Geopolitics

Why organisations work with Alastair Campbell Direct experience of running government communications through general elections, war, and the daily pressure of Downing Street, applied to corporate equivalents: contested deals, regulatory crises, leadership transitions. A working method for handling hostile media and political environments that has been tested at the centre of UK government, not theorised about. Author of Winners: And How They Succeed, drawing named lessons from political, business, and sporting leaders that translate directly into how senior teams plan, decide, and execute. One of the UK’s most prominent voices on workplace mental health, with lived experience and the institutional credibility of an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. A platform that reaches senior decision-makers at scale: The Rest Is Politics runs at around eight million downloads a month, giving him a current read on the political and economic context boards are trying to interpret. Biography highlights Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair, 1997 to 2003, after running Blair’s communications in opposition from 1994. Co-host with Rory Stewart of The Rest Is Politics, one of the most-listened-to political podcasts in the UK and the leading politics show on YouTube during the 2024 general election. Bestselling author of The Blair Years, Winners: And How They Succeed, Living Better, and But What Can I Do?, alongside the All In The Mind novels. Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; former Mind Champion of the Year; co-founder of Equality4MentalHealth. Editor-at-large of The New European and a long-standing political columnist and broadcaster. Senior journalism background at the Daily Mirror and Today before moving into political communications. Biography Communication inside government is judged on the days when something has gone wrong. For nine years from 1994, Alastair Campbell sat at the centre of those days for Tony Blair, first as press secretary, then as Director of Communications and Strategy, through the 1997 election, the early years of devolution, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Iraq. The job was not press handling. It was the operational core of how a government decided what to say, to whom, and when. That experience now sits behind a second career as an author, broadcaster, and advisor. Winners: And How They Succeed set out a working theory of strategic leadership drawn from named figures across politics, business, and elite sport. The Blair Years and his subsequent diaries are the most detailed account of decision-making inside a modern UK government. His work is read by leaders who have to make calls under the same kind of scrutiny, in different sectors. The mental health work is the second strand. Living Better is an account of his depression and the systems, clinical and personal, he has used to manage it. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a former Mind Champion of the Year, and a co-founder of Equality4MentalHealth, the cross-party campaign that secured an additional 600 million pounds for UK mental health services. For corporate audiences, this is not an add-on topic. It is a senior leader who has built a public discipline around a private struggle. The Rest Is Politics, his podcast with former Conservative minister Rory Stewart, reaches several million listeners a month and led the UK politics charts through the 2024 election. The podcast is an unusual asset for a speaker: a current, weekly read on the geopolitical and domestic context in which boards and executive teams are now operating. Key speaking topics Communications strategy under pressure Leadership and decision-making in crisis Political risk and the geopolitical operating context Workplace mental health and senior leader resilience Lessons from winners across politics, business, and sport Media, scrutiny, and reputation management Campaign strategy and persuasion Ideal for CEOs, chairs, and executive committees facing contested decisions, regulatory scrutiny, or leadership transitions Communications, public affairs, and corporate affairs leaders responsible for crisis and reputation HR and people leaders building senior-level mental health and resilience programmes Leadership development audiences and partner conferences in professional services, financial services, and regulated sectors Audience outcomes A clearer view of how to make and communicate decisions when scrutiny is hostile and information is incomplete. Specific, named lessons from inside government and elite performance environments on what separates winners from competent operators. A more honest framework for senior leaders to think about their own resilience, including mental health, as a strategic variable rather than a personal weakness. A current read on the political and geopolitical environment shaping commercial decisions over the next cycle. Practical reference points for handling media, public scrutiny, and internal communication under pressure.

Key speaking topics UK politics and government Global political developments Election campaigns and political strategy Media and political broadcasting US politics and transatlantic relations The role of journalism in modern democracy Political leadership and decision-making Ideal for Corporate leadership teams seeking political and geopolitical context Financial services and global businesses monitoring political risk Conferences focused on public affairs, media or government relations Organisations hosting moderated discussions with political leaders or policymakers Audience outcomes Clearer understanding of the UK political landscape and decision-making environment Insight into global political developments and their implications for organisations Perspective on election campaigns, political strategy and leadership Understanding of how political narratives are shaped in modern media Context for interpreting government policy and political risk Why organisations work with Adam Boulton Extensive experience covering UK and international politics across broadcast media. Ability to explain complex political developments in clear, structured terms for business audiences. Credibility built through decades of political reporting, interviews with national leaders and major election coverage. Skilled moderator and conference host able to guide informed discussions on politics, policy and public affairs. Biography Adam Boulton is one of the most experienced figures in British political broadcasting, with a career spanning more than four decades reporting on UK and international politics. As the founding Political Editor of Sky News, he played a central role in shaping the channel’s political coverage and became a prominent voice in live political journalism and election reporting. During his time at Sky News he hosted several of the network’s flagship political programmes, including All Out Politics, Boulton and Co, Sunday Live and Week in Review. He has fronted major live political and election coverage and conducted interviews with every UK Prime Minister from Sir Alec Douglas-Home onwards, alongside extensive reporting on US politics since the Reagan era. Earlier in his career he served as Political Editor at TV-am before joining Sky News, and he was elected chairman of the Parliamentary Lobby. His contribution to political journalism has been recognised with the Royal Television Society’s supreme judges’ award. Alongside his broadcasting career, Adam is an established political commentator and presenter. He hosts Sunday Morning with Adam Boulton on Times Radio, contributes commentary for Sky News, and has written political analysis for publications including Reaction. Adam is also an author. His books include Tony’s Ten Years: Memories of the Blair Administration and Hung Together: The 2010 Election and the Coalition Government, written with Joey Jones. Beyond broadcasting and writing, Adam is a sought-after moderator and speaker for corporate and public affairs events. He brings decades of experience covering government, elections and global political developments, helping organisations understand the forces shaping political decision-making and international affairs. He has also served as a governor of Sevenoaks School and received an honorary Doctor of Business from the University of Plymouth.

Why organisations work with Huang Yiping He sits on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, which puts him inside the conversation that shapes Chinese interest rate, credit, and currency decisions, not commenting on it from the outside. He runs the National School of Development at Peking University, the institution that has educated a generation of Chinese policy economists and whose research directly feeds government thinking. His digital finance research programme is the reference point for how platforms like Ant Group, WeChat Pay, and the state-run digital yuan system are reshaping Chinese banking and credit allocation. He built a career that bridges Wall Street and Beijing, with nearly a decade as Chief Asia Economist at Citigroup and a further stint at Barclays, so he reads Chinese policy with a market operator’s instinct. He is willing, as Bloomberg documented in 2024, to publicly challenge official economic strategy, which makes his private read on policy direction far more useful than the standard think tank commentary. Biography highlights Dean of the National School of Development, Peking University, and Boya Distinguished Professor. Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China, reappointed in March 2024 after serving 2015 to 2018. Director of the Institute of Digital Finance at Peking University. Former Managing Director and Chief Asia Economist, Citigroup; later Chief Economist for Emerging Asia, Barclays. Co-editor, with David Dollar, of The Digital Financial Revolution in China (Brookings Press, 2022). Columnist at Project Syndicate; contributor to East Asia Forum; PhD in Economics, Australian National University. Biography China’s economic team spent the decade after the global financial crisis building a credit-driven growth model that worked until it didn’t. Huang Yiping has spent that same decade arguing, from inside the system, that the model had to change. His seat on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China gives that argument unusual weight. As Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, Huang leads the country’s most influential economic policy school. The NSD trains senior officials and publishes much of the research that informs Chinese financial and macroeconomic decisions. Before Peking University, he spent nearly a decade as Chief Asia Economist at Citigroup and Chief Economist for Emerging Asia at Barclays, which is why his reading of policy still tracks to what markets actually need to know. His research focus has shifted with the economy. The Digital Financial Revolution in China, co-edited with Brookings’s David Dollar in 2022, set the frame for how platforms, mobile payments, and the digital yuan are rewiring Chinese credit. His Project Syndicate columns through 2024 pushed Beijing to rein in local government debt and to rebalance away from investment toward household consumption. In August 2024, Bloomberg singled out his critique of official policy as one of the sharpest to come from inside the PBOC advisory structure in years. For international leaders, the value is specific. Huang can tell a board what Beijing is actually weighing on interest rates, on the property sector, on capital controls, and on the structural rebalancing that will shape Chinese demand for the next decade. He does it with the vocabulary of someone who has worked in a trading room, not only in a seminar room. Key speaking topics Chinese macroeconomic policy and PBOC decision-making Financial system reform and capital market liberalisation in China Digital finance, platform regulation, and the digital yuan Rebalancing the Chinese economy from investment to consumption Local government debt and fiscal reform in China China’s role in global trade and emerging market capital flows Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material China exposure CFOs, treasurers, and CIOs at financial institutions allocating capital across Asia Strategy and policy leads in technology and payments businesses operating in or alongside Chinese platforms Senior government, regulatory, and multilateral audiences tracking PBOC direction Audience outcomes A clearer view of how Chinese policymakers are likely to weigh monetary, fiscal, and structural choices in the next twelve to twenty-four months. An informed read on where Chinese financial reform and platform regulation are heading, from someone inside that work. A sense of the real disagreements inside the Chinese policy community, rather than the official line. Sharper questions to bring to their own China strategy, credit exposure, and supply chain decisions.

Why organisations work with Gerard Lyons A working chief economist’s read on the world cycle, drawn from over a decade as Global Head of Research at Standard Chartered, where his team was ranked the most accurate forecaster in the world by Bloomberg in 2010 and 2011. A record of calling turning points before consensus: the 2008 recession a month before Lehman, Japan’s lost decades a decade earlier, early warnings on the eurozone, and the rise of China when much of the City was sceptical. Inside experience of UK economic policy from the top: lead adviser to Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain and Chief Economic Adviser to Boris Johnson at the Greater London Authority. Direct authority on the politics of capital, with testimony on state capitalism and sovereign wealth to committees of the US Senate, the US House, and both Houses of the UK Parliament. A 2019 candidate for Governor of the Bank of England who now sits as Senior Independent Director at Bank of China (UK), chairs the risk committee at BGC Partners, and advises the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. Biography highlights Chief Economist, Global Head of Research and adviser to the board at Standard Chartered Bank, 1999 to 2012, running a global team of more than 180 economists ranked the most accurate forecaster in the world by Bloomberg in 2010 and 2011 Chief Economist and Executive Director at Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, 1989 to 1999, where he called Japan’s lost decades and wrote a regular column in the Nikkei Chief Economic Adviser to the Mayor of London under Boris Johnson, 2013 to 2016, and lead adviser to Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain Author of The Consolations of Economics (Faber and Faber), named one of The Telegraph’s Books of the Year, and co-author of Clean Brexit (Biteback), listed by The Economist among its best books on Brexit Chief Economic Strategist and shareholder at Netwealth; Senior Independent Director at Bank of China (UK); risk committee chair at BGC Partners; member of the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum and of the UK’s Economic Honours Committee 2019 candidate for Governor of the Bank of England, with a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London Biography The defining feature of the current cycle is that it does not rhyme with the last one. Inflation behaviour and central bank credibility have both shifted, and the geopolitics of trade now moves capital along lines the previous cycle did not teach. Reading this environment well takes someone who has run a global research desk through several earlier turns of it. The forecasting record runs back a long way. At Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, then the largest bank in the world, Lyons was chief economist through the 1990s, called Japan’s lost decades and wrote a regular column in the Nikkei. Standard Chartered was the bigger stage. As Global Head of Research, Chief Economist and adviser to the board from 1999 to 2012, he ran a team of more than 180 economists across global macro and emerging-market research, and Bloomberg ranked it the most accurate forecaster in the world in 2010 and 2011. In August 2008, a month before Lehman collapsed, he was one of only two UK economists forecasting a deep imminent recession. Public policy credibility runs alongside the markets record. Lyons was lead adviser to Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain and then Chief Economic Adviser to Boris Johnson at the Mayor of London from 2013 to 2016, work that ran from the London Living Wage to the city’s international competitiveness. He has testified on state capitalism and sovereign wealth to committees of the US Senate, the US House, and both Houses of the UK Parliament, and in 2019 was a candidate for Governor of the Bank of England. The published work pulls the threads together. The Consolations of Economics, with Faber and Faber, was named one of The Telegraph’s Books of the Year and translated into Chinese, Korean, German, and Portuguese. Clean Brexit, co-authored with Liam Halligan for Biteback, was listed by The Economist among its best books on Brexit. A Queen Mary, University of London PhD sits behind current roles that now run from Chief Economic Strategist at Netwealth to Senior Independent Director at Bank of China (UK), risk committee chair at BGC Partners, the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook UK economic policy and competitiveness China and emerging markets Monetary policy and central banks Financial markets and the City of London Energy security, climate finance and the green transition Geopolitical risk and global capital flows Ideal for Boards and investment committees setting capital allocation against the macro cycle CFOs, treasurers, and CIOs in banks, asset managers, and corporates with cross-border exposure Government, policy, and trade audiences working on UK growth, financial services, and post-Brexit strategy Leadership offsites in organisations with material exposure to China, India, and emerging markets Audience outcomes A working read on where inflation, interest rates, and growth are heading across the major economies A clearer view of how geopolitics, sanctions, and great-power competition are reshaping capital flows A defensible house view on China and emerging markets that goes past the headline narrative A sharper sense of the UK’s structural position on growth, financial services, and competitiveness Specific, named scenarios that a board can test its strategy against

Why organisations work with Christian Havrehed He has operated inside the Sino-Western seam at every level: management consulting at L.E.K., MD roles in Hong Kong and Shanghai with KPMG, Allianz and VIKING, and a two-person expedition partnership that lasted 70 days at sea. Mandarin fluency lets him work directly with Chinese stakeholders in the room, not through a translator, which materially changes the quality of preparation and post-meeting reading. The Atlantic row with Sun Haibin is a documented case study in trust-building under pressure, published in three languages and over 20,000 copies, that he uses to make cross-cultural failure modes concrete. He is qualified to challenge the comforting Western assumption that cultural difference can be managed with a framework imported from headquarters. For boards weighing China exposure, he brings a credible inside-and-outside view that few Western speakers can match without a state affiliation that constrains them. Biography highlights 20 years working in China, including managing director roles with KPMG, Allianz, and VIKING Life-Saving Equipment in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Former consultant at L.E.K. Consulting, London. BA Joint Hons. in Chinese Language and Western Management Studies, Durham University, with study at Renmin University, Beijing. Author of “Beijing to Barbados in a Rowboat”, published in English, Chinese, and Danish; over 20,000 copies sold. First Dane to row an ocean: 3,000-mile Atlantic crossing in 2001 with Chinese ex-soldier Sun Haibin. Founder of the Yantu Project; Adventure Ambassador for Engage with China and Eyesea; member of The Explorers Club. Biography China is no longer a question of market entry. It is a question of whether senior teams can lead partnerships, joint ventures, and supply relationships where the other side does not share their assumptions about risk, hierarchy, or time. That is the ground Christian Havrehed has worked for two decades. After reading Chinese at Durham University and studying at Renmin University in Beijing, he moved into management consulting at L.E.K. in London, then ran businesses inside China and Hong Kong as managing director with KPMG, Allianz, and VIKING Life-Saving Equipment. He speaks Mandarin in commercial settings, which changes the texture of every conversation he is part of. In 2001 he rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic with Sun Haibin, a former Chinese PLA soldier and Communist Party member, becoming the first Dane and the first Chinese citizen respectively to row an ocean. The story, told in “Beijing to Barbados in a Rowboat”, is published in three languages and used by Havrehed as a working case study in what trust actually requires when the contract runs out and the weather turns. For senior leaders, the value is practical. He challenges the soft-skills framing of cross-cultural work and treats it as a leadership problem with real commercial consequences: deal terms misread, partners disengaged, talent lost. His Yantu Project, founded in 2000, has been the spine of this work since long before China became a board-level agenda item in the West. Key speaking topics Sino-Western leadership and partnership Cross-cultural collaboration in joint ventures Trust-building under operational pressure China market strategy and stakeholder engagement Risk-taking and decision-making in unfamiliar conditions Sustainability and citizen science through expedition Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material China exposure Country leaders, regional MDs, and joint-venture sponsors operating in or with Greater China Heads of strategy, M&A, and partnerships evaluating Asia-Pacific deals Senior teams running multinational cross-border programmes where cultural fluency is operationally load-bearing Audience outcomes A clearer view of where Sino-Western partnerships actually fail, drawn from inside both sides of the seam. Specific, named examples of trust-building behaviours that hold up when conditions deteriorate. A direct challenge to standard cultural-intelligence frameworks imported from Western HQ. Practical reframing of risk-taking as an organisational capability, not a personality trait. A more grounded basis for boardroom conversations about China exposure, partnership terms, and joint-venture governance.

Why organisations work with Sir Trevor McDonald He is one of a small group of living public figures whose presence at the front of a room is itself a statement about the seriousness of the occasion. Royal events, charitable galas, and major industry awards have used him in this capacity for over thirty years. His firsthand interviews with Nelson Mandela on his release, Saddam Hussein on the eve of the first Gulf War, Colonel Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair give him a stock of stories about global power that no contemporary commentator working from secondary sources can match. He carries the credibility of more than thirty years anchoring ITV’s flagship evening news, where he was repeatedly polled as Britain’s most trusted news presenter. Audiences across age groups recognise him on sight. He brings the perspective of a journalist who reported from every continent across five decades, including over ten years covering the Northern Ireland Troubles, giving any audience access to someone who watched the modern world being shaped from the front row. Biography highlights Knighted in 1999 for services to broadcasting and journalism, awarded OBE in 1992 BAFTA Fellowship (2011), Royal Television Society Gold Medal (1998), BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award (1999), Royal Television Society Judges’ Award (2005), National Television Award for Special Recognition (2003) Sole presenter of ITV’s News at Ten from 1992 until December 2005, and host of ITV’s Tonight from 1999 to 2007 First British television journalist to interview Nelson Mandela following his release in 1990, and the only British journalist to interview Saddam Hussein on the eve of the first Gulf War Author of An Improbable Life: The Autobiography (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2019), a Sunday Times bestseller Former Chancellor of London South Bank University; honorary degrees from the University of Plymouth, the Open University, Liverpool John Moores, the University of the West Indies, Kingston University and others Biography Nelson Mandela walked out of Victor Verster Prison in February 1990 to face a global press pack. The first British television journalist to sit down with him for an interview was Sir Trevor McDonald, then Diplomatic Editor at ITN. Later that same year, on the eve of the first Gulf War, he became the only British journalist to secure an interview with Saddam Hussein. Those two assignments are typical of a career that placed Sir Trevor in proximity to most of the people who shaped late twentieth century geopolitics. Across more than five decades at the BBC, ITN and ITV, he reported from every continent. He covered Northern Ireland’s Troubles for over a decade, the negotiations over Britain’s entry to the European Common Market, the Reagan and Gorbachev summits, and the 1985 Philippine “people power” elections that won Channel Four News a BAFTA. From 1992 to December 2005 he was the sole presenter of ITV’s News at Ten, the country’s flagship evening news. He was repeatedly polled as Britain’s most trusted news presenter and named Television and Radio Industries Club Newscaster of the Year on multiple occasions between 1993 and 2009. Knighted in 1999 for services to broadcasting, awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011, he is one of a handful of figures in British public life whose name is itself a guarantee of seriousness at an event. His later work moved into long-form documentary for ITV, including Inside Death Row, To Catch A Serial Killer and Fred and Rose West: The Real Story. He published his Sunday Times bestselling autobiography An Improbable Life with Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2019. He is a former Chancellor of London South Bank University, has chaired the Better English Campaign, and co-chaired a Nuffield Foundation inquiry into the teaching of foreign languages in British schools, work for which he was honoured by the French and German governments. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and international affairs Reporting from conflict zones The arc of late twentieth century world events Trust and credibility in public communication Journalism, media and public life Witness to modern political history Ideal for Boards, executive committees and senior leadership audiences requiring gravitas at major in-house events Industry associations hosting flagship awards, conferences or anniversary dinners Trustees and committees of major public-interest charities, foundations and royal patronages Conference programme leads commissioning international affairs panels, moderated discussions or main-stage interviews Audience outcomes Stories from the room where Nelson Mandela gave his first British television interview after his release, and where Saddam Hussein sat for his only British television interview before the Gulf War A perspective on the long arc of post-1970 geopolitics from someone who reported it as it happened, not from someone analysing the archive Reflection on what serious public communication looks like, drawn from over thirty years anchoring Britain’s most-watched evening news A room that feels significant from the moment he takes the stage, which is the principal reason organisations rebook him

Why organisations work with Frits van Paasschen Two Fortune 500 CEO seats, Coors Brewing and Starwood Hotels and Resorts, give him a perspective most disruption speakers do not have: he has actually run the kind of company being disrupted, with shareholders, a board, and a quarter to report. Author of The Disruptors’ Feast, a book built from travel to more than 100 countries and interviews with operators rather than academics, which gives board conversations a concrete evidence base rather than a theoretical one. Still sits inside the rooms he advises. Current directorships at Amadeus, Williams-Sonoma, dsm-firmenich, and Sonder mean his view of governance under disruption is current, not retrospective. Credible on the international dimension in a way US-centric speakers are not. Dutch-American, ran Nike’s EMEA business out of the Netherlands, speaks five languages, led Starwood during its China expansion. A Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute fellowship and a Harvard MBA Teaching Fellowship in Economics signal the same thing his book does: he treats the CEO job as an intellectual problem, not a performance. Biography highlights President and CEO, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, 2007 to 2015 President and CEO, Coors Brewing Company, 2005 to 2007 Corporate Vice President and General Manager, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Nike Author, The Disruptors’ Feast: How to Avoid Being Devoured in Today’s Rapidly Changing Global Economy Current directorships at Amadeus IT Group, Williams-Sonoma (Chair, Audit and Finance Committee), dsm-firmenich, and Sonder Holdings Fellow, Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute; MBA, Harvard Business School; BA Economics and Biology, Amherst College Biography Starwood Hotels and Resorts was acquired by Marriott in 2016. In the years immediately before that, the company was navigating Airbnb, the rise of China as its fastest-growing market, a mobile-first guest, and an activist investor. Frits van Paasschen ran it through most of that period, from 2007 to 2015, having arrived from the CEO seat at Coors Brewing and, before that, Nike’s EMEA business. Three different consumer industries, three different disruption stories, one operator. That operating lineage is what makes his view on disruption unusual. The Disruptors’ Feast, his 2017 book, is not a consultant’s map of “the future of” anything. It is reporting, drawn from more than 100 countries he has worked in or travelled to, on how the combination of connectivity, demographic shift, and capital flows actually lands inside companies. The argument is that most incumbents do not lose to a single disruptor; they lose to the compounding of several forces they treated as separate problems. He remains inside the governance conversation rather than outside commentating on it. He chairs the Audit and Finance Committee at Williams-Sonoma, sits on the boards of Amadeus, dsm-firmenich, and Sonder, and recently completed a two-year fellowship at the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute. That combination matters for a speaking audience of directors and C-suite leaders: when he talks about how a board should read a strategic threat or a management succession under pressure, he is describing the seat he is currently in. The value for a serious leadership audience is not the disruption taxonomy. It is watching a former public-company CEO think out loud about the decisions he got right, the ones he did not, and what a director should actually be asking when the operating model starts to strain. Key speaking topics Leadership under disruption Global strategy and international expansion Board governance in volatile markets Consumer and hospitality business transformation CEO decision-making and accountability Cross-cultural leadership of global organisations Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors working through strategic threats to the core business CEO and C-suite offsites where the agenda is how to lead an incumbent through sustained disruption Global consumer, retail, hospitality, and travel-industry leadership audiences Senior strategy, transformation, and corporate development teams inside multinationals Audience outcomes A sharper read on which disruptive forces compound inside an incumbent and which are noise A working vocabulary for how boards and CEOs should talk about risk, governance, and pace of change together rather than separately Specific, named examples from Starwood, Coors, Nike, and the companies he now sits on the boards of, rather than generic case studies A more honest framework for what a global leadership role actually requires, from someone who has run one on three continents

Why organisations work with Tadhg Enright Two decades of live broadcast experience at Sky News, BBC News and RTE, which means he runs a stage on the timing standards of rolling news, not the looser pace of a corporate AGM. Specialist depth in business and economics: he led Sky’s coverage of the Eurozone debt crisis and covered Brexit from London for Euronews, so finance, treasury and policy audiences hear questions framed by someone who reported the story. Hosting work for clients including Chartered Accountants Ireland, the Embassy of Ireland in London and the Irish Exporters Awards, alongside corporate messaging work for Facebook, Tesco and Coca-Cola, signals comfort across regulated, professional and consumer brand contexts. Editorial range across breaking news, business, consumer and culture means he can host an awards dinner, chair a board panel and moderate a press-facing fireside session without changing register awkwardly between them. Biography highlights Presenter of business bulletins on the BBC News Channel and of Business Live on BBC World. Eight-year career at Sky News, including the role of regular presenter of hourly business updates and lead on the Eurozone debt crisis coverage. UK correspondent for Euronews, with extensive London-based reporting on Brexit. Long-running presenter of The Globalist on Monocle 24 Radio, a morning hour on world affairs, business and culture. Helped develop RTE’s first dedicated television business news segment; presenter and reporter on The Consumer Show on RTE One. Journalism training at Dublin City University; corporate messaging work for Facebook, Tesco and Coca-Cola. Biography Live business news rewards a presenter who can do two things at once: read a balance sheet quickly and translate it for a general audience in real time. That is the discipline Tadhg Enright built across eight years at Sky News, where he led coverage of the Eurozone debt crisis from Dublin and London, and where he became a regular face on the channel’s hourly business updates. He now presents business bulletins on the BBC News Channel and Business Live on BBC World. As UK correspondent for Euronews, he covered Brexit from London across the full arc of the negotiations. For eight years he hosted The Globalist on Monocle 24 Radio, an early-morning hour on world affairs, business and culture, which gave him a wider editorial vocabulary than most business presenters carry. The earlier work matters too. At RTE he helped build the broadcaster’s first dedicated television business news segment, then moved into consumer journalism on The Consumer Show, where his investigation into potentially dangerous Bosch dishwashers prompted a nationwide repair action. The same instinct sits behind his corporate messaging work for Facebook, Tesco and Coca-Cola, and behind his event hosting for Chartered Accountants Ireland, the Embassy of Ireland in London and the Irish Exporters Awards. What clients buy, in practice, is editorial command of a room. He runs a stage on the timing standards of rolling news, asks the question the audience came to hear, and keeps senior panellists honest without making the conversation hostile. Key speaking topics Conference and summit hosting Awards and gala dinner hosting Panel moderation and fireside chats Hybrid and virtual event facilitation Business and economics commentary Media training and corporate messaging European political and economic affairs Ideal for CFOs, finance directors and treasury teams convening flagship industry conferences. Professional services firms (accounting, legal, consulting) hosting client summits, partner conferences and awards. Corporate affairs and communications leaders running investor or media-facing events. Trade bodies, chambers and embassies running policy-facing forums and awards. Audience outcomes A panel session that lands its central question rather than rotating through prepared remarks. An audience that follows the financial and economic substance because the chair has translated it without flattening it. Senior speakers held to their own positions, with follow-up questions that pull out the strategic point. A run-of-show that finishes on time and on tone, from opening remarks through Q and A to closing thanks.

Why organisations work with Kumi Naidoo He is the only person to have led both Greenpeace International and Amnesty International – giving him an institutional authority on climate accountability and human rights that no commentator or academic can match. His argument that climate justice and human rights are operationally inseparable – not just rhetorically linked – gives ESG and sustainability leaders a more defensible intellectual framework under stakeholder and regulatory scrutiny. He led Greenpeace’s shift from a single-issue environmental organisation toward a broader justice and equity platform, a strategic reorientation directly relevant to organisations navigating the social dimensions of net-zero transition. His current presidency of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative means he speaks from inside active diplomatic and civil society negotiations – not from the sidelines of the energy transition debate. His memoir Letters to My Mother (2022), which won the HSS 2023 Non-Fiction Award from South Africa’s National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, demonstrates a capacity to make complex moral and political arguments compelling to general audiences – a quality that translates directly to boardroom and conference settings. Biography highlights Rhodes Scholar; DPhil in Political Sociology, Magdalen College, University of Oxford First person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International, serving as International Executive Director (2009-2015) Secretary-General, Amnesty International (2018-2019) Secretary-General and CEO, CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation (1998-2008) President, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (appointed 2024) Professor of Practice, Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University; Payne Distinguished Lecturer, Stanford University; Visiting Fellow and Honorary Fellow, Magdalen College, Oxford Letters to My Mother: The Making of a Troublemaker (Jacana Media, 2022) – winner, HSS 2023 Non-Fiction Award, National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences Five honorary doctorates, including from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Adelaide Biography Kumi Naidoo has led Greenpeace International and Amnesty International, consecutively, and at their most consequential periods. That combination of institutional authority, across the two domains most directly challenging corporate environmental and human rights claims, is what makes him a different kind of voice in board and executive conversations on accountability. His argument is a structural one. Climate change is not an environmental problem with equity implications. It is a justice problem with environmental consequences – and the organisations most exposed are those that have separated their sustainability commitments from their human rights responsibilities. He made this case from inside two of the world’s largest civil society institutions before it became the language of regulators and investors. The trajectory behind that argument runs from anti-apartheid organising in Durban at age fifteen, through a Rhodes Scholarship and doctorate in political sociology at Oxford’s Magdalen College, to a decade building civil society infrastructure at CIVICUS across more than a hundred countries. Each stage added a different kind of institutional credibility – as a practitioner of civil disobedience, as a builder of global coalitions, and as a senior executive managing large, politically exposed organisations in contested environments. Today, as President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative – a live diplomatic campaign to create binding international commitments on fossil fuel phase-out – Naidoo brings organisations not a retrospective perspective but an active one. His work sits at the point where corporate strategy, geopolitical risk, and civil society pressure intersect. His memoir Letters to My Mother (2022), winner of the HSS Non-Fiction Award, adds a further dimension: the capacity to communicate urgent, uncomfortable arguments with clarity and human force. Key speaking topics Climate justice and the geopolitics of energy transition Human rights accountability in corporate strategy ESG beyond compliance – from commitment to consequence Civil society, civic space, and the future of advocacy Ethical leadership under political and institutional pressure The Global South and the terms of a just transition Activism, storytelling, and the power of “artivism.” Ideal for Chief Sustainability Officers, ESG leads, and boards navigating net-zero commitments under stakeholder scrutiny Senior executives in energy, extractives, finance, and supply chains are facing civil society and regulatory pressure CHROs and governance leaders working at the intersection of human rights due diligence and business operations Conferences focused on responsible business, global risk, or the political economy of climate transition Audience outcomes A clearer framework for understanding why climate and human rights accountability are operationally connected, not just rhetorically linked Concrete perspective on how civil society assesses and challenges corporate climate commitments – from someone who has led those challenges at the highest level Greater awareness of how the energy transition is being experienced and contested in the Global South, and what that means for organisations with global exposure A more grounded understanding of what “accountability” means when it moves from annual reports into legal, diplomatic, and activist arenas Insight into how to communicate complex moral and political arguments in ways that move people to action – drawing on Naidoo’s experience leading large institutions through contested public debates

Why organisations work with Pascal Coppens Twenty years building tech businesses in Shanghai. Coppens founded Letsface, co-founded Polycore Software, and built Sinnolabs as a growth accelerator for European scale-ups entering China. Three books with a developing argument on modern China. China’s New Normal (2019), Can We Trust China? (2022), and China’s Next Miracle (2025) give buyers a thinker with sustained intellectual commitment to one country. A track record of predictions that landed. The 2019 forecast that China would set the innovation standard across multiple sectors by 2025 was borne out by Huawei, BYD, DJI, TikTok, TEMU, BGI, and Ant Financial. A nuanced reading in a debate dominated by extremes. The eight circles of trust framework in Can We Trust China? gives Western leaders analytical ground that neither cheerleads China nor reduces it to threat. Biography highlights Author of three books on modern China: China’s New Normal (2019), Can We Trust China? (2022), and China’s Next Miracle (2025). Master’s in Eastern Languages and Cultures from Ghent University and Business Engineering degree from Solvay Business School (Free University of Brussels). Twenty years living and working in Shanghai and Silicon Valley; founder of Letsface, co-founder of Polycore Software, co-creator of Sinnolabs. Partner at nexxworks; delivers close to 100 keynotes a year, with clients including Mastercard, Microsoft, Salesforce, Huawei, Walmart, P&G, S.W.I.F.T., Rabobank, EY, PWC, London Business School, and CEDEP. YouTube channel Pascal’s China Lens with 65,000+ subscribers and 4 million views; regular guest on Belgian public broadcaster VRT; co-host of the Radar podcast with Peter Hinssen and Steven Van Belleghem. Biography Chinese companies now lead in electric vehicles, mobile payments, social commerce, drone manufacturing, and consumer AI. The country has moved past the cheap-factory phase that defined Western mental models for thirty years. Western executives are now competing against or partnering with companies whose innovation logic they were not trained to read. Coppens has spent two decades operating on both sides of that gap. He began at Alcatel in Shanghai and moved to Silicon Valley for Wind River Systems before co-founding Polycore Software. He then returned to China and founded Letsface, an offline community platform for premium global brands. His primary sources became the Chinese innovators he hired and competed against. Three books trace a developing argument. China’s New Normal (2019) mapped the sectors where Chinese companies would set the innovation standard, with predictions on Huawei, BYD, DJI, TikTok, and Ant largely borne out. Can We Trust China? (2022) tackled the trust deficit fuelling Western fear, building an eight circles of trust framework as an analytical handle on a polarising question. China’s Next Miracle (2025) describes the next phase. It tracks the shift from market innovation to intellectual property creation, with implications for capital, supply chain, and competitive strategy. His operating position now is unusually broad for a country specialist. Coppens delivers close to 100 keynotes a year for Fortune 500 audiences and advises boards on de-risking and supply chain. He runs the Pascal’s China Lens YouTube channel for 65,000 subscribers and co-hosts the Radar podcast with Peter Hinssen and Steven Van Belleghem. The argument he is making now: the rules of global business are being rewritten in Chinese, and Western companies have less time to adjust than they think. Key speaking topics China’s innovation model Geopolitical risk and US-China-EU dynamics China’s economic transition Chinese business ecosystems Supply chain de-risking and “China plus one” Generative AI in China Cross-cultural business with Chinese partners The multipolar world order Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing strategic decisions on China exposure CSOs, transformation leads, and innovation heads benchmarking against Chinese competitors COOs and procurement leaders rethinking supply chain after the end of cheap globalisation Senior leadership teams in industries where Chinese companies are moving from supplier to direct competitor (automotive, consumer electronics, retail, pharmaceuticals) Audience outcomes A clearer reading of China’s current strategic intent, separated from both the threat narrative and the market opportunity narrative Working knowledge of how Chinese innovation ecosystems generate speed and scale, drawn from named cases (WeChat, Alibaba, Haier’s micro-enterprise model, the EV supply chain) A view of which Chinese competitors and partners are most relevant to their sector, and which are noise Sharper questions for their China strategy: whether to de-risk, where to compete, where to partner, where to learn from A current map of China’s AI position relative to the US and Europe, including the policy and infrastructure context

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.