Political Risk & Policy

Why organisations work with Sir Howard Davies He is the only person to have both designed the UK’s single financial regulatory architecture – merging nine agencies into the FSA between 1997 and 2003 – and then governed a major commercial bank as its chair. That double vantage point is not replicable by any other speaker in this space. His 2022 book The Chancellors (Polity Press), based on direct interviews with UK Chancellors of the Exchequer, provides boards with a forensic account of how fiscal and monetary policy decisions are actually made under political constraint – directly relevant to any organisation calibrating its exposure to policy risk. He maintains current, published views on global regulatory fragmentation, ESG retreat in financial services, and the direction of financial supervision through his Project Syndicate column and Financial Times contributions – his perspective is live, not retrospective. His tenure as Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry gives him a period in his career where he represented the commercial case in dialogue with regulators and government – meaning he understands regulatory negotiation from the business side as well as the supervisory side. As Chair of Inigo Limited at Lloyd’s of London and a member of a Chinese securities regulatory advisory council, he brings active, multi-jurisdictional board-level experience to questions about how regulatory divergence is reshaping global financial markets. Biography highlights Founding Chairman, UK Financial Services Authority (1997-2003) – created the UK’s single financial regulator by merging nine separate agencies Deputy Governor, Bank of England (1995-1997) Chair, NatWest Group (2015-2024) Director, London School of Economics and Political Science (2003-2011) Professor of Practice, Sciences Po, Paris – teaches financial regulation and central banking at master’s level Six published books on finance and economic policy, including Banking on the Future (Princeton University Press, 2010) and The Chancellors (Polity Press, 2022) Regular contributor to Project Syndicate and the Financial Times Director-General, Confederation of British Industry (1992-1995) Chair, UK Airports Commission (2012-2015) Knight Bachelor (2000) Biography Financial regulation is not a technical discipline that sits at the edge of the boardroom. It is a political process that reshapes the commercial options available to every regulated institution – and boards that treat it as a compliance matter, rather than a strategic one, tend to be late to the table when the framework shifts. Sir Howard Davies has operated at the centre of that process for three decades. As founding Chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority, he created the country’s single financial regulator from scratch between 1997 and 2003, merging nine separate agencies into one body. That work – designing supervisory architecture under political instruction, negotiating between commercial interests and public mandates – gives him a form of institutional authority that no amount of academic or advisory work can replicate. His earlier role as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, and his preceding three years as Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, adds the monetary policy and business lobby dimensions to a perspective that is genuinely triangulated across the full regulatory relationship. From 2015 to 2024 he served as Chair of NatWest Group, guiding the bank through a nine-year transformation from a state-aided institution to a commercially independent one. Governance under political scrutiny, board accountability in a regulated environment, and reputational risk in real time are not abstractions in his work – they are operational experience. His six published books, among them The Chancellors (Polity Press, 2022), based on direct interviews with UK Chancellors of the Exchequer, bring the same analytical rigour to economic policymaking that his regulatory career brought to financial supervision. He is currently Chair of Inigo Limited at Lloyd’s of London, a member of the International Advisory Council of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and Professor of Practice at Sciences Po in Paris, where he teaches financial regulation and central banking. For boards in regulated sectors trying to read the direction of travel in financial supervision – across jurisdictions, not just domestically – his vantage point is without direct equivalent. Key speaking topics Financial regulation and regulatory reform Banking governance and board oversight Central banking and monetary policy Economic policy and the role of the Treasury Regulatory risk and political risk in financial services Global financial markets and cross-border regulatory divergence ESG strategy in financial services Ideal for Boards and audit/risk committees in banks, insurers, and asset managers Financial regulators, policymakers, and supervisory bodies CHROs and general counsel in highly regulated sectors navigating governance reform Senior leaders in institutional investment and sovereign wealth management Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how financial regulatory frameworks are made and how they change under political pressure – not just what the current rules are Practical framing of the governance responsibilities that sit above compliance, drawn from direct board experience at a major UK bank Perspective on the direction of global regulatory divergence, including between US, EU, and UK supervisory approaches A more calibrated view of how monetary policy decisions interact with fiscal policy, and what that means for strategic planning in financial institutions Insight into how the regulator-board relationship works in practice – and where it typically breaks down

Why organisations work with Herman Van Rompuy He chaired the European Council through the sovereign debt crisis and can explain, from the inside, how decisions on the euro, the Fiscal Compact, and the European Stability Mechanism were actually brokered between 27 national capitals. He is a trained economist, not a career politician alone; his National Bank of Belgium background means he reads monetary policy, bank regulation and fiscal governance with technical fluency most former heads of state lack. His 2012 report to the European Council laid the blueprint for Banking Union; leaders get direct authorship perspective on the supervisory and resolution architecture their treasury and risk teams now operate inside. He remains plugged into the current debate as President of the Board of the College of Europe and Honorary President of the European Policy Centre, so the analysis is live, not a memoir. The Charlemagne Prize is awarded for mediation and consensus-building in Europe, which is precisely what he does on stage: he translates a 27-country bargaining dynamic into language a corporate board can act on. Biography highlights First full-time President of the European Council, 2009-2014, re-elected unanimously for a second term in 2012. Prime Minister of Belgium, 2008-2009; Speaker of the House of Representatives, 2007-2008; Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Budget, 1993-1999. Recipient of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, 2014. President of the Administrative Council of the College of Europe (Bruges); Honorary President of the European Policy Centre; visiting fellow at Bruegel. Author of nine books, including “Europe in the Storm: Promise and Prejudice” (Davidsfonds, 2014) on the eurozone crisis years. Holds a Master’s in Applied Economics from KU Leuven; former economist at the National Bank of Belgium. Biography When the euro came close to breaking apart in 2011 and 2012, the meetings that kept it together were chaired by one man. Herman Van Rompuy had taken up the newly created post of permanent President of the European Council in January 2010, and within months the Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts were on his desk. Over five years he presided over twenty-eight European Councils and eleven Euro summits, and emerged with the architecture that still governs the single currency. The substance of that period matters more than the title. Under his chairmanship the European Council agreed the European Stability Mechanism, the Fiscal Compact, and the Six-Pack and Two-Pack rules on national budgets. His June 2012 report, prepared with the Presidents of the Commission, the ECB and the Eurogroup, set out the blueprint for Banking Union; the Single Supervisory Mechanism and Single Resolution Mechanism followed. Companies doing business in Europe now operate inside the framework he helped draft. He came to the role as an economist first. A Master’s in Applied Economics from KU Leuven and an early career at the National Bank of Belgium gave him a fluency in monetary and fiscal detail that distinguishes him from most former heads of government. Belgian voters knew him as a technocratic budget minister in the 1990s before he became Prime Minister in the 2008 financial crisis, and he brought the same style to Brussels: quiet, methodical, consensus-driven. That approach has kept him inside the European debate. He is President of the Administrative Council of the College of Europe in Bruges, Honorary President of the European Policy Centre, and a visiting fellow at Bruegel. The International Charlemagne Prize, awarded in 2014, cited him as a mediator and driving force behind European unification, which is the working mode boards encounter when he sits with them on the state of the Union. Key speaking topics European Union governance and institutional reform Eurozone economic policy and monetary cooperation Banking Union and European financial stability Geopolitical risk in the European neighbourhood Crisis decision-making at heads-of-government level EU enlargement and the future of integration Belgium and the politics of coalition government Ideal for Boards and executive committees of firms with material euro-area exposure CFO and treasury leadership working under EU financial regulation Government affairs, strategy and political risk functions in multinationals Banking, insurance and asset management audiences operating inside Banking Union rules Audience outcomes A clearer read of how EU-level decisions are actually made between national capitals, institutions and the ECB A grounded view of where eurozone integration is heading and which political constraints are binding First-hand perspective on crisis leadership at the top of European politics Sharper framing of European political risk for board-level and investment committee discussions

Why organisations work with Harold James A historian’s answer to the question leaders actually ask in a crisis: is this 1973, 2008, or something new? The framework from Seven Crashes gives boards a way to test that judgement rather than guess. Institutional access earned as the IMF’s official historian, with a chair at Princeton since 1986. Few commentators on globalization sit this close to the machinery they write about. A published thesis, not a view of the week: supply-driven crises expand markets, demand-driven crises shrink them. It changes how leaders interpret inflation, tariffs, and capital controls. Track record with serious business readers, including the Financial Times Global Business Book Award for the Deutsche Bank history and an FT Best Politics Books selection for The War of Words. Biography highlights Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies, Princeton University; Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. Official historian of the International Monetary Fund. Author of Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization (Yale University Press, 2023) and Making the European Monetary Union (Harvard University Press, 2012). Co-author of the authorised history of Deutsche Bank, winner of the Financial Times Global Business Book Award, 1996. Helmut Schmidt Prize for Economic History (2004); Ludwig Erhard Prize for writing about economics (2005); Ellen McArthur Prize for Economic History, Cambridge. Monthly columnist for Project Syndicate; associate of Princeton’s Bendheim Center for Finance. Biography Seven crashes, from the 1840s depression to Covid-19, do not all mean the same thing. In Seven Crashes (Yale, 2023), Harold James splits them into crises of supply, which tend to expand markets, and crises of demand, which tend to contract them. That distinction is the working tool he brings into boardrooms. The intellectual base is Princeton, where James has held the Claude and Lore Kelly Chair in European Studies since joining the faculty in 1986. He is Professor of History and International Affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs and an associate of the Bendheim Center for Finance. Making the European Monetary Union (Harvard, 2012) remains a standard reference on how the euro was built and what it assumed about member-state behaviour. The institutional access is unusual. James is the official historian of the International Monetary Fund, which gives him a documented inside view of how the post-war financial order actually operated through each shock. His authorised history of Deutsche Bank won the Financial Times Global Business Book Award in 1996. The War of Words, his glossary of globalization, was named to the Financial Times Best Politics Books of 2021. For corporate audiences the output is practical. A monthly Project Syndicate column tests his arguments against the news cycle. The Helmut Schmidt Prize (2004), Ludwig Erhard Prize (2005), and Cambridge’s Ellen McArthur Prize sit behind that record. When a risk committee is trying to decide whether tariffs, sanctions, or a monetary regime change is a shock or a structural shift, his Seven Crashes framework is a clean instrument for forcing that choice. Key speaking topics Globalization cycles and deglobalization Financial crises and crisis response European monetary union and the euro History of central banking Germany and the European economy International monetary and financial architecture Inflation, supply shocks, and political economy Ideal for Bank and asset manager boards setting multi-year macro and rate assumptions CROs, CFOs, and treasury leaders testing crisis playbooks against historical precedent Policy, regulatory, and central bank forums on monetary union and international finance Investor conferences and CEO summits addressing tariffs, sanctions, and the future of trade Audience outcomes A working distinction between supply-driven and demand-driven crises, with historical cases for each A sharper reading of current inflation, tariff, and capital-flow debates against the long record Perspective on the euro and European monetary policy from a historian who has written its formal history An IMF-informed view of how global financial institutions actually respond when the system is under stress

Why organisations work with Guy Verhofstadt He was the European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator – not an observer of the UK withdrawal process but the person responsible for the Parliament’s institutional position throughout the negotiations. No analyst or commentator holds that credential. His argument for a federal “United States of Europe” as the answer to EU structural fragility is a specific, published intellectual framework developed across four books since 2006 – not a commentary position adopted after the fact. Nearly a decade as Belgian Prime Minister gave him direct, operational experience of governing within EU frameworks during periods of genuine political and economic crisis, including the eurozone’s early stress points. He co-founded the Spinelli Group in 2010, the inter-parliamentary initiative specifically designed to push for EU federalisation – giving him an active network inside European institutions that no external adviser can replicate. As President of the European Movement International and a regular contributor to Project Syndicate, he remains engaged in current EU reform debates – his perspective reflects where those debates are now, not where they were when he left office. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Belgium, 1999-2008; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Budget, 1985-1992 European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator and Chair of the Brexit Steering Group, 2016-2020 Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the European Parliament, 2009-2019 Co-founder of the Spinelli Group (2010), the inter-parliamentary initiative for EU federalisation President of the European Movement International; member of the Club de Madrid Author of four books on European governance, including Europe’s Last Chance (Basic Books, 2017), reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and New York Review of Books; regular contributor to Project Syndicate Biography Europe’s governance architecture was designed for consensus, not speed. Any member state can block legislation, opt out of core commitments, or exit entirely, as the UK demonstrated in 2016. For organisations with material European exposure, that creates a category of political risk that is structural rather than cyclical – the kind that most standard geopolitical analysis does not reach. Guy Verhofstadt spent nearly a decade as Prime Minister of Belgium, governing a federal state at the intersection of Flemish, Walloon, and European politics. He then led the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group in the European Parliament from 2009 to 2019. Those ten years spanned the eurozone debt crisis, the refugee surge, and the early fracturing of European political consensus. When the UK triggered Article 50 in 2016, he was appointed the European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator and chaired its Brexit Steering Group through the entire withdrawal process until 2020. That role placed him at the institutional centre of the most significant stress test EU governance had faced – not as an analyst, but as the person responsible for the Parliament’s negotiating position at every stage. His published argument, developed across books including The United States of Europe (2006) and Europe’s Last Chance (Basic Books, 2017), holds that EU structural weakness requires a federal solution. Reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and New York Review of Books, it is a practitioner’s diagnosis built on three decades inside the institutions he analyses. He remains active as President of the European Movement International and as a regular contributor to Project Syndicate. Key speaking topics EU institutional reform and governance European geopolitical risk Brexit and EU-UK relations The future of the European project Transatlantic relations and the liberal international order European economic governance and the currency union Political risk for organisations operating in Europe Ideal for CFOs, general counsel, and public affairs leads in multinationals with significant European market exposure Financial services boards and investment committees assessing European regulatory and political risk Policy and public affairs professionals tracking EU institutional reform Conference programmes focused on European geopolitics, global political risk, and the future of the international rules-based order Audience outcomes A clear account of how EU decision-making actually works and where its structural weaknesses lie – from someone who operated inside those structures at the highest level An insider’s reading of the Brexit process, its institutional mechanics, and its continuing implications for EU-UK relations A framework for assessing European political risk that goes beyond headline news and electoral cycles Grounded perspective on EU reform debates – the federal argument, its obstacles, and the realistic trajectories Context for understanding the shift from a rules-based international order to a world of competing power blocs, and what that means for organisations dependent on European stability

Why organisations work with Graeme Leach A working forecaster, not a commentator. Two decades as Chief Economist at the Institute of Directors and earlier at the Henley Centre for Forecasting give him a record of calling macro turning points for business audiences before they show up in headlines. One of the few UK economists who connects monetary policy, geopolitics, and long-horizon demographics in a single argument. His “The RACE” keynote forces leadership teams to think about technology adoption and demographic decline as the same strategic problem. A senior policy voice, not just a market voice. Membership of the IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee and the Legatum Institute senior fellowship put him inside the UK debate on interest rates, productivity, and prosperity, which matters to boards making capital allocation calls. Built for serious audiences. Nearly 1,000 keynotes in 25 countries, including Royal Albert Hall scale, with a reputation for making complex macro intelligible to non-economists in the room. Biography highlights CEO and Chief Economist, macronomics, a macroeconomic, geopolitical and future megatrends research consultancy founded in 2016. Chief Economist and Director of Policy, Institute of Directors, 1997 to 2014, and a main board director. Senior Fellow, Legatum Institute, and former Director of Economics and Prosperity Studies. Member, IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Weekly columnist, City AM. Former Chief UK and International Economist, The Henley Centre for Forecasting. Regular contributor on BBC News, Sky News, BBC Radio 4 Today and World at One. Almost 1,000 keynotes delivered across 25 countries. Biography The macroeconomic backdrop business leaders operate against has stopped being a single curve and become a set of intersecting ones. Interest rates, inflation, geopolitical risk, demographic decline, and the productivity story behind AI now move together. Boards need a forecaster who can read them as one system. That is the job Graeme Leach has done for UK business for more than two decades. As Chief Economist and Director of Policy at the Institute of Directors from 1997 to 2014, he was the macroeconomic voice for thousands of UK directors through the dotcom cycle, the financial crisis, and the early years of the post-2008 recovery. Before that he was Chief UK and International Economist at the Henley Centre for Forecasting, one of the original commercial forecasting houses in London. In 2016 he founded macronomics, where he advises corporate and institutional clients on global outlook, geopolitical risk, and the megatrends that sit underneath them. The work is reinforced by a Senior Fellowship at the Legatum Institute, a seat on the IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, and a weekly City AM column, giving him a continuous read on UK monetary policy and prosperity debates. His signature keynote, “The RACE for economic supremacy in the 21st century”, argues that the advanced economies are racing to capture the productivity gains of technology before demographic decline erodes growth. It is the kind of argument that connects what a CFO sees on the rate curve to what a CHRO sees in the workforce data. Across nearly 1,000 engagements in 25 countries, the reputation is consistent: he makes the complicated sound simple without making it sound small. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook UK economic outlook and monetary policy Geopolitical risk Demographic change and productivity Future megatrends Brexit and UK political economy Long-run scenarios for the world economy Ideal for Board and ExCo strategy offsites setting capital allocation under macro uncertainty CFO and treasury audiences planning against rate, inflation, and currency cycles Industry conferences and corporate client events needing a senior macro voice After-dinner and keynote slots where a serious economist must hold a non-specialist room Audience outcomes A coherent reading of the global and UK macro picture, with named risks rather than a checklist A clear view of how demography, technology, and geopolitics interact over a 10 to 20 year horizon A grounded position on UK interest rates, inflation, and growth from inside the policy debate Specific implications for capital allocation, workforce planning, and international exposure

Why organisations work with George Papandreou He ran a G20 economy through the most acute phase of the eurozone crisis. His account of negotiating with the IMF, ECB and European Commission is operational, not theoretical. He has held the two roles that shape Greek and European foreign policy, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, giving him an unusual horizontal view of how European institutions actually decide. As President of the Socialist International for 16 years, he built and maintained relationships with heads of government across more than a hundred parties worldwide, which informs how he reads political risk outside Europe. His current Council of Europe role as General Rapporteur on Democracy puts him inside the live work on democratic backsliding across 46 member states, not commenting on it from outside. He brings a specific, named thesis on the eurozone, that the architecture is unfinished and that the political legitimacy of monetary union is the real binding constraint, and is willing to argue it on the record. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Greece, October 2009 to November 2011, through the first sovereign debt rescue inside the euro area. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, 1999 to 2004, the period of the Greek-Turkish diplomatic opening. President of the Socialist International, 2006 to 2022; now President Emeritus. General Rapporteur on Democracy, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, with PACE adopting his June 2024 report on participatory and deliberative democracy. Fellow, Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs (1992 to 1993) and Institute of Politics (Fall 2012); led the IOP study group “(Re)designing Europe”. Grand Cross decorations from Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Finland and Sweden; TED Global 2013 speaker on democratic deficit and trust. Biography Greece reached the edge of default inside the euro in 2010. The government that called the IMF was led by George Papandreou, who took office in October 2009 with a public finance hole that nobody on the European side had priced in. The decisions made in the following 24 months, on austerity, on bondholder participation, on whether the eurozone would let a member state fail, shaped a decade of European economic policy. Papandreou had reached that chair through a long political career. He had been Foreign Minister from 1999 to 2004, the period associated with the Greek-Turkish rapprochement, and President of PASOK from 2004. From 2006 to 2022 he was President of the Socialist International, which gave him direct working relationships with heads of government and party leaders across more than a hundred countries. His current work is at the Council of Europe, where he is General Rapporteur on Democracy for the Parliamentary Assembly. In June 2024 PACE adopted his report calling on member states to strengthen participatory and deliberative processes, a substantive technical agenda rather than rhetorical concern about democratic decline. He has paired this with academic work at Harvard, including the Institute of Politics study group “(Re)designing Europe”, and earlier as a Fellow at the Center for International Affairs. For boards and executive audiences, the value is specificity. He can describe how the Eurogroup made decisions in the early hours of a Monday morning, why the political economy of monetary union remains the binding constraint on European integration, and how participatory democratic reforms now under negotiation will change the regulatory environment that companies face across Europe. Key speaking topics The eurozone, sovereign debt and the unfinished architecture of monetary union European political risk and the future of European integration Democratic backsliding and institutional reform in Europe Greece, Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean Crisis leadership at the level of national government Participatory and deliberative democracy Global governance and multilateral cooperation Ideal for Boards and executive committees with significant European exposure assessing political and sovereign risk Heads of public affairs and government relations working on EU institutional reform Investor audiences and capital allocators with euro area sovereign and equity positions Foreign policy and security forums focused on the eastern Mediterranean and Europe’s neighbourhood Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a sovereign debt rescue inside the euro area was actually negotiated A reading of the political constraints that still sit underneath the euro and what could reopen them A view of which European democracies are most vulnerable to institutional erosion and why A clearer sense of how Council of Europe and EU-level democratic reforms will shape the operating environment A working framework for thinking about the link between economic shock, political legitimacy and policy

Why organisations work with Gavin Esler Four decades of frontline political reporting, including twelve years presenting Newsnight and several as BBC Chief North America Correspondent in Washington, give him a working feel for how Westminster and US politics actually behave under stress. His three political books (How Britain Ends, Brexit Without the Bullshit, Britain Is Better Than This) make a coherent argument about constitutional drift, English nationalism and institutional decay that has shaped serious debate about the UK’s direction. A Sony Gold Award and a Royal Television Society award signal that his work meets the standard of named broadcast bodies, not just bureau claims. Ten years as Chancellor of the University of Kent gave him extensive experience chairing formal occasions and speaking to large mixed audiences, which carries through to moderation and awards hosting. He is one of the few broadcasters who can move between a geopolitical keynote, a board Q and A on US politics, and a polished on-stage interview with a chief executive in the same brief. Biography highlights Main presenter of BBC Two’s Newsnight, January 2003 to January 2014. BBC Chief North America Correspondent, Washington DC, covering the Bush and Clinton administrations. Presenter of Dateline London on BBC News and BBC World News until 2017. Sixth Chancellor of the University of Kent, July 2014 to January 2024. Sony Gold Award for the BBC Radio 4 documentary Letters from Guantanamo, and a Royal Television Society award for foreign reporting. Author of Lessons from the Top (Profile Books, 2012), How Britain Ends (2021), Brexit Without the Bullshit and Britain Is Better Than This (2023). Biography Most political analysis on conference stages still treats Westminster and Washington as two separate beats. The interesting question is what happens when they are read as one continuous story about fraying constitutional settlements, contested legitimacy, and the strain these place on business planning. That is the territory Gavin Esler has worked in for four decades. He presented BBC Two’s Newsnight from 2003 to 2014, and before that was BBC Chief North America Correspondent in Washington, shaping the corporation’s US coverage through the first Bush and Clinton administrations. He went on to front Dateline London on BBC News and BBC World News, bringing foreign correspondents into weekly argument about events in their own capitals. His three political books run a consistent thread. How Britain Ends argues that English nationalism, not Scottish independence, is the force most likely to break the British union. Britain Is Better Than This reads the expenses scandal, Brexit, Partygate and the Truss premiership as symptoms of institutional decay rather than isolated failures. Lessons from the Top, written earlier, distils three decades of interviewing figures from Bill Clinton to senior military commanders into a framework for how leaders use story to hold legitimacy. He served ten years as Chancellor of the University of Kent, conferring degrees and chairing formal university occasions through a period of significant change in UK higher education. His Sony Gold Award for Letters from Guantanamo and his Royal Television Society award sit alongside that body of reporting and writing as evidence that his judgement has been tested in public for longer than most commentators now working. Key speaking topics UK politics and constitutional change Brexit and its long tail US politics and the transatlantic relationship Geopolitical risk for boards and investors Trust, disinformation and the media Leadership and storytelling On-stage interviewing and moderation Ideal for Board and executive committee sessions pricing UK and US political risk into three-year strategy. Public affairs, legal and financial services conferences needing a named political analyst rather than a generalist keynote. Awards ceremonies, annual dinners and flagship conferences that need a senior broadcaster as host, interviewer or moderator. Leadership forums examining how institutional trust erodes and how communication holds or loses legitimacy. Audience outcomes A sharper read of where UK constitutional politics is heading and what would have to be true for different outcomes. A working sense of how US political cycles translate into risk for European businesses and investors. A more concrete view of how disinformation and declining institutional trust affect corporate reputation and policy environments. A framework for how leaders use narrative to sustain authority, drawn from his interviews with heads of state and senior executives.

Why organisations work with Fraser Nelson Fifteen years editing The Spectator, the longest-running weekly in the English language, gives him a working memory of Westminster that most commentators do not have. He chairs panels and interviews senior figures for a living, which shows up on a corporate stage as pace, real questions, and genuine pushback rather than a scripted Q and A. He has argued the centre-right case on welfare, tax and growth in print and on Channel 4 Dispatches, so audiences that disagree with him still get a coherent argument rather than a talking-points loop. Sits on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies and the advisory board of the Centre for Social Justice, which keeps him close to the policy process leaders are trying to read. Won the British Press Award for Political Journalist of the Year in 2013 and Columnist of the Year at the 2025 British Journalism Awards, a twelve-year span that speaks to durability rather than a moment. Biography highlights Editor of The Spectator, 2009 to 2024. Columnist for The Times; previously a Daily Telegraph columnist for thirteen years. British Press Award, Political Journalist of the Year, 2013. Columnist of the Year, British Journalism Awards, 2025. BSME Editor of the Year (current affairs) in 2013, 2021 and 2023. Board member, Centre for Policy Studies; advisory board, Centre for Social Justice. Presenter of Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries including How The Rich Get Richer (2014) and a 2024 Wincott-Award-winning investigation into Britain’s sickness-benefits system. Biography British political reporting runs on access, and access runs on trust built over years. Fraser Nelson spent fifteen of those years editing The Spectator, from 2009 to 2024, during which the magazine’s subscriptions roughly doubled while the wider weekly market shrank. That job puts an editor on first-name terms with every Prime Minister, Chancellor and opposition leader of the period. Before The Spectator he covered business at The Times, then ran Scottish politics for The Scotsman. He now writes a weekly column for The Times, after thirteen years at the Daily Telegraph. The awards track records the endurance rather than the moment: Political Journalist of the Year at the 2013 British Press Awards, Editors’ Editor of the Year in the same year, BSME current-affairs editor of the year in 2021 and 2023, and Columnist of the Year at the 2025 British Journalism Awards. His policy work sits on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies, where he delivered the 2009 Keith Joseph Lecture, and on the advisory board of the Centre for Social Justice. That work has produced two Channel 4 Dispatches documentaries, including How The Rich Get Richer in 2014 and a 2024 investigation into Britain’s sickness-benefits system that won a Wincott Award. On stage he is most often used as a moderator and interviewer of senior figures, where the job is to pull something useful out of a Chancellor or a Cabinet minister in thirty minutes in front of a corporate audience. For clients who want the content rather than the craft, he delivers a sharp read on UK politics, economic policy, and the welfare reform debate he has argued from the centre-right for two decades. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster decision-making British economic policy and the case for reform Welfare, work and the long-term fiscal picture The state of British journalism and media Brexit and its unfinished consequences Panel moderation and on-stage interviews Ideal for Boards and investment committees making UK-exposed capital and hiring decisions Annual conferences that want a credible moderator for a minister, regulator or CEO panel Partner and client dinners where the brief is a half-hour read of the political year Public affairs and policy teams inside UK-regulated sectors briefing senior leadership Audience outcomes A clearer read on which Westminster signals are durable and which are noise A centre-right argument on tax, welfare and growth that a mixed room can engage with A sense of how Treasury, Number 10 and the opposition actually make decisions For moderated sessions, a sharper interview of the senior guest than the room expected

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 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 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 Eric Maskin He is one of three economists who built the field that now underpins auction design, procurement, and market regulation across the developed world. Few speakers can claim intellectual authorship of a discipline their audience already uses. His frameworks answer a concrete question boards wrestle with: when an incentive system fails, is the fault in execution, in the people, or in the design itself? Maskin’s work gives a disciplined way to tell the difference. On voting and collective decision rules, his recent work with Amartya Sen and Edward Foley offers leaders a sharper vocabulary for how groups should choose, directly relevant to governance, board process, and platform moderation. He brings the Harvard chair, the Nobel, and the former presidency of the Econometric Society, but speaks to business audiences in the register of a colleague reasoning through a problem, not a laureate delivering a lecture. Biography highlights 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson, for the foundations of mechanism design theory. Adams University Professor and Professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard University. Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 2000 to 2011. Past President of the Econometric Society and the Game Theory Society. Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1984 to 1990. Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the National Academy of Sciences; holder of 18 honorary doctorates. Biography Mechanism design is the branch of economics that asks a practical question: if you want a specific outcome from a group of people with different information and different interests, what rules will produce it? The Royal Swedish Academy cited that question when it awarded the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to Leonid Hurwicz, Roger Myerson, and Eric Maskin. Maskin’s contribution, often called Maskin monotonicity, set the conditions under which a social goal can actually be implemented through the behaviour of self-interested agents. The theory now sits behind spectrum auctions, procurement design, matching markets, and a large share of modern regulatory economics. His institutional record follows the work. He taught at MIT from 1977 to 1984, at Harvard from 1985 to 2000, and held the Albert O. Hirschman chair at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton until 2012, when Harvard named him Adams University Professor. He edited the Quarterly Journal of Economics for six years and served as President of both the Econometric Society and the Game Theory Society. More recent work has turned to voting. With Amartya Sen in The New York Review of Books, and in subsequent papers with Edward Foley, Maskin has argued for Condorcet-style rules over plurality and ranked-choice systems on the grounds that they track majority preference more faithfully. For boards, regulators, and platform operators, the underlying question is the same as the one that won the Nobel: which rule produces the outcome the institution actually wants. Key speaking topics Mechanism design and the economics of incentives Auction design and market allocation Regulation, competition policy, and market power Voting rules and collective decision systems Governance and institutional design Innovation, patents, and intellectual property Ideal for Boards and executive committees redesigning incentive, compensation, or partnership structures Regulators, central banks, and policy leaders working on auctions, procurement, or market oversight Platform operators and market-makers setting allocation, pricing, or moderation rules Senior economics and strategy audiences at investor conferences and leadership summits Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for diagnosing when an incentive failure is a design problem, not a people problem Concrete examples of how auction and market-design choices change who wins and what is produced A sharper view of voting and decision rules for governance, board process, and group choice Direct exposure to the reasoning of one of the architects of modern economic theory, applied to questions leaders actually face