Geopolitics

Why organisations work with Parag Khanna A trilogy of books on global order, connectivity and the Asian century gives clients a coherent thesis on where capital, people and supply chains are moving, not a topical scan of headlines. Founder of AlphaGeo, which operationalises his frameworks as geospatial risk analytics for institutional investors, so the work in the room connects to a product used inside investment processes. Advised US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends programme, which sharpens the briefing for boards weighing political risk and sanctions exposure. Sits inside the Gulf and Asian capital-allocation conversation through the UAE Ministry of Economy’s International Advisory Council and a senior advisory role at Gulf Capital, giving Western audiences access to perspectives they rarely hear directly. Multi-pillar fluency on geopolitics, climate adaptation and demographic mobility means a single keynote can reframe the same investment committee on country risk, supply chain and talent strategy. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, AlphaGeo, an AI-powered geospatial analytics platform for institutional investors. Author of seven books including Connectography, The Future is Asian and MOVE, published by Random House, Simon and Schuster and W&N. PhD in International Relations, London School of Economics; BSc and MA, Georgetown School of Foreign Service. Senior Geopolitical Adviser to US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (2007); adviser to the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends programme. Named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century”. Visiting Senior Fellow, LSE Data Science Institute (2025-27); member, UAE Ministry of Economy International Advisory Council. Biography The argument that capital follows borders has stopped working. Supply chains, energy flows, migration and digital infrastructure now describe the world more accurately than the political map, and Parag Khanna has spent two decades building the data and the language to read it. His trilogy Connectography, The Future is Asian and MOVE traces that shift from theory through to the operating reality facing investment committees and corporate boards. The work sits on serious institutional ground. A PhD from the London School of Economics, two degrees from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and senior research posts at Brookings, the New America Foundation and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. He has advised US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends programme, work that informs how he handles questions on sanctions, China exposure and political risk in front of senior audiences. What separates the speaking work from the wider geopolitics circuit is that he runs the product. AlphaGeo, the company he founded and leads as CEO, turns the same geospatial and scenario frameworks into analytics used by sovereign wealth funds, pension plans and asset managers. The result is a keynote that connects a global thesis to the country, sector and asset-level decisions a board is already wrestling with. He also sits inside the conversations Western audiences rarely access directly. A seat on the UAE Ministry of Economy’s International Advisory Council, a senior advisory role at Gulf Capital, and a long working relationship with Asian governments and family offices give him a view of where Gulf and Asian capital is actually being committed, and why. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the new global macro Asia, the Gulf and shifting capital flows Supply chain restructuring and connectivity Climate-driven migration and demographic mobility Country risk for institutional investors AI-powered geospatial analytics for decision-making Scenario planning and strategic foresight Ideal for Boards and investment committees of asset managers, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds reweighting country and sector exposure CEOs and CSOs of multinationals revising supply chain, China and Gulf strategy Heads of strategy, risk and policy in financial services, energy and infrastructure Family office principals and private equity partners pricing geopolitical and climate risk into capital decisions Audience outcomes A working thesis on where capital, people and supply chains are moving over the next decade, anchored to named regions and corridors A clearer read on China exposure, sanctions risk and the Gulf and Asian counter-cycle for committee-level conversations Practical framing for how climate-driven migration and demographic shifts intersect with country risk Exposure to how leading sovereign and institutional investors are using geospatial analytics inside live investment processes

Why organisations work with Alok Sharma He chaired the negotiation that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact, working with nearly 200 governments. Few advisors can read multilateral climate dynamics from inside the chair. As Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, he is actively shaping how private capital is mobilised for transition, not commenting on it from a distance. His vantage spans Cabinet, COP, the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, Conservation International and Oxford Martin School, giving boards a single voice across policy, philanthropy, science and finance. TIME named him in the 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for his work mobilising transition finance, a credible external benchmark of current relevance. A 16-year investment banking career in London, Stockholm and Frankfurt gives him the financial fluency to discuss transition with CFOs and treasurers in their own language. Biography highlights President of COP26, Glasgow 2021, the conference that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact Former UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and previously Secretary of State for International Development Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, appointed by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation in 2025 Visiting Fellow, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Co-Chair, Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council; Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International KCMG, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to tackling climate change; created Baron Sharma of Reading, 2024; named to TIME 100 Climate, 2025 Biography The Glasgow Climate Pact was negotiated in a room with delegations from nearly 200 countries. Alok Sharma chaired that room as President of COP26. The pact, agreed in November 2021, kept the 1.5 degree goal in formal reach and pulled coal and fossil fuel subsidies into a UN climate text for the first time. Before COP, he was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and earlier Secretary of State for International Development. The route there was unusual for a climate principal: chartered accountant at Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte, then sixteen years in investment banking with Nikko Securities and Enskilda Securities across London, Stockholm and Frankfurt. That financial background sits behind his current work on capital flows. He now chairs the UK Transition Finance Council, set up by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation to make the UK a leading market for high integrity transition finance. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, Co-Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, and a Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International. TIME named him to its 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for that body of work. For boards, the value is the through-line. He has held the pen on a multilateral climate text, sat in a UK Cabinet making industrial policy, and now sits in the room where transition finance rules are being written. He was made KCMG in the 2023 New Year Honours and elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Sharma of Reading in 2024. Key speaking topics Transition finance and capital allocation under net zero Climate diplomacy and the post-Paris multilateral system Energy transition and industrial strategy COP outcomes and what they mean for corporate strategy Geopolitics of climate, including US, EU and emerging market dynamics ESG under regulatory and political pressure Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CFOs reconciling net zero commitments with capital plans Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of ESG and transition leads inside financial institutions Investor and asset owner audiences working on transition portfolios Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on climate and industrial strategy Audience outcomes A clear read of where multilateral climate policy stands after COP26 to today, from someone who chaired the room A grounded view of how transition finance is actually being structured in the UK and globally A senior-level perspective on how climate intersects with geopolitics, industrial policy and capital markets Specific signals to track for boards making transition-linked decisions over the next planning cycle

Why organisations work with Kwasi Kwarteng A first-person account of running HM Treasury during the September 2022 sterling and gilts crisis, with the candour of someone who has since written and spoken openly about what the markets did and why. Three years inside UK energy policy as Secretary of State at BEIS, including offshore wind auction reform and the Sizewell C nuclear decision, useful for any board pricing the gap between net zero ambition and capital reality. A Cambridge PhD in economic history with four published books on empire, debt and Thatcherism, giving long-cycle context to the inflation, sovereign debt and currency questions now back on board agendas. A vantage point shared by very few speakers in the market: cabinet-level decision making and post-government reflection on what political and market forces actually constrain a Chancellor. Biography highlights Chancellor of the Exchequer, September to October 2022. Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2021 to 2022. Member of Parliament for Spelthorne, 2010 to 2024; first Black Conservative MP and first Black Conservative to attend Cabinet. PhD in economic history, Trinity College, Cambridge; Kennedy Scholar at Harvard; Newcastle Scholar at Eton. Author of Ghosts of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2011), War and Gold (2014), Thatcher’s Trial (2015); co-author of Britannia Unchained (2012). Biography The September 2022 mini-budget is one of the cleanest case studies of political risk hitting a balance sheet that any boardroom will see this decade. Sterling fell to a record low against the dollar within days. Gilt yields spiked, the Bank of England intervened in the long-dated market, and a sitting government reversed almost every line of its own fiscal statement inside a month. Kwasi Kwarteng was the Chancellor who delivered it. He has since written and spoken openly about the episode, the orthodoxy he was challenging, and the market mechanics that overran the politics. That post-government candour, paired with the seat he occupied, is rare. Most former finance ministers either defend the record or disappear. He does neither. The credentials behind the role matter for serious audiences. Trinity College, Cambridge, a PhD in economic history on the 1690s recoinage crisis, a Kennedy Scholarship at Harvard, and four published books on empire, debt and Thatcher’s economic statecraft. Ghosts of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2011) reads imperial collapse as a story of individual improvisation rather than coherent design. War and Gold traces five hundred years of money, debt and speculation. The historian’s frame is what gives his account of 2022 weight beyond political memoir. His earlier ministerial brief at BEIS sits directly inside the energy transition conversation that now dominates capital allocation discussions. Annual offshore wind auction rounds, the UK’s first Innovation Strategy, and the Sizewell C nuclear funding decision were taken on his watch. For a board working through the gap between stated net zero policy and the cost of capital required to deliver it, that operational experience is unusually concrete. Key speaking topics UK and global macroeconomic policy Sovereign debt, currency and central bank credibility Energy transition and net zero policy UK politics and Whitehall decision-making Geopolitics, trade and post-Brexit positioning Empire, money and the long history of capital Ideal for Board and CFO audiences pricing political and fiscal risk into capital decisions. Energy, utilities and infrastructure leaders working through the policy-to-capital gap on net zero. Asset managers, banks and corporate treasury functions reading sovereign and currency risk. Senior public affairs and government relations teams operating across UK and EU policy. Audience outcomes A first-person read of how the September 2022 fiscal statement moved through markets and what it says about sovereign credibility today. A historian’s longer view of debt, currency and empire applied to current macro questions. Specific UK policy detail on offshore wind, nuclear and industrial strategy from inside the relevant department. A clearer mental model of how political decisions translate into balance sheet outcomes, and how quickly.

Why organisations work with John Bercow He held the Speaker’s Chair through Brexit and the most contested parliamentary period since the Second World War, and can explain why specific rulings landed the way they did. He worked alongside four prime ministers, from Blair-era Labour through Cameron, May, and Johnson, and reads cross-party Westminster dynamics with insider fluency. He authored The Bercow Report on speech, language and communication needs, a government-commissioned review that produced 40 recommendations and triggered £52 million in committed funding, evidence of policy weight beyond the Speaker’s role. He is Professor of Politics at Royal Holloway and a Fellow at Birkbeck, which gives the analysis academic discipline rather than memoir colour. He brings a confident platform voice, willing to take questions head-on, suited to senior internal audiences who want sharp answers, not diplomatic fog. Biography highlights 157th Speaker of the House of Commons, 2009 to 2019, longest-serving Speaker since Edward FitzRoy. Member of Parliament for Buckingham, 1997 to 2019, elected Speaker at the opening of three consecutive Parliaments. Author of Unspeakable: The Autobiography (Sunday Times bestseller) and Tennis Maestros (Biteback Publishing). Author of The Bercow Report on speech, language and communication needs, commissioned by the UK government. Professor of Politics, Royal Holloway, University of London; Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London. Chaired UK Youth Parliament sittings in the Commons Chamber for a decade. Biography The Speaker’s Chair in the House of Commons is one of the most exposed seats in British public life. Between 2009 and 2019, John Bercow occupied it through the financial crisis aftermath, the coalition years, the EU referendum, and the parliamentary deadlock that followed. He served alongside four prime ministers and was elected Speaker at the start of three consecutive Parliaments, a post-war first. His Brexit-era rulings reshaped the relationship between Parliament and government. In March 2019 he invoked a 1604 convention to block a third vote on the same Withdrawal Agreement, ruling the motion could not return unchanged. That September he called the proposed prorogation of Parliament a “constitutional outrage”. Constitutional scholars at Queen Mary and the Constitution Unit have since framed this period as the most significant power shift between executive and legislature since 1642. Before the Chair, Bercow was the MP for Buckingham from 1997. In 2008 he produced The Bercow Report for the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health, a 40-recommendation review of speech, language and communication services that prompted £52 million in committed funding and a National Year of Communication. He chaired UK Youth Parliament sittings in the Commons Chamber annually throughout his Speakership. He is now Professor of Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Fellow of Birkbeck, University of London. His memoir Unspeakable was a Sunday Times bestseller; Tennis Maestros, drawing on a parallel career as a coach and competitive junior, was published by Biteback. Key speaking topics UK parliamentary process and constitutional convention Westminster political risk and policy direction Brexit and its institutional aftermath The Speaker’s role and parliamentary scrutiny Public policy reform and legislative accountability Leadership and decision-making in contested arenas Ideal for Boards and executive teams with material UK regulatory or policy exposure General counsel, public affairs, and government relations leadership Financial services, professional services, and infrastructure sector leadership tracking Westminster Conferences on governance, democracy, and institutional change Audience outcomes A clearer read of how parliamentary procedure shapes UK policy outcomes that hit corporate plans. A first-hand account of the Brexit rulings and what they revealed about institutional power in Britain. Insight into how four prime ministers handled the Commons differently, and what that says about political leadership under pressure. Sharper questions to ask of in-house political risk and public affairs functions. A perspective on managing dissent, conflict, and high-stakes decisions in formal institutional settings.

Why organisations work with Richard Nugee He wrote the climate strategy that a national defence ministry now operates against. That is a different order of evidence from advocacy work; he has done the institutional translation himself. He links climate to the things boards actually argue about: supply chain exposure, energy security, geopolitical instability, capital allocation under long horizons. He carries the credibility of a Lieutenant General with operational service in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, which lands with audiences that tune out conventional sustainability messaging. He still sits inside the policy machinery. As Co-Chair of the advisory board of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security, and an advisor to the International Military Council on Climate and Security and the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, his framing reflects current government and alliance thinking. Biography highlights Lieutenant General (Retd), British Army, 36-year career in the Royal Artillery; CB, CVO, CBE; US Legion of Merit (2014) Chief of Defence People, Ministry of Defence, 2016 to 2020 Author, Ministry of Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach (March 2021); delivered a 2025 National Emergency Briefing to UK parliamentarians on climate and nature as a national security threat Co-Chair, Advisory Board, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security; former Non-Executive Director for Climate Change and Sustainability, Ministry of Defence Senior advisor, International Military Council on Climate and Security; advisor to the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the University of Oxford Climate Change & (In)Security Project Chief Executive, The Scar Free Foundation; Chair, Royal NAAFI Board Recent podcast guest on climate, food, and security, including Bloomberg’s Zero, Cleaning Up, Real Zero, and Farm Gate Leaders Biography The Ministry of Defence published its first formal climate strategy in March 2021. The author was a serving Lieutenant General who had spent the previous year inside the department turning climate from an environmental concern into a defence planning question. That strategy now shapes how UK Defence approaches emissions, estate, capability and resilience over a thirty-year horizon. Richard Nugee’s military career ran for thirty-six years in the Royal Artillery, with operational tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Cyprus and Afghanistan. As Chief of Defence People from 2016 to 2020 he was responsible for personnel policy across the armed forces, the civil service side of Defence, and the veteran community. His honours include the CB, CVO and CBE, and the US Legion of Merit for service in Afghanistan. The climate review changed his second career. He held the Non-Executive Director seat for Climate Change and Sustainability at the Ministry of Defence from 2021. He now co-chairs the advisory board of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security. He advises the International Military Council on Climate and Security, the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the University of Oxford Climate Change & (In)Security Project, and is Chief Executive of The Scar Free Foundation and Chair of the Royal NAAFI Board. What he offers commercial audiences is the discipline of a defence planner applied to climate. He talks about resource competition, supply chain fragility, infrastructure exposure and the cost of inaction in language that boards used to hearing risk papers, not green narratives. The argument lands because it comes from someone who has had to make it stick inside a department that does not tolerate vague claims. Key speaking topics Climate change as a national security risk Defence and sustainability strategy Geopolitical implications of climate Supply chain and resource resilience Net zero and capital allocation Leadership in large, change-resistant institutions Veterans, personnel and people strategy Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, ESG and net zero strategy with real capital at stake CSOs, sustainability leads and risk officers wanting to reframe climate as security and operating risk Defence, aerospace, energy and critical infrastructure organisations with exposure to geopolitical and resource volatility Leadership audiences in large, regulated or change-resistant institutions Audience outcomes A working definition of climate as a security and supply chain risk, not a compliance or PR issue Specific examples of how a national defence ministry has translated climate into planning, capability and capital decisions A sharper view of the geopolitical second-order effects of climate, from resource competition to migration to alliance pressure Language for talking about climate to audiences that are sceptical of standard sustainability framing

Why organisations work with Patrick Chappatte He has spent thirty years drawing on deadline for serious newspapers, including a two-decade run for The New York Times International Edition. That gives audiences a reading of global affairs that almost no other speaker can offer: not commentary about journalism, but the work itself, performed live. He is the only non-American to win the Overseas Press Club of America’s Thomas Nast Award, and he has won it three times. That is the senior credential in his field and it is verifiable from a named external body. He chairs the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, founded with Kofi Annan and Jean Plantu. That places him at the centre of the international press freedom conversation in a way few keynote speakers can match. His live-drawing format gives a room something it rarely has: an unrepeatable visual record of the conversation, produced in real time. It works as keynote, as conference closer, and as graphic facilitation of a leadership meeting. He brings firsthand graphic reportage from Gaza, Nairobi, Central America, death row in the United States, and Silicon Valley. The material is specific, not generic, and gives a corporate audience an honest view of issues it normally only reads about. Biography highlights In-house editorial cartoonist for The New York Times International Edition, 2001 to 2019. Three-time winner of the Overseas Press Club of America Thomas Nast Award (2011, 2015, 2018); the only non-American to have done so. Current publications include The Boston Globe, Le Canard enchaine, La Tribune Dimanche, Le Temps and NZZ am Sonntag. Honorary Doctorate from EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), awarded 2022. Named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2006. Chairs the Geneva-based Freedom Cartoonists Foundation, which awards the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award. Two TED talks: “The power of cartoons” (2010) and “A free world needs satire” (2019). Biography The New York Times stopped running political cartoons in its international edition in 2019. Patrick Chappatte had drawn there twice a week since 2001. He used the moment to argue, in a TED talk that has since been viewed millions of times, that a free press needs satire, and that the retreat from cartooning is one of the quieter signals of where public discourse is heading. That argument is grounded in three decades of work on serious deadlines. Chappatte’s drawings appear in The Boston Globe, Le Canard enchaine, La Tribune Dimanche, Le Temps, and NZZ am Sonntag. He has won the Overseas Press Club of America’s Thomas Nast Award three times, in 2011, 2015 and 2018, the only non-American to have done so. EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2022. He is also a pioneer of graphic journalism. Since 1995 he has produced long-form comics reportage from Gaza, the Nairobi slums, Central American gang territory, death row in the United States, and Silicon Valley. His 2009 work on cluster munitions in southern Lebanon became an animated documentary that aired on Swiss and French television. The Inside Death Row series, produced with the journalist Anne-Frederique Widmann for the Times in 2016, remains one of the most cited examples of the form. Chappatte chairs the Freedom Cartoonists Foundation in Geneva, founded with Kofi Annan and the French cartoonist Jean Plantu. The foundation awards the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award. For senior audiences, he draws live, in real time, against the conversation in the room, and uses that work as the basis for an argument about why visual thinking, satire, and free expression matter to organisations that operate in contested public space. Key speaking topics Press freedom and the corporate stake in free expression Visual thinking and graphic journalism Satire as a method for engaging contested issues Live-drawing keynotes and conference closers Global affairs through the lens of a working editorial cartoonist Democracy, polarisation and the limits of public discourse Ideal for Annual conferences and leadership offsites looking for a closing keynote that produces a visible record of the day Editorial, communications and brand leadership teams working through reputational risk on contested public issues Boards and senior groups examining geopolitics, democratic backsliding, and the limits of corporate speech Media, publishing and creative organisations engaging with the future of journalism Audience outcomes A clearer view of why satire and visual journalism still matter inside serious organisations, drawn from a working practitioner A live visual record of the session that can be used afterwards as a communication asset A sharper feel for how global affairs read from outside an American or Anglo-Saxon frame A grounded argument for why free expression is now a corporate risk question, not only a civic one

Why organisations work with H. R. McMaster A National Security Advisor’s view of how the United States, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea actually behave, drawn from the seat where the options are written, not from outside the room. A historian’s discipline applied to current events. His PhD-grade work on Vietnam decision-making in Dereliction of Duty is the same lens he turns on present-day strategic mistakes. Direct argument over diplomatic hedge. McMaster takes positions, names countries and policies, and explains the reasoning, which is what boards under sanctions and supply-chain pressure actually need. Thirty-four years of command experience translated into language executives use. He speaks about decision-making under contact with the enemy, not as metaphor, but as a method that maps onto leadership in volatile markets. A working policy interlocutor. Through Battlegrounds with H.R. McMaster at the Hoover Institution he is in regular conversation with serving and former heads of state, defence ministers and intelligence chiefs, which keeps his read of the system current. Biography highlights 25th National Security Advisor of the United States, 2017 to 2018. Retired US Army lieutenant general after a 34-year career; awarded the Silver Star for action at the Battle of 73 Easting in the Gulf War. Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Author of three bestsellers: Dereliction of Duty, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, and At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House. Named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People and Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leaders. Host of Battlegrounds with H.R. McMaster, the Hoover Institution’s policy interview series with serving and former heads of state and senior officials. Biography The seats where US strategy is actually written are small. McMaster has occupied two of them: command of an armoured cavalry troop in combat, and the office of National Security Advisor in the White House. That combination is what makes his read of geopolitical risk practical for boards rather than ornamental. His Gulf War record is part of the public file. As a captain in February 1991, his Eagle Troop destroyed 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers and 30 trucks at the Battle of 73 Easting in 23 minutes, without losing a soldier. He was awarded the Silver Star. He went on to command the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar in 2005 and 2006, work that informed the US shift in counterinsurgency doctrine under General Petraeus. The intellectual record runs in parallel. Dereliction of Duty, drawn from his University of North Carolina PhD, dissected how the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to challenge the political logic that produced the Vietnam War, and is still on US military reading lists. Battlegrounds, published in 2020, sets out how the United States misread China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, South Asia and the cyber domain over two decades. At War with Ourselves, the 2024 New York Times bestseller, is his account of running the National Security Council under the Trump administration. Today he is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and lectures at the Graduate School of Business. Through the Battlegrounds interview series he keeps a working line into serving heads of state, defence ministers and intelligence chiefs, which is the substantive update boards want when they ask what is actually happening between Washington, Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. Key speaking topics Geopolitical competition with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea US foreign policy and national security strategy Decision-making under uncertainty and contact Leadership in high-stakes, ambiguous environments Risk to global commerce from state-level conflict Cyber, technology and the future of national power History as a discipline for present strategic choice Ideal for Boards and executive committees stress-testing China exposure, sanctions risk, and country strategy CEOs, CFOs and chief strategy officers setting capital allocation against geopolitical scenarios General counsel, chief risk officers and heads of government affairs Defence, aerospace, energy, financial services and technology leadership audiences with direct geopolitical exposure Audience outcomes A clearer read of how the United States and its rivals actually make strategic decisions, and where that points next. A working framework for thinking about competition with China and Russia that goes beyond headlines. Sharper questions for the company’s own scenario planning, sanctions exposure and supply-chain assumptions. A historian’s perspective on why strategic mistakes repeat, applied to decisions the audience is currently making. Confidence to take a position on geopolitical risk inside the company, rather than outsourcing it to consultants.

Why organisations work with Manuel Muñiz Government office at the level where geopolitical strategy is actually written. As Spain’s Secretary of State for Global Spain, he coordinated the country’s foreign action strategy and its first national strategy on technology and global order. A scholarly frame for the technology and geopolitics intersection. His Oxford doctoral work and Brookings fellowship give boards a structured way to think about the US-China technology competition, AI, and the political economy of disruption. Institutional vantage point. As Provost of IE University and former Dean of IE’s School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs, he sits at the centre of one of Europe’s most connected platforms on global affairs. A specific argument about the social contract. His writing on populism, inequality, and the consequences of technological change gives leaders language for the political risks now landing inside their markets and workforces. Biography highlights Provost of IE University and Dean of IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs (SPEGA) Former Secretary of State for Global Spain at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution President of APSIA, the global association of professional schools of international affairs, 2023 to 2025 DPhil, International Relations, University of Oxford; MPA, Harvard Kennedy School Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, Spain (2024); David Rockefeller and Eisenhower Fellow Biography Spain’s first National Strategy on Technology and Global Order was coordinated by a vice minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs whose doctoral work at Oxford had already mapped the same terrain. Manuel Muñiz held that office from 2020 to 2021, and the strategy reflected a view he had been developing for a decade: technological change, inequality, and geopolitical fragmentation are one connected problem, not three. He now leads IE University as Provost, having previously built its School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs from a small programme into one of Europe’s most international platforms for public policy and international relations, with around 1,900 students and a faculty connected to government, multilateral institutions, and global firms. His scholarship and writing sit where most board agendas now sit: the US-China technology competition, the regulation of AI, the fracturing of the rules-based order, and the political consequences of an economy in which growth no longer reliably produces shared prosperity. Essays appear in Project Syndicate, El Pais, The Washington Post, and Le Monde. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. In 2023 he was elected President of APSIA, the international association of professional schools of international affairs, the first Spaniard to hold the role. In 2024 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, one of Spain’s senior civilian honours. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the new global order Technology, AI and great-power competition Strategic foresight for boards and governments The political economy of disruption and inequality Transatlantic relations and European security Economic diplomacy and the future of multilateralism Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to US-China competition, sanctions, or technology controls Government, foreign ministry, and multilateral audiences working on technology and global order Senior leaders in finance, energy, defence, and technology managing geopolitical risk Foundation, university, and policy convenings on democracy, populism, and the social contract Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where great-power competition is heading and what it means for capital allocation A framework for connecting technological change, inequality, and political instability inside one strategic picture A sharper sense of the policy and regulatory direction on AI, data, and critical technologies Vocabulary senior leaders can use with their own boards and governments on geopolitics and technology

Why organisations work with Maria Ressa She has tested platform governance arguments against actual prosecution, exile threats and a coordinated state-backed disinformation campaign, which gives her a clarity on digital risk that academic experts rarely match. As co-founder of the Real Facebook Oversight Board and co-leader of Columbia’s Technology and Democracy Initiative, she sits at the centre of the policy conversation shaping how governments will regulate platforms and AI. Her Nobel citation specifically named the defence of free expression as a precondition for democracy, giving leadership and ESG audiences a credible voice on information integrity as a governance issue, not a communications one. She runs a working newsroom that has documented platform manipulation in real time, so her arguments come with primary evidence rather than secondary commentary. How to Stand Up to a Dictator gives her a published thesis on the architecture of digital authoritarianism that boards and policy teams can engage with in advance of a session. Biography highlights 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, jointly with Dmitry Muratov, for work safeguarding freedom of expression. Co-founder and CEO of Rappler, the Manila-based investigative news organisation she launched in 2012. Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs; Distinguished Fellow and co-leader of the Technology and Democracy Initiative at SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics. Author of How to Stand Up to a Dictator (Harper, 2022), a New York Times bestseller, and Seeds of Terror (2003). 2021 UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize; 2018 Golden Pen of Freedom from the World Association of News Publishers. Time Person of the Year 2018; Time 100 Most Influential People; BBC 100 Women. Nearly two decades as CNN bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta; former SVP for News and Current Affairs at ABS-CBN. Biography The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize citation named freedom of expression as a precondition for democracy. It was the first time since 1935 that the prize had been given to working journalists, and the choice was not symbolic. Ressa shared it with Dmitry Muratov for a body of work that treats disinformation, platform power and the erosion of shared reality as the defining governance problem of the decade. Her vantage point is unusual. She co-founded Rappler in Manila in 2012, then ran it through years of state-backed harassment, criminal charges and an online campaign that the company itself documented in forensic detail. That experience produced a working theory of how engagement-driven platforms, weaponised by political actors, dismantle public trust and institutional legitimacy from below. The argument is laid out in How to Stand Up to a Dictator, the Harper book that became a New York Times bestseller and Princeton’s Class of 2027 Pre-read. She now sits at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs as a Professor of Professional Practice and co-leads the Technology and Democracy Initiative at the Institute of Global Politics. The role pairs naturally with her work on the Real Facebook Oversight Board, an independent body of journalists, academics and activists holding Meta to account on content governance. Earlier in her career she opened CNN’s Manila bureau, ran its Jakarta bureau through the post-9/11 years, and led news at ABS-CBN; her 2003 book Seeds of Terror remains a reference on Jemaah Islamiyah. For corporate audiences, the value sits in the bridge she builds between platform mechanics and executive decision-making. AI accelerates everything she has been documenting for a decade, and the regulatory response, in Brussels, Washington and Manila, is now arriving in the operating environment of any business with a public-facing reputation. Key speaking topics Disinformation and the integrity of the information ecosystem Platform governance and Big Tech accountability AI ethics and the future of public trust Press freedom as institutional infrastructure Democratic resilience under digital authoritarianism Leadership and moral courage in contested environments Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams reassessing reputational and regulatory risk in an AI-mediated information environment Chief Communications Officers, Chief Risk Officers and General Counsel responsible for platform exposure and disinformation response Public-sector and policy audiences working on technology regulation, democratic resilience and ESG frameworks Leadership programmes seeking a serious voice on values, courage and institutional integrity Audience outcomes A working model of how engagement-driven platforms shape public perception of organisations, leaders and policy. Direct evidence, drawn from Rappler’s own reporting, of how coordinated disinformation campaigns are designed and executed. A clear read on where AI regulation and platform accountability are heading across major jurisdictions. A sharper sense of what leadership looks like when institutional norms are under pressure, told through a Nobel-recognised case. Language and frameworks for treating information integrity as a governance issue at board level, not a communications problem.

Why organisations work with Daniel Lacalle He is one of the few macro voices who has run institutional capital at Citadel and PIMCO, which means his read on central banks, rates and currencies is shaped by position-taking, not commentary. His work on monetary policy, set out in Escape from the Central Bank Trap, gives boards a specific framework for understanding why stimulus produces weaker growth and persistent inflation rather than the recovery policymakers promise. The Energy World Is Flat anticipated the structural shift in oil, gas and commodity markets that now sits at the centre of every industrial capital plan, energy security review and net zero financing decision. He sits across the macro and the energy desk in a way almost no other economist on the speaking circuit does, which matters for any board with significant exposure to commodities, infrastructure or sovereign risk. A regular voice on CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the World Economic Forum Agenda, so the analysis a room hears in private is the analysis institutional investors are pricing in public. Biography highlights Chief Economist at Tressis SV; former Vice President at PIMCO and portfolio manager at Citadel and Ecofin Limited. Professor of Global Economics at IE Business School and lecturer at the London School of Economics. Author of Life in the Financial Markets (Wiley), The Energy World Is Flat (Wiley), Escape from the Central Bank Trap (Business Expert Press) and Freedom or Equality (Post Hill Press). Ranked among the world’s twenty most influential economists by Richtopia in 2016, 2017 and 2019, and placed fifth in 2020. Voted Top 3 in the Thomson Reuters Extel Survey for five consecutive years across generalist, oil and electricity categories. Regular contributor to CNBC, Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and the World Economic Forum Agenda, and weekly columnist for El Español. Biography Central banks have spent fifteen years running the largest monetary experiment in modern history. Boards now have to allocate capital inside the consequences. Daniel Lacalle has spent his career on the side of the trade where being wrong about the macro has a price, first at Citadel, then at Ecofin, then as Vice President at PIMCO. That experience sits underneath the books. Escape from the Central Bank Trap argues that easy money produces fragile balance sheets, asset inflation and weaker real growth, not the recovery policymakers describe. The Energy World Is Flat, written before the shale revolution remade global oil markets, set out why the assumptions priced into long-dated energy contracts no longer held. Both have moved from contrarian reading to mainstream reference inside investment committees. Since 2015 he has been Chief Economist at Tressis SV and a professor of global economics at IE Business School, with lecturing roles at the London School of Economics and IEB. His weekly commentary in El Español, his monthly slots on CNBC and Bloomberg, and his contributions to the World Economic Forum Agenda give boards a continuous read on rates, currencies, sovereign debt and energy that lines up with how institutional capital is actually positioned. The reason serious organisations book him is narrower than the topic list suggests. He is one of a small number of speakers who can sit across monetary policy and energy markets at the same time, with the credibility of having priced both inside a fund. For any board with material exposure to commodities, sovereign risk, or the cost of capital, that is the conversation that matters. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank intervention Inflation, currencies and the cost of capital Global energy markets and security of supply Sovereign debt and fiscal sustainability Macroeconomic risk and capital allocation Geopolitics and global financial markets Ideal for Boards, investment committees and CFOs reviewing capital allocation under rate and currency volatility Energy, utilities and industrial leadership teams managing commodity exposure and the economics of the energy transition Banking, asset management and family office audiences setting macro positioning Sovereign and policy audiences working on fiscal, monetary and energy questions Audience outcomes A direct read on what current central bank policy implies for inflation, rates and the real cost of capital over a multi-year horizon A defensible view of structural conditions in global oil, gas and power markets, and what they mean for industrial investment A sharper sense of where sovereign and currency risk is being mispriced, and what that means for cross-border exposure The macro framing institutional investors are actually using, expressed in language a board can act on

Why organisations work with Blanca Moreno-Dodson Direct line of sight into how the World Bank, UNOPS and European institutions actually think about fiscal stability, tax cooperation and development finance, from someone who held senior operating roles in all three. Published authority on the rewriting of international tax rules, co-author of Winning the Tax Wars (Wolters Kluwer, 2017), which sits at the centre of how governments and multinationals are reorganising around BEPS and global minimum tax. A working interpreter of Mediterranean and MENA integration, with operational experience of regional dialogue on trade, climate and migration as Manager of the Center for Mediterranean Integration. Field-tested across more than four regions, with policy assignments in the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and East Asia, which lets her speak credibly to boards with exposure across emerging markets. Bilingual fluency across English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, which makes her unusually effective in mixed-language executive rooms in Europe, Latin America and Francophone Africa. Biography highlights Lead Economist, World Bank Group, with senior roles on the Global Tax Team, West Africa Region, the Investment Climate Department and the Office of the Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. Manager, Center for Mediterranean Integration (CMI), the World Bank and UNOPS-hosted partnership based in Marseille. Director, United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), 2021 to 2023. Co-author, Winning the Tax Wars: Tax Competition and Cooperation (Wolters Kluwer, 2017); author/co-author of four other books on fiscal policy and public finance published by the World Bank and CMI. Ph.D. in International Economics and Finance, Aix-Marseille University; executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. Affiliated economist with the Economic Research Forum, the Policy Center for the New South and the Navarra Center for International Development. Biography The architecture of international taxation is being rewritten while most boards are still operating on the version that preceded BEPS. Trade rules, fiscal transfers and regional integration agreements are moving with it. Leadership teams that treat these shifts as background noise are routinely the ones surprised by them. Winning the Tax Wars, co-authored with Brigitte Alepin and Louise Otis and published by Wolters Kluwer in 2017, sits inside that argument. It maps how globalisation of trade, digitisation of the economy and tax competition between states have exposed the limits of legacy tax systems, and what governments are now constructing in their place. Earlier work, including Is Fiscal Policy the Answer? (World Bank, 2013) and Public Finance for Poverty Reduction (World Bank, 2006), gives the policy spine that runs through her thinking. The credibility comes from inside the system. Twenty-six years at the World Bank Group, including Lead Economist positions on the Global Tax Team, the West Africa Region and the Office of the Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. Then Manager of the Center for Mediterranean Integration in Marseille, the partnership hosted by UNOPS that convenes governments, financial institutions and civil society across the Mediterranean basin. From 2021 to 2023, Director at UNOPS itself. For senior audiences this matters in a specific way. She does not theorise about how multilateral institutions and tax authorities behave; she has run programmes inside them. That makes her unusually effective with boards in extractives, infrastructure, financial services and any business whose tax exposure or regional footprint is being reshaped by the new fiscal order. Key speaking topics International taxation and the post-BEPS order Fiscal policy and inclusive growth Mediterranean and MENA regional integration Public-private sector dynamics in development finance Poverty reduction and macroeconomic policy Climate, migration and regional dialogue Globalisation, inequality and the development trajectory Ideal for Boards and executive teams with material tax, trade or regulatory exposure across MENA, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America CFOs and Heads of Tax navigating the global minimum tax and shifting international tax cooperation Government, development finance and multilateral audiences working on fiscal reform, regional integration and public finance Investor and policy forums where macroeconomic, fiscal and geo-economic context shapes capital decisions Audience outcomes A clear read of where international tax cooperation is heading and what that means for cross-border business A more accurate map of fiscal policy as a driver of growth, stability and political risk in emerging economies A working understanding of how Mediterranean and MENA integration shapes trade, migration and climate exposure An informed view of how multilateral institutions actually operate, and where their decisions land on corporate strategy Sharper questions to ask of internal tax, treasury and public affairs teams about exposure to the new fiscal order

Why organisations work with Aric Dromi Nine years as an in-house Futurologist at Volvo Cars gives him an operator’s view of how a global manufacturer actually absorbs autonomous, electric and connected technology, not a consultant’s slide on it. He works across the same problem from three angles, corporate strategy, government policy and civic infrastructure, which is unusual in technology foresight and useful when a brief touches more than one of them. Founder of TEMPUS.MOTU and advisory board member at NTT Innovation Institute and UNLEASH, with a network that spans telecoms, mobility, energy and the UN Sustainable Development Goals agenda. Pushes against deck-driven strategy. His stated rule, that any strategy worth executing should fit on a napkin, lands well with executives tired of frameworks that do not survive contact with the operating business. Comfortable in uncomfortable territory. He frames himself as a “professional troublemaker” and is booked for sessions where leadership wants their assumptions stress-tested, not validated. Biography highlights Nine-year tenure as in-house Futurologist at Volvo Cars, advising on autonomous, electric and connected vehicle strategy. Founder of TEMPUS.MOTU, a strategic advisory and think tank serving corporate and public-sector clients. Advisory board, NTT Innovation Institute, the corporate research arm of NTT Group. Innovation Advisory Board, UNLEASH, the global innovation lab built around the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Earlier roles at Ericsson, Microsoft and Cellcom, where he was Chief Knowledge Officer. Author of The Intellectual Rage and The Prophet, plus further titles published under the pen name D.B. Solomon. Biography Volvo did not hire a futurologist for nine years to predict the next car. It hired one to help the leadership team work out what a car company even is once mobility becomes autonomous, electric and connected. That brief, sustained over almost a decade inside one of Europe’s most identifiable industrial brands, is the foundation of how Aric Dromi thinks. He now runs TEMPUS.MOTU, a strategic advisory and think tank that takes the same posture into other sectors. The work spans corporate strategy, government policy and city-scale infrastructure, with engagements that have included clients such as Mastercard, Siemens, Volkswagen, Telefonica, the World Bank and the IFC, alongside government work in Kazakhstan and Moscow city. His public positions reflect the same range. He sits on the advisory board of NTT Innovation Institute, the research arm of one of the world’s largest telecoms groups, and on the Innovation Advisory Board of UNLEASH, the global lab built around the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The point of those affiliations is not credentialing. It is access to the actual conversations where technology, capital and policy are being negotiated. Dromi is direct about what he is for and what he is against. He calls himself a professional troublemaker, writes books that read more like critiques than playbooks, and tells executive audiences that any strategy worth doing should fit on a napkin. Leaders book him when they want their assumptions broken in a room where it still costs less than breaking them in the market. Key speaking topics AI, automation and the future of work Autonomous and connected mobility Smart cities and urban infrastructure Data, privacy and digital governance Strategic foresight under exponential change Innovation strategy and corporate transformation Geopolitics of technology Ideal for Boards and CEOs of industrial, mobility and energy businesses are confronting AI and automation as a strategy question, not an IT one. CSOs, CIOs and heads of innovation are responsible for translating foresight into operating decisions. Government and city leaders are working on smart-city, mobility and digital infrastructure programmes. Executive offsites and leadership summits where the brief is to break orthodoxies, not confirm them. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how AI, automation and connected systems will reshape the audience’s specific industry, not technology in general. Sharper questions for the next strategy cycle, framed around capability, governance and societal licence to operate. A working sense of where corporate, policy and civic decisions intersect, and where leaders are exposed when they assume they do not. Confidence to retire foresight tools that no longer survive contact with the operating business. A direct, sometimes uncomfortable challenge to assumptions the leadership team has stopped questioning.