Geopolitics

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

Why organisations work with Levison Wood He has tested leadership and team principles under conditions where failure has a real cost, including a 4,250-mile walk along the Nile and a circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula through Iraq, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. His military background as a Parachute Regiment captain in Afghanistan gives him a working framework for decision-making under pressure that translates cleanly into commercial settings. “The Art of Exploration” sets out a usable structure on curiosity, resilience and team behaviour that boards and senior teams can apply, rather than a set of war stories. He brings a credible outside perspective on geopolitics and operating in unfamiliar environments, drawn from on-the-ground work in regions most leaders only read about. Bureau-listed clients including Bosch, Nokia, Diageo, Bank of America and Virgin indicate a track record with senior commercial audiences rather than only event circuits. Biography highlights Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Fellow of the Explorers Club, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Chancellor of Staffordshire University, installed May 2024. Honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University and the University of Nottingham. Author of bestselling titles including “Walking the Nile”, “Walking the Himalayas”, “Arabia”, “The Last Giants” and “The Art of Exploration”. “Walking the Himalayas” named Adventure Travel Book of the Year at the 2016 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards. Producer and presenter of major documentary series for Channel 4, including “Walking the Nile”, “Walking the Himalayas”, “Walking the Americas” and “Arabia with Levison Wood”. Biography The first ever expedition to walk the length of the Nile began in December 2013, in the Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda, and finished nine months and 4,250 miles later in the Mediterranean. The walker was Levison Wood, a former Parachute Regiment captain who had served in Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul, and who had decided that exploration was a more honest test of the same disciplines. What separates his work from adventure storytelling is the operating logic underneath it. Walking through Iraq, Yemen, Syria, the Empty Quarter and the Darien Gap forces specific decisions about risk, team composition, local intelligence and when to abandon a plan. Those decisions are recognisable to anyone running a complex programme in a volatile environment. He has put the framework on paper. “The Art of Exploration”, published in 2021, sets out how curiosity, resilience and small-team discipline operate when the route is unknown, and is the basis of his keynote of the same name. His other books, including “Walking the Himalayas”, which won the Edward Stanford Adventure Travel Book of the Year in 2016, and “Arabia”, treat the expeditions as case material rather than autobiography. The institutions have followed. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Explorers Club, holds honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University and the University of Nottingham, and was installed as Chancellor of Staffordshire University in May 2024. Senior corporate audiences at Bosch, Nokia, Diageo, Bank of America and Virgin have booked the same body of work. Key speaking topics Leadership under uncertainty Decision-making in complex environments Team performance and small-team discipline Resilience and recovery from setback Risk assessment and mitigation Curiosity as a leadership practice Geopolitics and operating in unfamiliar regions Ideal for CEOs and executive teams setting strategy in volatile or unfamiliar markets. Operations, transformation and programme leaders responsible for delivery under shifting conditions. Leadership development audiences in financial services, industrials and consumer businesses. Boards and senior offsites looking for an outside perspective on risk and decision-making. Audience outcomes A working sense of how experienced operators make decisions when information is incomplete and the environment keeps moving. Specific examples of how small teams hold together under sustained pressure, drawn from named expeditions across the Nile, the Himalayas and the Arabian Peninsula. A sharper view of how to identify, weigh and live with material risk rather than try to remove it. A reframed sense of curiosity and adaptability as operational disciplines, not personality traits. A vocabulary for talking about resilience that does not collapse into motivational language.

Why organisations work with Lizzy Burden She anchors Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe across television and radio, which means she walks into a room already briefed on the morning’s market-moving stories rather than the previous week’s headlines. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, so she is comfortable pressing senior figures without losing the room. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum, and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, which is the working ground of corporate and policy audiences. As a non-executive director of Creative Access, she brings genuine governance experience on diversity in the creative industries, not a topic talk borrowed for the occasion. She also writes the Readout newsletter and hosts the Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, so the same voice clients book on stage is already in their feed. Biography highlights UK Correspondent, Bloomberg TV; anchor of Daybreak Europe on Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio. Host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast and author of the Readout newsletter. Named one of MHP’s 30 Journalists to Watch. Non-executive director, Creative Access, appointed November 2023. Previously economics writer at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News; earlier graduate trainee at The Times. History graduate, University of Cambridge. Biography Bloomberg’s Daybreak Europe goes on air before most of the City has reached its desk, and the job of the anchor is to set the day’s agenda for European investors in the hour the markets need it most. That is the platform Lizzy Burden runs. She is Bloomberg TV’s UK Correspondent, the host of the television and radio editions of Daybreak Europe, the host of the daily Bloomberg UK Politics Podcast, and the writer of the Readout newsletter. The reporting record is what gives her the authority to host senior corporate and political audiences. She has interviewed the UK Chancellor, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Shadow Chancellor, FTSE 100 chief executives, Nobel laureate economists and Bank of England policymakers, and has filed from Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, the Bank of England and the Elysee Palace on monetary policy decisions, multiple prime ministerial transitions, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Brexit, the US-China trade war and the war in Ukraine. Her event work sits squarely inside that beat. She has hosted at the CBI annual conference, Chatham House, Founders Forum, the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum and the Conservative and Labour Party conferences, the venues where senior business and policy audiences gather. She came to Bloomberg via The Times graduate scheme and economics writing roles at The Telegraph and Bloomberg News, after reading history at the University of Cambridge. Outside the studio, she serves as a non-executive director at Creative Access, the organisation that works to widen representation in the creative industries. MHP has named her one of its 30 Journalists to Watch. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster Monetary policy and the Bank of England Global economic outlook Geopolitics and political risk Conference hosting and on-stage interviews Diversity in the creative industries Media and journalism Ideal for Corporate conferences and AGMs that need a credible host across politics, markets and macro-economics. Boards, leadership offsites and investor events that want a Bloomberg-grade interviewer for sessions with senior policymakers or chief executives. Industry summits and policy forums seeking a moderator who can run plenary panels and one-to-one stage interviews. DEI-focused convenings looking for a working journalist with board-level governance experience on representation. Audience outcomes A clear read of the UK political and economic stories most likely to shape the next twelve months, drawn from Bloomberg’s daily output. Sharper sessions on stage, because she briefs hard and presses guests on the questions the audience came to hear answered. A working sense of how monetary policy, Westminster decisions and global political risk connect to corporate strategy. A rare combination of macro-economic fluency and lived experience of widening representation in a creative industry.

Why organisations work with Nicholas Jeffery Four ISP CEO and COO seats across Hostmark, Worldport, PSINet Europe and Uniserve Communications, giving him a working view of what actually happens inside a telecoms or managed service business when the model shifts. A second career on the investor side as Head of Investment Planning and Strategy for the TMT Group at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where capital allocation decisions in technology and media were made across EMEA. Direct operating experience of digital transformation as a SaaS COO at VIMtrek and Vizerra, in Building Information Management and 3D virtualisation, and as the executive behind Digital Realty’s EMEA sales and marketing strategy. Co-creator of Buzzmetrics, the social media intelligence business acquired by Reed, with a forty-year line of sight across branding from 1980s corporate identity work to the current AI reset. A geopolitical voice on Central Europe through his “Danube Dispatches” column at WBN News, which gives boards with Hungary, EU or CEE exposure a senior commercial reader of the political terrain. Biography highlights CEO of Uniserve Communications Corporation from March 2017; led the listed share price from CND$0.04 to CND$0.67 within nine months of joining. European MD/COO and CEO of internet service providers including Hostmark, Worldport, PSINet Europe and Uniserve. Head of Investment Planning and Strategy, TMT Group, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). COO of VIMtrek and Vizerra, SaaS firms in architectural 3D virtualisation and Building Information Management software. Co-creator of Buzzmetrics, the social media measurement business acquired by Reed. Founding and Managing Partner of Impresario Partners International; Chairman of Ventree Innovations Inc.; author of the Danube Dispatches column at WBN News. Biography PSINet Europe was in administration when its European operations had to be rebuilt as a managed services business. Nicholas Jeffery was one of the executives who ran that kind of work across four internet service providers, including Hostmark, Worldport and, later, Uniserve Communications, where as CEO from March 2017 the listed share price moved from CND$0.04 to CND$0.67 within nine months. The unusual part of his career is that the operating CEO work sits alongside an investor seat. As Head of Investment Planning and Strategy for the TMT Group at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, he was inside the capital allocation conversations on telecoms, media and technology investments across EMEA. Boards rarely meet a single adviser who has been both buyer and operator on the same kinds of assets. The second strand of his work is brand and customer. He co-created Buzzmetrics, the social media intelligence business later acquired by Reed, ran sales and marketing strategy for Digital Realty across EMEA, and has now turned his forty-year branding line into a commentary on how AI is reshaping the discipline. The talk “Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks: A 40-Year Branding Veteran Embraces AI,” delivered at WINK 2025, sits in this strand. He works between Vancouver, Budapest, London and Kampala as Founding and Managing Partner of Impresario Partners International and Chairman of Ventree Innovations Inc. From Budapest he writes the Danube Dispatches column at WBN News, a serious commercial reader’s account of Hungarian politics and Central European risk in the run-up to the 2026 Hungarian election. He was nominated for the Global Business and Authors’ Award UK 2024. Key speaking topics Digital transformation in telecoms, media and technology businesses Branding strategy under AI Scaling, restructuring and turning around technology companies Investment strategy in TMT Building Information Management and SaaS commercialisation Central European political and commercial risk Ideal for TMT, telecoms and media company boards and executive teams running through transformation or restructuring Private equity, venture and infrastructure investors with TMT or CEE exposure CMOs and brand leaders rethinking marketing operations under generative AI Boards with Hungary, EU accession state or wider Central European commercial exposure Audience outcomes A working operator’s account of what changes inside a telecoms or SaaS business when a transformation plan meets the P&L An investor-side perspective on how TMT capital allocation decisions get made and where they fail A practical view on how the branding discipline is being reorganised by AI, drawn from four decades inside the function A senior commercial reading of Central European political risk for boards exposed to Hungary and the wider region

Why organisations work with Helen Clark Eight years running a 17,000-staff UN agency across 170 countries gives her a working view of how multilateral institutions actually function under pressure, not a commentator’s view from outside. She co-chaired the WHO Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the most authoritative post-mortem of the COVID response, presented directly to the World Health Assembly. As President of Chatham House and incoming Chair of the Gavi Board, she sits inside the live debates on global governance, vaccine financing and rules-based order that boards are now exposed to. She brings a head-of-government perspective on climate, gender equality and sustainable development that translates into how governments will actually behave on those files, not how they say they will. Biography highlights Prime Minister of New Zealand, 1999 to 2008, three successive terms; first woman elected to the office. Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the UN Development Group, 2009 to 2017. Co-Chair, WHO Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, 2020 to 2021. President, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), since 2021. Chair of the Gavi Board, the Vaccine Alliance, from January 2026. Member of The Elders and the Global Commission on Drug Policy; author of “Women, Equality, Power” (2018). Biography The institutions that govern the global system, the UN, the WHO, the WTO, the climate negotiations, the development banks, were built for a different world. They are now under pressure from great-power competition, populist politics, and constrained public finances at the same time. Helen Clark has run two of them from the inside. She served three terms as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008, the first woman elected to the office, then eight years as Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, where she also chaired the UN Development Group. UNDP under her leadership operated in around 170 countries with a budget of roughly five billion dollars and was repeatedly assessed as one of the better-performing parts of the UN system on transparency and reform. In 2020 the WHO Director-General asked her to co-chair the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The panel’s report, “COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic”, went to the World Health Assembly in May 2021 and remains the central reference document on what the global health system got wrong and what would need to change. She is now President of Chatham House and, from January 2026, Chair of the Gavi Board. Her current portfolio of roles, Chatham House, Gavi, The Elders, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, sits at the operational core of the rules-based order that boards now treat as a risk variable. That is what she brings into a leadership room: not a commentary on geopolitics, but a working sense of how the institutions inside it actually move. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the multilateral system Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 agenda Pandemic preparedness and global health governance Climate action and the politics of energy transition Women, equality and leadership in public life Open government and anti-corruption The Asia-Pacific in a contested global order Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing geopolitical and multilateral risk into strategy CEOs and CSOs leading on climate, ESG and sustainable development commitments Heads of public affairs, government relations and global policy Leadership programmes for senior women and emerging public-interest leaders Audience outcomes A grounded read on where the multilateral system retains authority and where it has lost it A clearer view of how pandemic preparedness, climate and development files will move at the UN, WHO and G20 levels A working sense of what executive leadership inside a UN agency or a national government actually requires A serious frame for the politics of gender, equality and inclusion in senior leadership

Why organisations work with Chile Eboe-Osuji Led the International Criminal Court through its most politically contested period, including the 2020 US sanctions imposed on the Court’s senior officials. He speaks from direct experience of how international institutions hold together under political pressure. Wrote End of Immunity (2024), published by Prometheus, a study of accountability for heads of state. The book traces the legal history from Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles through Nuremberg to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It gives boards and policy teams a grounded read on where prosecutions of sitting leaders are heading. Has judged at the appellate level and prosecuted at the trial level, across the ICC, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Holds academic appointments at Stanford Law School, Harvard’s Carr Center, and UCLA. Very few voices in the field speak from both the bench and the prosecution table. First ICC official, current or former, to receive the Goler T. Butcher Medal from the American Society of International Law. It is the field’s most recognised honour for contributions to international human rights law. Serves as a sitting judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice since April 2025. His commentary on international law reflects active judicial practice. Biography highlights 4th President of the International Criminal Court, 2018 to 2021; ICC judge from 2012 to 2021 Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice, sworn in April 2025 Former Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights under Navi Pillay (2010-2012); earlier senior prosecution counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, including the Charles Taylor appeals Author of End of Immunity (2024) and International Law and Sexual Violence in Armed Conflicts (2012); editor of Protecting Humanity (2010) Goler T. Butcher Medal, American Society of International Law (2022); first ICC official, current or former, to receive the honour Herman Phleger Visiting Professor at Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow at the Carr Center, Harvard Kennedy School; Paul Martin Senior Professor at the University of Windsor Biography In 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the most senior officials of the International Criminal Court, including the Court’s Prosecutor. The Court’s President at the time was Chile Eboe-Osuji. His answer was to hold the Court’s course and defend its mandate publicly, including on BBC HARDtalk with Stephen Sackur and at the Council on Foreign Relations. He came to the presidency as a career international lawyer. Earlier he had been senior prosecution counsel at the UN tribunals for Rwanda and Sierra Leone, including the Charles Taylor appeal. He then served as Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva under Navi Pillay. Elected to the ICC bench in 2011, he presided over the Kenya cases and the Gbagbo and Blé Goudé appeals before becoming President in 2018. His 2024 book End of Immunity, published by Prometheus, is the work he has been building toward across his career. It traces the legal history of head-of-state accountability from Article 227 of the Treaty of Versailles through Nuremberg to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Rules making leaders answerable for aggression and crimes against humanity rest on foundations far older than contemporary politics. Those rules matter to anyone whose organisation operates across borders. Since leaving the ICC he has taught at Stanford, UCLA, and Harvard’s Carr Center, and held the Paul Martin Senior Professorship at the University of Windsor. He was appointed to the bench of the Caribbean Court of Justice in January 2025 and sworn in that April. For leadership teams trying to understand how international law is actually read by the people who decide it, few voices carry more weight. Key speaking topics International law and the rules-based global order Accountability for heads of state and political leaders Geopolitical risk and armed conflict Sanctions, sovereignty, and state immunity Prevention of genocide and crimes against humanity The International Criminal Court and the future of international justice Ideal for Boards and executive teams at organisations operating across multiple jurisdictions Chief Risk Officers, General Counsel, and heads of political-risk functions with exposure to sanctions regimes and cross-border conflict Policy leaders and public-affairs executives at firms whose business is shaped by state action and international law Institutional investors and capital allocators pricing geopolitical risk into cross-border decisions Audience outcomes An authoritative read on where international criminal law is heading, from someone who has written both the rulings and the books A grounded sense of why state accountability, sanctions, and head-of-state prosecution are relevant to commercial decisions The vocabulary to discuss live geopolitical situations (Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa) with legal precision A direct answer to the question most boards are now asking: is the rules-based international order actually holding?

Why organisations work with Hollie McKay She has reported from inside Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Iran’s borderlands, and Myanmar, and stayed in Kabul through and after the Taliban takeover in 2021. Her geopolitical analysis is built on direct access to actors most analysts only read about. Her work documenting ISIS atrocities against the Yazidi has been used as evidentiary material in war-crimes proceedings. That standard of source verification carries directly into how she briefs corporate audiences on risk. As Research Director at GlobalStrat Ltd., she leads conflict analysis and threat forecasting for a Washington D.C. geopolitical risk firm. Her commentary appears in The Cipher Brief and the Wall Street Journal. Author of Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield, with a foreword by Jocko Willink, and the photo-led volume on the fall of Afghanistan with Jake Simkin. Both books work as primary-source material for executives trying to understand asymmetric threats. She is a 40 Under 40 Honoree of the Middle East Policy Council and a 2022 Media Fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, two credentials that signal recognition from serious foreign-policy institutions, not media bureaus. Biography highlights Investigative and international affairs correspondent for Fox News Digital for more than fourteen years, covering Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, Russia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and Latin America. Research Director, GlobalStrat Ltd., Washington D.C., leading geopolitical risk, conflict analysis, and threat forecasting. Contributing writer at The Cipher Brief on nuclear deterrence, regional conflict, and state security. Author of Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield (Di Angelo Publications, 2021) and Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule (Di Angelo Publications, 2022). 40 Under 40 Honoree, Middle East Policy Council; 2022 Media Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Honorary board member, EMERGENCY USA; human rights and cultural consultant to Infinity Ward on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). Biography Geopolitical risk has moved from an annual board paper to a live operating variable. Most of what reaches the boardroom is filtered through several analytical layers before it gets there. Hollie McKay’s work sits at the other end of that chain. For more than fourteen years at Fox News Digital, she reported as an investigative and international affairs correspondent across Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Yemen, Russia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. She embedded with US and allied forces, interviewed captured ISIS fighters, and documented sexual-violence cases against the Yazidi at the evidentiary standard used in war-crimes proceedings. When the Taliban returned to Kabul in 2021, she stayed. That body of work is now the foundation for her current role as Research Director at GlobalStrat Ltd., the Washington D.C. geopolitical risk firm where she leads conflict analysis and threat forecasting. Her commentary appears in The Cipher Brief on nuclear deterrence, Iran, and state security, and in the Wall Street Journal. Her two books, Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield and Afghanistan: The End of the U.S. Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule, are primary-source documents on how violent non-state actors behave once they hold ground. For corporate audiences, the value is specific. She translates situations most executives only read about, sanctions regimes, supply-chain choke points, the operational reality of doing business in fractured states, into briefings grounded in named actors and verifiable events. The 40 Under 40 honour from the Middle East Policy Council and the 2022 Media Fellowship at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies are markers of credibility inside the foreign-policy institutions that serious organisations rely on. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and conflict forecasting Terrorism, insurgency, and the behaviour of violent non-state actors Afghanistan after the US withdrawal and Taliban rule The war in Ukraine and Russia’s strategic posture Iran, the Middle East, and nuclear deterrence War crimes, accountability, and post-conflict justice Reporting and truth-telling under hostile-regime pressure Ideal for Boards and risk committees with exposure to Middle East, Eastern Europe, or Central Asia operations Chief Security Officers, Heads of Geopolitical Risk, and General Counsel scoping country-level threat Defence, energy, and extractives leadership teams with personnel or assets in fragile states Strategy and corporate affairs functions briefing executive committees on sanctions and political risk Audience outcomes A grounded read on how the fracturing rules-based order is reshaping country-level risk, drawn from direct reporting rather than secondary analysis Specific case material on Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iran, and ISIS that audiences can apply to their own exposure mapping A clearer picture of how violent non-state actors, sanctioned regimes, and intelligence services actually operate, and what that means for corporate decision-making Sharper questions to put to internal risk and security functions after the session

Why organisations work with Harry Broadman He has negotiated services trade for the United States inside NAFTA and the WTO, then operated those same markets from inside the World Bank and the private sector. Few speakers can carry one argument across all three vantage points. He served on CFIUS inside the White House and now advises companies on foreign investment review as a principal at WestExec Advisors, the geopolitical advisory firm. Leaders get a working read on how Washington actually screens cross-border deals. His emerging markets work spans more than 80 countries and includes book-length research on China and India in Africa, on Russia and the former Soviet Union, and on Chinese state ownership. The frameworks he uses on stage are his own. He writes a monthly business leadership column for Forbes and the national security column for the International Financial Law Review, so audiences meet a voice they may already read in named outlets. He chairs corporate boards and audit committees as an SEC-qualified financial expert and is a Board Leadership Fellow at the National Association of Corporate Directors, so he addresses directors as a peer who carries the same fiduciary exposure. Biography highlights Principal at WestExec Advisors and Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation Former U.S. Assistant Trade Representative; led services negotiations for NAFTA and the WTO Former Chief of Staff, President’s Council of Economic Advisers; CFIUS member; OPIC board member Senior World Bank roles covering China, Russia, the Balkans, and Africa Author of Africa’s Silk Road, From Disintegration to Reintegration, and The State as Shareholder SEC-qualified financial expert who chairs corporate boards and audit committees; NACD Board Leadership Fellow; monthly Forbes columnist Biography Few people have negotiated U.S. trade policy, run capital and reform programmes inside the World Bank, and then advised boards on what those same rules mean for live investment decisions. That is the career Harry Broadman has built. As U.S. Assistant Trade Representative, he led the American negotiating position on services in both NAFTA and the WTO, the framework most multinationals still operate under. He served as Chief of Staff to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the first Gulf War and the Savings and Loan crisis, sat on CFIUS, and was a board member at OPIC. From there, he moved into senior operational roles at the World Bank, working on the ground in China, Russia, the Balkans, and Africa. The research he produced in that period, including Africa’s Silk Road and The State as Shareholder, is still cited by people trying to understand how Chinese capital and state-owned firms behave abroad. Today he is a principal at WestExec Advisors, the geopolitical advisory firm, and a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. He chairs corporate boards and audit committees as an SEC-qualified financial expert, writes a monthly Forbes column, and serves as national security columnist for the International Financial Law Review. His work concentrates on the boardroom problem behind every geopolitical headline: where to commit capital, how to read foreign investment review, and how to restructure supply chains when cheap globalisation is no longer the operating assumption. For a leadership team trying to make a defensible call on China exposure, on a supply chain shift, or on a CFIUS-sensitive deal, his value is the rare combination of having negotiated the rules, supervised reform programmes that operationalised them, and now advising the corporate directors who live with the consequences. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the rules-based trading order Foreign investment review and CFIUS Emerging markets investment strategy China and India in the global economy Supply chain reconfiguration and trade policy Corporate governance under geopolitical pressure Sanctions, antitrust, and FCPA compliance for global firms Ideal for Boards and investment committees facing China, Russia, or sanctions exposure Chief Strategy Officers and Heads of Corporate Development weighing cross-border deals General Counsel and Compliance leaders working through CFIUS, antitrust, or FCPA matters Institutional investors and private equity partners deploying into emerging markets Audience outcomes A working view of how foreign investment review actually operates inside Washington A clearer read on where China and India are reshaping commercial geography, beyond headline narratives A practical lens for sequencing supply chain shifts under tariff and sanctions risk Direct exposure to a voice that has sat inside trade negotiation, multilateral finance, and corporate boards

Why organisations work with Abishur Prakash He defined the geopolitics-of-technology field early and keeps naming what comes next. His 2016 book Next Geopolitics set out a scenario framework for state competition over AI and robotics that boards are now living through. His latest, The Great Fracturing, maps the broken order they operate in today. He gives executives a working vocabulary for the new operating environment. Concepts he coined, including Vertical Globalization, Geopolitics of AI and Business Iron Curtain, name dynamics that buyers can otherwise only describe in fragments. His work at the Center for Innovating the Future has been cited by the World Economic Forum, Brookings, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, signalling that policymakers and corporates draw on the same analysis. He briefs in two registers. He has testified to the Senate of Canada and writes regularly in CNBC, Nikkei Asia, BBC, Politico, Fortune and the WSJ, so he is fluent with both heads of state and operating executives. He runs an advisory firm, The Geopolitical Business, that is built specifically for corporate decision-makers, not academic audiences. The reading frame is always: what does this mean for your next investment, supplier, market or product launch. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of The Geopolitical Business, a Toronto-based advisory firm. Author of six books, including his latest, The Great Fracturing: How Geopolitics Is Breaking the World (2026), The World Is Vertical, and Next Geopolitics Volumes One and Two. Former geopolitical futurist at the Center for Innovating the Future; represented CIF in testimony to the Senate of Canada in 2017. Work cited by the World Economic Forum, Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Bylines and commentary in CNN, BBC, CNBC, WSJ, Nikkei Asia, Reuters, Politico, Fortune, The Telegraph, Scientific American and SCMP. Coined frameworks now used in corporate strategy discussions: Next Geopolitics, Vertical Globalization, Geopolitics of AI, Business Iron Curtain. Biography The intersection of state power and corporate strategy is where most boardroom assumptions are now breaking. Export controls on chips, sanctions regimes that shift quarterly, severed supply corridors and AI rivalry between Washington and Beijing are no longer macro context. They sit on the operating P&L. Abishur Prakash has been mapping this terrain since 2013, when he first set out the case that geopolitics and technology had become a single field. Six books built that argument in stages. Next Geopolitics Volumes One and Two used scenario-based chapters to show how AI, robotics and biotech would force governments and companies into new postures. Go.AI examined the state-level race for artificial intelligence advantage. The Age of Killer Robots looked at autonomy in defence. The World Is Vertical: How Technology Is Remaking Globalization argued that the flat, integrated world of the 1990s and 2000s is being replaced by a layered, segmented one in which corporates choose blocs rather than markets. His latest book, The Great Fracturing: How Geopolitics Is Breaking the World, widens the lens from technology to the whole order. It traces how trade, ideology, connectivity and alliances are breaking into rival systems, reshaping everything from capital flows to how AI is deployed. His vantage point is built on both policy and corporate exposure. As a futurist at the Center for Innovating the Future, his work was cited by the World Economic Forum, Brookings and the UAE foreign ministry, and he testified to the Senate of Canada in 2017. He now runs The Geopolitical Business, a firm built to convert that analysis into decisions for executives, central banks and investors. His commentary appears regularly in CNBC, BBC, Nikkei Asia, the WSJ, Politico and Fortune. What boards take from him is not a worldview, but a working method. Concepts he coined, Vertical Globalization, Geopolitics of AI, Business Iron Curtain, give leadership teams a vocabulary for things they were already feeling on supply, capital and market access. The output is concrete: which corridors are closing, which blocs are forming, where the next sanction or subsidy is likely to land, and what that means for the next investment cycle. Key speaking topics Geopolitics of technology and AI US-China strategic and technology competition Vertical Globalization and the end of flat-world supply chains Sanctions, export controls and the Business Iron Curtain Scenario planning for boards and investors Long-range geopolitical foresight Bloc formation and the future of trade corridors The fracturing of the global order Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CSOs setting strategy across multiple geopolitical blocs CFOs and treasury leaders running capital allocation under sanctions and currency volatility Heads of supply chain, procurement and manufacturing footprint Investors, central banks and policy leaders responsible for long-horizon risk Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how state-level technology rivalry is reshaping their specific industry Named frameworks for describing geopolitical change inside their own strategy process Sharper questions for the next board, investment committee or supply review A view of which corridors, blocs and choke points to watch over the coming cycle Confidence to act on geopolitical risk before it becomes a balance-sheet event

Why organisations work with Trevor Williams He spent over a decade as Chief Economist at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking advising corporates, financial institutions, and SMEs, so he reads central-bank data the way a treasurer or CFO needs it read. As rotating Chair of the Institute of Economic Affairs Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, he sits inside the small group of UK economists publicly second-guessing the Bank of England, which gives boards a forecast view that is independent of sell-side consensus. He co-authored Trading Economics (Wiley, 2014), the practitioner reference on how to interpret economic statistics, so he can teach a leadership team to read the indicators rather than only react to headlines. As co-founder of FXGuard, he has built and run an FX risk product for SMEs, which means his commentary on currency and rates is grounded in operating exposure, not abstract modelling. Biography highlights Former Chief Economist, Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, leading the bank’s economics team for more than ten years. Rotating Chair, Institute of Economic Affairs Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Co-author, Trading Economics: A Guide to Economic Statistics for Practitioners and Students, Wiley Finance Series. Visiting Professor, University of Derby; lecturer at Bayes Business School and Cardiff University. Co-founder, FXGuard, an FX risk management platform for SMEs. Former member of the UK Government Economic Service; editorial board member, Journal of Corporate Treasury Management; regular columnist, Moneyfacts. Biography The Bank of England’s rate decisions, the Treasury’s fiscal stance, and sterling’s path are no longer background music for boardrooms. They are direct inputs into pricing, hedging, hiring, and the cost of capital. Trevor Williams spent over a decade as Chief Economist at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking translating exactly that data for corporate clients and financial institutions. That position made him one of the City economists most often quoted on UK growth, inflation, and monetary policy. He now chairs, on rotation, the Institute of Economic Affairs Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, the long-standing independent group that publishes a monthly counter-vote to the Bank of England’s MPC. His co-authored book Trading Economics, in the Wiley Finance Series, is built for practitioners: how to read GDP releases, inflation prints, surveys, and labour market data without being misled by them. The same instinct shapes his work as co-founder of FXGuard, an FX risk tool for SMEs, and his teaching at the University of Derby, Bayes Business School, and Cardiff University. For a board, the value is specific. Williams will not deliver a generic macro tour. He will tell a leadership team where he disagrees with current consensus on rates and inflation, why, and what that means for the next twelve to twenty-four months of capital and currency decisions. Key speaking topics UK and global macroeconomic outlook Monetary policy and central bank decision-making Inflation, interest rates, and capital allocation Foreign exchange and currency risk Economic statistics and how to read them Brexit, trade, and post-shock recovery ESG, climate, and the economics of the energy transition Ideal for Boards, CFOs, and corporate treasurers planning capital and FX strategy under rate and currency uncertainty. Banking, asset management, and insurance leadership teams pressure-testing house views on inflation and growth. Trade associations and industry forums commissioning a credible UK macro voice for annual outlook events. Finance and risk functions inside corporates exposed to FX, commodity, or sovereign-rate cycles. Audience outcomes A clear view of where current Bank of England and consensus forecasts may be wrong, and why. A working grasp of how to read inflation, GDP, and labour market releases for decision-relevant signals. Specific implications for pricing, hedging, and capital allocation under the rate and currency cycle ahead. A sharper sense of how monetary and fiscal policy interact with trade, energy, and political risk.

Why organisations work with Sally Bundock BBC News chief presenter, one of nine appointed in London when BBC News and BBC World News merged in 2023. The institutional weight comes built in. Twenty years interviewing CEOs and political figures live on international television. The fluency in how senior people speak and what they actually reveal cannot be borrowed for an event. Covered the World Economic Forum, G7, G20, and EU summits as a working reporter. The geopolitics and macroeconomics in a brief read as familiar ground. Built her early career at Bloomberg, where she created the evening programme Bloomberg Money. Finance is a fluent register for her. Named one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers by Timewise and the Financial Times, and now sits on the judging panel. Useful when the event touches flexible working or the social contract of work. Biography highlights BBC News chief presenter, fronting BBC News on BBC One and the BBC News Channel Has anchored The Briefing, Business Live, Business Today, World Business Report, and Work Life across BBC1, BBC News Channel, and BBC World News Created and presented Bloomberg Money during her tenure at Bloomberg LP from 1996 to 2002 Has reported from the World Economic Forum at Davos, G7 and G20 conferences, and successive EU summits Named one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers on the Power Part Time List compiled by Timewise and the Financial Times. Now sits on the judging panel Radio credits include Wake Up To Money on BBC Radio 5 Live and the business slot on Drive Time with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 2 Biography Live business news at 5am is one of the more demanding seats in international broadcasting. The brief is to interview the right CEO and hold a global audience through the next story. Sally Bundock has done it on the BBC for more than two decades. The credibility came up the long way. She joined Bloomberg in 1996, where she created and presented Bloomberg Money, and moved to the BBC in 2002. Twenty years on Business Live, World Business Report, Work Life, and The Briefing followed. She became one of nine chief presenters in London after the BBC News and BBC World News merger in 2023. Her beat covers the territory most boards now spend their time on: macroeconomics, geopolitics, capital markets, and the politics of trade. She has reported from Davos, from G7 and G20 conferences, and from successive EU summits. The subject matter at most senior events is not new ground. It is a Tuesday morning at work. There is also a second-track expertise. Timewise and the Financial Times named her one of the UK’s 50 most powerful part-timers in 2014, and she now sits on the panel that judges the list. That track sharpens her when an event lands on flexible working or the changing social contract between employee and employer. Key speaking topics Global economy and macroeconomic outlook Geopolitical risk and global affairs Business and finance journalism Leadership interviews and CEO conversations Future of work and flexible working Media trust in the disinformation era Ideal for Boards and executive committees convening on global economic and geopolitical risk CFO, treasury, and capital markets gatherings where the agenda is macro and the speakers are senior CHRO and people leadership audiences on flexible working and the changing social contract of work Industry conferences and high-stakes panels needing a moderator who can press a CEO without losing the room Audience outcomes A panel that lands on substance instead of safe ground, with each contributor’s actual position drawn out A reading of how the day’s macroeconomic and geopolitical story is hitting business The interview craft of a working BBC journalist applied to your senior figures Confidence that the conversation will hold its audience through to the close

Why organisations work with Ian Dunt He explains the mechanics of UK government, not the gossip: how a bill actually becomes law, where civil service capacity sits, why a policy lands or stalls. Useful to any team pricing regulatory or political exposure. His book How Westminster Works… and Why It Doesn’t became a Sunday Times bestseller and is used as a reference text by people who work in and around Parliament. That is a stronger credibility signal than a television appearance count. He brings a second, distinct intellectual track on liberalism, populism and the condition of democratic institutions, drawn from How To Be A Liberal and the Origin Story podcast. Boards thinking about long-horizon political risk get more than a UK briefing. He writes and speaks for decision-makers, not commentators. The register is direct, argued, commercially relevant, and stays away from partisan theatre. Biography highlights Columnist for The i Paper, one of the UK’s main daily political columns. Former editor of politics.co.uk, the long-running UK politics analysis site. Author of How Westminster Works… and Why It Doesn’t (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2023), a Sunday Times bestseller. Author of How To Be A Liberal (Canbury, 2020) and Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? (Canbury, 2016). Co-host of Origin Story with Dorian Lynskey, and a founding voice on Oh God, What Now? and The Bunker, all Podmasters productions. Appointed chair of the editorial board of New Humanist magazine in 2025. Biography Most UK political coverage describes the weather over Westminster. Dunt describes the building. How Westminster Works… and Why It Doesn’t, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 2023 and an immediate Sunday Times bestseller, walked readers through the actual wiring: Number 10, the Cabinet Office, the civil service, the Commons, the Lords, the party machines, and the specific failure points in each. That is the unusual thing about him as a political voice. The subject is institutions, not personalities. Before the book, a long editorship of politics.co.uk gave him the beat, and a column at The i Paper gave him the public platform he still uses. He writes in plain, argued English, not lobby shorthand, which is part of why the book crossed over from political readers to the general ones. The second strand of his work sits further back from the news cycle. How To Be A Liberal, published by Canbury in 2020, is a history of liberal thought and a defence of it against nationalism and authoritarian revival. Origin Story, co-hosted with the journalist Dorian Lynskey on Podmasters, takes that same method, trace an idea to its root, then show what it has become, across subjects from neoliberalism to conspiracy theory. It is the part of his work that serious boards find most useful when the question is not what happens next week but what kind of political environment the organisation will be operating in for the next decade. In 2025 he was appointed chair of the editorial board of New Humanist, the 140-year-old rationalist magazine, which sits comfortably inside that longer-arc intellectual project. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster governance Political and regulatory risk for business UK-EU relations after Brexit Populism and the condition of democratic institutions Liberalism, public reason, and the information environment Media disruption and misinformation Ideal for Boards, executive teams and public affairs leads exposed to UK regulatory and political risk. Risk, compliance and government relations functions inside multinationals operating in the UK and Europe. Investor and membership audiences who want a serious read on Westminster rather than a news recap. Audience outcomes A working mental model of how UK government actually produces decisions, and where it breaks. Sharper judgement on which political stories matter commercially and which are noise. A clearer view of where populist politics is driving institutional change across Europe and the UK. An informed frame for conversations with policymakers, regulators and own-government-relations teams.