Political Risk & Policy

Why organisations work with Andrew Wilson A decade reporting from Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington gives him the standing to interview heads of state, ministers and CEOs without deferring to them, and without grandstanding. RTS-winning presenting craft from Sky News Live at 5 means he controls pace, time and tone on a live stage the way a broadcast studio expects, which is rare on the corporate circuit. Regular moderator at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at COP conferences, which means he arrives fluent in the vocabulary of geopolitics, macro risk and climate policy rather than briefed on it the night before. A Reuters track record of sit-down interviews with international CEOs, directly applicable to sponsor-led fireside formats, AGMs and leadership off-sites where the quality of the questions is the product. Editorial independence on sensitive material: conflict coverage from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza, Chechnya and Iraq means he is comfortable in rooms where the subject matter is politically live. Biography highlights Former Sky News foreign correspondent in Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington DC, with international awards from each posting. Presenter of Sky News Live at 5, winner of the RTS Best News Programme award in 2016. Ten years presenting current affairs on Sky News, including coverage of three US presidential elections, Russian and Israeli elections, and conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, Ukraine and Iraq. Moderator and interviewer at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at COP environmental conferences; host of Virgin Formula E events in New York and Paris. Conducted CEO interview series internationally for Reuters. Member of BAFTA, mentor with the John Schofield Trust, and contributor to the Westminster foreign-affairs think tank Global Strategy Forum. Biography Live-television credibility is hard to fake on a corporate stage. A host either controls the room, the clock and the interview, or the audience quietly checks out. Wilson spent a decade as a Sky News foreign correspondent in Moscow, Jerusalem and Washington, then close to ten years anchoring current affairs in London, which is where that control comes from. The editorial range is unusually wide for an event moderator. He reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and, since then, conflict and breaking news from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza, Chechnya, Lebanon, Iraq and the Asian Tsunami, along with three US presidential cycles and Russian and Israeli elections. His programme Live at 5 won the RTS Best News Programme award in 2016. That grounding now carries into a second career hosting leadership conversations where the subject matter is serious. He moderates at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at COP environmental conferences, has run CEO interview series for Reuters, and hosts Virgin Formula E events in New York and Paris. He is a member of BAFTA, mentors emerging journalists through the John Schofield Trust, and contributes to the Westminster foreign-affairs think tank Global Strategy Forum. For organisations putting a senior figure on stage, the value is specific. Wilson is the journalist in the chair who has already covered the story, already interviewed the type of person sitting across from him, and already worked to a live clock every night for a decade. Key speaking topics Corporate event hosting and conference moderation CEO fireside interviews and on-stage panels Geopolitics and international affairs US politics and elections Climate policy, COP and sustainability Media and communications skills training Ideal for Boards, CEOs and investor-day organisers commissioning a live on-stage interview or panel Sustainability, ESG and policy conferences wanting a moderator fluent in COP and Davos language Global sales kick-offs, leadership summits and AGMs where the chair needs to handle live Q and A with senior external guests Communications and PR leaders running media-skills or crisis-interview training for executives Audience outcomes A meeting where senior speakers are drawn out rather than read from notes, with time kept and the agenda landed. Panel discussions with clearer editorial framing and sharper questions than an internal moderator typically delivers. On-stage CEO interviews that read as credible to journalists, analysts and investors in the room. Sessions on geopolitics and sustainability that are chaired with working knowledge of the vocabulary, not a briefing document read aloud.

Why organisations work with Andrew Sheng He has sat inside the institutions most leaders only read about. Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, World Bank, and as Chief Adviser to the China Banking Regulatory Commission. He speaks from the regulator’s chair, not the commentator’s. His book From Asian to Global Financial Crisis (Cambridge University Press) is the standard insider account of how the 1997 Asian crisis and the 2008 global crisis share common causes. Boards use his framing to stress-test their own assumptions about financial stability. He is one of a very small group of Western-trained economists with direct, ongoing advisory access to Chinese financial policymakers. For organisations exposed to China, that is a perspective almost impossible to replicate. TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 for helping leaders understand the rebalancing of the global economy. His Project Syndicate and South China Morning Post columns remain a reference point for finance ministers and institutional investors. He translates technical finance into strategic language. Boards come away with a clearer view of what Chinese shadow banking, sustainable finance, and US-China capital tensions mean for their own capital allocation. Biography highlights Chairman, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, 1998 to 2005 Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Adviser, China Banking Regulatory Commission (later China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission) Distinguished Fellow, Asia Global Institute, University of Hong Kong Author, From Asian to Global Financial Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2009); co-editor, Shadow Banking in China (Wiley, 2016) Named to the TIME 100 Most Influential People, 2013 Featured interviewee in the Academy Award-winning documentary Inside Job (2010) Pro-Chancellor, University of Bristol; columnist, Project Syndicate and South China Morning Post Biography The 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global crisis were not separate events. They shared the same causes: loose money, lax supervision, market fundamentalism, and an appetite for financial engineering that outran the regulators watching it. Andrew Sheng made that argument from inside the system, as a regulator who had watched both crises unfold from Asian capitals and Washington. His career is the reason the argument carries weight. He chaired the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission from 1998 to 2005, served as Deputy Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, spent four years at the World Bank, and began his career at Bank Negara Malaysia. Since 2013 he has been Chief Adviser to the China Banking Regulatory Commission, giving him an active seat inside the policy apparatus shaping the world’s second-largest financial system. That access sits alongside a serious body of written work. From Asian to Global Financial Crisis, published by Cambridge University Press in 2009, remains a standard insider account of how unfettered finance produced two systemic shocks in a decade. Shadow Banking in China, co-edited for Wiley in 2016, is one of the few book-length treatments of Chinese off-balance-sheet finance written by authors with direct regulatory knowledge. His Project Syndicate column, running since 2011, is read by finance ministers and institutional investors. For boards exposed to Asia, the value is specific. Sheng does not describe China from the outside or financial regulation in the abstract. He explains how Beijing’s policymakers think about capital, what Western assumptions about Chinese finance tend to miss, and where the global monetary order is most likely to fracture next. TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013 for doing exactly this work. Key speaking topics Global financial stability and systemic risk China’s financial system and policy direction US-China economic and financial decoupling Asian capital markets and cross-border flows Central banking and financial regulation Sustainable finance and green capital The future of the international monetary order Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material exposure to Asian markets Central banks, financial regulators, and ministries of finance CIOs, CFOs, and treasurers at global financial institutions Policy, strategy, and sovereign wealth audiences evaluating China and the multilateral order Audience outcomes A regulator’s read on where the next systemic shock is most likely to originate A more accurate mental model of how Chinese financial policy is made and what it prioritises Sharper questions to ask about counterparty, currency, and capital-flow risk in Asia A structured way to think about sustainable finance beyond disclosure and taxonomy debates Language for the board on what decoupling, sanctions, and capital-market fragmentation mean for strategy

Why organisations work with Andrew Roberts His book Conflict, co-authored with General David Petraeus and endorsed by Henry Kissinger and General James Mattis as the definitive strategic reference on modern warfare, gives boards access to an analytical framework no single academic or geopolitical consultant can replicate His active role in the House of Lords – with direct involvement in parliamentary scrutiny of UK foreign and defence policy – means his geopolitical analysis is formed in real-time legislative engagement, not retrospective commentary Across 20 books spanning Napoleon, Wellington, Churchill, and George III, he has built the most extensive body of archival work on strategic leadership under pressure in the English language; audiences receive specific, verifiable cases – not generalised lessons His revisionist approach to historical biography, which uses primary sources to challenge received accounts, models the kind of rigorous scepticism towards consensus assumptions that executive teams need when reading volatile geopolitical environments As host of the Hoover Institution podcast Secrets of Statecraft, in which he interviews global policymakers and historians on decision-making and strategy, he is an active participant in the geopolitical discourse most relevant to senior leaders – not an observer at distance from it Biography highlights Life peer as Baron Roberts of Belgravia; member of the House of Lords since November 2022 Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Visiting Professor in War Studies, King’s College London Author of 20 books translated into 28 languages and awarded 13 literary prizes, including the Wolfson History Prize, the British Army Military Book of the Year Award, the Grand Prix de la Fondation Napoléon, and the Los Angeles Times Biography Prize Co-author with General David Petraeus of Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine (2023) – a New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller, reviewed by the Wall Street Journal as the best single-volume study of conventional warfare in the nuclear age Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society; chairman of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Military Book Prize; Lehrman Institute Distinguished Fellow at the New-York Historical Society Regular contributor to The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph, and The Wall Street Journal; host of the Hoover Institution podcast Secrets of Statecraft with Andrew Roberts Biography The executives now making decisions about Ukraine exposure, China risk, and defence-adjacent supply chains face a specific interpretive problem: information is not scarce, but the historical frameworks needed to read it correctly are. Geopolitical events do not arrive labelled as structural shifts or temporary disruption. That distinction is the work of statecraft – and it is what most organisations currently lack. Andrew Roberts, Lord Roberts of Belgravia, has spent three decades building that capacity as a practising historian, active legislator, and strategic commentator. His work begins where most geopolitical analysis stops – in the archival record, where the patterns of how power moves between states are visible across centuries rather than election cycles. Elevated to the House of Lords in 2022, he engages with UK foreign and defence policy as a participant, not only as an analyst. His 20 books – including award-winning biographies of Napoleon, Churchill, and George III, translated into 28 languages – are forensic examinations of strategic decision-making under pressure, using primary sources to challenge received accounts. The Wolfson History Prize, the Los Angeles Times Biography Prize, the Grand Prix de la Fondation Napoléon, and the British Army Military Book of the Year Award are among the 13 prizes this body of work has earned. His most recent book, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, co-authored with General David Petraeus, draws direct lines from the Surge in Iraq to drone warfare in Ukraine. Endorsed by Henry Kissinger and General James Mattis as the essential strategic reference for modern warfare, it is the book no single speaker in the geopolitics space could have produced alone. Roberts holds positions at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and hosts the podcast Secrets of Statecraft – conversations with global policymakers on the importance of historical thinking in strategic decisions. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the lessons of statecraft Military strategy and the evolution of modern warfare Strategic leadership under pressure: historical perspectives Decision-making in geopolitical conflict Churchill, Napoleon, and the anatomy of strategic leadership Power, alliance, and the dynamics of the international order War, intelligence, and the future of conflict Ideal for Boards and executive committees navigating geopolitical risk and strategic uncertainty Financial services and investment leadership teams with significant geopolitical exposure Government, defence, and national security audiences Senior conference delegates in sectors shaped by geopolitical volatility – energy, infrastructure, and defence-adjacent industries Audience outcomes A historical framework for distinguishing structural geopolitical shifts from cyclical turbulence – directly applicable to boardroom risk discussions Concrete case studies of how past leaders navigated warfare, power transitions, and strategic miscalculation, and what separated those who succeeded from those who did not A sharper understanding of the current conflict environment, drawing on analysis co-developed with General David Petraeus across more than 70 years of post-1945 warfare Improved pattern recognition for interpreting alliance dynamics, adversarial behaviour, and the strategic role of intelligence and morale A working vocabulary of statecraft that senior leaders can use to frame geopolitical risk discussions with boards, investors, and policy stakeholders

Why organisations work with Andrés Velasco He ran Chile’s fiscal policy through a commodity supercycle and a global financial crisis – banking windfall reserves against political opposition, then deploying them as counter-cyclical stimulus. This is not a case study; it is his direct personal record, and it has no equivalent among academic economists in the speaker market. His analysis of fiscal and monetary decisions is shaped by actual exposure to the institutional mechanics: as a minister, as a member of the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance, and as a current member of the Group of Thirty – a grouping that includes sitting and former central bank governors and finance ministers. He provides the connection between macro numbers and political reality that standard economic commentary does not: why governments make the fiscal choices they do, what constrains them, and what that means for the investment and operating environments businesses face. His Project Syndicate column, running since 2001, covers geopolitics, populism, and macroeconomic policy – offering audiences a track record of real-time, named analysis they can assess rather than a credentials summary alone. As Dean of the LSE School of Public Policy, he sits at the centre of the global debate on institutional reform, multilateral development finance, and the future of international economic governance – giving organisations access to the live intellectual agenda, not yesterday’s consensus. Biography highlights Inaugural Dean of the School of Public Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science (since 2018) Minister of Finance, Republic of Chile, 2006–2010; named Latin American Finance Minister of the Year by Emerging Markets (Euromoney) and América Economía Member of the Group of Thirty – the selective forum of current and former central bank governors, finance ministers, and senior economists Member, G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance; World Bank–IMF High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery and Growth Previously Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development, Harvard Kennedy School; Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs Award for Excellence in Research, Inter-American Development Bank (2006); author of nearly 100 academic articles and several books; regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 2001 CEPR Research Fellow; Co-chair, Global Panel on the Future of the Multilateral Lending Institutions Biography Fiscal policy looks technical until a government has to choose between spending a commodity windfall and saving it. When Chile’s copper revenues surged in 2006, Andrés Velasco – then Finance Minister – held the reserves despite intense domestic political pressure, building buffers equivalent to roughly 30% of GDP. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, he deployed them. The FT, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg all covered the story. It remains the most concrete demonstration of counter-cyclical fiscal discipline under real political constraints in the modern emerging-market record. That combination – academic rigour in macroeconomics and direct exposure to the decisions that actually get made – shapes everything Velasco now does at LSE, where he is the inaugural Dean of the School of Public Policy. His research has always been about the political economy of reform: not what good policy looks like in theory, but why it succeeds or fails in practice, and what institutional conditions make credible commitments possible. These are the questions that boards and executive teams face when they try to read fiscal environments, assess sovereign risk, or understand why the same policy recommendation produces different outcomes in different countries. Velasco’s engagement with global economic governance has been sustained and specific. He served on the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance, co-chaired the Global Panel on the Future of the Multilateral Lending Institutions, and contributed to the World Bank–IMF High-Level Advisory Group on Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery and Growth. He is now a member of the Group of Thirty – one of the most selective forums in international economic policy, comprising current and former central bank governors and finance ministers. His Project Syndicate column, published continuously since 2001, provides a public record of his analytical positions on populism, fiscal discipline, multilateralism, and democratic governance. For organisations navigating a period in which fiscal policy has become explicitly political and multilateral institutions are under visible strain, Velasco offers something precise: the perspective of someone who has held the levers, studied the mechanisms, and continued to influence the debate at the highest institutional levels. Key speaking topics Political economy of fiscal policy and economic reform Global economic governance and multilateral institutions Counter-cyclical fiscal policy and sovereign risk Macroeconomics of emerging markets Populism, democracy, and economic policymaking International financial institutions and development finance Geopolitical risk and global market conditions Ideal for C-suite and board-level audiences in financial services, investment, and multinational corporations requiring strategic context on global fiscal and political risk Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers navigating geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty Government affairs, public policy, and regulatory strategy teams International economic forums, sovereign wealth funds, and development finance institutions Audience outcomes A clearer framework for reading fiscal and monetary policy decisions as political acts with structural constraints – not just technical outputs Specific insight into how multilateral institutions form, reform, and fail – and what that means for the economic environments businesses depend on Context for understanding the gap between policy intent and policy outcome in emerging and developed markets A more precise vocabulary for discussing sovereign risk, counter-cyclical strategy, and institutional credibility at board level Exposure to the live intellectual debate on global economic governance from someone actively shaping it

Why organisations work with Anatole Kaletsky He runs the macro research that institutional investors act on. As chairman and chief economist of Gavekal, his work is priced in by hundreds of banks, asset managers and corporates, not written for a general audience. He wrote the book on post-crisis capitalism. Capitalism 4.0 set out a named thesis for how the system reorganised itself after 2008, and the argument has aged into the framework through which many boards now read central bank behaviour. He sits inside the reform of economics itself. As founding chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, set up with George Soros to rebuild the discipline after 2008, he has direct access to the researchers redefining how policymakers think. Thirty years as Economics Editor and Editor-at-Large of The Times, and as a columnist for Reuters, the International New York Times and Project Syndicate, give him a rare ability to translate macro complexity into arguments a management team can act on. Biography highlights Co-founder, chairman and chief economist of Gavekal, an independent research and investment firm serving more than 800 financial institutions. Founding chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, established with George Soros in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Author of Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crisis, nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Columnist for Reuters, the International New York Times, Project Syndicate and Prospect, after a thirty-year career at The Economist, the Financial Times and The Times, where he was Economics Editor and Editor-at-Large. Twice named Specialist Writer of the Year at the British Press Awards, and named Newspaper Commentator of the Year, Economic Journalist of the Year and European Journalist of the Year. First Class Honours in Mathematics from King’s College, Cambridge, and a Kennedy Memorial Scholar at Harvard, where he took a Master’s in Economics. Biography The global economy has not returned to a normal cycle since 2008. Successive shocks, from the financial crisis to the pandemic to the rewiring of trade blocs, have left boards and investors trying to plan inside a macro regime whose rules they did not agree to. Kaletsky’s work is an attempt to name that regime. In Capitalism 4.0, he argued that the post-crisis system is a new stage in the evolution of market economies, one in which governments and central banks play a larger and more explicit role, and that treating the period since 2008 as a set of anomalies is what keeps leaders wrong-footed. The thesis gave boards and policymakers a vocabulary for what they were already seeing. That argument is backed by an unusual combination. Through Gavekal, the research and investment firm he co-founded, his analysis is priced in by more than 800 banks, asset managers and corporates. Through the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which he chaired from its founding with George Soros, he works with the economists rebuilding the discipline’s foundations. Through three decades at The Times, the Financial Times and The Economist, and ongoing columns for Reuters, the International New York Times and Project Syndicate, he has learned how to explain monetary policy and geopolitics without losing either the numbers or the reader. For a board trying to decide what to assume about inflation, Chinese growth, the dollar or the direction of American policy, his value is that he has already had to answer the same question for institutional clients who are putting real capital behind it. Key speaking topics Global macro-economics and financial markets Central bank policy and the future of monetary regimes Capitalism 4.0 and the evolution of market economies after 2008 Geopolitics, trade blocs and the global economic order China, the United States and the shape of the next decade Political risk and the interaction of policy with markets Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting medium-term capital allocation and geographic strategy Chief investment officers, CFOs and treasurers calibrating exposure to policy and macro risk Institutional investor conferences and client events that need a named macro thesis, not a market update Audience outcomes A clearer reading of why the post-2008 macro regime behaves differently, and what that means for planning assumptions A framework for interpreting central bank decisions as part of a longer structural shift, not one-off interventions A sharper view of how US-China rivalry, European policy and emerging market dynamics interact in capital flows Specific, argued positions on inflation, interest rates and asset prices, rather than a survey of consensus forecasts

Why organisations work with Álvaro Vargas Llosa His “Five Principles of Oppression” framework – developed in Liberty for Latin America and recognised with the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award – gives risk and strategy teams a structural model for diagnosing why reform fails in emerging markets, beyond surface political cycle analysis. His critique of statism and populism is applied equally to left and right administrations, making his assessments more defensible in polarised environments and more useful for boards that must operate above partisan interpretation. He brings first-hand political engagement – as press spokesman for one Peruvian presidential campaign and international relations adviser for another – to strategic conversations that frequently lack any understanding of how political institutions function from the inside. His parallel work on development entrepreneurship (the Templeton Freedom Award-winning Lessons from the Poor) and immigration economics (Global Crossings) extends his analytical scope into talent, trade, and demographic strategy – giving organisations a unified frame for markets that most advisers treat in isolation. Named by Foreign Policy as one of the top 50 public intellectuals in the Spanish-speaking world (2012), he carries credibility with government, regulatory, and C-suite audiences across Latin America, Spain, and the United States simultaneously. Biography highlights Senior Fellow, Center on Global Prosperity, Independent Institute, Washington DC; President, Fundación Internacional para la Libertad (FIL) and Cátedra Vargas Llosa B.Sc. International History, London School of Economics; M.A. Value Investing and Theory of the Economic Cycle, OMMA (Spain) Author of Liberty for Latin America (Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award, 2005); editor of Lessons from the Poor (Templeton Freedom Award, 2010); author of Global Crossings: Immigration, Civilization, and America Nationally syndicated columnist, Washington Post Writers Group; former op-ed editor and columnist, Miami Herald; contributor to Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, BBC World Service, and Time Named Young Global Leader, World Economic Forum, 2007; named one of the top 50 public intellectuals in the Spanish-speaking world, Foreign Policy, 2012; Thomas Jefferson Award, Association of Private Enterprise Education, 2021 Writer and presenter, four-part National Geographic Channel documentary series “Consecuencias” on contemporary Latin American history, broadcast in more than 100 countries Member, Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy; press and political advisory roles in two Peruvian presidential campaigns Biography For five hundred years, Latin American economies have cycled through liberalisation and state capture. In Liberty for Latin America, Álvaro Vargas Llosa offers a structural explanation for why – identifying five persistent institutional conditions he calls the “Principles of Oppression”: corporatism, state mercantilism, privilege, bottom-up wealth redistribution, and political law. It is one of the few analytical frameworks that diagnoses a pattern rather than merely describing events, and it won the Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award in 2005. Based at the Independent Institute in Washington DC, Vargas Llosa has spent his career at the intersection of political economy, journalism, and policy advisory work. He spent five years as a nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group and has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the BBC World Service, and Time. His four-part National Geographic Channel documentary series “Consecuencias,” which aired in more than 100 countries, brought the same analytical frame to a mainstream global audience. His work extends beyond Latin American political history. As editor of Lessons from the Poor – recipient of the Templeton Freedom Award – he examined bottom-up entrepreneurship in Africa and Latin America, making the case that development is driven by individual agency, not state intervention. His book Global Crossings: Immigration, Civilization, and America applies a comparable structural lens to immigration, separating economic evidence from political narrative. Named one of the top 50 public intellectuals in the Spanish-speaking world by Foreign Policy (2012), Vargas Llosa carries credibility across Latin America, Europe, and Washington DC. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader in 2007; he also serves as President of the Fundación Internacional para la Libertad and sat on the Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy. For organisations exposed to politically complex markets, his work offers something uncommon: a tested structural model for understanding risk, not simply informed commentary. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and political economy in emerging markets Populism and institutional fragility across the left-right divide Latin American politics and the conditions for durable market reform Immigration economics, cultural assimilation, and demographic change Development entrepreneurship and the structural limits of foreign aid Rule of law, state capture, and the business cost of institutional weakness US foreign policy and Western hemisphere strategy Ideal for Boards and senior executive teams of companies with material Latin American exposure, assessing political and institutional risk alongside commercial strategy Chief Risk Officers and geopolitical risk functions navigating political cycle uncertainty in emerging markets Investors and asset allocators active in Latin American, Ibero-American, or broader developing-economy markets Government affairs teams, policy-facing organisations, and trade bodies operating across the Americas, Spain, and Washington DC Audience outcomes A structural model – grounded in the “Five Principles of Oppression” framework – for explaining why market reform in emerging economies reverses, independent of which party holds power A clearer understanding of how populism operates across the ideological spectrum, and what this means for business exposure and investment sequencing Practical tools for distinguishing between political risk that is cyclical and risk that is structural – and the different responses each requires A contextualised, evidence-based account of immigration and demographic change as economic and strategic forces, separated from political rhetoric A sharper analytical basis for assessing the stability of institutional environments when entering, operating in, or exiting politically complex markets

Why organisations work with Alex Brummer Five decades of front-line financial reporting, from the 1976 sterling crisis to the 2008 banking collapse to the post-Brexit settlement, give audiences a working memory of how financial crises actually unfold. A named position of record. As City Editor of the Daily Mail he writes the paper’s daily view on business, markets and the economy, which means organisations get an author whose arguments are already in public circulation. Book-length theses backed by serious publishers. Bad Banks on financial system fragility and The Great British Reboot (Yale University Press, 2020) on UK economic strategy give audiences a coherent argument, not a survey. Specific expertise on pensions and long-term savings, the subject of The Great Pensions Robbery, which matters to any organisation running a material defined benefit liability or rethinking retirement provision. Award weight from credible bodies: Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards Financial Journalist of the Year, Overseas Press Club of New York for US coverage. Biography highlights City Editor of the Daily Mail since May 2000, writing the paper’s daily commentary on business, markets and the economy. 26 years at The Guardian in senior roles including US Financial and Washington Correspondent, Financial Editor, Foreign Editor and Associate Editor. Author of seven books including The Great British Reboot (Yale University Press, 2020), Bad Banks (2014), Britain for Sale (2012) and The Great Pensions Robbery (2011). Wincott Prize for Senior Financial Journalist of the Year (2001); British Press Awards Financial Journalist of the Year (1999); Overseas Press Club of New York (1989). Honorary Doctor of the University, University of Bradford (2014). Columnist for New Statesman; contributor to The Spectator and Jewish Chronicle; chair of the Jewish News editorial board. Biography The 1976 sterling crisis, the 2008 banking collapse and the post-Brexit argument over UK industrial strategy have one thing in common. The same journalist covered them from inside a working newsroom, in real time, for a general reader. Since May 2000, that newsroom has been the Daily Mail, where Alex Brummer is City Editor. The role means writing the paper’s daily view on business, markets and the economy, turning movement in the FTSE, the Bank of England and global capital markets into a clear argument rather than a data dump. Before that he spent 26 years at The Guardian, including ten years as US Financial and Washington Correspondent covering three presidential elections, then Financial Editor, Foreign Editor and Associate Editor. The books map the territory he speaks from. Bad Banks (2014) traced the post-2008 banking system’s unresolved fragility. Britain for Sale (2012) set out the costs of foreign ownership of British industrial assets. The Great Pensions Robbery (2011) examined the unwinding of UK retirement provision. The Great British Reboot, published by Yale University Press in 2020, argues how the UK can rebuild economic strength through research, technology and industrial reform. The recognition is from bodies that matter in the field: the Wincott Prize for Senior Financial Journalist of the Year, the British Press Awards for Financial Journalist of the Year, and the Overseas Press Club of New York for best foreign correspondent in the United States. Bradford awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2014. Key speaking topics UK economic outlook and industrial policy Banking stability and systemic financial risk Pensions, savings and long-term capital Foreign ownership of UK assets and national economic security Global markets and macroeconomic trends Post-Brexit economic strategy Ideal for Boards and CEOs in financial services, asset management and banking needing an informed macro read alongside strategic decisions CFOs and treasury leaders exposed to rate, currency and pensions risk Policy forums, regulators and industry bodies across financial services, infrastructure and pensions Conferences needing a City Editor-grade host or moderator across business, economics and markets Audience outcomes A clearer read on how UK economic policy, banking regulation and market conditions intersect with their own sector Named historical reference points, from the 1976 sterling crisis to 2008 and beyond, for interpreting current financial stress A sharper frame on the pensions and long-term savings question facing UK employers A working journalist’s view on what is actually driving coverage and sentiment around their industry An argument, not a survey, on where the UK economy is heading and what that implies for strategy

Why organisations work with Aleksander Kwasniewski He was President of Poland through the single most consequential decade in the country’s modern foreign policy, signing the 1997 Constitution and overseeing accession to NATO in 1999 and the EU in 2004. As the mediator of Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and a long-time EU envoy on Ukraine-EU negotiations, he holds one of the deepest first-hand views of the Russia-Ukraine-EU interaction now dominating European risk analysis. His current institutional footprint is substantive: Chairman of Yalta European Strategy, Distinguished Scholar at Georgetown, former member of the Atlantic Council International Advisory Board and former board member of the International Crisis Group. Club de Madrid membership places him alongside more than 120 former heads of state and government, reinforcing the peer-level standing corporate audiences expect when a former President speaks. His long-standing reconciliation and tolerance work, including chair of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation and the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center board, gives him credibility across a range of cross-cultural and public-diplomacy briefs. Biography highlights President of Poland, 1995 to 2005 (two terms) Led Polish accession to NATO (1999) and the European Union (2004); signed the 1997 Constitution Mediated the 2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution; co-led the European Parliament monitoring mission on Ukraine to November 2013 Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership, Georgetown University Chairman of Yalta European Strategy; founder of Amicus Europae; member of Club de Madrid and the Global Commission on Drug Policy Chair of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation; supervisory board, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center Biography The generation that designed modern Poland’s international position included a short list of people who had to take the decisions in real time. Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland from 1995 to 2005, is the one with the clearest record on the outcomes that still shape the continent: a new Constitution in 1997, accession to NATO in 1999 and to the European Union in 2004. Two terms, each won at the ballot box, in a country that had become a democracy less than a decade before he took office. His post-presidential record is built around Ukraine and European security. He mediated the 2004 Orange Revolution, brokering the settlement that ended the crisis and placed Viktor Yushchenko in the Ukrainian presidency. From then until late 2013 he co-led the European Parliament’s monitoring mission in Ukraine and headed EU talks with Ukraine on the association agreement whose collapse in 2013 triggered the Euromaidan protests the following year. Few external politicians have as long an unbroken view of the Ukraine-EU-Russia triangle as he does. The current institutional portfolio reflects that expertise. He is Chairman of Yalta European Strategy, founder of the Amicus Europae Foundation, and Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership at Georgetown University. He sits on the Club de Madrid and the Global Commission on Drug Policy, on the supervisory board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv, and on the International Advisory Council to Uzbekistan. His earlier international board roles included the Atlantic Council of the United States International Advisory Board and the International Crisis Group. For governments, multinational corporations, financial institutions and policy audiences trying to read European security, Eastern European risk and the trajectory of Ukraine, Kwasniewski is among the small group of former heads of state who speak with both political experience and current institutional engagement. His register is direct, and his material is built for executive audiences working on decisions that have consequence. Key speaking topics European security and the future of the EU and NATO Ukraine, Russia and the Eastern European geopolitical picture Poland’s transition, EU accession and political economy International diplomacy and mediation under pressure Reconciliation, tolerance and post-conflict public policy Global drug policy reform Ideal for Boards, CEOs and investment committees assessing European and Eastern European geopolitical risk Financial institutions, energy companies and multinationals with Central and Eastern European exposure Policy forums, think tanks and international affairs audiences Diplomatic, EU and NATO-adjacent events Audience outcomes A head-of-state reading of the forces shaping European security and Ukraine’s position Inside account of the 2004 Orange Revolution mediation and the 2013 EU-Ukraine association talks Historical context from Poland’s NATO and EU accession directly applicable to emerging-market strategy conversations A clearer view of how current international institutions are likely to respond to ongoing crises, from someone who has advised them

Why organisations work with Alastair Campbell Direct experience of running government communications through general elections, war, and the daily pressure of Downing Street, applied to corporate equivalents: contested deals, regulatory crises, leadership transitions. A working method for handling hostile media and political environments that has been tested at the centre of UK government, not theorised about. Author of Winners: And How They Succeed, drawing named lessons from political, business, and sporting leaders that translate directly into how senior teams plan, decide, and execute. One of the UK’s most prominent voices on workplace mental health, with lived experience and the institutional credibility of an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. A platform that reaches senior decision-makers at scale: The Rest Is Politics runs at around eight million downloads a month, giving him a current read on the political and economic context boards are trying to interpret. Biography highlights Director of Communications and Strategy for Prime Minister Tony Blair, 1997 to 2003, after running Blair’s communications in opposition from 1994. Co-host with Rory Stewart of The Rest Is Politics, one of the most-listened-to political podcasts in the UK and the leading politics show on YouTube during the 2024 general election. Bestselling author of The Blair Years, Winners: And How They Succeed, Living Better, and But What Can I Do?, alongside the All In The Mind novels. Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists; former Mind Champion of the Year; co-founder of Equality4MentalHealth. Editor-at-large of The New European and a long-standing political columnist and broadcaster. Senior journalism background at the Daily Mirror and Today before moving into political communications. Biography Communication inside government is judged on the days when something has gone wrong. For nine years from 1994, Alastair Campbell sat at the centre of those days for Tony Blair, first as press secretary, then as Director of Communications and Strategy, through the 1997 election, the early years of devolution, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, and Iraq. The job was not press handling. It was the operational core of how a government decided what to say, to whom, and when. That experience now sits behind a second career as an author, broadcaster, and advisor. Winners: And How They Succeed set out a working theory of strategic leadership drawn from named figures across politics, business, and elite sport. The Blair Years and his subsequent diaries are the most detailed account of decision-making inside a modern UK government. His work is read by leaders who have to make calls under the same kind of scrutiny, in different sectors. The mental health work is the second strand. Living Better is an account of his depression and the systems, clinical and personal, he has used to manage it. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a former Mind Champion of the Year, and a co-founder of Equality4MentalHealth, the cross-party campaign that secured an additional 600 million pounds for UK mental health services. For corporate audiences, this is not an add-on topic. It is a senior leader who has built a public discipline around a private struggle. The Rest Is Politics, his podcast with former Conservative minister Rory Stewart, reaches several million listeners a month and led the UK politics charts through the 2024 election. The podcast is an unusual asset for a speaker: a current, weekly read on the geopolitical and domestic context in which boards and executive teams are now operating. Key speaking topics Communications strategy under pressure Leadership and decision-making in crisis Political risk and the geopolitical operating context Workplace mental health and senior leader resilience Lessons from winners across politics, business, and sport Media, scrutiny, and reputation management Campaign strategy and persuasion Ideal for CEOs, chairs, and executive committees facing contested decisions, regulatory scrutiny, or leadership transitions Communications, public affairs, and corporate affairs leaders responsible for crisis and reputation HR and people leaders building senior-level mental health and resilience programmes Leadership development audiences and partner conferences in professional services, financial services, and regulated sectors Audience outcomes A clearer view of how to make and communicate decisions when scrutiny is hostile and information is incomplete. Specific, named lessons from inside government and elite performance environments on what separates winners from competent operators. A more honest framework for senior leaders to think about their own resilience, including mental health, as a strategic variable rather than a personal weakness. A current read on the political and geopolitical environment shaping commercial decisions over the next cycle. Practical reference points for handling media, public scrutiny, and internal communication under pressure.

Key speaking topics UK politics and government Global political developments Election campaigns and political strategy Media and political broadcasting US politics and transatlantic relations The role of journalism in modern democracy Political leadership and decision-making Ideal for Corporate leadership teams seeking political and geopolitical context Financial services and global businesses monitoring political risk Conferences focused on public affairs, media or government relations Organisations hosting moderated discussions with political leaders or policymakers Audience outcomes Clearer understanding of the UK political landscape and decision-making environment Insight into global political developments and their implications for organisations Perspective on election campaigns, political strategy and leadership Understanding of how political narratives are shaped in modern media Context for interpreting government policy and political risk Why organisations work with Adam Boulton Extensive experience covering UK and international politics across broadcast media. Ability to explain complex political developments in clear, structured terms for business audiences. Credibility built through decades of political reporting, interviews with national leaders and major election coverage. Skilled moderator and conference host able to guide informed discussions on politics, policy and public affairs. Biography Adam Boulton is one of the most experienced figures in British political broadcasting, with a career spanning more than four decades reporting on UK and international politics. As the founding Political Editor of Sky News, he played a central role in shaping the channel’s political coverage and became a prominent voice in live political journalism and election reporting. During his time at Sky News he hosted several of the network’s flagship political programmes, including All Out Politics, Boulton and Co, Sunday Live and Week in Review. He has fronted major live political and election coverage and conducted interviews with every UK Prime Minister from Sir Alec Douglas-Home onwards, alongside extensive reporting on US politics since the Reagan era. Earlier in his career he served as Political Editor at TV-am before joining Sky News, and he was elected chairman of the Parliamentary Lobby. His contribution to political journalism has been recognised with the Royal Television Society’s supreme judges’ award. Alongside his broadcasting career, Adam is an established political commentator and presenter. He hosts Sunday Morning with Adam Boulton on Times Radio, contributes commentary for Sky News, and has written political analysis for publications including Reaction. Adam is also an author. His books include Tony’s Ten Years: Memories of the Blair Administration and Hung Together: The 2010 Election and the Coalition Government, written with Joey Jones. Beyond broadcasting and writing, Adam is a sought-after moderator and speaker for corporate and public affairs events. He brings decades of experience covering government, elections and global political developments, helping organisations understand the forces shaping political decision-making and international affairs. He has also served as a governor of Sevenoaks School and received an honorary Doctor of Business from the University of Plymouth.

Why organisations work with Baroness Grey-Thompson She chaired the government’s independent Duty of Care in Sport review (2017), producing recommendations on athlete welfare, safeguarding, and governing body accountability. Her authority on organisational responsibility comes from having produced the policy, not just commented on it. Her perspective on inclusion is grounded in decades of lived experience as a disabled person navigating institutions not designed for her – which gives her a precision and candour on the subject that no theoretical framework produces. As a sitting crossbench peer, she debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance in Parliament. Her understanding of how policy accountability functions – or fails to – is current, not retrospective. She has held board-level positions across sport, transport, broadcasting and the public sector. She speaks to senior decision-makers from a position of peer-level governance experience, not from outside it. Eleven Paralympic gold medals and six London Wheelchair Marathon victories represent one of the most demanding sustained performance records in British sporting history. Her insight into resilience and long-term excellence comes from a context that most performance speakers cannot match. Biography highlights 11 Paralympic gold medals across five Games (Seoul 1988 to Athens 2004); six London Wheelchair Marathon victories; over 30 world records Baroness Grey-Thompson DBE; crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2010; debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance Led the government-commissioned independent Duty of Care in Sport review, published April 2017 Chancellor of Northumbria University since 2015; honorary Doctor of Law, University of Cambridge (2016) Member of the Laureus World Sports Academy; BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, 2019 Board experience includes Transport for London, London Legacy Development Corporation, ukactive (Chair), BBC and UK Athletics Biography The question of how organisations balance the drive for performance with the duty to protect the people inside them is one that Tanni Grey-Thompson has spent three decades navigating – first as an elite athlete competing in systems rarely designed with her in mind, then as a legislator and governance lead responsible for changing them. Her athletic record is the foundation of her credibility. Across five Paralympic Games between 1988 and 2004, she won 11 gold medals in wheelchair racing, set over 30 world records, and won the London Wheelchair Marathon six times. What that record represents, beyond the numbers, is sustained excellence under physical and institutional pressure. She competed with spina bifida in an era when structural support for disabled athletes was limited, and she won anyway – a fact that shapes everything she says about resilience and the conditions that enable long-term achievement. In 2017, the government commissioned her to lead an independent review into duty of care in sport. The resulting report set out recommendations on athlete welfare, safeguarding, mental wellbeing, and the accountability of governing bodies for the people in their systems. It remains the most authoritative published framework on institutional responsibility in British sport, and it gave her a body of work that no other speaker in the inclusion space can claim. She joined the House of Lords as a crossbench peer in 2010, where she debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance. Her board experience spans Transport for London, the London Legacy Development Corporation, ukactive, the BBC, and UK Athletics. She has been Chancellor of Northumbria University since 2015. What she brings to a senior audience is not a motivational narrative – it is a working knowledge of how accountability for people actually functions, or fails to, in large organisations. Key speaking topics Elite performance and sustained achievement Inclusion and disability in organisational life Duty of care and institutional accountability Leadership under pressure Governance and board responsibility Disability rights and welfare policy Sport governance and athlete welfare Ideal for Senior leadership and board teams where performance expectations and inclusion commitments are in tension HR, people and DEI leaders responsible for disability inclusion and employee wellbeing strategy Public sector, sport and charitable sector boards with governance and accountability responsibilities Corporate audiences undergoing culture change where the gap between stated values and daily practice is a live concern Audience outcomes A sharper understanding of where performance culture and duty of care come into structural conflict – and what resolving that actually requires First-hand perspective on what inclusion looks like beyond policy, drawn from lived experience in systems not designed for disability Grounded insight into board-level accountability for the wellbeing of people inside an organisation An honest account of sustained high performance – what enabled it, what threatened it, and what the institutions around her got right and wrong Practical framing for the gap between an organisation’s stated commitments and the culture leaders actually sustain

Why organisations work with Michael Watkins He owns the global category of leadership transitions. The First 90 Days is the methodology Fortune 500 HR functions, executive coaches, and onboarding programs build around, with over a million copies in print across more than twenty languages. His 2024 book, The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, gives senior teams a named, teachable framework for the cognitive work executives are expected to do but rarely trained in: pattern recognition, systems perspective, mental agility, structured problem-solving, visioning, and political savvy. The Thinkers50 Hall of Fame induction in 2023 places him alongside the small group of management thinkers whose work has shaped how large organisations actually develop leaders, not just how they talk about leadership. He has run the playbook inside companies as well as written it. Through Genesis Advisers, the consultancy he co-founded, his frameworks are embedded in transition coaching programs at major multinationals. Buyers get a speaker who has taught the same audience inside IMD, Harvard Business School, and the Kennedy School. The content is built for senior leaders, not adapted down to them. Biography highlights Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD Business School since 2007. Author of The First 90 Days, named by The Economist as “the onboarding bible” and selected by Amazon editors as one of 100 leadership books to read in a lifetime. Author of The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking (Harper Business, 2024) and Master Your Next Move, the structured companion to The First 90 Days covering eight common executive transition types. Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2023; previously ranked on the Thinkers50 list in 2019 and 2021. Co-founder and chairman of Genesis Advisers, a leadership-transition consultancy. Former associate professor at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School; PhD in Decision Sciences from Harvard University. Biography The First 90 Days began as a study of why senior hires fail and grew into the operating manual that most large organisations now use to onboard executives. The Economist called it the onboarding bible. More than a million copies are in print across more than twenty languages, and the framework is embedded in transition coaching at multinationals worldwide. Michael Watkins built the methodology while teaching at Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School, refined it at INSEAD, and has anchored it at IMD since 2007 as Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change. He directs IMD’s First 90 Days open program and co-directs the Transition to Business Leadership executive program. The same body of work runs through Genesis Advisers, the consultancy he co-founded, where the playbook is delivered inside companies rather than written about from outside. In 2024, he extended the work upward with The Six Disciplines of Strategic Thinking, which names the cognitive disciplines executives are expected to demonstrate at the top of an organisation: pattern recognition, systems perspective, mental agility, structured problem-solving, visioning, and political savvy. The argument is that strategic thinking is not a personality trait but a teachable craft, and most senior teams have never been taught it. The Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inducted him in November 2023, recognising two decades of work that has demonstrably shaped how large organisations develop their leaders rather than how they describe doing so. Key speaking topics Leadership transitions and executive onboarding Strategic thinking for senior leaders Team leadership and top-team effectiveness Organisational change and culture Negotiation and decision-making Career strategy for senior executives Ideal for CHROs, heads of leadership development, and chief learning officers designing transition and onboarding programs. CEOs and executive committees who want their top team trained in strategic thinking as a discipline. Boards and nomination committees preparing successors for enterprise-leadership roles. High-potential leadership cohorts moving into first general-management or P&L roles. Audience outcomes A named methodology, The First 90 Days, that senior leaders can apply to their next transition rather than a set of principles to remember. Six concrete strategic-thinking disciplines that a top team can use as a shared language inside the business. A clearer view of why most senior-hire failures are predictable, and which interventions in the first ninety days actually change the outcome. Direct access to the thinking of a Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee whose work is taught inside HBS, INSEAD, and IMD curricula.