Geopolitics

Why organisations work with Enda Kenny He ran a national economy through its deepest post-war crisis and handed it over as the fastest-growing in the EU, with unemployment below 5 percent and full market access restored. He chaired the Council of the European Union during the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework negotiation, which gives him a working view of how Brussels, the Parliament, and national capitals actually reach agreement. He called and won the 2015 marriage equality referendum, the first national vote of its kind anywhere, and built the Citizens’ Assembly model that other democracies now study. He sits inside the Global Leadership Foundation alongside former heads of state and chairs the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital, so his current reading of Europe is informed by active advisory work rather than memoir. Biography highlights Taoiseach of Ireland, March 2011 to June 2017; first Fine Gael Taoiseach in history to be re-elected. Leader of Fine Gael, 2002 to 2017, the longest tenure of any leader in the party. Chaired the Council of the European Union during Ireland’s 2013 Presidency, delivering agreement on the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework, Erasmus+, and a negotiating mandate for TTIP. Elected to Dail Eireann at age 24 in 1975, re-elected in every subsequent general election until his retirement in 2020. Chair of the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital and its Impact Ireland fund. Member of the Global Leadership Foundation; recipient of the Golden Victoria European of the Year (2012) and the inaugural Trinity European Laureate Award (2025). Biography Ireland entered 2011 in an EU-IMF assistance programme with unemployment above 15 percent and sovereign borrowing rates near distressed levels. Six years later the country was the fastest-growing economy in the European Union, with rates on ten-year borrowing at zero and unemployment under 5 percent. Enda Kenny was Taoiseach for all of it. He led Fine Gael for fifteen years, the longest tenure in the party’s history, and became the first Fine Gael Taoiseach to win re-election. The substance of the government’s work was fiscal stabilisation, bank restructuring, and the orderly exit from the troika programme; the political work was holding a coalition together while doing it. In 2013 he chaired the Council of the European Union during Ireland’s Presidency, brokering the 960 billion euro Multiannual Financial Framework, the Erasmus+ settlement, a negotiating mandate for TTIP, and reforms of the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies. The same government called the 2015 marriage equality referendum, the first national vote anywhere to legalise same-sex marriage, and established the Citizens’ Assembly as a deliberative route for constitutional questions. He now chairs the Global Advisory Council of VentureWave Capital and its Impact Ireland fund, sits within the Global Leadership Foundation alongside other former heads of state, and in 2025 received the inaugural Trinity European Laureate Award from Trinity College Dublin and Teneo for his contribution to European ideals. Key speaking topics European Union governance and the politics of the single market Economic recovery and fiscal stabilisation after crisis Political leadership in coalition and minority government Sovereign market confidence and investor relations Constitutional reform and citizen deliberation Ireland, the UK, and the post-Brexit settlement Impact investment and national economic strategy Ideal for Boards and executive committees of firms with material European exposure Financial services, asset managers, and sovereign-facing investors Policy, regulatory, and public affairs conferences focused on Europe CEO forums and leadership programmes addressing crisis and recovery Audience outcomes A working account of how a national government executes fiscal consolidation without losing the coalition or the electorate A first-hand read on how Brussels, the European Parliament, and national capitals actually negotiate multi-year budgets A clear view of the political mechanics behind the 2015 marriage equality vote and the Citizens’ Assembly model A sharper sense of where Ireland and the wider EU sit in the transatlantic relationship after Brexit Direct reflections on what holds under pressure when a country is being asked to take painful decisions quickly

Why organisations work with Enrico Letta He authored the defining European policy document of the decade. The Letta Report, commissioned by the European Council in 2024, now frames every serious conversation in Brussels on capital markets, industrial strategy, and the Savings and Investments Union. He has run a G7 government. Leaders in a room with him get a view of European decision-making from inside the Council chamber, not from a commentator’s distance. He sits at the centre of the institutional network that matters. President of the Jacques Delors Institute, Dean at IE University, former Dean at Sciences Po: the same network that produces the people who will implement what he has proposed. He brings a defensible point of view on the one question boards cannot answer on their own. What European reform will actually ship, and what that means for capital allocation, M&A strategy, and regulatory exposure in the next three years. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Italy, April 2013 to February 2014, leading a national unity coalition. Author of “Much More Than a Market,” the April 2024 report to the European Council on the future of the EU Single Market. Dean, IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs, IE University, Madrid. President, Jacques Delors Institute, Paris, since 2016. Former Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po, 2015 to 2021. Commander of the French Legion of Honour; Gran Cruz of the Order of Civil Merit, Kingdom of Spain. Biography The Letta Report landed on the European Council’s desk in April 2024 and changed the terms of the argument. Commissioned by EU heads of state and written by a former Prime Minister of Italy, “Much More Than a Market” proposed a Savings and Investments Union, a Fifth Freedom for research and innovation, and a Single Market designed for scale rather than fragmentation. It is now the reference document for every serious policy file in Brussels touching capital markets, industrial strategy, and competitiveness. Enrico Letta ran a G7 government through one of the most difficult passages in recent Italian politics, serving as Prime Minister from April 2013 to February 2014 at the head of a national unity coalition. Before the premiership he held portfolios for European Affairs and for Industry, Commerce and Crafts, and sat in the Chamber of Deputies across multiple terms. The experience gives him a particular kind of authority: he has written policy and he has had to deliver it against a political calendar. He now anchors the European institutional network from the inside. As Dean of the IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs at IE University, Madrid, and as President of the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris since 2016, Letta works at the intersection of policy formation and executive education. He was Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po from 2015 to 2021 and served as President of APSIA, the Washington-based association of professional schools of international affairs. The recognition is from the institutions that matter to the argument. France made him a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 2017. Spain awarded him the Gran Cruz of the Order of Civil Merit. He chairs the Diplomatic Forum of GESDA in Geneva and speaks in English, French, and Italian. For a board trying to understand where European policy is going, few speakers can say, with evidence, that they have written the document everyone in the room will be working from. Key speaking topics European Union policy and strategic direction The future of the EU Single Market Capital markets, the Savings and Investments Union, and European competitiveness European industrial strategy in a US and China context Transatlantic relations and geopolitical positioning for European business Coalition government and political decision-making at the national level Ideal for CEOs, CFOs, and boards of multinationals with material EU exposure weighing capital allocation against regulatory direction. Heads of European public affairs, government relations, and regulatory strategy at financial institutions, industrial groups, and technology platforms. Investment committees, asset managers, and private equity leadership teams tracking the Savings and Investments Union and capital markets reform. University, think-tank, and policy audiences working on European integration and transatlantic relations. Audience outcomes A specific read on which elements of the Letta Report are likely to move through the Council and Parliament, and on what timeline. A clearer view of how European industrial strategy is repositioning against US and Chinese competition, and what that implies for cross-border M&A and supply chain strategy. A sharper grasp of the political mechanics inside the European Council, from someone who has sat at that table as a head of government. A framework for thinking about European competitiveness that goes beyond the usual binary of Brussels versus national capitals.

Why organisations work with Ernesto Zedillo He has run a major economy through a currency crisis and a peaceful democratic transition, and can speak to macroeconomic decision-making with first-hand authority rather than commentary. He directs Yale’s globalization programme, which gives his reading of trade policy, capital markets and multilateral institutions an analytical base that short-horizon geopolitical speakers cannot match. His service on The Elders, the Group of Thirty and the Global Commission on Drug Policy puts him inside the rooms where international policy is actually debated, not outside them. Twenty years of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble mean he understands how boards translate geopolitical risk into capital allocation, and speaks to corporate audiences in their terms. He is the architect of Progresa, the conditional cash-transfer model later adopted from Brazil to New York City, which gives him a credible track record on social policy design as well as macro policy. Biography highlights President of Mexico, 1994 to 2000, following senior roles as Secretary of Education, Secretary of Economic Programming and the Budget, and Deputy Director of the Central Bank of Mexico. Frederick Iseman ’74 Director of the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, with professorships in International Economics and Politics and at the Yale School of the Environment. Member of The Elders, the Group of Thirty, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, and the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. Independent Director of Citigroup (since 2010), Alcoa (2002 to present in current form) and Procter and Gamble (2001 to 2019); international advisory board member at BP. Editor of influential volumes including Trade in the 21st Century (2021), The Future of Globalization (Routledge, 2008), Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto (Brookings, 2008) and Reforming the United Nations for Peace and Security (2005); Forbes columnist, 2001 to 2007. Recipient of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom from Fear Award, the Berkeley Medal, Yale’s Wilbur Cross Medal, and honorary degrees from Yale, Harvard and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, among others. Biography Mexico entered 1995 with a collapsing peso, dollar-denominated short-term debt the government could not roll over, and an incoming president six weeks into office. The policy response shaped how emerging-market crises have been handled since. Ernesto Zedillo led that government, and six years later handed power to an opposition candidate in the country’s first democratic transition of the modern era. That experience sits behind the work he has done at Yale since 2002, where he directs the Program for the Study of Globalization at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. The programme has produced a stream of edited volumes on the live questions in trade, climate policy, UN reform and drug policy, with Zedillo as editor and author. His Forbes column ran for six years. His reading of globalization is not theoretical; it is built on governing through one of the defining episodes of the era and staying close to the policy conversation ever since. What makes him useful to corporate audiences is the combination of that academic base with two decades of independent directorships at Citigroup, Alcoa and Procter and Gamble. He has sat on the audit and risk side of multinational boards through the 2008 crisis, the rise of trade friction with China, and the reorganisation of supply chains. He knows how geopolitical analysis translates, or fails to translate, into capital decisions. He continues to serve on The Elders, the Group of Thirty, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s work on planetary health. He was the architect of Progresa, the Mexican conditional cash-transfer programme that Brazil, Colombia and dozens of other governments later adapted. The range matters because the argument he brings to a board or executive audience is not a topic briefing. It is a view of where the international system is heading from someone who has governed inside it, taught it, and helped steer large companies through it. Key speaking topics Globalization and the future of the international trading system Macroeconomic policy and emerging-market risk Geopolitical shifts and multilateral institutions US-Mexico relations and North American economic integration Climate policy and international cooperation Social policy design and conditional cash-transfer programmes Global governance reform Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences weighing country risk, trade exposure and cross-border capital allocation Financial services, industrial and consumer-goods companies with significant emerging-market or Latin American footprints CEO forums, investor conferences and policy gatherings that need a credible read on globalization and geopolitical risk Public sector and multilateral audiences working on trade policy, development finance or social policy design Audience outcomes A sharper read on what the unwinding of the post-1990 trade order means for corporate strategy A direct account of how a government actually makes decisions during a currency and debt crisis, and what that implies for today’s sovereign risk A realistic view of where multilateral institutions still function and where they do not An informed perspective on US-Mexico economic relations and North American supply chain strategy A grounded framework for thinking about social policy design, drawn from the Progresa experience

Why organisations work with Ewald Nowotny A first-hand account of ECB Governing Council decision-making across the sovereign debt crisis, the negative-rate era, and the start of unconventional policy unwind, by someone who voted in the room. Cross-institutional perspective most central bankers cannot match: ECB Governing Council, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, CEO of BAWAG P.S.K., and a chair of the Austrian Parliament’s Finance Committee. An economist’s framework, not a commentator’s view. Three decades as a full professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business, with nine books and a standard public finance textbook in its fifth edition. A direct read on European political economy and the durability of the euro, from a participant who was inside the German-Austrian bloc on the Council during its most contested years. Biography highlights Governor, Oesterreichische Nationalbank, and member of the ECB Governing Council, 2008 to 2019. Vice President, European Investment Bank, 1999 to 2003. CEO, BAWAG P.S.K. Group, 2006 to 2008. Full Professor of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, 1981 to 2008; Vice Rector for Finance, 2003 to 2005. Member of the Austrian National Council, 1978 to 1999; Chair of the Finance Committee, 1985 to 1999. Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur (2017); Honorary Member, SUERF. Biography The eurozone has spent fifteen years inside policy regimes most boards were not built to read. Sovereign debt crisis, negative rates, asset purchase programmes, and the start of policy normalisation each redrew the cost of capital and the political settlement around it. Ewald Nowotny was inside the room where those decisions were taken. As Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank from 2008 to 2019, he sat on the ECB Governing Council through every one of those phases. He voted on the response to the Greek crisis, on the launch of large-scale asset purchases, and on the policy stance that defined European credit conditions for a decade. His public commentary, captured across BIS speech archives and central banking media, tracked the substantive arguments inside the Council rather than the headlines outside it. Before the central bank, his career covered the institutions that shape European capital flows from different angles. He served as Vice President of the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg from 1999 to 2003, then as CEO of BAWAG P.S.K. Group during a period of acute restructuring at the Austrian bank. Earlier, he chaired the Finance Committee of the Austrian Parliament for fourteen years. The academic standing is the second axis. He held a full professorship at Vienna University of Economics and Business for almost three decades and co-authored the standard German-language textbook on public sector finance, now in its fifth edition. He was made Chevalier of the French Legion d’Honneur in 2017 and is an honorary member of SUERF, the European Money and Finance Forum. Key speaking topics Eurozone monetary policy and the future of the euro ECB decision-making and central bank independence European banking regulation after the financial crisis Sovereign debt and fiscal policy in the EU Macroeconomic outlook and global capital markets Public sector finance Ideal for Boards and audit committees stress-testing capital and treasury assumptions against European monetary policy CFOs, group treasurers, and CIOs in banking, insurance, and asset management Public-sector and supranational audiences working on EU economic governance Senior policy and corporate-affairs leaders engaging with European institutions Audience outcomes A working account of how the ECB Governing Council weighs price stability against financial stability, from someone who voted on those trade-offs. A clearer view of what is structural versus cyclical in eurozone politics, including the German-Austrian fiscal stance and its likely persistence. Specific reference points for reading future ECB decisions: which arguments tend to win on the Council, and which signals matter. Context on the European Investment Bank and the EU’s supranational lending architecture as a tool of policy and capital allocation.

Why organisations work with Fabrice Pothier He helped architect NATO policy from the inside – including the Readiness Action Plan and Smart Defence – which means he reads alliance decisions not as headlines but as the output of processes he built and operated within. As current pro-bono advisor to President Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s long-term security guarantees, he brings live, first-hand insight into the most consequential European security negotiation of the past decade. Through Rasmussen Global, he advises multinational businesses and sovereign governments in parallel – giving him an unusually precise map of where geopolitical risk meets commercial and operational exposure. He co-founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity – working alongside Joe Biden, Michael Chertoff, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen – giving him demonstrable authority on the intersection of democratic stability, technology, and political risk. He publishes strategic analysis through the IISS and is regularly featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Politico Europe – his public work is tested against the institutions that sophisticated senior audiences use as benchmarks. Biography highlights CEO of Rasmussen Global, the political consultancy founded by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen; advises multinational businesses and sovereign governments on geopolitics, European policy, and strategic risk Former NATO Director of Policy Planning (2010-2016) under two successive Secretary Generals; credited with the Readiness Action Plan, the Defence Capacity Building Initiative, and Smart Defence, and with drafting Secretary General speeches for the Munich Security Conference and articles for Foreign Affairs Founding Director of Carnegie Europe, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Brussels centre, which became one of Europe’s leading foreign policy think-tanks Consulting Senior Fellow for Defence Policy and Strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS); regular contributor to the IISS journal Survival Co-founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity alongside Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Michael Chertoff, and Joe Biden Pro-bono advisor to President Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s security guarantees and Euro-Atlantic integration; central to the Kyiv Security Compact, endorsed by G7 and formalised as the Ukraine Compact at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington Testified before the UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee; featured in Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Politico Europe, and Washington Post; advisory board member, LSE Ideas Transatlantic Programme Biography Fabrice Pothier spent six years at the centre of NATO’s policy architecture as Director of Policy Planning, serving under both Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Jens Stoltenberg. The Readiness Action Plan, the Defence Capacity Building Initiative, and Smart Defence all bear his influence. He also drafted landmark speeches and articles for the Secretary General at the Munich Security Conference and in Foreign Affairs – a role that placed him at the intersection of alliance strategy and its public communication. That operational depth sets him apart from analysts who study alliance dynamics from the outside. He worked on the policy levers directly – advising successive Secretary Generals through NATO’s response to the Libya crisis, the 2014 Ukraine crisis, and a period of fundamental re-evaluation of European security. When he discusses how NATO makes decisions, he is describing a process he ran. Since 2015, he has led Rasmussen Global – the advisory firm founded by Anders Fogh Rasmussen – becoming CEO in 2022. He currently serves as pro-bono advisor to President Zelenskyy on Ukraine’s long-term security guarantees and Euro-Atlantic integration. That role made him central to the Kyiv Security Compact, which became the foundation of a G7 joint declaration at the 2023 Vilnius Summit and was formalised as the Ukraine Compact at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington. He also co-founded the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity alongside Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Michael Chertoff, and Joe Biden. Before NATO, he founded Carnegie Europe, establishing it as one of Europe’s leading foreign policy think-tanks. He holds a Consulting Senior Fellowship at the IISS, publishes in Survival, and is regularly featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Politico Europe. He has testified before the UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee and holds an advisory board position at the LSE Ideas Transatlantic Programme. Key speaking topics European security and defence architecture NATO strategy and transatlantic relations Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy The Russia-Ukraine war and Euro-Atlantic integration Election integrity, disinformation, and democratic resilience Scenario planning for geopolitical disruption EU politics and the reshaping of the European order Ideal for Boards and C-suites of multinationals with European or transatlantic market exposure Chief Risk Officers, Chief Strategy Officers, and public affairs leaders in global organisations Government, defence, and public policy conferences on European security and alliance strategy Financial and professional services firms with exposure to geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A working understanding of NATO’s decision-making architecture and how alliance dynamics translate into business and political risk Clarity on the trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine war and its medium-term implications for European security and market conditions A framework for distinguishing high-signal geopolitical risk from noise when making strategic investment or operational decisions Context on the structural state of transatlantic relations and how shifts in US-European alignment affect organisations operating across both Practical insight into the threat landscape around election interference and disinformation, and what democratic resilience means for organisations operating in politically volatile environments

Why organisations work with Fatima Bhutto New Kings of the World (Columbia Global Reports, 2019) is a named, published, field-reported analysis of how non-Western cultural industries are displacing American soft power globally, giving leaders a specific, documented argument rather than a trend observation, backed by original reporting across three continents. Her personal biography; granddaughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s first democratically elected prime minister, and daughter of parliamentarian Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed by police in 1996, means her analysis of democratic fragility, political violence, and state power comes from inside those systems, not from a research library. As host of Reframe on Al Jazeera, she has conducted on-record interviews with heads of state and senior political figures, including former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, placing her among interlocutors of consequence rather than commentators at a remove. Her track record across the Financial Times, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Foreign Policy, and Granta, as well as her current column at Zeteo gives her geopolitical analysis a verifiable, editorially scrutinised body of work that self-published commentary cannot replicate. Selected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2012 (one of 192 from 59 countries), she holds credibility simultaneously in Global South contexts and at the international forums where Western business leaders set agendas; a pairing that is genuinely rare on the geopolitics circuit. Biography highlights Author of seven books published by Oxford University Press, Jonathan Cape, Penguin, Columbia Global Reports, and Simon & Schuster, spanning poetry, memoir, fiction, and narrative reportage New Kings of the World (Columbia Global Reports, 2019) received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews and was reviewed by the Financial Times as «razor sharp»; described by Shelf Awareness as a «starred» account of a fundamental shift in global pop culture The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (Penguin, 2013) longlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction; Songs of Blood and Sword (Jonathan Cape, 2010) a critically acclaimed memoir of Pakistani politics and political violence Host of Reframe on Al Jazeera (2024-2025), interviewing senior political figures including former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2012), one of 192 from 59 countries Writing published in the Financial Times, The Guardian, Granta, The New Statesman, and Foreign Policy; current columnist for Zeteo; BA from Barnard/Columbia University, MA in South Asian Government and Politics from SOAS Biography Bollywood is the world’s largest film industry by output. Turkish dizi, a form of serialised drama, reaches 200 million viewers across 43 countries. South Korean K-pop commands fan communities on six continents. Fatima Bhutto’s New Kings of the World (Columbia Global Reports, 2019) was among the first serious analyses to document what this redistribution of cultural power means for the assumptions that sit beneath most global business strategy. Her argument is specific: American soft power was not dismantled by geopolitical rivals, but outpaced by cultural industries that offered billions of consumers something Hollywood could not; familiarity, traditional values inside modern formats, and aspirational content that matched their actual self-image. The book drew on original reporting, exclusive interviews with figures including Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, and field research across India, Turkey, and South Korea. The Financial Times called it «razor sharp.» Kirkus gave it a starred review. Fatima came to this argument through a life lived inside the geographies that Western strategy tends to flatten into abstractions. Born in Kabul and raised between Damascus and Karachi, she holds an MA in South Asian Government and Politics from SOAS and has reported from Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Cuba, and Israel. Her personal biography also gives her analysis of political risk a dimension that institutional research rarely carries. She is the granddaughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s first democratically elected prime minister, executed in 1979. Her father, Murtaza Bhutto, was an elected parliamentarian killed by police in Karachi in 1996. Her memoir Songs of Blood and Sword (Jonathan Cape, 2010) is as much a document of democratic fragility and state violence as it is a personal narrative. Her recent work has widened the frame. As host of Reframe on Al Jazeera (2024-2025), she has interviewed heads of state and senior political figures on record, including former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. Her writing appears in the Financial Times, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Granta, and Foreign Policy; she is a current columnist for Zeteo. Her 2026 memoir The Hour of the Wolf, published by Simon & Schuster, extends her work on power, coercion, and resilience into the personal register. Key speaking topics Western soft power and the rise of non-Western cultural industries Geopolitics of the Global South Democracy, political violence, and state fragility Women’s leadership in contested political environments Cultural identity in a multipolar world Press freedom and the politics of narrative South Asia and the Middle East Ideal for Senior leadership teams and boards navigating global market expansion in South Asia, the Middle East, and emerging economies Risk and strategy functions managing political instability, fragile democracies, and governance uncertainty in developing markets CHROs and DEI leads seeking perspectives on women’s leadership and voice from outside the Western corporate tradition International relations, communications, and policy teams at multinationals with significant exposure to the Global South Audience outcomes A specific, field-reported framework for understanding how cultural power has redistributed away from the West and what this means for where aspiration and consumer loyalty are actually formed A sharper reading of identity, aspiration, and brand relevance in South Asian, Middle Eastern, and emerging market contexts A more precise vocabulary for assessing political risk in environments where Western governance assumptions do not apply A first-hand account of navigating political violence, state failure, and democratic collapse that reframes organisational resilience beyond its corporate usage A challenge to the premise that Western cultural norms remain the universal benchmark for influence in global markets

Why organisations work with Federica Mogherini Five years as the EU’s most senior diplomat, chairing the Foreign Affairs Council and running the European External Action Service across the Crimea sanctions, the Iran deal, Brexit, the Trump transatlantic shift and the early phase of EU-China strategic recalibration. As the EU High Representative, she coordinated and chaired the multilateral negotiations that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran’s nuclear programme, then chaired its Joint Commission, the operational reference point for what a complex multilateral agreement looks like in practice. Author of the 2016 EU Global Strategy, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe, the document that frames how the European Union still describes its place in the world and its relationship with the United States, China and its neighbourhood. A former national foreign minister and former NATO Parliamentary Assembly delegate, which means she can speak with equal credibility on EU institutional dynamics and on member-state and alliance politics. Biography highlights High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, 2014 to 2019. Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, 2014, in the Renzi government. Member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, 2008 to 2014, and head of the Italian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Coordinator and chair of the E3+3 negotiations that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, finalised July 2015 and endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Co-Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement, 2020 to 2021. Holds honorary doctorates from the University of Tampere, the University of Surrey and the University of Tirana, and has been recognised with the Hessian Peace Prize, the Kaiser Otto Prize for European unity, and Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Second Class. Biography For five years from November 2014, every formal EU position on Iran, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, the Western Balkans and the transatlantic relationship was coordinated through one office. Federica Mogherini ran it. As High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, she chaired the Foreign Affairs Council, led the European External Action Service and represented the Union at the United Nations, NATO and the G7. The defining file of that tenure was Iran. After twelve years of EU-led negotiation, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was finalised in July 2015 and endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231. Mogherini then chaired its Joint Commission, the body responsible for monitoring implementation, including through the Trump administration’s withdrawal in 2018. Alongside that, she developed and launched the 2016 EU Global Strategy, Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe, the framework that still shapes how Brussels describes its strategic interests in a multipolar order. Before the Commission role, she had served as Italian Foreign Minister in 2014 and as a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2008, including as head of the Italian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. That sequence gives her the unusual range of having sat as a national minister, an EU vice-president, and a transatlantic security parliamentarian inside one career. What she offers serious audiences is the reading you get from someone who chaired the room: how decisions on Russia, Iran, China and the United States are actually made in European capitals and at the Berlaymont, and where the next pressure points sit for organisations operating across those geographies. Key speaking topics European foreign and security policy Transatlantic relations and the future of US-EU cooperation Iran, the Middle East and nuclear diplomacy Multilateralism and the rules-based international order The European Union’s role in a multipolar world Migration, displacement and human rights Women’s leadership in global affairs Ideal for Boards and executive committees scoping geopolitical exposure across Europe, the Middle East and the transatlantic corridor. Government affairs, public policy and sustainability functions tracking EU regulatory and foreign-policy direction. Financial institutions and energy, defence and industrial businesses with sanctions, Iran or Russia exposure. Senior leadership audiences at multilateral institutions, foundations and NGOs operating on conflict, migration or displacement files. Audience outcomes A direct reading of how European foreign and security decisions are taken, from someone who chaired the Foreign Affairs Council. A clearer sense of where the EU, the United States and China are heading on the strategic files that shape international business. An informed view of the Iran file and the wider Middle East from the lead EU negotiator of the JCPOA. A grounded perspective on the limits and uses of multilateral diplomacy in a fracturing order. Confidence that the briefing reflects how the institutions actually operate, not commentary from the outside.

Why organisations work with Francis Fukuyama His thesis on political decay gives boards a usable lens for what is actually weakening in Western democracies, beyond the daily news cycle. He has direct policy experience from the US State Department and RAND, so the analysis lands as institutional reading, not commentary. The End of History and the Last Man has appeared in over twenty foreign editions and remains the reference point for debates on liberal democracy, which makes him a credible keynote for global audiences. As Mosbacher Director of Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, he is running a live research programme on the questions leaders are asking about. Few speakers can connect populism, identity politics, and geopolitical realignment inside a single coherent framework grounded in thirty years of published work. Biography highlights Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law; Director, Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy, Stanford. Author of The End of History and the Last Man, The Origins of Political Order, Political Order and Political Decay, Trust, Identity, and Liberalism and Its Discontents. Former Policy Planning Staff, US Department of State; former Political Science Department, RAND Corporation. Recipient of the 2024 Fred Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration. Chair of the editorial board of American Purpose; columnist of Frankly Fukuyama on Substack. Board member at RAND, Freedom House, and the Volcker Alliance; fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration; member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Biography The institutions that underwrite Western market economies were built to be predictable. They are now a source of risk. Francis Fukuyama has spent three decades tracing why, and the work is the reason serious leaders bring him into strategic conversations. His 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man argued that liberal democracy paired with market economies would become the governing template for modern societies. The argument was widely misread as triumphalism. The later work, The Origins of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay, sets out a far more demanding account of how states, rule of law, and accountable government hold together, and how they come apart. From Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute, where he is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow and Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, he now runs a live research programme on governance and institutional quality. His recent books Identity and Liberalism and Its Discontents take the framework into the territory boards actually need to understand: populism, identity politics, the sources of democratic backsliding, and what a defensible liberalism looks like under pressure from both flanks. The credibility is not only academic. He served on the Policy Planning Staff at the US State Department and at RAND, sits on the boards of RAND, Freedom House, and the Volcker Alliance, and in 2024 received the Fred Riggs Award for Lifetime Achievement in International and Comparative Public Administration. That record is why a senior leadership team reading his analysis on the trajectory of a democracy can treat it as institutional judgement, not punditry. Key speaking topics Liberal democracy and political order Geopolitical realignment and US-China competition Populism, identity politics, and democratic backsliding Governance, state capacity, and institutional quality Rule of law and economic development The long-term outlook for the liberal international order Technology, platform power, and democratic institutions Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting long-horizon strategy across the US, Europe, and Asia. Chief strategy officers, chief risk officers, and heads of government affairs who need political risk framed at an institutional level. Investor and LP audiences building views on sovereign, regulatory, and geopolitical exposure. Public-sector leadership programmes, foreign ministries, and multilateral institutions working on governance reform. Audience outcomes A clearer reading of which pressures on liberal democracies are cyclical and which are structural. A framework for thinking about state capacity, rule of law, and accountability as distinct variables when assessing country risk. A more precise account of how populism and identity politics translate into policy volatility. A sharper view of the US-China competition beyond the usual trade and technology headlines. Vocabulary and concepts leaders can carry back into strategy discussions with their own teams.

Why organisations work with Frank Gardner Direct line into the security and intelligence conversation. Gardner is the BBC’s Security Correspondent, with three decades of sourced reporting across the Middle East, counter-terrorism and state conflict, and he brings that network into the room. Arabic fluency and a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies give him a reading of the region that most Western commentators cannot match, particularly on Gulf politics, jihadist movements and Iran. First-hand authority on the personal cost of political violence. He was shot six times by al-Qaeda gunmen in Riyadh in 2004 and returned to full-time reporting in 2005; when he speaks about risk, resilience and continuing to operate, it is from lived experience. A published thriller novelist whose Luke Carlton series (Crisis, Ultimatum, Outbreak, Invasion, Ballistic, published by Bantam and Penguin) is built on real tradecraft, which makes him unusually effective at making intelligence work comprehensible to non-specialist audiences. Credibility signals that serious buyers recognise: OBE for services to journalism, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, honorary doctorates from five UK universities, the McWhirter Award for Bravery, Spain’s El Mundo Prize and the UAE’s Zayed Medal. Biography highlights BBC Security Correspondent; previously the BBC’s first full-time Gulf correspondent (1997) and BBC Middle East correspondent based in Cairo (from 1999). Author of Blood and Sand (Bantam, 2006), a Sunday Times top-three bestseller covering 25 years of reporting from the Middle East, and Far Horizons. Author of the Luke Carlton thriller series, featuring a former SBS officer turned MI6 operative: Crisis, Ultimatum, Outbreak, Invasion and Ballistic, published by Bantam and Penguin. Shot and seriously wounded by al-Qaeda gunmen in Riyadh in 2004; returned to full-time BBC reporting in 2005. OBE (2005) for services to journalism. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Honorary doctorates of law from the University of Nottingham, Staffordshire University, the University of Exeter, the University of East Anglia and the Open University. Awards: McWhirter Award for Bravery, El Mundo Prize for International Journalism (Spain), Zayed Medal for Journalism (UAE), UK Press Gazette Person of the Year. Biography The security environment that boards now have to plan against, terrorism, state conflict, energy disruption, cyber, looks less like a set of discrete issues and more like a single interconnected risk map. Reading that map is the work. For nearly three decades, Frank Gardner has done it in public, on air, for the BBC. As the BBC’s Security Correspondent, he has covered the War on Terror since 2002, having previously served as the corporation’s first full-time Gulf correspondent and then as Middle East correspondent based in Cairo. A fluent Arabic speaker with a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, he reports from inside the region rather than about it, with sourcing across security services, militaries and political leadership. That authority was sharpened by events. In June 2004, reporting from the Al-Suwaidi district of Riyadh, he was shot six times by al-Qaeda gunmen; his colleague, cameraman Simon Cumbers, was killed. After fourteen operations and seven months in hospital, Gardner returned to full-time BBC reporting in 2005 and has covered every major terrorism and security story since. He was appointed OBE that year for services to journalism. His published work tracks the same terrain from two angles. Blood and Sand, a Sunday Times top-three bestseller, is the non-fiction record of a reporting career built in the Middle East. The Luke Carlton thrillers, Crisis, Ultimatum, Outbreak, Invasion and Ballistic, use the mechanics of real intelligence tradecraft to dramatise the threats he covers on air, and have made him one of the few security commentators equally at home briefing a board and a mass readership. Key speaking topics Geopolitical and security risk Terrorism and counter-terrorism The Middle East and the Gulf Intelligence, espionage and tradecraft Iran, Saudi Arabia and Gulf politics Resilience after serious adversity Global risk and business decision-making Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting strategy against geopolitical and security exposure Chief Risk Officers, Chief Security Officers and Heads of Corporate Security Leadership teams in energy, financial services, defence, aviation and critical infrastructure with Middle East or Gulf operations Annual conferences, client events and internal leadership offsites where a credible read of the threat landscape is the main ask Audience outcomes A working read of the current geopolitical and terrorism threat map, not a headline recap Sharper understanding of Middle East and Gulf dynamics, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and jihadist movements, from someone who reports the region in Arabic A sense of how intelligence services actually work, and what that means for corporate security, travel risk and crisis response A human account of surviving a near-fatal attack and continuing to operate at the top of a demanding profession

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

Why organisations work with Gamal Fahnbulleh A working news anchor on ITV Granada Reports and ITV National News bulletins, which means the room gets the real calibre of live interviewer, not a retired name lending their profile. Chairs major sector conferences on the record, including the Advertising Association’s LEAD North and the Great Northern Conference at Cutlers’ Hall, Sheffield, which tells a booker he can hold a senior business audience. Comfortable across formats that most speakers are not: panel moderation, awards hosting, after-dinner remarks, keynote conversation, fireside Q and A, and virtual hybrid sessions. Brings a serious journalistic backbone to the hosting role: Manchester politics and international politics graduate, postgraduate broadcast journalism at City, an embed with the British Army in Afghanistan behind him, so the room trusts him on substantive subject matter. Recognised by his own industry for presenting craft: a 2021 Royal Television Society nomination for Best Regional Presenter, and a contributor to ITV Granada’s RTS North West Award for Best Regional Story in 2010. Biography highlights Co-presenter of ITV Granada Reports for North West England and the Isle of Man, anchoring alongside Lucy Meacock since January 2021. Relief presenter on ITV National News bulletins, including News at Ten. Former Sky News anchor across Sky News Breakfast, Sky News Tonight and Sky News at Ten. Chair and host at the Advertising Association’s LEAD North conference and the Great Northern Conference 2021 at Cutlers’ Hall, Sheffield. Nominated for Best Regional Presenter, Royal Television Society, 2021. Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism, City, University of London; BA Honours in Politics and History and MA in International Politics, University of Manchester. Biography Most conference agendas collapse at the join between sessions. The keynote lands, the panel files on, and the conversation loses altitude because no one in the chair knows how to translate energy from one format into the next. That translation is the craft a working news anchor brings to a live room, and it is why senior booker teams at the Advertising Association’s LEAD North and the Great Northern Conference in Sheffield have handed Gamal Fahnbulleh the microphone. He is a working journalist first. He co-presents ITV Granada Reports for the North West of England and the Isle of Man with Lucy Meacock, anchors relief shifts on ITV National News bulletins, and previously held anchor positions across Sky News Breakfast, Sky News Tonight and Sky News at Ten. His industry nominated him for Best Regional Presenter at the Royal Television Society Awards in 2021. The journalistic authority is earned. He read Politics and History at the University of Manchester, added an MA in International Politics, and trained in broadcast journalism at City, University of London before winning one of ten places on the ITV News Group Bursary Scheme. He later embedded with the 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment on a tour of Afghanistan, contributing to ITV Granada’s RTS North West Award for Best Regional Story in 2010. For corporate clients, the practical value is simple. He can host an awards night, chair a panel of chief executives, conduct a fireside interview, and moderate a hybrid session without the room feeling a change in gear. He is booked for hosting craft, and he treats every brief as live television. Key speaking topics Conference chairing and panel moderation Awards night and after-dinner hosting Fireside interviews with senior leaders Broadcast journalism and live news craft Reporting from conflict zones and embedded military journalism Regional economic and leadership conversations International affairs and global news context Ideal for Annual conferences requiring a chair who can hold a senior executive audience for a full day. Awards ceremonies and gala dinners that need a host with live-broadcast pacing and on-camera presence. Panel events where CEOs, investors or public-sector leaders expect real questions rather than polite ones. Media, advertising and regional-growth conferences where journalistic credibility matters to the room. Audience outcomes A tightly run agenda that stays on time across keynote, panel and audience-Q-and-A transitions. Sharper panel conversations, because the chair knows when to follow up and when to move on. Senior speakers drawn out on the specific points the audience came to hear, not the ones they rehearsed. A room that leaves feeling the event was serious, not stage-managed.

Why organisations work with Garry Kasparov He is the person who sat across the board from Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997. When he talks about AI and human judgement, the source material is his own. He turns chess into a working vocabulary for executive decision-making, separating strategy from tactics in a way senior leaders can use the next morning. As a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School and long-time Security Ambassador for Avast, he speaks about AI, cybersecurity and privacy from inside the conversation, not as a commentator on it. His books “How Life Imitates Chess” and “Deep Thinking” give audiences a durable framework and a shared reference point after the session ends. He brings a second register that few speakers in this space can match: a first-hand view of Russia, Putin and the fragility of democratic institutions, grounded in decades of activism and the book “Winter Is Coming.” Biography highlights Youngest undisputed World Chess Champion at 22, in 1985, after defeating Anatoly Karpov. Held the world number one ranking from 1986 until his retirement from professional chess in 2005. Played IBM’s Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997, the first reigning world champion to lose a match to a computer under tournament conditions. Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, working on human-machine collaboration. Founder and chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative; former chairman of the Human Rights Foundation. Author of “How Life Imitates Chess,” “Winter Is Coming” and “Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.” Biography In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue beat the reigning world chess champion under tournament conditions for the first time in history. The champion on the other side of the board was Garry Kasparov. Nearly three decades later, the questions that match raised about human judgement and machine intelligence are now the everyday questions of corporate strategy. Kasparov has spent the years since making those questions usable for leaders. At the Oxford Martin School, where he is a Senior Visiting Fellow, he works on the evolving relationship between humans and technology. As Security Ambassador for Avast, he has spent nearly a decade inside the cybersecurity and AI debate, not commenting from outside it. His book “Deep Thinking,” written with Mig Greengard, argues that machines that think are not the end of human creativity but a forcing function for it. The chess career underwrites all of it. Becoming the youngest undisputed world champion at 22, holding the number one ranking for almost twenty years, and defending the title across multiple cycles against Anatoly Karpov gave him a working vocabulary for strategy, tactics, preparation and competitive psychology. “How Life Imitates Chess” is the book executives quote back to him. The distinction he draws between long-term strategy and short-term tactics is one of the most portable ideas a senior team can bring out of a keynote. There is a second strand to the work, and buyers should know it is there. Kasparov founded the Renew Democracy Initiative in 2017 and chaired the Human Rights Foundation for over a decade. His book “Winter Is Coming” was one of the earliest serious warnings about Vladimir Putin’s intentions, written well before events made that view consensus. For audiences who want a voice on geopolitical risk alongside the AI and strategy material, he delivers it with the same directness. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and human-machine collaboration Strategic thinking and decision-making under pressure Cybersecurity, privacy and digital freedom The future of work in an age of intelligent machines Russia, Putin and the defence of democratic institutions Leadership, preparation and competitive performance Ideal for CEOs, boards and executive teams rethinking strategy and decision rights as AI moves deeper into the business. CIOs, CISOs and technology leaders navigating cybersecurity, AI adoption and trust. Leadership and talent events where audiences want a working model for strategy versus tactics, not a motivational talk. Policy, risk and government affairs audiences who want an informed voice on Russia and the state of liberal democracy. Audience outcomes A clear distinction between strategy and tactics that senior teams can apply to their own decisions the week after the session. A realistic view of what AI changes in knowledge work, from a speaker who lived the original turning point. Sharper questions about where human judgement still adds value, and where defending it is a waste of effort. A first-hand perspective on Russia and authoritarian risk that frames geopolitical uncertainty in concrete terms. A shared reference point, drawn from chess, that stays useful in strategy conversations long after the event.