Geopolitics

Why organisations work with Julian Fisher He brings a working practitioner’s account of how influence is actually built, from twenty years inside diplomatic, military and commercial intelligence operations, not a second-hand interpretation of the field. His nine HUMINT skills and six “Spy-Style” archetypes give leadership teams a shared vocabulary for the parts of executive work that usually go unnamed: reading rooms, recruiting allies, eliciting information without interrogating. He has done the corporate translation already, running security intelligence for HSBC and leading Aegis Defence Services’ Africa practice, so the material lands as commercial practice rather than war story. His book with Headline (Hachette UK) and his lead-trainer role on Channel 4’s Spies give him a public reference point that clients and audiences recognise before he walks into the room. Biography highlights Author, Think Like a Spy: Master the Art of Influence and Build Life-Changing Alliances, Headline (Hachette UK), 2024. Lead trainer, Channel 4 series Spies, 2017. Founder, Africa Integrity Services Ltd, a private intelligence boutique covering the African continent. Former Head of Africa, Aegis Defence Services. Former Head of Security Intelligence, HSBC. Former British Diplomatic Service, with operational postings in East and Southern Africa; PPE, Oxford University. Biography Influence is the part of senior leadership that rarely gets taught directly. Boards and executives are expected to win allies, read intentions and extract honest information from people whose interests do not align with theirs, without the structure of a formal hierarchy to fall back on. The intelligence world has spent decades studying exactly this problem, under conditions where getting it wrong has consequences. That is the body of practice Julian Fisher draws on. He served in a specialist branch of the British Diplomatic Service, with postings in East and Southern Africa, before running operations for Aegis Defence Services as its Head of Africa and leading security intelligence for HSBC. He later founded Africa Integrity Services, a boutique that builds human-source intelligence networks across the continent for corporate and government clients. His 2024 book with Headline, Think Like a Spy: Master the Art of Influence and Build Life-Changing Alliances, sets out the nine skills of Human Intelligence in a form designed for civilian use. The argument is that espionage at its core is relationship work: recruiting, persuading, eliciting, holding trust under strain. Fisher worked through the same material publicly as the lead trainer on Channel 4’s Spies in 2017, putting sixteen members of the public through the recruitment and assessment process. For corporate audiences he reframes that practice as a leadership discipline. Reading a room, identifying the right ally before a vote, asking the question that surfaces the real objection, holding composure in a negotiation where the other side has information you do not, these are the moments his frameworks address, and the moments that decide most senior outcomes. Key speaking topics Influence and persuasion in senior leadership Human intelligence (HUMINT) tradecraft for business Alliance-building and stakeholder negotiation Geopolitical and security risk for boards Elicitation, questioning and reading people Africa-focused political and commercial risk Resilience and decision-making under uncertainty Ideal for C-suite leadership teams and boards working on negotiation, influence and stakeholder strategy Sales, business development and partnerships leaders building long-cycle relationships Heads of security, risk and compliance briefing executive teams on geopolitical exposure Senior leadership programmes covering executive presence, persuasion and judgement under pressure Audience outcomes A practitioner’s vocabulary for the parts of leadership that usually go unsaid: recruitment, elicitation, alliance-building. The nine HUMINT skills as a working framework, not as theory, with examples drawn from real operations. The six “Spy-Style” archetypes as a tool for matching influence approach to counterpart. A sharper sense of how to ask questions, listen and hold composure when interests are not aligned. A first-hand read on how intelligence services think about risk, trust and information, applied to the boardroom.

Why organisations work with Nick Clegg He has sat on both sides of the table that defines tech policy: as the head of global affairs at Meta facing regulators, and as a head-of-government negotiator setting policy for a G7 economy. His 2025 book How to Save the Internet lays out a specific argument about how democracies, Silicon Valley and authoritarian states are pulling the internet apart, and what a workable settlement would look like. Boards get the thesis and the evidence behind it. He can map how Brussels, Washington and Beijing actually behave on AI and platform rules from direct experience of all three, not from secondary commentary. His coalition government experience gives him a working language for decision-making when no single party controls the outcome, which is the practical condition most boards now face on tech policy. Biography highlights Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 2010 to 2015, in Britain’s first post-war coalition government. Leader of the Liberal Democrats, 2007 to 2015; Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam, 2005 to 2017. President for Global Affairs at Meta Platforms, 2018 to January 2025, leading the company’s policy and regulatory engagement worldwide. Author of How to Save the Internet (Bodley Head/Penguin, 2025), Politics: Between the Extremes (2016), How to Stop Brexit (2017), and The Responsibilities of Democracy (2019, with Sir John Major). Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands, 1999 to 2004; earlier career at the European Commission. Knighted in 2018; recipient of the Financial Times David Thomas Prize, 1993. Biography The most consequential rules now shaping AI, data and the global internet are being written by a small number of governments that no longer agree with each other. Nick Clegg has worked at the centre of that argument from both sides. As Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2015, he helped run a coalition government through the eurozone crisis. As President of Global Affairs at Meta from 2018 to early 2025, he led the company’s policy engagement with the US, EU, UK, India and beyond. Few people have moved between those two seats. The combination matters because tech policy is no longer a niche regulatory file. It is a board-level question of capital allocation, market access and operational risk. Clegg’s value to a senior audience is that he understands how the political logic of Brussels, the commercial logic of Silicon Valley and the strategic logic of Washington and Beijing actually collide. His 2025 book How to Save the Internet, published by The Bodley Head, sets out the argument in full. He proposes a “digital democracies alliance” to prevent the global internet fragmenting into incompatible national systems, and he is candid about where Big Tech, including his former employer, has misread the public mood. Earlier books, including Politics: Between the Extremes and The Responsibilities of Democracy with Sir John Major, focus on coalition, compromise and democratic resilience under stress. The throughline is governance under conditions where no one is fully in charge. That is the working environment for any senior leader trying to plan around AI rules, content liability, data flows and the geopolitics of semiconductors. Clegg has been in the room when those decisions were taken, on both sides of the regulator and the platform. Key speaking topics AI policy and regulation across the US, EU and UK The geopolitics of the global internet Big Tech, content moderation and platform governance Coalition government and political decision-making under uncertainty Democratic resilience in the age of social media and AI UK and EU relations after Brexit Trust, public discourse and the future of democratic institutions Ideal for Boards and executive teams of companies materially exposed to AI, data, content or platform regulation General Counsel, Chief Policy Officers and Heads of Government Affairs in multinationals CEO and CTO audiences planning AI deployment under divergent regulatory regimes Senior public sector and policy audiences working on tech, digital and AI strategy Audience outcomes A clearer read of where AI and platform regulation is heading in the EU, US and UK over the next planning cycle A working framework for how Silicon Valley, Washington, Brussels and Beijing each think about the internet, and where their positions are converging or diverging An informed view of the argument in How to Save the Internet, including the case for a digital democracies alliance A grounded sense of how senior decisions get made inside coalition governments and inside large global platforms, from someone who has done both

Why organisations work with Andrew Marr Direct line of sight into Westminster and Whitehall built across forty years of political reporting, including five years as BBC Political Editor and sixteen years presenting the BBC One Sunday political programme. Historical context most political commentators cannot offer. His BBC One series and accompanying books on modern Britain, the making of modern Britain and the Elizabethan era are the standard popular references for how the British state and economy got to where they are. Non-partisan, on-the-record reading of UK politics that can be quoted in front of clients, regulators and international visitors. Marr has interviewed every recent UK prime minister and most senior cabinet figures. Working journalist, not a retired one. Political Editor of the New Statesman and presenter of Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, so the analysis is current to the week of the event. Equally effective as keynote speaker, interviewer and moderator. The same craft that drove fifteen years of Sunday political interviews carries into corporate fireside formats and on-stage conversation with senior leaders. Biography highlights BBC Political Editor, 2000 to 2005. Editor of The Independent, 1996 to 1998. Political Editor of The Independent before that. Presented The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One from 2005 to December 2021. Political Editor and columnist at the New Statesman, since February 2022. Presents Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC and a current affairs show on Classic FM. Author of A History of Modern Britain, The Making of Modern Britain, A History of the World, The Diamond Queen, and Elizabethans. Companion BBC documentary series accompanied most of them. BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award (2004), British Press Awards Columnist of the Year (1995), Royal Television Society Best Presenter (2008), RTS Scotland Current Affairs Award (2017). Read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, first class honours. Biography British politics has rarely moved at a pace this difficult for boards and senior leaders to track. Election cycles, fiscal reversals, the state’s relationship with business, and Britain’s position in the world are all in motion at once. Reading the signal underneath the noise is now part of corporate planning, not an adjacent interest. That is the contribution Andrew Marr brings to a corporate audience. As BBC Political Editor from 2000 to 2005, and then as presenter of the BBC One Sunday political programme for sixteen years, he interviewed every recent UK prime minister and most senior cabinet figures across two decades of British government. Few broadcasters have that continuity of access. The historical work is what separates him from other political commentators. A History of Modern Britain, The Making of Modern Britain, and Elizabethans, each a Sunday Times bestseller with a major BBC television series alongside it, gave a generation of British readers their working picture of how the country got from 1945 to now. The BBC series for A History of Modern Britain won a BAFTA. He left the BBC at the end of 2021 and now writes as Political Editor of the New Statesman, presents Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, and a current affairs programme on Classic FM. The journalism is current to the week. Awards include the BAFTA Richard Dimbleby (2004), British Press Awards Columnist of the Year (1995), and Royal Television Society Best Presenter (2008). He read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, with first class honours. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster British government and policy Modern British history and national identity UK economic policy and the state Elections and the political cycle Media and public life Scotland and the union Ideal for Boards and executive committees of UK and international businesses with material UK exposure Senior partner and client events for professional services firms hosting clients on UK affairs Annual conferences and leadership offsites seeking a credible on-the-record political read Event organisers needing a senior moderator or interviewer for political and economic sessions Audience outcomes A clear, non-partisan read on where UK politics is heading in the next political cycle Historical context for current political and economic shifts, traced back to identifiable turning points in post-war Britain An informed sense of how Westminster, Whitehall and the Treasury actually interact on the issues that matter to business A sharper picture of the UK’s standing internationally and what that means for British operations and investment

Why organisations work with Sandra Navidi She wrote the book on how the financial elite actually operates. SuperHubs maps the people, institutions and personal networks that move capital and policy, and gives a board a working model of where systemic risk concentrates rather than a list of headlines. She is a member of Columbia University’s Center on Capitalism and Society, founded by Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps, which gives her line of sight to academic research on capitalism, innovation and inequality alongside her practitioner work. Her second book, Future IQ, treats AI as a workforce and strategy question, not a technology demo. That makes her unusually well placed to take a board through the macro and the AI conversation in a single session. Bilingual delivery in English and German, paired with two decades of n-tv commentary, gives DACH and transatlantic audiences a speaker who works natively in both regulatory and cultural contexts. A licensed attorney in New York and Germany with prior roles in investment banking, fund counsel work and macro advisory at Roubini Global Economics. The credential stack maps directly to the rooms she is asked to speak in. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of BeyondGlobal, a New York-based strategic advisory firm. Author of SuperHubs, a Bloomberg Best Book of the Year and 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards Silver Medal winner. Author of Future IQ: Your Success Strategies in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Die DNA der USA: Wie tickt Amerika. Member of the Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University. LinkedIn Top Voice (Executive Blue Badge) and long-standing n-tv (RTL) expert commentator on business and politics. Co-host of the Biz and Beyond podcast with Ulrich Reitz, interviewing senior decision-makers and international experts. Biography The 2008 financial crisis exposed something most risk frameworks had missed. The shocks did not travel through markets in the abstract; they travelled through a small, interlocking network of bankers, regulators, central bankers and policy figures who knew each other personally. SuperHubs, written with a foreword by Nouriel Roubini, is the book that mapped that network and named it. It was selected as a Bloomberg Best Book of the Year and won a Silver Medal in the 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards. Sandra Navidi spent the years before that book inside the rooms she went on to describe. She worked as an investment banker, as general counsel at Muzinich and Co., as a Deloitte consultant, and then as a director of research strategies at Roubini Global Economics, where she briefed clients on macroeconomic and geopolitical risk. She is admitted to the bar in New York and Germany, holds an LL.M. in banking, corporate and finance law from Fordham, and is a member of Columbia University’s Center on Capitalism and Society, founded by Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps. Her second book, Future IQ, takes the same network thinking into the AI conversation. It treats AI as a workforce and capital-allocation problem, not a technology demonstration, and asks how individuals, organisations and economies stay relevant when machine intelligence absorbs more of the cognitive work. It is the bridge between her macro authority and the questions boards are now being asked by their own people. Through BeyondGlobal she advises corporates, financial institutions and ultra-high-net-worth clients; through n-tv (RTL) and the Biz and Beyond podcast she keeps a working line into German and European business audiences. The result is a speaker who can move between Washington-style macro analysis, frankfurt-style risk culture and a Silicon Valley AI brief inside the same keynote, in either English or German. Key speaking topics Systemic risk and the architecture of global finance Geopolitics, sanctions and transatlantic exposure AI as a strategy and workforce question Macroeconomic volatility and capital allocation Future-proofing leadership and human capital US political and economic intelligence for European boards Ideal for Boards and executive committees of banks, asset managers and insurers CEOs, CFOs and CROs in globally exposed corporates Family offices and private wealth platforms with cross-border allocation decisions DACH and transatlantic leadership audiences requiring bilingual delivery Audience outcomes A working mental model of where systemic risk concentrates in the global financial system, named by institution and actor. A clearer read on how geopolitical fracture, sanctions and US policy shifts reach their own balance sheet. A practitioner view of AI as a capital and workforce question, not a tooling debate. A briefing on what US business and political dynamics mean for European strategy in the next cycle.

Why organisations work with Julie Etchingham She has run the room when the stakes were national. Moderating the head-to-head ITV debate between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer on 4 June 2024, and every ITV leaders’ debate since 2015, is the reference point clients book against when they need a chair who can hold senior figures to a question. She is a working anchor of ITV News at Ten, not a former one. The political, regulatory and geopolitical stories that affect a board agenda are the stories she is reading, writing and presenting that evening. She brings a documented record on hard reporting. Her ITV Tonight and Exposure work on modern slavery, including Britain’s Secret Slaves filmed in the UK, Nigeria and Italy, won her access to the Vatican and to Pope Francis, whom she was the first British broadcast journalist to interview. She carries the rare credential of being the first woman to win the RTS Television Journalism Presenter of the Year, an award she has now won twice, alongside London Press Club Broadcast Journalist of the Year. Biography highlights Anchor of ITV News at Ten since January 2008, alongside the relaunch with Sir Trevor McDonald. Moderator of the ITV Leaders’ Debate at the 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024 UK general elections, including the Sunak v Starmer head-to-head on 4 June 2024. Presenter of ITV’s Tonight current affairs strand from 2010 to 2022; reporter for ITV’s investigative strand Exposure, including Britain’s Secret Slaves on modern slavery. Royal Television Society Television Journalism Presenter of the Year in 2010 (first woman to win) and 2016; London Press Club Broadcast Journalist of the Year, 2016. President of the Women of the Year Lunch and Awards since 2018; Pro-Chancellor of Birmingham Newman University from October 2023. Cambridge graduate (Newnham College, English); earlier career at BBC (Newsround, Midlands Today, BBC Breakfast News) and Sky News, where she anchored coverage of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and the 7/7 London attacks. Biography The ITV debate studio on 4 June 2024 was the only place a UK prime minister and the leader of the opposition were going to share a stage in front of voters that election. Julie Etchingham chaired the hour live. She had done the same job at every ITV leaders’ debate since 2015, when she became the first woman to moderate a UK general election debate, and again in 2017, 2019 and across the 2022 Conservative leadership contest. That body of work sits on top of a journalism career. Etchingham has anchored ITV News at Ten since the programme’s relaunch with Sir Trevor McDonald in January 2008, and earlier presented Sky News through major breaking stories, including live coverage from Thailand after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and on air as the 7/7 attacks unfolded in London. From 2010 to 2022 she presented ITV’s Tonight current affairs programme, with reporting for the Exposure investigative strand including Britain’s Secret Slaves, filmed across the UK, Nigeria and Italy on modern slavery. The recognition is on the record. The Royal Television Society named her Television Journalism Presenter of the Year in 2010, the first woman to win the award, and again in 2016. The London Press Club named her Broadcast Journalist of the Year the same year. She was the first British broadcast journalist to interview Pope Francis, and has since moderated conferences at the Vatican on modern slavery under his patronage. For corporate audiences, the offer is practical. She moderates leadership conferences, chairs panels and runs on-stage interviews with the same craft she uses in a debate studio, with a working knowledge of UK politics, elections and the media environment around them. The president’s chair at the Women of the Year Lunch since 2018 and the Pro-Chancellorship of Birmingham Newman University from October 2023 are the institutional version of that same role. Key speaking topics UK politics and general elections Conference moderation and on-stage interviewing Leadership communication under public scrutiny Media, public trust and the information environment Modern slavery and human rights reporting Awards hosting and high-profile event chairing Ideal for Annual leadership conferences and partner summits needing a chair who can run a serious agenda with senior political or business figures on stage. Investor days, AGMs and policy forums where the on-stage interview format requires a journalist who knows the brief. Awards dinners and major institutional events where the host carries credibility with the audience. Boards and executive committees using a private session to pressure-test communications around a political or regulatory moment. Audience outcomes A working read on the UK political cycle and the elections, regulatory shifts and media stories most likely to land on the agenda. A sharper sense of how leaders are scrutinised in front of a national audience, drawn from years of moderating debates with prime ministers and party leaders. A different quality of on-stage conversation when Etchingham is chairing: speakers pushed past talking points without losing the room. Specific reference points from front-line news anchoring and investigative work used to illustrate rather than decorate the argument.

Why organisations work with Matt Frei A working journalist who covers the stories shaping board agendas in real time, from the Russo-Ukrainian war and US elections to European political instability, not a retired commentator looking back Two International Emmys, two Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year awards, a Peabody and a duPont-Columbia, awarded by named industry bodies for the specific reporting he is asked to talk about Native fluency in three of the political systems senior audiences need to understand: Washington, Brussels and Berlin, built across thirty years as Bonn, Washington and Europe correspondent A broadcaster’s command of a room that translates directly into chairing, moderating and interviewing principals at executive forums, not only keynote delivery The 2022 Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcast Journalism, given by the British Journalism Review, recognises a body of work, not a single moment Biography highlights Channel 4 News presenter and Europe Editor; previously Washington Correspondent for Channel 4 from 2011 BBC Washington Correspondent 2002 to 2011 and presenter of BBC World News America 2007 to 2011 Earlier BBC postings as Bonn Correspondent through German reunification, Southern Europe Correspondent through the Balkan wars, and Asia correspondent based in Hong Kong and Singapore Two International Emmys for News, Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year in 2015 and 2017, Peabody Award 2010, duPont-Columbia Award 2011, Prix Bayeux Calvados 2000 Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcast Journalism, British Journalism Review, 2022 Author of Getting the Boot: Italy’s Unfinished Revolution (1995) and Only in America (2008) Saturday morning host on LBC since 2016 Educated at Westminster School and St Peter’s College, Oxford Biography The frontline of the Russo-Ukrainian war, the West Wing during a Trump presidency, and the European chancelleries that hold the alliance together are three rooms that look very different from a boardroom in London or Frankfurt. Frei has reported from all of them, often in the same year, and explains them in terms a senior audience can act on. His career covers the political shifts that now define corporate risk. As BBC Bonn Correspondent he covered German reunification. As Southern Europe Correspondent he reported through Bosnia and Kosovo. From 2002 to 2011 he was BBC Washington Correspondent and presented BBC World News America, anchoring coverage through the Iraq war, the financial crisis and the Obama transition. He moved to Channel 4 in 2011 as Washington Correspondent and is now the network’s Europe Editor. The substance of his work has been recognised by the bodies that judge it most carefully. Two International Emmys, two Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year awards, a Peabody, a duPont-Columbia and the Prix Bayeux Calvados sit alongside the British Journalism Review’s 2022 Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contributions to Broadcast Journalism. He is also the author of Only in America, a book-length argument about the United States written from inside the Washington press corps. For corporate audiences he operates in two registers. He delivers keynote analysis on geopolitics, US politics, Europe and the war in Ukraine, drawn from current reporting. He also chairs and moderates panels and interviews principals on stage, the same craft he applies on Channel 4 News and on LBC every Saturday morning. Key speaking topics Geopolitics US politics and the transatlantic relationship The Russo-Ukrainian war European political risk Economic Trends & Global Markets Conference moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning a geopolitical and US-politics briefing for an offsite or strategy day CEOs and CCOs needing an experienced broadcaster to chair an external-facing forum or moderate a principal interview CHROs and internal communications leaders running a leadership conference where a recognised on-air presence sets the tone Investor and client events that need a sharp interpreter of macro-political risk on stage Audience outcomes A current read of the political dynamics in Washington, Kyiv, Berlin and Brussels from a journalist actively reporting them A clearer sense of which geopolitical headlines materially affect strategy and which are background noise Specific anecdote and detail from inside the rooms most senior audiences only see filtered through wires A professionally moderated session where the speaker, panel or interview lands as intended

Why organisations work with Lewis Goodall He covers UK politics daily from inside the story, not from the academic perimeter, which means his read on Westminster, Whitehall, and the parties is current rather than retrospective. His investigative work on the 2020 A-level algorithm helped force a national policy reversal and earned an Orwell Prize nomination, which is a specific, verifiable proof of judgment under pressure. He co-hosts The News Agents, the British Podcast Awards 2023 Best Daily Podcast, giving him a working command of how political narrative is set, contested, and consumed. He has reported across Brexit, four general elections, and successive prime ministers, and can translate that pattern recognition into clear implications for regulated and public-facing sectors. His book Left for Dead? on the modern Labour Party is a serious piece of political analysis, not a media memoir, which gives boards confidence that the on-air voice is backed by genuine intellectual work. Biography highlights Analysis and Investigations Editor at Global, the parent company of LBC and Classic FM. Co-host of The News Agents with Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel, winner of Best Daily Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2023. Presenter of Sunday with Lewis Goodall, LBC’s flagship Sunday political programme. Former Policy Editor of BBC Newsnight and former political correspondent at Sky News. Author of Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party (William Collins, 2018). Orwell Prize nominee in 2021 for investigative reporting on the A-level grading scandal. Biography The 2020 A-level grading scandal began as a technical story about an algorithm. It became, in part because of sustained reporting by Lewis Goodall at BBC Newsnight, a national policy reversal and a case study in how data systems fail in public administration. That work was nominated for an Orwell Prize in 2021 and remains the clearest illustration of what he does on a working day. His route to that story is unusual for British political journalism. He read History and Politics at St John’s College, Oxford, worked as a policy researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and moved into broadcasting via Sky News and then Newsnight. The policy training is visible in how he frames questions, which is closer to a regulatory analyst than a Westminster reporter. In 2022 he left the BBC to help launch The News Agents, the daily news podcast he co-hosts with Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel. It won Best Daily Podcast at the 2023 British Podcast Awards. He also presents Sunday with Lewis Goodall, LBC’s flagship Sunday politics programme, and serves as Analysis and Investigations Editor at Global. His book Left for Dead?: The Strange Death and Rebirth of the Labour Party (William Collins, 2018) traces the collapse of New Labour and the rise and fall of the Corbyn project. For boards exposed to UK political risk, the value of his perspective is concrete: he reads the parties, the policy machine, and the press as a single connected system, and he reports on it every day. Key speaking topics UK political risk and regulatory direction The state of the Labour and Conservative parties Elections, polling, and electoral realignment Brexit’s continuing economic and policy aftermath Public policy formation in Whitehall Investigative journalism and algorithmic accountability The UK media landscape and political narrative Ideal for Boards and executive teams in regulated sectors needing a current read on UK political risk. Public affairs, policy, and corporate affairs leaders briefing C-suites on electoral and regulatory direction. Financial services, energy, and infrastructure firms with material exposure to UK government policy. Annual conferences in politics, economics, and current affairs that need a serious working journalist on stage. Audience outcomes A working read on the current state of UK politics from someone inside the daily news cycle. A clearer view of how regulation and policy are forming inside Whitehall, not just announced. Pattern recognition on elections, party direction, and the signals worth tracking. A more critical read of the media stories shaping public and political opinion. Better questions to take back to internal political risk and public affairs functions.

Why organisations work with Beth Rigby Direct access to a current Westminster lens. As the sitting Political Editor of Sky News, she reads the UK political environment from inside the lobby, not from archive material. Named recognition from a credible body. Royal Television Society Political Journalist of the Year 2024 and inaugural Women in Journalism Woman of the Year 2024, both for her general election coverage. A track record of interviewing under pressure. She has questioned successive Prime Ministers on the record, including the exchange with Boris Johnson on Downing Street parties that the RTS shortlisted for Network Interview of the Year. On-stage interviewer and moderator craft. She hosts Beth Rigby Interviews and the Electoral Dysfunction podcast with Harriet Harman and Ruth Davidson, formats built on drawing out senior figures from across the political spectrum. Non-partisan reading of UK politics for commercial audiences. Useful in board meetings, leadership offsites and client events where the audience needs analysis, not opinion. Biography highlights Political Editor, Sky News, since April 2019. First woman in the role. Royal Television Society Political Journalist of the Year, 2024. Inaugural Woman of the Year, Women in Journalism Awards, 2024. Co-host, Electoral Dysfunction (Sky News), with Harriet Harman and Ruth Davidson. Presenter, Beth Rigby Interviews (Sky News), since March 2022. Former Deputy Political Editor of the Financial Times; former Media Editor of The Times. Biography Westminster has rarely been more consequential for commercial decision-making, and rarely harder to read. Two elections in five years, a referendum, three Prime Ministers in 2022 alone, and a sustained period in which policy direction and political stability have moved week by week. Beth Rigby has covered all of it from inside the lobby as Political Editor of Sky News, the first woman to hold the role. Her route into the job is unusually commercial for a Westminster journalist. She spent seventeen years at the Financial Times, covering hedge funds, retail and consumer industries before moving to political coverage as chief political correspondent and then deputy political editor. That grounding in business and markets reporting is why corporate audiences find her analysis useful. She reads UK politics through the same lens a board does. In 2024 the Royal Television Society named her Political Journalist of the Year, citing her general election coverage and her interviewing of party leaders. The same year she won the inaugural Women in Journalism Woman of the Year award. She also hosted Sky’s televised town hall events with Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak during the 2024 campaign, a format that depends on holding senior politicians to specific answers in real time. Alongside her on-air role she co-hosts the Sky News podcast Electoral Dysfunction with the former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman and the former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, a cross-party format aimed at explaining the mechanics of Westminster decisions rather than scoring them. That same dynamic is what makes her effective as an on-stage interviewer for senior audiences: she pushes for the substance, not the soundbite. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster General elections and government formation Political risk and policy environment Geopolitics and UK foreign policy Media, broadcast journalism and political communication On-stage interviews with senior leaders and politicians Conference and event moderation Ideal for Board offsites, leadership conferences and partner events where senior audiences need a current read on UK political risk. Client events that require an experienced interviewer for a politician, regulator or business leader. Industry conferences seeking a non-partisan moderator for political and policy panels. After-dinner or fireside-format events where the value is informed analysis of the current Westminster cycle. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of the current Westminster dynamic and its implications for the next twelve to twenty-four months. A non-partisan read of UK policy direction across the main parties. Specific insight into the people, factions and decisions that shape government output. For interview and moderation briefs, a session that draws genuine substance from the guest rather than a rehearsed line.

Why organisations work with Macer Gifford He has built two functioning units from nothing, a Combat Medical Unit with Kurdish forces in Syria and Operation Golden Hour in Ukraine, both still saving lives. That is a rare proof point on creating capability under pressure. He has fought alongside Kurdish and Syriac forces against Islamic State and now serves as a reconnaissance infantryman and medic in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion’s 131st Battalion. The material is firsthand, not interpreted. His talks translate combat decision-making into language a board, a transformation team or a frontline manager can actually use, without the bravado that typically comes with the genre. He brings credible standing on two of the defining conflicts of the era, with published work in The Spectator and The Telegraph and regular appearances on BBC, CNN, MSNBC and Channel 4. He is the author of “Fighting Evil” (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, foreword by Andy McNab), a sustained piece of writing about why an ordinary person chooses to act when most do not. Biography highlights Volunteer fighter with the Kurdish YPG and a Syriac Christian unit in Syria, mid-2015 to 2017, including the Manbij offensive and the siege of Raqqa. Founder of a Combat Medical Unit with Kurdish forces in Syria, still operational, and of Operation Golden Hour, a battlefield first-aid training programme for Ukrainian and international volunteers. Reconnaissance infantryman and medic with the Ukrainian Foreign Legion’s 131st Battalion and the International Cossacks Expeditionary Force; awarded a medal by the Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Author of “Fighting Evil: The Ordinary Man who went to War Against ISIS”, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, with a foreword by Andy McNab. Contributor to The Spectator and The Telegraph; regular interviewee on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Channel 4, ITV, Sky News and LBC. Reading for a Master’s in Security, Peace-building and Diplomacy at Loughborough University London. Biography A foreign exchange trader from Cambridge with no military background flew to northern Syria in 2015 and joined the Kurdish YPG. Over the next three years, that decision became one of the longest tours by any British international volunteer in the war against Islamic State, ending at the siege of Raqqa. The interesting question is not why he went, it is what he learned about command, fear and group cohesion when the people around him were untrained, frightened and being killed. Out of that experience came a Combat Medical Unit, built from nothing with Kurdish forces, that still operates in north-east Syria. He repeated the pattern in 2022. Ten days before Russia’s full-scale invasion he was on the ground in Ukraine, and within weeks he had launched Operation Golden Hour, a battlefield first-aid programme that has trained domestic and international volunteers across the conflict. He now serves as a reconnaissance infantryman and medic with the 131st Battalion, was decorated in connection with the liberation of Kherson, and writes about the war for outlets including The Spectator and The Telegraph. His memoir, “Fighting Evil”, carries a foreword by Andy McNab and sits alongside regular appearances on BBC, CNN, MSNBC and Channel 4. For an organisation thinking seriously about leadership when the systems break, the practical question is simple: who actually has done it, and can explain it. Gifford can. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under extreme uncertainty Building teams and capability from scratch in hostile conditions Courage, fear and individual moral choice Frontline lessons from Syria and Ukraine Humanitarian action and combat medicine in conflict zones The fight against Islamic State and the war in Ukraine Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and CEO forums focused on resilience and crisis decision-making Transformation, change and operations leaders dealing with high ambiguity and human risk Defence, security, NGO and public-sector audiences working in unstable environments Conferences and dinners that need a serious, firsthand voice on the conflicts shaping the decade Audience outcomes A direct account of how trust, command and morale actually function when conditions deteriorate A practical view of how small groups build capability quickly when no system supports them A frame for thinking about courage and individual responsibility that does not collapse into cliche A clear-eyed sense of what is happening on the ground in Syria and Ukraine, from someone still serving there

Why organisations work with Narendra Taneja Reads global energy from an Indian and Global South vantage point that Western commentary routinely misses, particularly on the gap between developed-world decarbonisation timelines and emerging-economy growth needs. Holds standing in both academic and policy worlds: Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and Chairman of the Independent Energy Policy Institute in New Delhi. Speaks directly into the operator and investor audience he has worked alongside for over two decades, having served as Founder President of the World Oil & Gas Assembly between 2001 and 2011. Carries advisory weight across multilateral energy forums, with seats on the ONS International Advisory Board in Norway and the Energy Intelligence Group’s Advisory Board in the United States. Tested in the highest-pressure broadcast formats, including BBC HARDtalk and CNN’s Amanpour, where energy claims have to survive cross-examination. Biography highlights Chairman, Independent Energy Policy Institute, New Delhi Distinguished Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies Founder President, World Energy Policy Summit; former Founder President, World Oil & Gas Assembly (2001 to 2011) International Advisory Board member, ONS Foundation (Norway) and Energy Intelligence Group (United States) Former National Convener of the BJP Energy Cell and former National Spokesperson for the BJP Regular contributor to BBC HARDtalk, CNN’s Amanpour and major Indian and international media Biography India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and third-largest electricity producer. It is also among the most climate-exposed major economies, with historical cumulative emissions far below those of the United States or China. The global energy transition will not be solved by Western timelines alone, and the implications run through New Delhi. Narendra Taneja works the seam between rich-world and emerging-economy energy systems. He is Chairman of the Independent Energy Policy Institute in New Delhi and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. That dual standing puts him inside the academic debate on transition and inside the policy machinery that has to act on it. His operator credibility is older. He was Founder President of the World Oil & Gas Assembly from 2001 to 2011, the decade energy moved from sector concern to the centre of foreign policy. He now leads the World Energy Policy Summit and holds advisory seats on the ONS International Advisory Board in Norway and the Energy Intelligence Group in the United States. His public reach is unusual for a policy specialist. He served as National Convenor of the BJP Energy Cell and as National Spokesperson for India’s governing party, with direct line of sight into one of the world’s largest energy markets. He appears regularly on BBC HARDtalk and CNN’s Amanpour. He is widely cited as a powerful voice on the energy question between rich and developing economies, a position most international commentary still struggles to hold. Key speaking topics Energy geopolitics and global energy systems Energy security and supply dynamics Energy transition policy across Global North and Global South Oil and gas markets in a decarbonising world India’s energy strategy and global role Geopolitics of climate policy Political risk in emerging market energy Ideal for Energy and utilities boards weighing transition strategy and capital allocation Investors and asset managers with cross-border exposure to oil, gas and renewables Government and policy audiences engaging with India and the wider Global South International business forums analysing geopolitical risk in energy markets Audience outcomes How Global North decarbonisation timelines collide with Global South growth imperatives, and what that means for capital allocation Where political risk actually sits inside the energy transition, by region and asset class A working view of India’s energy strategy and its implications for global supply and capital flows Sharper questions to ask before approving long-horizon energy investment or partnership decisions

Why organisations work with K D Adamson She has named and framed the shift. Her concept of “nobleization” – the argument that the next phase of business is not globalisation but morally accountable, purpose-led value creation – gives leadership teams a precise, shareable thesis rather than a trend briefing. She challenges the techno-optimist default from a position of intellectual rigour. When AI, automation and digital transformation dominate the conversation, Adamson’s argument that tomorrow is a value problem, not a technology problem reframes the strategic question at board level. This is a harder case to make but her broadcast record on BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN and the Financial Times confirms it holds up under interrogation. Her “Seismotectonic” model gives leaders a practical foresight tool, not just a perspective. The three-movement framework of what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, what appears not to change at all is actionable in strategic planning contexts and transfers directly from a keynote into workshop and executive briefing formats. Her client base spans sectors where the future-of-value argument has immediate strategic urgency including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, and PwC, which gives her the commercial credibility to speak to mixed leadership audiences without being narrowed to a single industry vertical. Her ecocentrist positioning is analytically distinct. Placing ecological systems rather than human enterprise at the centre of value creation is not rhetorical positioning. It is the foundation of her ESG and circular economy arguments, and it produces conclusions that differ meaningfully from those of speakers whose sustainability work begins and ends with reporting frameworks. Biography highlights Founder and former CEO, Futurenautics Group; former Futurist, The Futures Agency Author of Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), the foundational foresight text on digital transformation in the shipping and maritime industry Broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, Financial Times, Al Jazeera, Channel News Asia, and BBC R4 Today Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts; stated member of Chatham House, The Aristotelian Society, the Society of Antiquaries, CERN Open Quantum Institute, and the International Society for the Circular Economy Global client roster includes Google, Airbus, Mastercard, CHANEL, Allianz, PwC, Deloitte, Capgemini, Rolls-Royce, Vodafone, Oracle, and Pfizer Biography The thesis K D Adamson has built over two decades is a direct challenge to the most widely held corporate assumption about the future: that it is, above all, a technology problem. In a landscape where most foresight is organised around what AI, automation, or quantum computing will do to a given industry, Adamson argues that what actually determines where organisations end up is what they believe about value, about purpose, and about who business is ultimately for. Her concept of “nobleization” names this argument precisely. Where globalisation provided the operating logic of the late twentieth century, Adamson contends that the defining shift of the current era is from a global business to a noble one, where ESG, the circular economy, and purpose-led strategy are not peripheral compliance exercises but the competitive architecture of the world arriving. The implication for leadership is significant: the strategic planning tools built for the previous era are no longer sufficient guides. Adamson founded and led Futurenautics Group, where her work on the digital transformation of the shipping and maritime industry made her the sector’s authoritative futurist – a standing substantiated by Shipping and the 800-lb Gorilla (2017), which set the analytical agenda for how one of the world’s most conservative global industries understood its own disruption. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a regular broadcast commentator for BBC World News, Bloomberg, CNN, the Financial Times, and Al Jazeera, which means her frameworks are tested in real time against the hardest current questions, not only in controlled conference settings. Her “Seismotectonic” model of change, mapping three simultaneous rates of disruption: what changes rapidly, what changes slowly, and what appears not to change at all, gives senior teams a working tool for strategy under deep uncertainty. It is this combination of named intellectual frameworks, commercial range across clients including Google, Airbus, Mastercard, and CHANEL, and the ecocentrist perspective that places ecology rather than enterprise at the centre of value analysis, that separates Adamson from speakers covering adjacent territory. Key speaking topics Future of business value and sustainable transformation The limits of techno-optimism ESG as competitive strategy, not compliance Geopolitics and the end of globalisation AI: belief, systemic risk, and organisational response Leadership beyond control Strategic foresight and scenario planning Ideal for C-suite and board audiences navigating how to reframe business strategy as stakeholder expectations, geopolitical pressures, and ecological imperatives converge Chief Sustainability Officers and strategy leads responsible for translating ESG from reporting obligation into organisational design Global leadership conferences convening senior executives across multiple sectors and geographies, where a macro-systemic perspective is required rather than a sector-specific one Executive leadership teams of multinationals at significant inflection points – where the question is not only operational but concerns organisational identity and the long-term logic of value creation Audience outcomes A named conceptual framework, “nobleization”, for articulating why business strategy must move beyond profit primacy, framed as competitive logic rather than ideology Clarity on why the next wave of disruption is a value problem rather than a technology problem, and what that distinction means for strategic planning and capital allocation A working model for reading simultaneous, differently-paced change: the Seismotectonic framework, applicable in strategy sessions and scenario planning processes A more rigorous way to frame AI risk: focused on collective belief and systemic dependency rather than technical capability alone Greater confidence in articulating an alternative vision of organisational purpose to boards, investors, and internal leadership audiences

Why organisations work with Graham Weale Nine years as Chief Economist of RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, through the sharpest phase of the Energiewende. Few speakers have read the transition from inside a utility of that scale. Active academic output on the questions boards are asking now, including a 2023 Energy Policy paper on whether energy-only markets can remunerate investment and a 2024 EnWZ piece on hydrogen supply contract design. Cross-border fluency in European energy policy through the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine, the German-French Office for Energy Transition, and advisory work for the Energy Transitions Commission. Used as an expert witness in natural gas and power arbitration, which sharpens the precision he brings to contract structure, price review, and regulatory risk. Comfortable translating between the energy-intensive industry lens (through VIK) and the utility and investor lens. Useful when a room contains both sides of the decarbonisation cost argument. Biography highlights Honorary Professor of Energy Economics and Politics, Ruhr University Bochum (Centre for Environmental Management, Resources and Energy). Chief Economist, RWE AG, 2007 to 2016. Senior Advisor, Energy Transitions Commission, 2017 to 2018. Former Director of European Energy Services, Global Insight (now S&P Global), 2000 to 2007. Steering Committee member, Chaire European Electricity Markets, Universite Paris-Dauphine. Published in Energy Policy, Intereconomics, Oxford Energy Forum, EnWZ, and the Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law. Biography European power markets were designed in a world of predictable demand and marginal-cost dispatch. That world has gone. The question now is how to remunerate the flexible capacity a decarbonised system needs, and whether the current market design can fund it without another round of state intervention. This is the terrain Graham Weale has worked in for four decades, first as a practitioner and now as an academic. The operator credentials are specific. Weale was Chief Economist at RWE AG, Germany’s largest power producer, from 2007 to 2016, the years in which the Energiewende reshaped the economics of thermal generation. Before that he ran European Energy Services at Global Insight, and earlier worked at ExxonMobil in supply and refining. His training spans physics at Oxford, an MSc in Systems Engineering, and an MBA. The academic record sits alongside the operator one. As Honorary Professor at Ruhr University Bochum, he has published on power market remuneration in Energy Policy, on hydrogen contract design in EnWZ, and on European power market reform in Intereconomics. He advised the Energy Transitions Commission under Adair Turner between 2017 and 2018, and sits on the Steering Committee of the CEEM chair at Universite Paris-Dauphine. That combination is useful in specific rooms. Boards deciding whether to sign a long-term hydrogen offtake, investors pricing capacity market risk, or policymakers weighing the next iteration of electricity market design get someone who has sat on both sides of the problem and still writes about it for a living. Key speaking topics Power market design and capacity remuneration Industrial decarbonisation and the economics of electrification Hydrogen contracts, supply chains, and the European hydrogen ramp-up German Energiewende and EU Green Deal implementation Natural gas markets and price review arbitration Energy geopolitics after the Ukraine invasion Nuclear, renewables, and the zero-carbon generation mix Ideal for Utility, grid, and generation boards setting capital allocation under decarbonisation targets. Infrastructure funds and institutional investors pricing European power and hydrogen assets. Energy-intensive industrial leaders (steel, chemicals, cement) planning decarbonisation roadmaps. Policymakers and regulators working on market design, capacity mechanisms, and hydrogen frameworks. Audience outcomes A clear view of where European power market design is heading and what that means for long-term generation investment. A realistic read on hydrogen: which use cases will scale, which contracts are bankable, and what the European ramp-up actually requires. Sharper framing of the political-economic risk attached to Energiewende-style transitions, drawn from inside a major utility. Specific vocabulary for talking to boards and investors about carbon pricing, capacity mechanisms, and industrial decarbonisation. A defensible basis for stress-testing internal energy transition plans against the economics, not only the targets.