations and the post-Brexit settlement Geopolitical and political risk for boards European regulation, trade and market access Government-business interface and Whitehall decision-making Negotiation inside complex multilateral institutions Scenario planning for UK and European political risk Ideal for Board and executive audiences in regulated industries exposed to UK-EU divergence, especially financial services, energy, pharma and manufacturing. Strategy, public affairs and government relations leaders calibrating political risk over a three to ten year horizon. Investors, law firms and advisory houses whose clients need a senior, independent read on UK and European policy direction. Audience outcomes A sharper read on where UK-EU relations are actually heading, stripped of political signalling. A practical sense of how Brussels, Whitehall and Number 10 make decisions under pressure, and where the leverage sits. A clearer view of the regulatory and trade fault lines that matter most to the audience’s sector. Questions answered by someone who has sat at the table with Commission Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors.

Why organisations work with Shang-Jin Wei He has sat in the seat where these questions are actually answered, as Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and a senior research economist at the IMF, not just analysed them from a faculty office. His chair at Columbia Business School is specifically the N.T. Wang Professorship of Chinese Business and Economy, giving boards a single, named source on US-China economic integration with academic standing behind it. He publishes in the journals that regulators and central banks read, including American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Quarterly Journal of Economics, so his views on capital flows and currency carry weight in policy rooms as well as boardrooms. His Project Syndicate columns track the live arguments around the renminbi, Chinese trade surpluses, Ant Group, Trump-era tariffs and India, which means clients get a current macro read, not a recycled lecture. Biography highlights N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School and Columbia SIPA. Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and Director General, Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, 2014 to 2016. Former Assistant Director and Chief of the Trade and Investment Division at the IMF Research Department; IMF Chief of Mission to Myanmar in 2004. Former New Century Chair in Trade and International Economics at the Brookings Institution; former Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Research Associate at NBER and Research Fellow at CEPR; published in American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Journal of Finance. Regular Project Syndicate columnist on China, the renminbi, trade and emerging markets; co-author of China’s Growing Role in World Trade (NBER, with Robert Feenstra). Biography The hard question on China is no longer whether it matters. It is which numbers to trust, which signals to read, and where the operating reality is diverging from the official line. That gap is where capital is mispriced. Shang-Jin Wei has worked on both sides of that gap. As Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank from 2014 to 2016, he led the analytical work behind regional fora such as ASEAN+3 and APEC, and advised the ADB President on growth diagnostics across developing Asia. Before that, he was Assistant Director and Chief of the Trade and Investment Division at the IMF Research Department, and the Fund’s Chief of Mission to Myanmar. At Columbia, he holds the N.T. Wang Chair in Chinese Business and Economy, with a joint appointment between the Business School and the School of International and Public Affairs. His research, published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Journal of Finance, sits at the meeting point of trade, international finance and the institutional architecture of the Chinese economy. He is a Research Associate at NBER, a Research Fellow at CEPR, and a frequent Project Syndicate contributor on the renminbi, Chinese trade surpluses, Ant Group and the structural reforms China still has to make. For boards and investors, the value is concrete. He reads China the way someone who has had to sign off on a regional growth forecast reads it. He treats trade and currency as live operating variables, not slogans. Buyers leave a session with a clearer view of where the real risk in their China exposure sits, and what to watch over the next two cycles. Key speaking topics US-China economic integration Chinese growth, structural reform and policy outlook The renminbi, capital flows and currency risk Trade, tariffs and the future of globalisation Emerging-market macro and developing Asia International finance and cross-border investment Geopolitical risk for global investors Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material China or wider Asia exposure CFOs, treasurers and CIOs setting capital allocation under tariff and currency uncertainty Strategy and corporate development leaders reviewing supply chain and market exposure to China Financial services and asset management firms briefing institutional clients on emerging-market risk Audience outcomes A clearer read on which Chinese economic indicators are meaningful and which are not. A working view on where US-China trade and tariff dynamics are heading and what that does to operating models. A grounded position on the renminbi, capital controls and the limits of RMB internationalisation. A sharper sense of where emerging-market risk concentrates beyond the headline narrative.

Why organisations work with Nina Khrushcheva A primary read on Russian political culture from a scholar who has travelled and reported across the country’s eleven time zones, not a Moscow-watcher working from secondary sources. Author or co-author of three books on Russian power, including In Putin’s Footsteps (St. Martin’s Press, 2019) with Atlantic contributing editor Jeffrey Tayler, and The Lost Khrushchev, both grounded in original interviews and field research. A standing column at Project Syndicate, where she edits the Russia series, and a publication record across the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Newsweek that boards and investment committees already read. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former director of the Russia Project at the World Policy Institute, with the institutional standing expected for closed-room conversations on sanctions, geopolitical exposure, and political risk. A family inheritance, as the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, that she uses as a lens on Soviet and post-Soviet authoritarianism rather than a biographical talking point. Biography highlights Professor of International Affairs at The New School, New York. Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Princeton University; former research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Author of Imagining Nabokov (Yale University Press) and The Lost Khrushchev (Tate); co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps (St. Martin’s Press) with Jeffrey Tayler. Contributing Editor at Project Syndicate; bylines in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Newsweek. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations; former director of the Russia Project at the World Policy Institute. Recipient of the Carnegie Corporation’s Great Immigrants Award and the Trinity College Dublin Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage. Biography The Kremlin is not best understood through Western political vocabulary. It runs on a logic shaped by Russian literature, Soviet bureaucratic instinct, and a long memory of empire. Reading it from the outside, on quarterly briefings alone, has cost organisations real money over the past decade. Nina Khrushcheva works that gap. A professor of international affairs at The New School, with a Princeton doctorate in comparative literature, she teaches courses on comparative propaganda, international media, and Russian contemporary politics. Her academic register is unusual: she reads the Kremlin the way a literary scholar reads a text, while also reporting from inside it. That dual method runs through her books. In Putin’s Footsteps, written with Jeffrey Tayler of The Atlantic, is the product of travel across all eleven of Russia’s time zones. The Lost Khrushchev draws on her family inheritance as the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev to read the Soviet project from inside its own argument. Imagining Nabokov preceded both, with Yale University Press. She edits the Russia series at Project Syndicate and writes regularly for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Newsweek. She sits on the Council on Foreign Relations and previously directed the Russia Project at the World Policy Institute. The Carnegie Corporation named her among its Great Immigrants in 2013, and Trinity College Dublin awarded her its Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage in 2019. Key speaking topics Russia under Putin Authoritarian governance and propaganda Post-Soviet political culture Geopolitical risk and sanctions exposure US-Russia relations Russia, China and the contested global order Soviet history and its modern uses Ideal for Boards and investment committees with direct or indirect Russia exposure, including energy, commodities, and dual-use technology Chief risk officers, general counsel, and government affairs leads weighing sanctions and political risk Policy audiences, foundations, and academic institutions briefing on the post-Soviet space Senior diplomatic, defence and foreign-policy convenings on Russia, Ukraine, and the wider rules-based order Audience outcomes A read of current Kremlin behaviour rooted in Russian political and literary tradition, not Western projection A clearer sense of where Putin’s regime is brittle and where it is durable, with implications for sanctions and exposure Context on how Soviet history is being repurposed in present-day propaganda and policy A sharper map of where Russia, China, and the United States actually intersect, beyond headline framings Specific reference points for how to test the assumptions in any internal Russia or geopolitics brief

Why organisations work with Ngaire Woods Her 2006 book “The Globalizers” set out a specific, named argument – that IMF and World Bank lending conditions are shaped by the geopolitical interests of dominant states as much as by economic theory. Organisations that have read it do not approach multilateral institutions the same way again. She has worked inside the institutions she analyses, not just around them: advisor to the IMF board, member of the G20 High Level Independent Panel on pandemic financing alongside Lawrence Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and member of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19. As founding Dean of the Blavatnik School since 2011, she has trained a generation of ministers, central bankers and senior officials from across the world. That means she knows where public policy is heading before it becomes a headline. Her analysis stays current and policy-facing: monthly contributor to Project Syndicate, regular quoted source in the Financial Times, and current Co-Chair of the WEF Global Future Council on Good Governance. As an Independent Non-Executive Director at Rio Tinto, she applies the same analytical framework she brings to lecture halls and policy rooms directly to boardroom-level governance – which means the distance between her intellectual work and live organisational decisions is shorter than it is for most academics. Biography highlights Founding Dean of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government since its inception in 2011 – one of the world’s leading schools of public policy and government Professor of Global Economic Governance, University of Oxford; founder of Oxford’s Global Economic Governance Programme Author of “The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers” (Cornell University Press, 2006) and “The Politics of Global Regulation” (with Walter Mattli, Princeton University Press, 2009) Member of the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, co-chaired by Lawrence Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; member of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19 CBE (2018) for services to Higher Education and Public Policy; Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences; International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Monthly contributor to Project Syndicate since 2013; quoted in the Financial Times; former regular presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Analysis programme Independent Non-Executive Director at Rio Tinto; Co-Chair of the WEF Global Future Council on Good Governance; Rhodes Trustee Biography The IMF and the World Bank were not built to be neutral. They were built to reflect the interests of their most powerful members – and understanding how those interests are encoded in loan conditions, governance structures and regulatory frameworks is what separates informed global strategy from exposed global strategy. Ngaire Woods has spent three decades studying exactly this: how international institutions work, who shapes them, and who is left out. Her 2006 book “The Globalizers“, published by Cornell University Press, made a specific and consequential argument – that the conditions attached to IMF and World Bank lending were shaped as much by the geopolitical priorities of dominant states as by economic theory. Her subsequent work, including “The Politics of Global Regulation” (Princeton University Press, 2009, co-authored with Walter Mattli), extended the analysis to how regulatory systems are constructed, contested and fragmented across global markets. These are not abstract frameworks; they are the tools that senior officials and corporate strategists use to understand conditions that resist simpler explanations. In 2011, Woods became the founding Dean of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government – an institution she built from proposal to one of the world’s foremost schools of public policy. The school trains ministers, senior officials and public leaders from across the world; its alumni hold government positions on multiple continents. In 2021, the G20 appointed her to its High Level Independent Panel on pandemic financing, alongside Lawrence Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to propose how global commons could be financed in an era of systemic and cross-border risk. For organisations navigating a period in which the rules governing global trade, investment and regulation are being openly contested, Woods offers something specific: a structural account of where power sits, which institutions are losing coherence, and which are quietly accumulating it. She currently serves as Independent Non-Executive Director at Rio Tinto and Co-Chair of the WEF Global Future Council on Good Governance – roles that keep her analysis grounded in live institutional reality rather than historical retrospect. Key speaking topics Global economic governance and international institutions Geopolitics and the fracturing of the multilateral order Political risk and the regulatory environment for global business The IMF, World Bank and the politics of conditionality Global development and institutional reform Pandemic preparedness and the financing of global commons Democracy, governance and the erosion of public trust Ideal for Boards and senior executive teams operating across multiple jurisdictions and regulatory regimes Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers in global businesses navigating geopolitical uncertainty Government and public sector leaders, and executives within multilateral institutions Conferences focused on global economics, institutional risk and geopolitical strategy Audience outcomes A working framework for understanding how international institutions shape the conditions that corporate and government strategy depends on Sharper analysis of where power is shifting in the global economic order – and what this means for investment, regulation and market access decisions Clearer sight of the political and governance risks embedded in global operations that conventional risk tools typically miss Insight into how policy is made, and how conditions are set, inside multilateral institutions – from someone who has advised them directly A more realistic account of which elements of the post-war international order remain durable, and which are already being renegotiated

Why organisations work with Karl Pilny Three decades of operating inside Asian deal rooms, not commentary from the outside. He opened Coudert Brothers’ Berlin office in 1995 and has structured M&A and joint ventures between European, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Indian companies since the late 1980s. A published long-range thesis on Asia. Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) sets out his case that four of the five most powerful economies will soon be Asian, with implications boards can act on. Legal and commercial fluency in the same person. PhD from the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property, professorship at bbw Hochschule Berlin, and a working life spent advising entrepreneurs and family offices through asia21 GmbH. Delivery in German, English and Japanese. Few European Asia speakers can hold a Tokyo board conversation in the language of the room. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director, asia21 GmbH, Zurich (since 2006). Professor of International Technology Transfer Management, bbw Hochschule Berlin (since 2018). Author of Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018), nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award 2020. Author of the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy and the Investment Guide Asien. Former resident partner at Coudert Brothers, where he opened the Berlin office in 1995; later Managing Partner Germany at Travers Smith. PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Japan Department; former lecturer at the universities of Kyoto and Osaka. Biography Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) argued that four of the five most powerful economies would soon be Asian, and that European companies were already late to price the shift. The book was nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award in 2020. It set out the case that Karl Pilny had been making for years in board rooms across Germany, Switzerland and Japan. That argument is anchored in unusual depth of practice. After a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property and a teaching post in German law at Kyoto and Osaka, he spent a decade as a partner at Coudert Brothers, opening the firm’s Berlin office in 1995. He went on to lead Travers Smith’s German practice before founding asia21 GmbH in Zurich in 2006, advising entrepreneurs, family offices and corporates on investment into and out of Asia. The work spans renewable energy, infrastructure, financial services and consumer goods, and the books span a wider field still: the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy, the Investment Guide Asien, and the political thrillers Japan Inc. and Korea Inc. Since 2018 he has held a professorship in International Technology Transfer Management at bbw Hochschule Berlin, where he teaches on innovation leadership in Asian companies and on digitalisation. For European leadership teams the value is direct. He has structured the deals, written the long-range analysis and worked in the languages. He can take a board through the political risk in a China exposure, the cultural mechanics of a Japanese joint venture and the capital flows reshaping Southeast Asia in a single session. Key speaking topics Asia macroeconomic trajectories to 2030 China, Japan, Korea and India political risk Cross-border M&A and joint ventures in Asia Investment strategy for European corporates and family offices Renewable energy and infrastructure capital flows in Asia Technology transfer and IP between Europe and Asia Cross-cultural negotiation with Asian counterparties Ideal for Boards and executive committees of European corporates with material Asia exposure Chief strategy officers, corporate development and M&A leads working on Asian deals Family offices, foundations and institutional investors allocating into emerging Asia Industry conferences on energy transition, infrastructure and financial services touching Asia Audience outcomes A defensible read on where capital, technology and political weight are moving across Asia to 2030 Specific implications for European market entry, joint ventures and M&A in China, Japan, Korea and India A sharper view of cross-cultural risk in Asian deal structures, drawn from named cases A framework for sequencing Asia exposure across sectors, from renewables to consumer goods

Why organisations work with Christoph M. Schmidt Seven years chairing the German Council of Economic Experts, the body that formally advises the federal government, gives him a working command of how policy is actually made in Berlin and Brussels. As co-chair of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts, he reads the Paris-Berlin axis from inside the room, useful for any business whose European strategy depends on it. His research sits where most boardroom questions now live: energy transition economics, CO2 pricing design, labour market structure, and inequality. He has published on all of them. Project Syndicate columnist and contributor to the World Economic Forum Agenda and Brookings, which means audiences are getting a voice already trusted by the serious business press. Recipient of the Gustav Stolper Award (2016), given by the Verein fuer Socialpolitik for economists who shape public debate with empirical work, not rhetoric. Biography highlights President of RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen since 2002. Chair for Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum. Chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts, 2013 to 2020. Co-chairman of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts since 2020. Gustav Stolper Award (2016); honorary doctorate, Leibniz Universitaet Hannover (2019). Ph.D. in Economics, Princeton University; CEPR Fellow; IZA Research Fellow. Biography The German Council of Economic Experts exists to tell the federal government what the data actually says, in writing, every year. Christoph M. Schmidt chaired that body from 2013 to 2020, which means he authored or co-authored seven annual reports that shaped how Berlin framed growth, fiscal policy, labour reform, and the energy transition. He has been President of RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen since 2002, while holding the Chair for Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics at Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum. The combination is unusual. RWI is one of Germany’s largest economic research institutes; Bochum keeps him teaching and publishing the empirical work that gives the policy voice its weight. Since 2020 he has served as co-chairman of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts, a body set up to surface where the two largest eurozone economies can cooperate and where they cannot. For any executive team with European exposure, that bilateral view is rarely available from a single speaker. His training is Princeton applied econometrics, with a Ph.D. supervised in the Alfred P. Sloan tradition. The research output covers energy and CO2 pricing, labour markets, health, and inequality. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate, the World Economic Forum Agenda, and Brookings. The Gustav Stolper Award, given in 2016 by the Verein fuer Socialpolitik, recognises economists who translate serious empirical work into public debate. Schmidt is one of the few German economists to have done both at the scale the award implies. Key speaking topics European economic policy and the Franco-German axis Energy transition economics and CO2 pricing German and European labour market reform Income and wealth inequality Fiscal policy and debt sustainability in the eurozone The role of evidence-based economic advice in democracies Productivity and structural change in advanced economies Ideal for Boards and executive teams with European operations weighing the fiscal, energy, and labour policy outlook CFOs, strategy leads, and government affairs teams briefing on eurozone direction Investor audiences and policy forums examining the Franco-German economic relationship Industrial and energy sector leadership assessing the real cost trajectory of the transition Audience outcomes A sharper read on where German and European economic policy is heading and why A working framework for thinking about CO2 pricing, energy cost pass-through, and competitiveness A clearer view of the Franco-German policy interface and what it means for European business decisions A sense of which reform debates carry durable weight and which are political theatre Direct engagement with an economist who has sat inside the machinery of federal advice

Why organisations work with Carlos Cordon Direct advisory experience with Johnson and Johnson, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Merck, Mondelez, Unilever, Heineken, Danone, and General Motors, which means the examples on stage come from rooms he has sat in. Reframes the supply chain conversation at board level as a revenue and growth discussion, shifting it away from the familiar cost-defence framing and into competitive territory. Teaching material that other business schools pay to use. His cases have twice placed him on The Case Centre’s Top 50 Bestselling Case Authors globally. Sits on Coca-Cola European Partners’ Digital Advisory Board, which gives him a working view of how a global consumer business is actually pricing digital and AI bets at the top. Writes regularly for TIME on supply chain and geopolitics, so a board gets someone whose argument has already been tested against an international editorial audience. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Supply Chain Management at IMD Business School, Lausanne. Director of IMD’s Strategies for Supply Chain Digitalization program. Author of Strategy is Digital (Springer), The Power of Two (Palgrave Macmillan), and Strategic Supply Chain Management (Routledge). Twice listed on The Case Centre’s Top 50 Bestselling Case Authors (#18 in 2020/21, #36 in 2023/24). Winner of the EFMD Case Writing Competition in 2017 and of The Case Centre’s Production and Operations Management Award in 2011 and again in 2026 for Apple’s Supply Chain Transformation. Regular contributor to TIME and to I by IMD; board advisor to Coca-Cola European Partners on digital. Biography Most supply chain conversations in the boardroom are still framed as cost questions. Cordon’s work reframes them as revenue questions. His argument, developed across three books and a case portfolio used in MBA programmes globally, is that how a company sources, makes, moves, and digitises its value chain now decides whether it can grow at all in a fragmenting world. At IMD, where he holds the chair in Strategy and Supply Chain Management, he directs the Strategies for Supply Chain Digitalization program and teaches senior executives from the companies shaping the consumer, pharma, and industrial economy. Johnson and Johnson, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Merck, Mondelez, Unilever, Heineken, Danone, and General Motors are on his client list. He sits on Coca-Cola European Partners’ Digital Advisory Board, which keeps his perspective grounded in live commercial decisions. His published work tracks the trajectory of the field. The Power of Two (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) set out how smart customer-supplier partnerships create value that neither party could capture alone. Strategy is Digital (Springer, 2016) argued that big data and digital platforms had become the value chain, not an overlay on it. The current research programme tackles the hardest question leaders now face: how to reconfigure sourcing, manufacturing footprints, and operating models when tariffs, geopolitical risk, and Gen-AI are all moving at once. The case writing is a second form of evidence. He has twice placed in The Case Centre’s Top 50 Bestselling Case Authors globally and won the Production and Operations Management category in 2011 and again in 2026 for Apple’s Supply Chain Transformation. The EFMD Case Writing Competition recognised his Adidas case in 2017. Few supply chain academics are read this widely by other teachers of the subject, which is what gives his perspective on a live boardroom problem the weight it carries. Key speaking topics Supply chain reconfiguration under geopolitical and tariff pressure Reshoring, nearshoring, and manufacturing footprint strategy Digital value chains and the commercial use of Gen-AI in operations Customer-supplier partnership models Supply chain as a driver of revenue and competitive advantage Digital lean and process redesign Operating model resilience in consumer goods, pharma, and industrial sectors Ideal for Board and ExCo sessions where supply chain redesign is on the strategic agenda Chief Supply Chain Officers, COOs, and Chief Procurement Officers managing global footprint decisions Strategy and transformation leads working on reshoring, digitisation, or tariff response Consumer goods, pharma, and industrial leadership teams rethinking how operations create commercial value Audience outcomes A sharper read on how tariff fragmentation and geopolitical risk are reshaping operating model choices in the next three to five years. A working vocabulary for arguing the supply chain case at board level as a growth lever. Worked examples from named multinationals showing how reshoring, digitisation, and Gen-AI are being priced into real operating model decisions. A sharper test for where digital and AI investment in the value chain earns its cost, and where it does not.