Political Risk & Policy

Why organisations work with Dan Jorgensen Direct line of sight into EU energy and climate decision-making. As the sitting Commissioner with the portfolio, he sets the regulatory weather that most European businesses have to plan against. Track record of turning climate ambition into binding policy, including Denmark’s 70% 2030 emissions target, the decision to end North Sea oil and gas exploration by 2050, and the energy islands programme. Co-founded the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance with Costa Rica at COP26, one of the few multilateral vehicles for a managed phase-out of fossil fuel production. Combines national ministerial experience, EU legislative experience as an MEP, and EU executive experience as a Commissioner. Few speakers on energy policy hold all three. Biography highlights European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, second von der Leyen Commission, since December 2024. Former Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities (2019-2022) and Minister for Development Cooperation and Global Climate Policy (2022-2024). Co-initiator of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, launched at COP26 with Costa Rica. Proposed the law for the world’s first offshore wind energy island, passed by the Danish Parliament in 2021. Member of the European Parliament 2004-2013, Vice-Chair of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee. Author of “Grønt håb – Klimapolitik 2.0”, with interviews including Jens Stoltenberg, Connie Hedegaard and Rajendra Pachauri. Awarded the Ukrainian Order of Merit, first degree, by President Zelenskyy in 2024. Biography The EU’s energy agenda sits at the intersection of three pressures that do not naturally align: affordability for households and industry, security of supply after the shock of 2022, and the decarbonisation trajectory committed to under the European Green Deal. Getting all three right is the central policy problem of this Commission mandate. It is also the portfolio Dan Jorgensen holds. Appointed European Commissioner for Energy and Housing in December 2024, he is responsible for driving down energy prices, scaling clean generation, upgrading grid infrastructure, and helping Member States address housing supply. The brief is unusually wide, and unusually consequential for any business with European exposure. The background is substantive. As Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities from 2019 to 2022, he negotiated the binding 70% emissions reduction target into law during COP25, proposed the legislation for Denmark’s North Sea energy island, and co-founded the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance with Costa Rica at COP26. As Minister for Development Cooperation and Global Climate Policy, he co-facilitated the Global Stocktake at COP28 in Dubai. A decade earlier, as an MEP from 2004 to 2013, he served as Vice-Chair of the Environment Committee and worked inside the EU legislative process that now defines his executive remit. For organisations trying to read the direction of European energy and climate policy, his perspective is closer to the pen than to the commentary. He also writes: his book “Grønt håb – Klimapolitik 2.0” set out an early argument that climate ambition and economic growth are complementary rather than opposed, a framing now visible in the EU’s industrial policy response to the clean energy transition. Key speaking topics European energy policy and market design Climate policy and global climate negotiations Energy transition and security of supply EU regulation and institutional decision-making Managed phase-out of fossil fuel production Offshore wind and grid infrastructure Affordable and sustainable housing policy Ideal for Boards and executive teams at energy utilities, industrials, real estate and infrastructure investors with European market exposure Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of Regulatory Affairs, and ESG leads tracking EU policy direction Government relations and public affairs leadership preparing for EU legislative cycles Investor conferences and industry forums on energy transition, climate finance and the European Green Deal Audience outcomes A clearer read on where EU energy and climate policy is heading over this Commission mandate, and why Sharper understanding of how affordability, security and decarbonisation trade off in live policy decisions Context on the levers available to accelerate clean energy deployment across Member States Grounded view of the multilateral climate agenda post-COP28 and what to expect from COP cycles ahead

Why organisations work with Sir Christopher Pissarides The Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model – the standard tool used by central banks and governments to analyse unemployment and wage formation – means his analysis carries a precision and institutional grounding that macroeconomic commentary cannot match. His Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing, a Nuffield Foundation-funded programme conducted with Imperial College London and Warwick Business School, converts macroeconomic research into concrete, evidence-based frameworks for managing workforce disruption from automation. Forty years of advisory work for the World Bank, European Commission, OECD, and Bank of England means audiences receive analysis that has already shaped the policy environment they operate in – not analysis that describes it from the outside. His position as co-developer of the most cited model in labour economics, and former chair of a national economy council during a financial crisis, enables board-level conversations that translate structural theory directly into strategic workforce decisions. His analysis of AI and automation extends the search-frictions framework behind his Nobel Prize – it is not speculative commentary, but a rigorous continuation of four decades of original research applied to a new generation of technological disruption. Biography highlights Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2010, jointly with Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen, for “analysis of markets with search frictions” Regius Professor of Economics, London School of Economics – faculty member since 1976; former Head of the Economics Department Co-developer of the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) model – the standard global tool for analysing unemployment, wage formation, and labour market policy Author of Equilibrium Unemployment Theory (MIT Press) – the standard reference in labour economics Co-Founder and Co-Chair, Institute for the Future of Work (2018); led the Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing, a £1.8m Nuffield Foundation-funded programme with Imperial College London and Warwick Business School Knighted 2013 for services to economics; IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2005; Fellow of the British Academy, Econometric Society, and American Economic Association; adviser to the World Bank, European Commission, OECD, and Bank of England Biography The Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model is the standard analytical framework for understanding unemployment. Sir Christopher Pissarides co-built it at the London School of Economics, where he has been on the faculty since 1976. He received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for the work, jointly with Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen. The model’s core claim is that labour markets are governed by frictions. Workers and vacancies do not find each other efficiently. Search costs, information gaps, and institutional design create persistent mismatches that no increase in job openings can resolve on its own. This structural view of unemployment is the one that central banks, the World Bank, and the European Commission reach for when they need precision rather than commentary. Pissarides co-founded the Institute for the Future of Work in 2018 and led the Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing, a Nuffield Foundation-funded programme conducted with Imperial College London and Warwick Business School. The Review applies his frictions framework to automation and AI, producing evidence on how technological disruption creates new mismatches and what organisations and governments must do to manage them. His advisory record spans the World Bank, the European Commission, the OECD, and the Bank of England. He chaired the National Economy Council of the Republic of Cyprus during its financial crisis. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Econometric Society, and the American Economic Association. For boards and leadership teams working through structural workforce questions, his analysis carries a weight that secondary interpretation of the same data cannot replicate. Key speaking topics Labour market economics and unemployment theory Search frictions and job matching Automation, AI, and the future of work Workforce disruption and structural economic change Employment policy and institutional design Economic growth and structural transformation Worker wellbeing and productivity Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership navigating long-term workforce and employment strategy Policymakers, finance ministries, and government economic advisers Chief Human Resources Officers and HR leadership teams grappling with automation and structural workforce change Economic and business conferences addressing labour markets, growth, or the workforce consequences of technology Audience outcomes A structural model for why labour markets underperform that goes beyond cyclical explanations Analytical tools for assessing how automation and AI will affect workforce composition in specific sectors or regions A framework for distinguishing cyclical workforce disruption from structural change that requires institutional response Policy context for decisions on hiring, reskilling, and workforce investment Clarity on how technological change distributes economic gains and losses – and what factors determine which outcome prevails

Why organisations work with Chris Goodall His book Possible: Ways to Net Zero provides a sector-by-sector analysis of 16 specific technical challenges – from green hydrogen storage to decarbonising steel and cement – giving executive teams a structured, evidence-based account of what net zero delivery actually requires, not just what it aspires to. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, advising institutional capital on the technologies he researches and writes about – his perspective is shaped by what serious investors are actually backing, not by policy advocacy. Carbon Commentary – his long-running newsletter, part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked real-world clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. Executives and investors treat it as a check on sector claims rather than a source of promotional commentary. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was named an FT Books of the Year, establishing a track record of translating complex energy systems into analysis that serious non-specialist audiences can act on. He covers hard-to-abate sectors – aviation, agriculture, heavy industry – where most advisers produce high-level ambition; Goodall engages with specific technologies and deployment realities. Biography highlights Author of seven books on energy and climate published over 17 years, with Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024) as the most recent Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate named an FT Books of the Year What We Need to Do Now shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation Member of the Advisory Board, Pictet Clean Energy Fund, Geneva Publisher of Carbon Commentary – long-running energy transition newsletter and website, part of the Guardian Environment Network Contributor to The Guardian, The Independent and The Ecologist Alumnus of the University of Cambridge and Harvard Business School (MBA) Biography Chris Goodall has spent nearly two decades tracking the energy transition – not as a trend to describe, but as a set of specific, solvable technical and economic problems. His most recent book, Possible: Ways to Net Zero (Profile Books, 2024), takes that argument to its logical conclusion: mapping 16 distinct challenges on the path to carbon neutrality, from the decarbonisation of steel and cement to green hydrogen storage and climate-resilient agriculture. That analytical discipline is tested against real capital. Goodall sits on the Advisory Board of the Pictet Clean Energy Fund in Geneva, where institutional investors are deploying money into the technologies he researches. It is a position that keeps his work anchored in what is commercially viable now, rather than what might be viable in a decade. Most energy transition commentary collapses that distinction. His Carbon Commentary platform – part of the Guardian Environment Network – has tracked clean energy deployment data independently for over a decade. It has earned a readership among executives and investors precisely because it does not represent a corporate or consultancy position. Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate was an FT Books of the Year; What We Need to Do Now was shortlisted for the 2020 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation. Goodall read at the University of Cambridge and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. He brings to board-level audiences something the energy transition conversation rarely produces: an independent, data-grounded account of what is technically and financially achievable – and what is not. Key speaking topics Net zero pathways and energy system transformation Decarbonisation technologies: hydrogen, storage, renewables deployment Hard-to-abate sectors: steel, cement, aviation, agriculture Clean energy investment and technology readiness Climate policy, regulation and corporate strategy Electric vehicles and charging infrastructure Grid infrastructure and the limits of the energy transition Ideal for Boards and executive teams building credible net zero strategies Energy, infrastructure and sustainability investors Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leaders in energy-intensive industries Chief Strategy Officers and transformation leads navigating the capital implications of decarbonisation Audience outcomes A clearer picture of which decarbonisation technologies are deployment-ready and which remain speculative A realistic, sector-specific understanding of what net zero delivery actually requires operationally Greater confidence in evaluating clean energy investment claims against independent evidence Insight into the policy and regulatory risks shaping energy transition timelines A framework for moving from corporate climate ambition to credible, technology-grounded action

Why organisations work with Carl Bildt He negotiated the Dayton Peace Accords as EU Special Envoy and went on to serve as the first High Representative in Bosnia. Few speakers have personally built a post-war political settlement from the inside. He has run a European country, then run its foreign policy through the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Arab Spring and the launch of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The view from a head of government and a foreign minister, in the same career, is rare on the geopolitics circuit. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, the largest pan-European foreign policy network. Briefings are informed by a continent-wide research operation, not one capital’s perspective. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post and is widely cited on Ukraine, Russia, China and transatlantic strategy. Audiences get the published thinker, not a generic former politician. He sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and was its first non-US trustee, giving him a working relationship with the US strategic research establishment that most European speakers do not have. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Sweden, 1991 to 1994. Foreign Minister of Sweden, 2006 to 2014. EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia and co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference, 1995. First High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995 to 1997. UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans, 1999 to 2001. Co-Chair, European Council on Foreign Relations. Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation. Senior Adviser to the Wallenberg Foundations. Author, “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Columnist for Project Syndicate, contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Biography The European security order that boards have priced into their strategy for thirty years is being rewritten in real time. Ukraine, sanctions regimes, US policy swings and renewed Chinese pressure are no longer foreign-affairs reading. They feed directly into capital allocation, country risk and supply chain decisions in Berlin, Paris, London and Stockholm. Carl Bildt has watched this shift from inside the rooms where it has been argued out. As Prime Minister of Sweden in the early 1990s, he led the negotiation of Sweden’s accession to the European Union. As EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia, he co-chaired the Dayton Peace Conference and then served as the first High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, building a peace settlement on the ground. Returning to office as Foreign Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, he was one of the architects of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and a vocal European voice through Russia’s war in Georgia and the early years of the Ukraine crisis. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation, and writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post. His “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” remains one of the few first-person accounts of building a post-war political order in Europe. Audiences book him for what that experience yields now: a direct, unsentimental read on Russia, the transatlantic relationship and the trajectory of the European project under pressure. Key speaking topics European geopolitics and the future of the EU The transatlantic relationship and US foreign policy Russia, Ukraine and the post-1989 security order China and the global rules-based system Sanctions, political risk and country exposure Post-conflict diplomacy and peace negotiation Northern European and Nordic political economy Ideal for Board and executive team off-sites where geopolitical risk has become a strategic variable International banks, asset managers and insurers reviewing country and sanctions exposure Industrial and energy groups with material exposure to Europe, Russia, Ukraine or China Public affairs, policy and government relations leadership in multinationals Audience outcomes A current, named read on Russia, Ukraine and the trajectory of European security from someone who has been in the room. A clearer view of how transatlantic policy shifts under successive US administrations translate into European corporate exposure. A working framework for thinking about sanctions, energy and supply chain risk through a geopolitical, not just regulatory, lens. A sense of where the EU is going as a foreign and security actor, from a head of government who negotiated his country into it.

Why organisations work with Bruno Giussani His book Our Minds Under Siege (2026) gives leadership teams a structured framework for understanding how AI systems reshape human judgment from within; a diagnosis of a risk that most governance frameworks do not yet address and that most AI ethics conversations skip entirely. Nearly twenty years as TED’s Global Curator, working with more than 1,000 speakers, including His Holiness Pope Francis (twice), Prince William, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, gives him a practitioner’s map of how ideas move through organizations and societies, and what stops them. He operates at the intersection of AI, geopolitics, and economics rather than inside any single discipline, which allows him to frame cognitive risk as a question of power and governance, not a technology-management problem. His analytical position is explicitly non-alarmist: shaped by three decades of pragmatic, no-hype technology journalism across the New York Times, The Economist, and Wired UK. Organizations that have moved past the introductory AI conversation find this register useful. Biography highlights Former Global Curator and European Director, TED (2005–2024); curated more than 1,000 TED Talks, including two by His Holiness Pope Francis and one by Prince William Author, Our Minds Under Siege: How to Avoid Being Manipulated in the Age of AI (University of Chicago Press / Scheidegger & Spiess, 2026); also author of Roam: Making Sense of the Wireless Internet (Random House, 2001) Host, Deftech Podcast («La menace cognitive»), 2025 – six episodes on cognitive sovereignty and the threats posed by AI and neurotechnology JSK Fellow, Stanford University; Affiliated Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Wired UK «Wired 100» (100 most influential Europeans): 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015; SwissAward Person of the Year 2015, Economy category Internet columnist, New York Times (1996–2000); contributor to The Economist, Wall Street Journal Europe, and Wired UK Biography The dominant AI conversation in most organizations is about automation, efficiency, and competitive disruption. The question of whether the same technology is simultaneously reshaping the judgment of the people making those decisions has largely been set aside. Bruno Giussani challenges that omission. Its argument: cognitive sovereignty – the capacity to think and decide independently – is the governance challenge organizations are not yet naming. Giussani was TED’s Global Curator and European Director for nearly twenty years, curating more than 1,000 talks, including two by His Holiness Pope Francis and one by Prince William, as well as leading figures in geopolitics, economics, and climate. That curatorial role, at the centre of the global ideas economy, built a practitioner’s understanding of how information environments shape what people believe and how they decide: not through force, but through design. Before TED, he wrote about technology for the New York Times (as its European internet columnist), The Economist, the Wall Street Journal Europe, and Wired UK. The consistent position across that work was pragmatic and non-alarmist; skeptical of both utopian and panic framings of technology. That editorial discipline anchors Our Minds Under Siege, which treats AI manipulation not as a consumer protection question but as a structural challenge to organizational thinking and governance. His Deftech Podcast (2025), produced in French, German, and Italian, explored cognitive threats from AI and neurotechnology before the book appeared in print. He advises public organizations and private companies and brings this analysis to boards and leadership teams where technology strategy, geopolitical risk, and organizational decision-making converge. Key speaking topics Cognitive sovereignty and AI manipulation The social and political impacts of algorithmic technologies How ideas spread in organizations and societies Technology, geopolitics, and the future of power AI governance beyond automation and compliance Curation and knowledge management in an era of information abundance The intersection of AI, neurotechnology, and human decision-making Ideal for Boards and senior leadership teams examining AI governance beyond operational and compliance risk CEOs, CSOs, and Chief AI Officers building strategic frameworks for AI’s cognitive and societal impacts Corporate affairs and communications leaders whose organizations operate in algorithmically shaped information environments Executive conferences and thought leadership forums requiring a moderator or host with demonstrated experience interviewing heads of state, Nobel laureates, and global institutional leaders Audience outcomes A clear framework for distinguishing operational AI risk (automation, disruption) from cognitive AI risk (the manipulation of judgment and belief) A working vocabulary for cognitive sovereignty; what it means at the organizational level, how it differs from AI ethics, and why it is becoming a governance issue Insight into how information environments are architecturally designed to shape attention and belief, drawn from twenty years of curating the world’s most-watched ideas platform A practitioner’s understanding of how consequential ideas are built, communicated, and adopted, and what makes organizations resistant or receptive to them A non-alarmist, analytically grounded perspective on AI’s social and political impacts, suited to senior teams that have already moved past the introductory conversation

Why organisations work with Brian Forde He briefed President Obama on bitcoin in 2014 and shaped the early federal posture on digital currency, so buyers get someone who understands how US policy actually gets made, not a commentator guessing at it. He built the MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative from the ground up, convening cryptographers, economists, and distributed systems researchers. Few speakers can explain the engineering and the regulatory stakes in the same sentence. He teaches the MIT Sloan blockchain curriculum alongside Christian Catalini and Simon Johnson, which keeps his material connected to current research rather than recycled decks. He has operated, not just advised: he co-founded a telecoms company that served a quarter of a million Nicaraguans, and now runs Numero, a campaign finance technology firm. He speaks about adoption from the perspective of someone who has shipped. He ran for US Congress on a crypto-funded campaign that drew legal and political attacks in real time. On questions of public trust, optics, and compliance, he brings direct scar tissue. Biography highlights Co-founder and former Director, Digital Currency Initiative, MIT Media Lab. Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management, teaching blockchain technologies. Former Senior Advisor for Mobile and Data Innovation, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum; contributor to the WEF agenda. Co-founder and CEO of Numero; co-founder and former CEO of Llamadas, S.A. in Nicaragua. 2018 Democratic candidate for US Congress in California’s 45th District; raised a record sum in cryptocurrency donations. Biography Most boards hear about blockchain from a vendor or a lobbyist. Brian Forde is one of the few people who has been the White House official writing the early rules, the MIT researcher auditing the code, and the founder trying to raise money inside the regulatory grey zone. He briefed President Obama on bitcoin in 2014, when the federal government was still deciding whether to treat it as currency, commodity, or threat. At the MIT Media Lab he co-founded and led the Digital Currency Initiative, assembling cryptographers, economists, and distributed systems researchers to study how digital currencies could work at scale. The initiative seeded research that now underpins how central banks, custodians, and exchanges think about settlement risk. He now teaches the subject at MIT Sloan alongside Christian Catalini and Simon Johnson. His operator record matters as much as the policy work. He co-founded Llamadas, S.A., a low-cost internet phone company that served more than a quarter of a million Nicaraguans after his Peace Corps service. He currently runs Numero, building campaign finance software for political campaigns. In 2018 he ran for US Congress in California’s 45th District and accepted cryptocurrency donations, raising more in crypto than any previous American candidate and attracting a political attack campaign that tested how the mainstream handles digital-asset politics. The value he brings to a room is that combination. Audiences get engineering precision, Washington insight, and founder scar tissue from a single speaker who can answer the question most keynotes dodge: what does a serious organisation actually do on Monday morning. Key speaking topics Blockchain adoption in regulated industries Digital currency and central bank policy Bitcoin and the future of payments Emerging technology and public policy Government regulation of digital assets Innovation inside large institutions Ideal for Boards and executive committees at banks, asset managers, and payments firms weighing digital asset strategy. Chief technology officers, chief innovation officers, and heads of strategy assessing blockchain pilots. Chief compliance officers and general counsel preparing for evolving digital asset regulation. Government and public sector leaders building digital infrastructure and data policy. Audience outcomes A clear map of where blockchain is genuinely useful in financial services, healthcare, government, and supply chain, and where it is not. A working understanding of how US and global digital asset regulation is being shaped, and what that means for near-term decisions. Practical framing for how to evaluate and resource a blockchain or tokenisation pilot without over-committing. Perspective on the political and reputational dimensions of digital asset adoption, informed by direct campaign experience. Sharper questions to take back to internal technology, legal, and risk teams.

Why organisations work with Bob Woodward First-hand reporting across ten U.S. presidents, from Nixon to the present, grounded in on-the-record transcripts with sitting presidents, cabinet officials, intelligence chiefs and military commanders. Author of more than twenty bestselling books on American power, including Fear, Rage, Peril and War, each built on contemporaneous interviews and primary documents rather than secondary commentary. A non-partisan frame for reading U.S. political risk: what the decision was, who made it, what information they had, and what it means for everyone downstream. The journalist who, with Carl Bernstein, broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post, earning the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and a second Pulitzer in 2002 for national reporting on September 11. A reading of the U.S. presidency as an institution under stress, valuable to any organisation whose strategy depends on the stability and direction of American policy. Biography highlights Associate Editor of The Washington Post since 1971. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner: 1973 Public Service (Watergate, with Carl Bernstein) and 2002 National Reporting (September 11 coverage). Author of All the President’s Men, The Final Days, Veil, Bush at War, Plan of Attack, Obama’s Wars, Fear, Rage, Peril and War. Fear: Trump in the White House holds Simon and Schuster’s first-week sales record at approximately 1.1 million copies. Recipient of the Heywood Broun Award, George Polk Award, Worth Bingham Prize, William Allen White Medal and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. Yale University graduate and former U.S. Navy communications officer before joining journalism. Biography The Watergate break-in was dismissed as a third-rate burglary before Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein traced it, through months of reporting in The Washington Post, to the re-election committee of a sitting American president. That reporting won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and forced a presidential resignation. Five decades on, Woodward is still doing the same work on the same beat. Since 1971 he has been a reporter and then Associate Editor at The Washington Post. His books, published by Simon and Schuster, have covered the Reagan-era CIA in Veil, the Clinton White House in The Agenda, the post-September 11 Bush administration in Bush at War and Plan of Attack, the Obama war cabinet in Obama’s Wars, and the Trump presidencies in Fear, Rage and Peril. War, published in 2024 with Robert Costa’s earlier collaboration extended, reports the decisions behind U.S. policy on Ukraine and the Middle East. The method is consistent and unusual in American journalism. Long on-the-record and background interviews with named principals, documented by notes, memos and contemporaneous records, assembled into a narrative of what was said in which room on which date. Fear sold approximately 1.1 million copies in its opening week, the largest first-week total in Simon and Schuster’s history at the time of publication. For boards and executive committees, the value of that method is specific. It replaces cable-news framing with a documentary account of how the American presidency has been making foreign policy, economic policy and national security decisions across a generation. A second Pulitzer, for national reporting on September 11, confirmed that the Watergate work was a method, not a moment. Key speaking topics American presidential decision-making U.S. foreign policy and national security The Washington policy process Political risk and the U.S. institutional landscape Investigative journalism and source-based reporting Watergate and the evolution of the presidency The state of American democracy Ideal for Boards and executive committees exposed to U.S. political and regulatory direction CEOs, CFOs and CSOs with strategic dependencies on American policy Public affairs, government relations and corporate communications leaders Financial services, defence, energy and technology firms reading Washington risk Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how recent U.S. presidents have actually made consequential decisions A non-partisan framework for reading Washington as a system rather than a news cycle Concrete examples of how intelligence, military and White House staff shape presidential choices Historical perspective on the U.S. presidency as an institution across five decades Questions to ask about the reliability and sourcing of political information

Why organisations work with Bob Geldof He is one of the few people who has operated on both sides of the Africa debate: as a member of the policy commission whose recommendations shaped the G8 Gleneagles debt and aid package, and as the chairman of a private equity firm that has deployed capital into African agriculture, banking, and consumer goods. That combination is structurally un-replicable. His central argument – that aid and debt relief are necessary but insufficient, and that private investment in African businesses is what creates durable economic capacity – gives boards a concrete and politically coherent rationale for commercial engagement in the continent. Having designed the advocacy campaign that produced the G8 Gleneagles commitments, he offers a working understanding of how coordinated pressure on governments actually functions: useful for any organisation navigating policy engagement, coalition-building, or multi-stakeholder strategy. He engages honestly with the failures of the development consensus – the limits of aid, the contradictions of development finance, the gap between commitments and delivery – which produces more analytically useful content for a board audience than a promotional narrative of Africa’s rise. Biography highlights Co-founder of Band Aid (1984) and co-organiser of Live Aid (1985), which raised over $200 million for famine relief in Ethiopia Member of Blair’s Commission for Africa (2004–2005), whose recommendations on aid, debt cancellation, and trade reform became the basis of the G8 Gleneagles Africa package Chairman of 8 Miles, a private equity firm investing exclusively in Africa, with portfolio companies across agriculture, food processing, financial services, and consumer goods Former member of the Africa Progress Panel, which advocates at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa Adviser to the ONE Campaign, the global advocacy organisation co-founded by Bono Awarded an honorary KBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986; recipient of the Man of Peace award at the Nobel Peace Summit (2005), presented by Mikhail Gorbachev Author of the bestselling autobiography Is That It? (1986); subject of BBC documentary series Geldof in Africa Biography Band Aid, Live Aid, and Live 8 are the titles on the record. The less-visible work spans Blair’s Commission for Africa, the ONE Campaign, and the chairmanship of 8 Miles – the private equity firm that has deployed capital in African agriculture, banking, and consumer goods. Bob Geldof’s engagement with Africa has always operated on two tracks: advocacy and investment. The Commission for Africa (2004–2005) brought together seventeen commissioners – the majority active African political leaders – to examine the continent’s governance, debt, and trade architecture. Its recommendations became the blueprint for the G8 Gleneagles package on African aid and debt. Live 8, timed to precede the summit by days, was the pressure mechanism. This was sequenced campaign design, not a celebrity gesture. Geldof’s argument has remained consistent: aid and debt relief are necessary, but they are structurally insufficient. Private investment – particularly in agriculture, food processing, and consumer goods – is what builds economic capacity that lasts. 8 Miles was the practical expression of that argument: a fund investing exclusively in African businesses, from an Ethiopian winery to a Ugandan bank, in sectors that build domestic economic structures rather than extract natural resources. For boards navigating Africa – as a commercial geography, a policy context, or an ESG commitment – his perspective is useful because it has absorbed forty years of engagement, including the failures. He is not promoting a destination. He is explaining how the system works. Key speaking topics Africa’s political economy and investment landscape Sovereign debt, trade rules, and development finance Private equity and emerging market investment Large-scale advocacy and coalition-building G8 and multilateral policy architecture The intersection of political risk and commercial strategy Purpose and global accountability in business Ideal for Boards and C-suite leaders of multinationals with operations, investment interests, or ESG commitments in African markets Senior executives leading responsible investment, ESG strategy, or impact investing programmes Government affairs, public policy, and external affairs leaders navigating geopolitical complexity Conferences focused on global development, emerging markets, or the commercial case for sustainable investment Audience outcomes A clearer framework for integrating political risk, development economics, and ESG considerations into Africa-related commercial decisions First-hand insight into how the G8 Gleneagles Africa commitments were designed – and what the gap between political promise and delivery looks like in practice An honest account of where aid, debt relief, and private capital each have structural limits, and where they are complementary Greater confidence in distinguishing commercial opportunity from humanitarian obligation when assessing Africa as a business or investment geography A working understanding of how coordinated advocacy campaigns are designed to move governments – applicable beyond the African context to any multi-stakeholder policy challenge

Why organisations work with Bjørn Lomborg He brings a formal economic framework, developed with Nobel laureate economists through the Copenhagen Consensus project, for ranking interventions by return on spend rather than political salience. His argument is specific and well-published: The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, 2001), False Alarm (Basic Books, 2020), and Best Things First (2023, named a Best Book of the year by The Economist) give boards a documented thesis to engage with. He is one of the few commentators on climate economics taken seriously in policy and finance rooms while remaining openly sceptical of orthodox climate spending priorities, which is valuable for leadership teams wanting a genuine debate rather than a consensus reaffirmation. He speaks the language of trade-offs, not advocacy, which suits boards and investment committees that have to defend capital allocation to shareholders and regulators. His institutional base (Copenhagen Consensus Center, Hoover Institution at Stanford, Copenhagen Business School) gives a clear provenance that buyers can cite internally. Biography highlights President and founder, Copenhagen Consensus Center. Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Visiting Professor, Copenhagen Business School. Ph.D. in Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cool It, False Alarm, and Best Things First. Named to TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People (2004); Top 100 Global Thinker, Foreign Policy (2011, 2012). Biography Most climate and development debate is framed as moral argument. Lomborg’s career has been spent reframing it as an allocation problem. Through the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which he founded and leads, he works with more than 300 economists, including seven Nobel laureates, to rank global interventions by cost and benefit rather than by political attention. That method produced the thesis running through his published work. The Skeptical Environmentalist, published by Cambridge University Press in 2001, argued that many accepted environmental narratives did not match the data. Cool It and False Alarm, the latter from Basic Books in 2020, applied the same analytic discipline to climate policy. Best Things First, published in 2023, ranks twelve interventions by expected human and economic return and was named a Best Book of 2023 by The Economist. His institutional base reflects the seriousness of the work. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen, is a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School. TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential People in 2004. Foreign Policy placed him on its Top 100 Global Thinkers list in 2011 and again in 2012. Lomborg is a contested figure in climate debate, and boards hire him knowing that. The value is a disciplined, published, defensible argument that forces leadership teams to compare what they are spending on sustainability with what that spend actually delivers. Key speaking topics Cost-benefit analysis in climate and development policy Climate economics and capital allocation Global development priorities and the Sustainable Development Goals Evidence-based policymaking ESG and sustainability trade-offs Long-horizon risk and resource allocation Ideal for Board and executive audiences reviewing climate and ESG capital allocation Chief sustainability officers and chief risk officers working through net-zero trade-offs Investment committees and asset owners stress-testing climate assumptions Policy, philanthropy, and development leaders ranking interventions under fixed budgets Audience outcomes A clear framework for comparing climate and development interventions by measurable return, not political profile. A working vocabulary for challenging internal ESG and sustainability spending claims. Exposure to the Copenhagen Consensus ranking method and how it has been applied to real policy choices. A more defensible position when boards are asked how their climate capital is justified.

Why organisations work with Bill Emmott His 13 years editing The Economist – during which global circulation roughly doubled – produced a practitioner’s discipline in making geopolitical complexity legible to business audiences without simplifying it away. His 2024 IISS Adelphi book on Taiwan develops a specific deterrence framework for US-China conflict risk, giving boards a tested analytical vocabulary for the most consequential near-term geopolitical scenario they face. His argument in The Fate of the West (2017) – that the democratic world’s greatest threat is institutional self-erosion, not external aggression – anticipated a political dynamic that organisations are now managing in real time. Three decades of specialist focus on Japan, Asia, Italy, and European political economy means he does not speak generically about geopolitics; he speaks about specific countries, specific pressures, and specific trajectories. As Senior Adviser, Geopolitics at Montrose Associates, he works at the intersection of intelligence and executive decision-making – his analysis is applied, not academic. Biography highlights Editor-in-Chief, The Economist, 1993–2006; under his editorship global circulation approximately doubled to over one million Chairman of the Trustees, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), 2010–2025 Author of 15 books on Japan, Asia, Italy, and the 20th century; latest published by IISS/Routledge (2024) Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in business journalism, 2009 (UCLA Anderson School) Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, awarded by the Japanese government, 2016 Regular columnist: La Stampa, Nikkei Business, Mainichi Shimbun, Project Syndicate; contributor to the Financial Times First-class honours, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Magdalen College, Oxford; Honorary Fellow, Magdalen College Ushioda Fellow, Tokyo College, University of Tokyo; visiting fellow at All Souls College and Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford Biography Geopolitics became a boardroom word long before most boards knew how to use it. Bill Emmott spent 13 years at the helm of The Economist – the period in which it doubled its global circulation – developing the discipline of making the world’s structural shifts legible to decision-makers under deadline. That combination of editorial rigour and strategic directness is what he now brings to executive and board audiences. His most recent book, Deterrence, Diplomacy and the Risk of Conflict over Taiwan (IISS/Routledge, 2024), builds a specific analytical framework for the US-China scenario that organisations cite most often as an unquantified risk. His earlier work, The Fate of the West (2017), argued that liberal democracies are more threatened by institutional decay from within than by external pressure – a thesis that has moved from provocative to plainly descriptive in the years since. Emmott’s specialist geography sets him apart from generalist geopolitics commentators. Three decades of work on Japan, Asia, and European political economy – including a Japanese government honour for contributions to UK-Japan relations – gives him granular fluency in precisely the regions where organisations most need specific, rather than broad-brush, risk analysis. Outside writing and speaking, he served as Chairman of IISS Trustees for 15 years, advised Swiss Re’s senior panel for 13 years, and currently acts as Senior Adviser, Geopolitics at Montrose Associates. The accumulated perspective is that of someone who has analysed geopolitical risk not only for public audiences, but for the institutions charged with managing it. Key speaking topics Great-power competition and the US-China relationship Indo-Pacific security and the Taiwan risk scenario The fragility of the liberal international order Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy Japan, Asia, and the shifting balance of economic power European political economy and the future of the EU Business decision-making under geopolitical uncertainty Ideal for Boards and C-suites assessing geopolitical exposure in investment, supply chain, or market strategy decisions Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers navigating great-power competition Financial services and insurance sector leadership (experience advising Swiss Re; expertise in macro and political risk) Government affairs, policy, and public affairs leadership teams requiring analysis of Western institutional trends Audience outcomes A clearer analytical framework for distinguishing genuine geopolitical risk from background noise, applicable to specific business decisions A grounded understanding of the US-China-Taiwan scenario and the deterrence logic that shapes it – beyond media headlines A historically informed perspective on why Western institutional resilience matters to business, and where it is most under pressure Specific insight into Japan and Asia’s economic and political trajectories, relevant to market-entry, partnership, and investment decisions The vocabulary to communicate geopolitical risk credibly inside an organisation – to boards, investors, and regulators

Why organisations work with Bert Rürup He has held the top advisory seat in German economics. As chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts from 2005 to 2009, he advised the federal government on the macroeconomic questions boards now face in their own planning. His work is embedded in German statute. The “Rürup Commission” he chaired set the path for raising the statutory retirement age to 67, and the Rürup-Rente pension product is named after him. He runs an active research platform. As President of the Handelsblatt Research Institute since 2013 and Chief Economist of Handelsblatt since 2017, he produces a continuous read on European macro conditions that boards can pressure-test against their own assumptions. He connects demographics to the balance sheet. Few speakers translate pension, healthcare, and labour-supply shifts into the fiscal and wage-cost consequences that actually show up in corporate plans. Biography highlights Chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts, 2005-2009. Chairman of the 2002-2003 federal commission on the long-term financing of pension, health and long-term care insurance, known as the Rürup Commission. President of the Handelsblatt Research Institute since 2013; Chief Economist of Handelsblatt since 2017. Former Professor of Economics at Darmstadt University of Technology, with earlier chairs at the University of Essen. Chairman of the Social Advisory Council for Pension Insurance, 2000-2009. Recipient of the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Biography Germany’s pension architecture, labour supply, and fiscal outlook have been reshaped over the last two decades by a small number of expert commissions. Bert Rürup chaired the most consequential of them. The 2002-2003 federal commission he led on pensions, health and long-term care recommended the gradual rise of the statutory retirement age to 67, and gave its name to the Rürup-Rente, the state-subsidised private pension introduced in 2005. From 2005 to 2009 he chaired the German Council of Economic Experts, the country’s senior macroeconomic advisory body to the federal government. Before and after that role he sat on the Social Advisory Council for Pension Insurance, and on the Pension Reform Commission under Federal Minister Walter Riester. For boards trying to read German and European macro signals, the point is simple: he has been inside the rooms where those signals were shaped. Since 2013 he has led the Handelsblatt Research Institute, the research arm of Germany’s leading business daily, and since 2017 has been its Chief Economist. That platform keeps his work in weekly circulation among European senior management and investors, and gives corporate audiences a direct line into the macro debate as it is happening. His academic foundation sits at Darmstadt University of Technology, where he held a chair in economics, and earlier at the University of Essen. He holds an honorary doctorate and has been awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his contribution to German economic policy. Key speaking topics German and European macroeconomic outlook Pension systems and the future of the welfare state Demographic change and its fiscal consequences Labour markets and workforce supply in Europe Public finance and fiscal policy The future of work in an ageing Europe Ideal for Boards and executive committees planning multi-year capital and workforce commitments in Europe CFOs, heads of reward, and pensions trustees reassessing long-term benefit liabilities Senior policy and government relations leaders in financial services, insurance, and industrial groups Investor conferences and strategy offsites that need a credible German macro view Audience outcomes A clearer reading of where German and European macro conditions are heading over the medium term A concrete sense of how demographic and pension policy shifts translate into labour cost and tax exposure Language senior audiences can use internally to talk about fiscal and welfare-state risk A view from inside the policy apparatus, not a commentator’s view of it

Why organisations work with Arun Sundararajan He works inside the regulatory machinery his audiences are exposed to. Testimony to the US Congress, the European Parliament and the United Nations, plus a seat on the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance, means he can tell a board where AI rules are actually heading, not where the press thinks they are. His research asks a question most AI strategies skip: what part of “human capital” should remain owned by humans once a model has learned it. For any company building on or competing with generative AI, that question sits underneath copyright exposure, talent contracts and product liability at the same time. He separates durable economic shifts from cycle noise. The same economist who mapped the move to crowd-based capitalism in The Sharing Economy now tells executives which AI effects are structural and which are hype, a distinction worth real money in capital allocation. He advises both sides. He works with technology companies on strategy, litigation and regulation, and with non-tech boards on AI governance and foresight, so he understands the incentives of the firms building the infrastructure your business now depends on. Biography highlights Harold Price Professor of Entrepreneurship at NYU Stern and Director of its Fubon Center for Technology, Business and Innovation. Author of The Sharing Economy (MIT Press, 2016), winner of the Axiom Best Business Books Award and translated into five languages. Has given testimony on the digital economy and AI to the US Congress, the European Parliament and the United Nations. Member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance; former member of the Carnegie Council’s AI and Equality Initiative. Recognised with a Thinkers50 Radar Thinker Award, nine academic Best Paper awards and two Google Faculty Awards. Author of more than 40 op-eds across the New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Wired, Le Monde and Harvard Business Review, and a regular AI commentator for CNN, CNBC and Wired. Biography Generative AI learns to write, compose and design by training on work that people already made. That creates a problem older intellectual property law was never built for: a person’s past output is now also the blueprint for a machine that can reproduce their skill. Arun Sundararajan has made this the centre of his work, framing it as a single question for policymakers and boards: what facets of human capital should be owned by humans? The question carries weight because of where he asks it. As an economist at NYU Stern, Director of its Fubon Center for Technology, Business and Innovation, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s AI Governance Alliance, he has given testimony to the US Congress, the European Parliament and the United Nations. His paper “Rethinking Intellectual Property Law in an Era of Generative AI” lays out why copyright designed for the internet era misfires when the thing being copied is a creative process rather than a file. His authority on technological transitions is established. The Sharing Economy, published by MIT Press, was the early rigorous account of platforms like Uber and Airbnb displacing the managed corporation, and it won the Axiom Best Business Books Award. That track record matters now because the same economist is telling executives which AI effects are structural and which are noise, a judgment his recent work on the AI-capital-to-labour threshold makes concrete. What distinguishes him from the wider future-of-work field is the second half of his argument. Alongside the ownership question, he presses the case for national infrastructure that lets people move between occupations mid-career with dignity, treating workforce displacement as a design choice rather than an inevitability. For a board weighing how far to build on generative AI, he is the rare voice who can map both the legal claims forming underneath the technology and the economic settlement that will determine whether it holds. Key speaking topics AI governance and regulation Intellectual property and copyright in the age of generative AI Ownership of human capital The AI-driven future of work Platform strategy and network effects Antitrust and market power in technology Ideal for Boards and C-suites setting generative AI strategy, particularly where IP exposure, talent contracts or litigation risk are in play. Chief Legal Officers, General Counsel and Chief Strategy Officers navigating AI regulation across US, EU and Asian jurisdictions. Policymakers and regulators shaping AI, copyright and labour rules. Technology and platform companies setting strategy against a shifting governance backdrop. Audience outcomes A clear read on where AI regulation is actually heading across the major jurisdictions, from someone inside the bodies writing it. The ability to tell which AI effects on their industry are structural and which are cycle-driven hype. A sharper view of their company’s exposure on IP, copyright and the ownership of human capability. A framework for workforce planning that treats AI-driven displacement as something to design for, not absorb passively.