Political Risk & Policy speakers

Why organisations work with Jacques Attali He built one of the institutions that defined the post-Cold War economic settlement. As founding president of the EBRD, he carries direct experience of structuring capital flows into a continent in political transition, the kind of frame few living economists can offer. A decade as special adviser to President Mitterrand and Sherpa for two G7 summits gives him an inside view of how heads of state actually make decisions under pressure, useful to any board navigating government exposure. His futures work, particularly A Brief History of the Future, sets out a coherent scenario framework (hyperempire, hyperconflict, hyperdemocracy) that boards can use as a long-range planning lens rather than as a single forecast. He has chaired two French government commissions on growth, one for Sarkozy and a positive economy report for Hollande, with proposals that fed directly into national reform agendas. The work is operational, not theoretical. Founder of Action Against Hunger, the EUREKA technology programme and Positive Planet. He has built and run institutions, not only written about them. Biography highlights Founding President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1991 to 1993. Special adviser to President Francois Mitterrand, 1981 to 1991; G7 Sherpa for the Paris (1982) and Arche de la Defense (1989) summits. Chair, Commission for the Liberation of French Growth (Sarkozy, 2007 to 2008); author of the Positive Economy report (Hollande, 2013). Author of more than 80 books, including Noise: The Political Economy of Music, A Brief History of the Future and Verbatim, in 22 languages. Founder of Action Against Hunger (1979), the EUREKA European technology programme (1984) and Positive Planet (1998). Named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers (2009); graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Sciences Po, the Ecole des Mines and ENA; doctorate in economics. Biography The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development opened its doors in London in April 1991 with a mandate no institution had attempted before: channel Western capital into countries leaving state socialism without recreating the conditions that had broken them. Jacques Attali designed it and ran it for its first two years. The institution is still operating, with more than seventy countries of operations and shareholders today, which is the most useful evidence of the architecture he chose. Before the EBRD, ten years inside the Elysee under Francois Mitterrand. Attali was special adviser to the president from 1981 to 1991, sat in the cabinet meetings and the bilateral meetings with foreign heads of state, and served as France’s Sherpa at the G7 summits in Paris in 1982 and at the Arche de la Defense in 1989. The work he has done since, two growth commissions for two French presidents and consulting with governments and large companies through Attali & Associates, is built on that operating exposure to how state and economy actually intersect. The intellectual output runs alongside. Eighty-plus books, translated into twenty-two languages, with Noise: The Political Economy of Music (1977) and A Brief History of the Future (2006) the most widely cited. The futures work matters commercially because it gives boards a framework. The hyperempire, hyperconflict and hyperdemocracy scenarios in A Brief History of the Future are now nearly twenty years old, which is the right test of long-range writing. The frame still holds against the geopolitics of the present decade. He has also built things outside government. Action Against Hunger (1979), still one of the major humanitarian organisations operating in famine zones. The EUREKA technology programme (1984), the European R&D collaboration that, among other outputs, produced the standards work behind the MP3 format. Positive Planet (1998), the microfinance non-profit now active across more than 80 countries. Foreign Policy magazine named him among its Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the next world order The future of Europe and European competitiveness Long-range scenarios and strategic foresight Global economic transformation The future of finance and microfinance Positive economy and intergenerational responsibility Globalisation and its commercial consequences Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to European and emerging-market policy shifts Chief strategy officers and corporate development teams working on long-range scenario planning Bank and asset management leadership groups exposed to sovereign and geopolitical risk Government and intergovernmental audiences working on growth, innovation and reform agendas Audience outcomes A longer historical frame for the current geopolitical realignment, anchored in firsthand experience of the post-1989 settlement. A working scenario lens, hyperempire, hyperconflict and hyperdemocracy, that senior teams can apply to their own strategy review. A sharper read on Europe’s commercial position relative to the US and China, from someone who has helped design European institutions. A serious account of how heads of state actually reach decisions, useful for executives operating across government interfaces.

Why organisations work with James Chau He runs the room when the speakers are Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma or Bill Gates. Very few moderators on the circuit have repeated reps at that level of principal. As President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, he sits inside the working architecture of US-China dialogue rather than commenting on it from the sidelines. His credential stack on global health is institutional, not rhetorical: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the SDGs, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador. The China Current gives him a live interview record with Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Christine Lagarde, Ban Ki-moon and Jane Goodall. The editorial muscle is current, not historic. He reads a room built from heads of state, Nobel laureates and corporate chiefs the way a senior editor reads copy. The diplomatic temperature of a session is managed in real time. Biography highlights President, China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), Hong Kong. World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Sustainable Development Goals and Health (appointed 2016). First UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador for China (appointed 2009). Host of The China Current, a global-affairs interview and storytelling platform. Former main English-language news anchor at China Central Television; guest presenter, BBC World News. World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; U.S. National Press Foundation Fellow; Harvard Kennedy School executive education. Biography The room was Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau, Jack Ma, Laura Bush. James Chau was chairing. That is the kind of session he has been asked to run for more than a decade, and the reason organisations book him is not broadcast gloss. It is the ability to keep a hard conversation productive when the participants are principals with careful positions. Chau is President of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong-based NGO that convenes official-track and track-two dialogue between the two countries. The role places him inside the working machinery of one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world, not adjacent to it. That access shapes how he chairs: he knows where the lines are, and when to press. Before CUSEF, he spent years as the main English-language news anchor at China Central Television and a guest presenter on BBC World News. The interview record from The China Current, his own platform, runs through Kofi Annan, Muhammad Yunus, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, Jane Goodall and Ban Ki-moon. His work on global health is formal: WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals and Health since 2016, and China’s first UNAIDS National Goodwill Ambassador from 2009. He was educated at Cambridge, King’s College London and the Royal Academy of Music, with executive education at Harvard Kennedy School. For a corporate summit, a multilateral plenary, an awards evening or a closed-room dialogue where the speakers are sensitive and the questions matter, Chau is a moderator whose standing is set by the company he keeps on stage. Key speaking topics US-China relations Global health and the Sustainable Development Goals China and the global economy International development and multilateralism Media, storytelling and public diplomacy High-level event hosting and moderation Ideal for Global summits and multilateral convenings where the principals on stage are heads of state, Nobel laureates or Fortune 100 chief executives CEO and board dialogues on China strategy, US-China risk and global health policy Awards ceremonies and flagship corporate events where a broadcast-grade host is required Foundations, NGOs and policy institutes working on the SDGs, HIV/AIDS and global public health Audience outcomes A sharper read of where the US-China relationship actually sits, from someone inside the dialogue A working framing of how global health policy, the SDGs and corporate strategy intersect A session that keeps pace and holds weight when the speakers are senior and the brief is sensitive A clearer view of how China is reported, mis-reported, and understood in international media

Why organisations work with James K. Galbraith A measurement record that competitors cannot match: the University of Texas Inequality Project produces global pay inequality datasets used by researchers and institutions where conventional household surveys and tax data fall short. Hands-on policy experience that maps directly to corporate strategy questions on China, Europe and US industrial policy, including a four-year stint as chief technical adviser on macroeconomic reform to China’s State Planning Commission. Co-winner of the 2014 Leontief Prize alongside Angus Deaton, an award that signals first-rank standing in the economics of inequality and welfare measurement. A clear, unhedged position on where mainstream macroeconomics fails, set out in books published by Oxford University Press, Simon and Schuster, Yale University Press, and University of Chicago Press, which gives audiences something to engage with rather than a survey of consensus views. Direct line of sight into US economic policy debates through regular columns at Project Syndicate, The Nation, and American Affairs, and former service as Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Biography highlights Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. Director, University of Texas Inequality Project; Senior Scholar, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Co-winner, 2014 Leontief Prize (with Angus Deaton); Veblen-Commons Award, 2020. Elected to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. Former Executive Director, Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress; chief technical adviser, macroeconomic reform, China State Planning Commission, 1993 to 1997. Author of Inequality and Instability (Oxford), The End of Normal (Simon and Schuster), Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice (Yale), and Entropy Economics with Jing Chen (Chicago, 2025); The Power to Destroy forthcoming from Chicago in 2026. Biography Most macroeconomic commentary still treats inequality as a side effect of growth. The University of Texas Inequality Project, which Galbraith has directed for over two decades, treats it as a measurable feature of the system itself. Using UNIDO industrial payroll data and Theil decomposition, the project produces a global picture of pay inequality that often diverges from headline tax and survey data, and that has shaped how serious analysts read crises in Europe, the US and China. Galbraith holds the Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin and is a Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute. The 2014 Leontief Prize, shared with Angus Deaton, and the 2020 Veblen-Commons Award place him in the small group of economists whose work on distribution is recognised across both mainstream and heterodox traditions. Election to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences confirms the international weight of the research. The credentials sit on top of policy experience that few academic economists can claim. Galbraith ran the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress in the early 1980s and served as chief technical adviser on macroeconomic reform to China’s State Planning Commission from 1993 to 1997. He has written closely on the eurozone crisis, including Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice from Yale University Press, and on the structural drivers of slower US growth in The End of Normal. Recent work pushes harder against the foundations of the discipline. Entropy Economics, co-authored with Jing Chen and published by the University of Chicago Press in 2025, rebuilds value and production theory on physical and biological grounds rather than on equilibrium. The Power to Destroy, due from Chicago in 2026, argues that obsolete economic ideas have shaped a generation of US policy, and that what comes next depends on which ideas governments choose to operate by. Key speaking topics Global inequality and the measurement of distributional change Macroeconomic policy after the end of cheap money US industrial policy and the political economy of decline The eurozone, austerity, and the future of European integration China’s growth model and macroeconomic adjustment Financial instability and the limits of mainstream macroeconomics Post-equilibrium economics and the foundations of value Ideal for Boards and investment committees making capital allocation decisions under macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty CFOs, chief economists, and heads of strategy at financial institutions, asset managers, and multinationals with material US, Chinese, or European exposure Policy-facing audiences in central banks, finance ministries, multilateral institutions, and think tanks Senior leadership programmes seeking a substantive economist rather than a forecaster Audience outcomes A clearer view of how inequality and financial instability now shape macroeconomic outcomes, not just social ones A working frame for reading US, European and Chinese policy moves as parts of a single shifting system An informed scepticism toward conventional growth and inflation narratives, grounded in the data Galbraith’s team produces A direct argument about where mainstream economics is failing capital allocators and what alternative frameworks offer Sharper questions to bring back to internal economists, strategy teams and risk committees

Why organisations work with James Rubin He has been the public face of U.S. foreign policy in two administrations, from the Kosovo war under Clinton to the Ukraine war under Biden, and can speak to how the machinery of American power actually operates when pressure is on. From November 2022 to December 2024 he ran the U.S. Global Engagement Center, coordinating the federal response to Russian and Chinese disinformation, including the intelligence-led exposure of Kremlin operations in Latin America and Africa. He was senior adviser and spokesman to Madeleine Albright at both the United Nations and the State Department, giving him a rare continuous view of how Washington handles allies, adversaries and crisis communications. He has reported the same terrain from the other side of the camera as anchor of Sky News’ World News Tonight and as a Sunday Times foreign affairs columnist, which lets him translate Washington for non-U.S. audiences without jargon. As Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Chair of International Policy and Strategy at Ballard Partners, he has worked on the business side of geopolitical risk, not only the policy side. Biography highlights U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and State Department Spokesman, 1997 to 2000, under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Special Envoy and Coordinator, U.S. State Department Global Engagement Center, November 2022 to December 2024, leading U.S. efforts against Russian and Chinese information warfare. Recipient of the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award, 2000. Anchor, Sky News World News Tonight, 2005 to 2006; weekly foreign affairs columnist, The Sunday Times of London. Visiting Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics; adjunct professor, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs; Scholar in Residence, Oxford University Rothermere American Institute. Senior national security adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and chief foreign policy spokesman for General Wesley Clark’s 2004 campaign. Biography U.S. foreign policy is rarely decided in the rooms people assume. It is shaped in briefings, in coalition calls, in the narrow space between what a Secretary of State can say in public and what the intelligence picture actually shows. Rubin has worked that space for three decades, first as spokesman and senior adviser to Madeleine Albright at the United Nations and the State Department, and most recently as the Biden administration’s point person on Russian and Chinese information warfare. The Clinton-era role is the one he is best known for. As Assistant Secretary of State and State Department Spokesman from 1997 to 2000, he was the daily voice of U.S. policy during the Kosovo war and served as a special negotiator on the demobilisation of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The State Department gave him its Distinguished Service Award in 2000. Between 2022 and 2024 he ran the Global Engagement Center, coordinating the U.S. government’s response to Kremlin and Chinese propaganda. Under his watch, the Center worked with the intelligence community to publicly expose Russian disinformation operations in Latin America and Africa, a different register of foreign policy work from the podium briefings of the 1990s and closer to the information battlefields that now sit on corporate risk registers. Outside government he has anchored Sky News’ World News Tonight, written a weekly foreign affairs column for The Sunday Times of London, taught at the London School of Economics and Columbia, and held a scholar in residence post at Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute. He has also served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and now chairs international policy and strategy at Ballard Partners in Washington, working directly on how policy reaches business. Key speaking topics U.S. foreign policy and presidential decision-making Great-power competition with Russia and China Information warfare and state-backed disinformation Transatlantic relations and the war in Ukraine Diplomacy, national security and crisis communications Middle East policy and the post-October 7 landscape Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing geopolitical risk into strategy, capital allocation or expansion decisions Chief Communications Officers, Chief Risk Officers and General Counsel preparing for disinformation, sanctions exposure or state-linked information operations Investor, client and leadership summits where a senior U.S. foreign policy principal is required Government affairs, policy and ESG teams navigating U.S.-Europe-China alignment Audience outcomes A sharper read on how Washington is likely to act on Russia, China, the Middle East and Europe over the next phase of U.S. policy A working mental model for how state-backed disinformation is produced, amplified and exposed, drawn from the person who most recently ran the U.S. counter-effort A clearer view of where corporate exposure to political risk is concentrated and what early indicators to watch A direct, on-the-record sense of how senior U.S. policymakers weigh allies, adversaries and public opinion in real time

Why organisations work with Jamie Bartlett He has spent more than a decade inside the parts of the internet that boards now worry about: dark net markets, crypto fraud, online radicalisation, generative AI manipulation. The reporting is first-hand, not desk-based. He built and ran the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos, giving him a rare combination of investigative journalism and large-scale data work on online behaviour. The People Vs Tech won the 2019 Transmission Prize and set out a specific argument about how digital systems destabilise democratic institutions, an argument that now reads as a forecast of the AI-and-elections debate. The Missing Cryptoqueen is one of the most successful financial-crime podcasts ever made; he can talk about crypto fraud and influence operations from inside the case file, not from a slide deck. He is comfortable in front of regulators, insurers and corporate boards, having spoken at the ABI Annual Conference and worked with governments on online harms and disinformation policy. Biography highlights Founder and former Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think tank Demos. Author of The Dark Net, Radicals Chasing Utopia, The People Vs Tech and The Missing Cryptoqueen, published by Penguin Random House and Hachette. Winner of the 2019 Transmission Prize and longlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Writing for The People Vs Tech. Presenter of the BBC Two documentary The Secrets of Silicon Valley and the BBC podcast series The Missing Cryptoqueen and Believe in Magic. TED speaker; “How the mysterious dark net is going mainstream” has been viewed several million times. Technology contributor to The Telegraph, The Spectator, the New York Times, The Times, the Guardian, Foreign Policy and Prospect; writes the Substack newsletter How to Survive the Internet. Biography The OneCoin fraud took roughly four billion dollars from ordinary investors before its founder, Ruja Ignatova, vanished. Jamie Bartlett spent two years inside that story for the BBC, and the podcast he co-wrote and presented, The Missing Cryptoqueen, became one of the most-downloaded financial-crime investigations the BBC has ever produced. It is the clearest example of his method: long, embedded reporting inside the parts of the digital economy that institutions struggle to see clearly. That method runs through four books. The Dark Net mapped the subcultures, markets and ideologies operating below the public internet. Radicals Chasing Utopia tracked fringe political movements that have since shaped mainstream politics. The People Vs Tech, which won the 2019 Transmission Prize, argued that digital platforms were quietly hollowing out the conditions democracy needs to function. Boards reading it in 2018 found it provocative. Boards reading it now read it as a forecast. The analytical foundation came earlier, at Demos. Bartlett founded and led the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media for around a decade, combining investigative reporting with large-scale data work on online extremism, political movements and information operations. That work fed into BBC Two’s The Secrets of Silicon Valley and into regular contributions to the New York Times, The Times, the Guardian, Foreign Policy and Prospect. His current focus is the generative AI cycle and what it does to fraud, trust and democratic infrastructure. He writes the Substack How to Survive the Internet, speaks to insurers, regulators and corporates on digital risk, and has appeared at venues including the Association of British Insurers Annual Conference. The brief he answers most cleanly: help senior leaders see what is actually happening online, not what their dashboards say is happening. Key speaking topics Generative AI, democracy and corporate trust Online fraud, crypto scams and financial crime Disinformation, influence operations and information integrity Dark net markets and digital underworld economies Technology, regulation and the future of online harms Political radicalisation and digital subcultures Ideal for Boards, audit committees and risk committees grappling with AI, fraud and digital trust as governance issues Insurers, banks and financial services firms exposed to crypto fraud, identity risk and information operations CISOs, Chief Risk Officers and Heads of Compliance briefing executive teams on the changing online threat landscape Government, regulatory and policy audiences shaping rules on AI, online harms and platform accountability Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how generative AI is changing fraud, influence and information integrity in practice, beyond the headline narrative. Specific case material on OneCoin, dark net markets and online radicalisation that leaders can use to brief their own teams. A sharper sense of where digital risk now sits inside corporate governance, not only inside IT. Confidence in talking about technology, democracy and trust without leaning on consultancy abstractions. A reading of where the next two years of regulatory and reputational pressure on technology are likely to land.

Why organisations work with Jan Peter Balkenende Eight years leading a G20 economy through financial crisis, EU enlargement and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gives him a view from inside the machine that almost no executive adviser can match. His book with Govert Buijs, “Capitalism Reconnected” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024), sets out a specific European alternative to both Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism, which boards can use as a reference point for their own strategy. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he convenes AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever around common sustainability positions, so he speaks with current standing, not archive authority. Minister of State status in the Netherlands and membership of Club de Madrid keep him close to working heads of government, which gives audiences a read on political risk that goes beyond press coverage. He pairs the institutional authority of a former PM with the working vocabulary of a senior adviser at EY and Hague Corporate Affairs, so corporate audiences get policy insight translated into commercial language. Biography highlights Prime Minister of the Netherlands 2002 to 2010, across four cabinets. Held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2004. Professor Emeritus of Governance, Institutions and Internationalisation, Erasmus University Rotterdam. Minister of State, Kingdom of the Netherlands, since October 2022. Chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition; Chair of the Noaber Foundation; Executive Board member, Global Center on Adaptation; Member, Club de Madrid. External Senior Advisor to EY; Associate Partner at Hague Corporate Affairs. Co-author, “Capitalism Reconnected: Toward a Sustainable, Inclusive and Innovative Market Economy in Europe” (Amsterdam University Press, 2024). Biography European economies are being asked to reinvent themselves at the same time as they govern themselves. Jan Peter Balkenende has spent more than two decades inside that tension, first as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 2002 to 2010 and then as an adviser, academic and convenor of corporate leaders. Four successive cabinets and the 2004 Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union gave him direct experience of how EU decisions are actually made, from enlargement to financial crisis response. That institutional memory now sits alongside a current role as Minister of State and as a member of Club de Madrid, the association of former heads of government. His intellectual contribution is set out in “Capitalism Reconnected,” co-written with political philosopher Govert Buijs and published by Amsterdam University Press in 2024. The book argues that Europe should stop defending its model defensively and instead frame a sustainable, inclusive and innovative market economy as a distinct offer, positioned between Chinese state capitalism and American shareholder capitalism. The argument is not theoretical for him. As chair of the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition he works with the CEOs of AkzoNobel, dsm-firmenich, FrieslandCampina, Heineken, KLM, Philips, Shell and Unilever on shared positions around climate, circularity and social equality, supported by VNO-NCW and facilitated by Accenture. Erasmus University Rotterdam, EY and Hague Corporate Affairs provide the academic and advisory base. The through-line, across government, campus and corporate rooms, is the same: Europe can only lead on sustainability if its companies and its institutions work from the same playbook. Key speaking topics European market-economy reform Sustainable and inclusive growth strategy Governance and public-private collaboration ESG and corporate responsibility in European context Geopolitical and policy risk for business Institutional leadership and long-term decision making Climate adaptation and the role of business Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting European sustainability and ESG strategy CEOs and CFOs navigating EU regulation, climate policy and geopolitical risk Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on public-private cooperation Leadership and strategy summits with a European or transatlantic agenda Audience outcomes A concrete reference framework, drawn from “Capitalism Reconnected,” for positioning a European business between state-led and shareholder-led models. A clearer read on how EU-level decisions are made, and where corporate influence actually lands. Live examples of how eight Dutch multinationals translate sustainable growth commitments into joint positions. A sharper sense of which political risks matter for strategy, and which are noise. Direct perspective from a former head of government on leading through crisis with contested public trust.

Why organisations work with Janusz Antoni Lewandowski Direct first-person insight into how the EU’s multiannual budget is built, negotiated, and defended. He led that process for the 2014 to 2020 framework. One of the few European speakers who designed a national privatisation programme, the Polish Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, and co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Useful for boards reading Central and Eastern European exposure. A Solidarity-era economic adviser turned cabinet minister turned Commissioner. The arc gives him standing on how political will translates into economic structure, and where it fails. Active commentary in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, and Newsweek Polska. He is a working public voice on EU and Polish policy, not a retired official. Biography highlights European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, 2010 to 2014, under President José Manuel Barroso. Chair of the European Parliament Committee on Budgets from 2004; later First Vice-Chair (2019 to 2024). Member of the European Parliament across the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th terms. Minister of Ownership Transformations in two Polish governments (1991; 1992 to 1993); co-founder of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Co-founder and Chair of the Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD), 1988. Economic adviser to Solidarity, 1980 to 1989. Chairman of the Economic Council under Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, 2015. Doctorate in economics, University of Gdańsk. Founder of the Institute for Market Economy Research, Gdańsk. Biography Poland’s transition from a state-planned economy to a market economy was not an academic exercise. It was designed and run, in real time, by a small group of economists who had been advising Solidarity through the 1980s. Janusz Lewandowski was one of them. As Minister of Ownership Transformations in the Bielecki and Suchocka governments, he co-founded the Warsaw Stock Exchange and built the Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji, the mass privatisation programme that reshaped Polish corporate ownership. That experience travelled with him into Brussels. He served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2004, chaired the Committee on Budgets, and was appointed European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget under José Manuel Barroso between 2010 and 2014. The Commissioner role placed him at the centre of negotiations for the 2014 to 2020 Multiannual Financial Framework, the trillion-euro budget settlement that defined EU fiscal priorities through the post-crisis decade. He returned to the European Parliament in 2014, served as First Vice-Chair of the Budgets Committee in the 2019 to 2024 term, and has continued as a working voice on European economic policy. In 2015 Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz appointed him Chairman of the Economic Council. He writes regularly for Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Parkiet, Wprost, and Newsweek Polska. The combined record gives him a vantage point that few European speakers can match. He has built market institutions from a standing start, written a national privatisation programme, and held senior fiscal responsibility for the entire Union. When he reads EU budget politics, Central European exposure, or the durability of the European project, he is reading instruments he has helped to build. Key speaking topics EU budget architecture and the Multiannual Financial Framework The political economy of European integration Post-communist economic transition and privatisation Central and Eastern Europe in the EU Polish economic and political outlook Geopolitical risk for European capital The future of EU fiscal policy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to Central and Eastern Europe CFOs, treasury, and policy teams tracking EU regulatory and fiscal direction Investor and banking audiences reading European political risk Senior public-sector and institutional audiences on EU policy and enlargement Audience outcomes A clear read of how EU budget priorities are set and where they are heading Direct insight into the political economy of Central and Eastern Europe from someone who shaped it Sharper interpretation of European policy signals affecting capital allocation A working framework for thinking about EU enlargement, sanctions, and the durability of the European project

Why organisations work with Javier Solana Very few people alive have run both NATO and the EU’s foreign policy machinery. His read on transatlantic, Russian and Chinese intent is grounded in a decade of handling the actual files, not in commentary. He was the signing hand on the 2003 European Security Strategy, the document that still frames how European governments think about security, neighbourhood and partnership. Leadership teams exposed to European regulation get the logic from the source. His current work at EsadeGeo and Brookings is forward looking, not memoir. Briefings engage with AI governance, supply chain fragmentation, climate diplomacy and the fragility of the rules based order. He is a working columnist at Project Syndicate, publishing into 2026 on US-China competition, European strategic autonomy and the future of multilateralism. Boards get a current thesis, not career recollections. He operates comfortably as a counterpart to a CEO, chair or sovereign, and speaks to leadership teams on that level. The register is peer to peer, not lecture. Biography highlights Secretary General of NATO, 1995 to 1999, including the alliance’s first post-Cold War enlargement and the 1999 Kosovo campaign. European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary General of the Council of the EU, 1999 to 2009. Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1992 to 1995, and earlier holder of the Culture and Education and Science portfolios under Felipe Gonzalez. President, EsadeGeo – Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, Barcelona and Madrid. Distinguished Fellow in Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School, Berlin. Charlemagne Prize 2007 and Carlos V European Award 2011 for services to European integration. Biography The European Security Strategy was signed in Brussels in December 2003. It was the first time the Union had put its name to a single, coherent description of what it was for in the world, what it was willing to defend, and how it intended to act with partners. Solana drafted it. Much of the architecture that European governments, and the companies that operate across them, still live inside was laid down in that document. Before Brussels, there was Kosovo. As Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999, he held together a nineteen-member alliance through the most contested military operation in its history, while also overseeing its first enlargement since the Cold War. Before NATO, he had spent thirteen years in the Spanish cabinet under Felipe Gonzalez, including three years as Foreign Minister. The arc is unusual: national politics, military alliance, civilian foreign policy, all at the top of each. He now runs EsadeGeo, the Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics he founded in Barcelona and Madrid in 2010, and is a Distinguished Fellow at Brookings and Senior Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin. He chairs Aspen Institute Espana and sits on the boards of Human Rights Watch, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Crisis Group. What he offers a leadership audience is not the memoir of the files he handled. It is a structural read of where the international order is breaking, where it is holding, and what boards and executive teams should be doing with that information before the next shock lands on the balance sheet. Key speaking topics The future of the rules based international order Transatlantic relations and European strategic autonomy US-China competition and the implications for global business Geopolitics of the energy transition and climate diplomacy NATO, European security and the war in Ukraine Multilateralism and global governance reform Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to Europe, the US and China CEOs, chairs and chief strategy officers setting five to ten year strategic plans under geopolitical uncertainty Senior policy, risk and government affairs leads at financial institutions, energy and industrial groups Audience outcomes A working model of which pillars of the international order are cracking, which are holding, and where corporate risk actually sits. A sharper read on European policy intent on China, industrial strategy, energy and sanctions, from the person who helped write the doctrine. Concrete framing on what transatlantic drift and US-China competition mean for supply chains, capital allocation and market access. A sense of how peers at the sovereign and multilateral level are framing the same questions your board is wrestling with.

Why organisations work with Jayati Ghosh Sits on the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism and the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, so her read on global financial and health governance is drawn from inside the rooms where it is being rewritten. Co-chairs ICRICT, the independent commission pressing for reform of international corporate taxation, which gives her first-hand authority on the OECD-led tax overhaul that is reshaping how multinationals plan their effective rate. Reads emerging-market risk from a development-economist vantage point, not a Wall Street one, which is what buyers booking her tend to want: a sharper picture of sovereign debt, currency stress, and the political economy of the Global South. Thirty-five years at Jawaharlal Nehru University and now at UMass Amherst, author or editor of nineteen books, and winner of the ILO Decent Work Research Prize and the Galbraith Award: credentials that translate into credibility with serious audiences. Writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, so her current thinking is publicly available and buyers can hear the argument before booking the room. Biography highlights Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, since January 2021. Member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (2022). Member, WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by Mariana Mazzucato. Co-chair, Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). ILO Decent Work Research Prize (2011); John Kenneth Galbraith Award, AAEA (2023). Author or editor of nineteen books, including Women Workers in the Informal Economy and The Making of a Catastrophe: Covid-19 and the Indian Economy; monthly columnist for Project Syndicate. Biography The rules governing cross-border capital, corporate tax, and public health spending are being rewritten at the same time. Boards that track any one of these in isolation tend to miss how they interact. Ghosh works across all three. She is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a post she took up in 2021 after nearly 35 years teaching at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Her research has long focused on globalisation, employment in developing countries, macroeconomic policy, and the gendered structure of informal labour. Nineteen books and roughly two hundred scholarly articles sit behind that work. The institutional footprint is what sets her apart from other macro voices. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres named her in 2022 to the 12-person High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, the body tasked with proposing reforms to global governance ahead of the Summit of the Future. She sits on the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, chaired by Mariana Mazzucato, and co-chairs ICRICT, which has driven much of the civil-society case for a global minimum corporate tax. Outside academic journals she writes a monthly Project Syndicate column read by finance ministers and central bankers, and for nearly three decades ran a fortnightly column at Frontline. The ILO awarded her its Decent Work Research Prize in 2011; the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association gave her its Galbraith Award in 2023 for contributions to economics and to humanity. Key speaking topics Global financial architecture and reform International corporate tax and ICRICT’s agenda Inequality, labour, and the informal economy Development and growth in India and the Global South Economics of health and public goods Sovereign debt and emerging-market risk Gender and the economics of care Ideal for Boards and investment committees sizing emerging-market and sovereign-debt exposure. CFOs and tax leaders tracking the OECD minimum tax and the next wave of multinational tax reform. Leadership teams in global health, pharma, and development finance who need a public-goods frame for their strategy. Conferences on globalisation, inequality, and the future of multilateralism where a policy-insider voice is needed. Audience outcomes A clear read on how the UN, WHO and OECD reform agendas translate into corporate risk over the next three to five years. A defensible position on international tax reform and what it means for transfer pricing, effective rates and reputational exposure. A sharper picture of sovereign debt and currency stress in the Global South, drawn from development-economics evidence rather than market commentary. An argument for why care, informal labour, and gender sit inside the macro picture, not alongside it.

Why organisations work with Jean Asselborn Nineteen years of continuous EU foreign ministerial decision-making, spanning the 2008 financial crisis, the eurozone crisis, the 2015 migration shock, Brexit, and Russia’s war on Ukraine. A board hearing him is hearing from the room, not about it. Led Luxembourg into its first ever UN Security Council seat in 2013 to 2014, including chairing the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and steering humanitarian resolutions on Syria. A working brief on how small-state diplomacy moves a multilateral system. A public record of confronting democratic backsliding inside the EU, including a documented call for Hungary’s expulsion in 2016. Useful for any leadership audience wrestling with values, compliance, and political risk in European markets. Decorated by both the German and French states (Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, 2010; Commander of the Legion of Honour, 2013) and recognised with the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize, 2016. A credible Franco-German interlocutor at a moment when the Paris-Berlin axis is again the structural question. Biography highlights Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2023; the longest-serving foreign minister in EU history. Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg, 2004 to 2013, under Jean-Claude Juncker. Presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005. Architect of Luxembourg’s elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2010); Commander of the French Legion of Honour (2013); Grand Media Prize, Franco-German Journalism Prize (2016). Subject of two published political biographies, “Merde alors!” by Margaretha Kopeinig (Czernin Verlag, 2021) and “Die Tour seines Lebens” by Michael Merten. Biography For nineteen years, every major European foreign policy crisis crossed the desk of Luxembourg’s Minister for Foreign and European Affairs. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the 2015 migration emergency, Brexit, the rule-of-law fights with Warsaw and Budapest, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Jean Asselborn was in the room for all of them, from 2004 to 2023, longer than any foreign minister in EU history. The seat mattered. Luxembourg is small enough to be heard without threatening anyone, and Asselborn used that position to push the EU on values when larger member states preferred to look away. He called publicly for Hungary’s expulsion from the bloc in 2016 over the treatment of asylum seekers, and remained one of the most consistent ministerial voices on democratic backsliding inside the Union. He also built institutional weight beyond Brussels. As Deputy Prime Minister from 2004 to 2013, he presided over the Council of the European Union in 2005, and engineered Luxembourg’s first elected seat on the UN Security Council for 2013 and 2014. During that term Luxembourg chaired the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and helped pass the Syria humanitarian resolutions that defined the Council’s response that year. France and Germany have both recognised him at the highest civic level: the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit in 2010, the Legion of Honour as Commander in 2013, and the Grand Media Prize of the Franco-German Journalism Prize in 2016. For organisations trying to read what the Paris-Berlin axis, the European Commission, and a more brittle multilateral order will actually do next, Asselborn is one of the few accessible voices who spent two decades inside those decisions. Key speaking topics European integration and the future of the EU The rules-based international order and multilateralism Democracy and rule of law inside the European Union Franco-German relations and the EU institutional axis UN Security Council diplomacy and small-state influence Migration, asylum, and European border policy Transatlantic relations and EU strategic autonomy Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material European exposure assessing political and regulatory risk Public affairs, government relations, and ESG leads working at EU-institution level Banking, asset management, and defence audiences pricing geopolitical and sanctions risk in Europe Foundations, NGOs, and policy convenings on democracy, human rights, and multilateralism Audience outcomes A first-hand reading of how decisions actually get taken inside the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council A sharper view of where rule-of-law tensions inside the EU are heading, and what that means for operating in those member states A clear sense of how the Franco-German axis and the European Commission are likely to align on the next phase of sanctions, enlargement, and defence An informed perspective on the limits and uses of multilateral institutions, drawn from a UN Security Council term A serious, non-partisan frame for discussing democracy, migration, and European values without recourse to talking points

Why organisations work with Jeff Speck He has translated walkability from a planning preference into a measurable argument about carbon, healthcare costs, property values and downtown economic performance, set out in Walkable City and applied in master plans for Memphis, Grand Rapids, Lowell and Tampa. His General Theory of Walkability gives mayors, developers and corporate site selectors a single framework for evaluating the trade-offs in any street, block or downtown investment. He brings both sides of the table: ten years inside Duany Plater-Zyberk shaping the New Urbanism, four years running design policy at the National Endowment for the Arts, and almost two decades leading his own consultancy advising cities and the real estate industry. Walkable City is the best-selling urban planning book written this century, and his two 2013 TED Talks have passed six million views, which means audiences arrive already familiar with the argument and ready to discuss application. The 2022 Seaside Prize, awarded previously to Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, places him in a small group of figures recognised for shaping how cities are now planned. Biography highlights Principal of Speck Dempsey, the urban design consultancy he has led since 2007. Director of Design at the US National Endowment for the Arts, 2003 to 2007, where he ran the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and founded the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. Former Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company, a ten-year tenure inside the firm at the centre of the New Urbanism movement. Author of Walkable City and Walkable City Rules; co-author of Suburban Nation and The Smart Growth Manual. FAICP, FCNU, LEED-AP, Honorary ASLA. Master of Architecture with Distinction, Harvard Graduate School of Design. 2022 Seaside Prize, an award whose previous recipients include Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander. Ranked among the ten most influential urbanists of all time in Planetizen’s 2023 reader poll. Biography Most arguments about downtowns get stuck on aesthetics. The serious case is economic. Jeff Speck has spent twenty years showing public officials, developers and corporate leaders that the width of a lane, the placement of a parking lot and the design of a block decide whether a city captures investment, talent and tax base, or quietly loses it. Walkable City, published in 2012, set out the General Theory of Walkability and the ten-step process Speck uses to apply it. It became the best-selling urban planning book written this century, and his two 2013 TED Talks have since passed six million views. Walkable City Rules followed in 2018 as the operating manual for practitioners. The argument is built on three decades inside the work. Ten years as Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company, the firm at the centre of the New Urbanism movement. Four years running design at the US National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and created the Governors’ Institute on Community Design. Almost two decades leading Speck Dempsey on master plans and street designs for cities including Memphis, Grand Rapids, Lowell and Tampa. The 2022 Seaside Prize, awarded previously to Jane Jacobs and Christopher Alexander, recognises the small group of figures whose work has changed how American cities are now planned. For boards, mayors and developers wrestling with the future of downtown, Speck is the rare adviser who can move between climate strategy, real estate economics and the design of a single intersection without losing the thread. Key speaking topics Walkable cities and downtown economic performance The General Theory of Walkability Street design and the public realm New Urbanism and smart growth Cities, climate and public health economics Downtown revitalisation and real estate investment Transportation policy and the future of the car Ideal for Mayors, city managers, planning directors and downtown development authorities Real estate developers, REITs and corporate site selectors making place-based investment decisions Sustainability, ESG and climate leads in organisations linking property and emissions strategy Boards and senior teams in retail, hospitality and mixed-use real estate Audience outcomes A working definition of walkability as four conditions a street must meet, applicable to any block under review The economic case for walkable places, expressed in terms of property values, retail performance, healthcare costs and carbon A ten-step sequence for prioritising downtown investments when the budget will fund a fraction of what is on the wishlist A clear view of the trade-offs between car capacity, street life and downtown tax base, with named examples of cities that have got it right and wrong A shared vocabulary between planners, developers, finance teams and elected officials for the next set of decisions

Why organisations work with Jens Weidmann A decade inside the ECB Governing Council during the sovereign debt crisis, the Draghi “whatever it takes” period, and the pandemic response. Few speakers can describe those decisions from inside the room. The hawkish dissent on the ECB council was not branding. It was a substantive position on bond purchases, fiscal dominance, and the limits of central bank independence, and it informs how he reads today’s inflation and debt dynamics. Active commercial bank chairman (Commerzbank) and reinsurance supervisor (Munich Re). His view on rates, regulation, and risk is grounded in current board exposure, not a retired official’s recollections. Chief G8 and G20 sherpa for Germany under Chancellor Merkel. He brings a working knowledge of how monetary, fiscal, and geopolitical decisions are negotiated between major economies. Chaired the BIS board and led the IMF’s 2022 panel on institutional safeguards. The credentials matter because they signal access to the small group of people who set the rules of cross-border finance. Biography highlights President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, 2011 to 2021 Member of the ECB Governing Council and Chairman of the Board of the Bank for International Settlements during his Bundesbank presidency Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank since 2023 Member of the Supervisory Board of Munich Re Professor of Practice in Central Banking and Co-Director of the Centre for Central Banking, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management Former Head of Division IV (Economic and Financial Policy) at the German Federal Chancellery and chief German sherpa for G8 and G20 summits Chair of the IMF External and Independent Panel of High-Level Experts on Institutional Safeguards, 2022 Biography The Bundesbank seat on the ECB Governing Council carries a particular weight. It represents the largest economy in the eurozone and a tradition of monetary discipline that predates the single currency. For a decade, that seat was occupied by Jens Weidmann, and during the Draghi era he was the Council’s most consistent dissenter on sovereign bond purchases and on the boundary between monetary and fiscal policy. Before the Bundesbank, Weidmann was the German Chancellery’s chief economic adviser and the country’s sherpa at the G8 and G20. The negotiations after Lehman, the Greek programme, and the early architecture of European banking union all crossed his desk. Earlier still he served the German Council of Economic Experts, where his work fed into the Agenda 2010 reforms that reshaped the German labour market. Since stepping down from the Bundesbank in 2021, his focus has shifted from rule-setting to rule-applying. As Chairman of Commerzbank’s Supervisory Board he oversees one of Germany’s two large commercial banks through a higher-rate environment and a renewed debate over European banking consolidation. At Munich Re he sits inside the supervisory governance of a major reinsurer, where climate and geopolitical risk meet capital adequacy. He teaches and writes from the Frankfurt School Centre for Central Banking, which he co-directs. The IMF’s 2022 decision to appoint him chair of its independent panel on institutional safeguards, after the data scandal involving its managing director, signalled that his judgement on institutional integrity carries weight beyond Germany. Key speaking topics Monetary policy and central bank independence Eurozone economic and financial stability Inflation, public debt, and fiscal dominance Banking supervision and financial regulation G7, G20, and international policy coordination Geopolitical risk and the global financial system Ideal for Bank, asset manager, and insurer boards setting strategy under shifting rate and regulatory regimes CEOs, CFOs, and CROs of multinationals exposed to euro-area policy and currency risk Government, regulator, and policy audiences working on financial stability and reform Audience outcomes A grounded reading of where eurozone monetary policy is heading and what would shift it A clearer sense of how political and fiscal pressure now interacts with central bank decisions A working view of the constraints and choices facing European banks and insurers An informed perspective on G20-level coordination, sanctions, and the financial architecture around geopolitical risk