Political Risk & Policy

Why organisations work with Shang-Jin Wei He has sat in the seat where these questions are actually answered, as Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and a senior research economist at the IMF, not just analysed them from a faculty office. His chair at Columbia Business School is specifically the N.T. Wang Professorship of Chinese Business and Economy, giving boards a single, named source on US-China economic integration with academic standing behind it. He publishes in the journals that regulators and central banks read, including American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Quarterly Journal of Economics, so his views on capital flows and currency carry weight in policy rooms as well as boardrooms. His Project Syndicate columns track the live arguments around the renminbi, Chinese trade surpluses, Ant Group, Trump-era tariffs and India, which means clients get a current macro read, not a recycled lecture. Biography highlights N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School and Columbia SIPA. Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank and Director General, Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, 2014 to 2016. Former Assistant Director and Chief of the Trade and Investment Division at the IMF Research Department; IMF Chief of Mission to Myanmar in 2004. Former New Century Chair in Trade and International Economics at the Brookings Institution; former Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Research Associate at NBER and Research Fellow at CEPR; published in American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Journal of Finance. Regular Project Syndicate columnist on China, the renminbi, trade and emerging markets; co-author of China’s Growing Role in World Trade (NBER, with Robert Feenstra). Biography The hard question on China is no longer whether it matters. It is which numbers to trust, which signals to read, and where the operating reality is diverging from the official line. That gap is where capital is mispriced. Shang-Jin Wei has worked on both sides of that gap. As Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank from 2014 to 2016, he led the analytical work behind regional fora such as ASEAN+3 and APEC, and advised the ADB President on growth diagnostics across developing Asia. Before that, he was Assistant Director and Chief of the Trade and Investment Division at the IMF Research Department, and the Fund’s Chief of Mission to Myanmar. At Columbia, he holds the N.T. Wang Chair in Chinese Business and Economy, with a joint appointment between the Business School and the School of International and Public Affairs. His research, published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Journal of Finance, sits at the meeting point of trade, international finance and the institutional architecture of the Chinese economy. He is a Research Associate at NBER, a Research Fellow at CEPR, and a frequent Project Syndicate contributor on the renminbi, Chinese trade surpluses, Ant Group and the structural reforms China still has to make. For boards and investors, the value is concrete. He reads China the way someone who has had to sign off on a regional growth forecast reads it. He treats trade and currency as live operating variables, not slogans. Buyers leave a session with a clearer view of where the real risk in their China exposure sits, and what to watch over the next two cycles. Key speaking topics US-China economic integration Chinese growth, structural reform and policy outlook The renminbi, capital flows and currency risk Trade, tariffs and the future of globalisation Emerging-market macro and developing Asia International finance and cross-border investment Geopolitical risk for global investors Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material China or wider Asia exposure CFOs, treasurers and CIOs setting capital allocation under tariff and currency uncertainty Strategy and corporate development leaders reviewing supply chain and market exposure to China Financial services and asset management firms briefing institutional clients on emerging-market risk Audience outcomes A clearer read on which Chinese economic indicators are meaningful and which are not. A working view on where US-China trade and tariff dynamics are heading and what that does to operating models. A grounded position on the renminbi, capital controls and the limits of RMB internationalisation. A sharper sense of where emerging-market risk concentrates beyond the headline narrative.

Why organisations work with Nina Khrushcheva A primary read on Russian political culture from a scholar who has travelled and reported across the country’s eleven time zones, not a Moscow-watcher working from secondary sources. Author or co-author of three books on Russian power, including In Putin’s Footsteps (St. Martin’s Press, 2019) with Atlantic contributing editor Jeffrey Tayler, and The Lost Khrushchev, both grounded in original interviews and field research. A standing column at Project Syndicate, where she edits the Russia series, and a publication record across the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Newsweek that boards and investment committees already read. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former director of the Russia Project at the World Policy Institute, with the institutional standing expected for closed-room conversations on sanctions, geopolitical exposure, and political risk. A family inheritance, as the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, that she uses as a lens on Soviet and post-Soviet authoritarianism rather than a biographical talking point. Biography highlights Professor of International Affairs at The New School, New York. Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Princeton University; former research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Author of Imagining Nabokov (Yale University Press) and The Lost Khrushchev (Tate); co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps (St. Martin’s Press) with Jeffrey Tayler. Contributing Editor at Project Syndicate; bylines in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Newsweek. Member of the Council on Foreign Relations; former director of the Russia Project at the World Policy Institute. Recipient of the Carnegie Corporation’s Great Immigrants Award and the Trinity College Dublin Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage. Biography The Kremlin is not best understood through Western political vocabulary. It runs on a logic shaped by Russian literature, Soviet bureaucratic instinct, and a long memory of empire. Reading it from the outside, on quarterly briefings alone, has cost organisations real money over the past decade. Nina Khrushcheva works that gap. A professor of international affairs at The New School, with a Princeton doctorate in comparative literature, she teaches courses on comparative propaganda, international media, and Russian contemporary politics. Her academic register is unusual: she reads the Kremlin the way a literary scholar reads a text, while also reporting from inside it. That dual method runs through her books. In Putin’s Footsteps, written with Jeffrey Tayler of The Atlantic, is the product of travel across all eleven of Russia’s time zones. The Lost Khrushchev draws on her family inheritance as the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev to read the Soviet project from inside its own argument. Imagining Nabokov preceded both, with Yale University Press. She edits the Russia series at Project Syndicate and writes regularly for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Newsweek. She sits on the Council on Foreign Relations and previously directed the Russia Project at the World Policy Institute. The Carnegie Corporation named her among its Great Immigrants in 2013, and Trinity College Dublin awarded her its Gold Medal of Honorary Patronage in 2019. Key speaking topics Russia under Putin Authoritarian governance and propaganda Post-Soviet political culture Geopolitical risk and sanctions exposure US-Russia relations Russia, China and the contested global order Soviet history and its modern uses Ideal for Boards and investment committees with direct or indirect Russia exposure, including energy, commodities, and dual-use technology Chief risk officers, general counsel, and government affairs leads weighing sanctions and political risk Policy audiences, foundations, and academic institutions briefing on the post-Soviet space Senior diplomatic, defence and foreign-policy convenings on Russia, Ukraine, and the wider rules-based order Audience outcomes A read of current Kremlin behaviour rooted in Russian political and literary tradition, not Western projection A clearer sense of where Putin’s regime is brittle and where it is durable, with implications for sanctions and exposure Context on how Soviet history is being repurposed in present-day propaganda and policy A sharper map of where Russia, China, and the United States actually intersect, beyond headline framings Specific reference points for how to test the assumptions in any internal Russia or geopolitics brief

Why organisations work with Ngaire Woods Her 2006 book “The Globalizers” set out a specific, named argument – that IMF and World Bank lending conditions are shaped by the geopolitical interests of dominant states as much as by economic theory. Organisations that have read it do not approach multilateral institutions the same way again. She has worked inside the institutions she analyses, not just around them: advisor to the IMF board, member of the G20 High Level Independent Panel on pandemic financing alongside Lawrence Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and member of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19. As founding Dean of the Blavatnik School since 2011, she has trained a generation of ministers, central bankers and senior officials from across the world. That means she knows where public policy is heading before it becomes a headline. Her analysis stays current and policy-facing: monthly contributor to Project Syndicate, regular quoted source in the Financial Times, and current Co-Chair of the WEF Global Future Council on Good Governance. As an Independent Non-Executive Director at Rio Tinto, she applies the same analytical framework she brings to lecture halls and policy rooms directly to boardroom-level governance – which means the distance between her intellectual work and live organisational decisions is shorter than it is for most academics. Biography highlights Founding Dean of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government since its inception in 2011 – one of the world’s leading schools of public policy and government Professor of Global Economic Governance, University of Oxford; founder of Oxford’s Global Economic Governance Programme Author of “The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers” (Cornell University Press, 2006) and “The Politics of Global Regulation” (with Walter Mattli, Princeton University Press, 2009) Member of the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, co-chaired by Lawrence Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; member of the Lancet Commission on COVID-19 CBE (2018) for services to Higher Education and Public Policy; Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences; International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Monthly contributor to Project Syndicate since 2013; quoted in the Financial Times; former regular presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Analysis programme Independent Non-Executive Director at Rio Tinto; Co-Chair of the WEF Global Future Council on Good Governance; Rhodes Trustee Biography The IMF and the World Bank were not built to be neutral. They were built to reflect the interests of their most powerful members – and understanding how those interests are encoded in loan conditions, governance structures and regulatory frameworks is what separates informed global strategy from exposed global strategy. Ngaire Woods has spent three decades studying exactly this: how international institutions work, who shapes them, and who is left out. Her 2006 book “The Globalizers“, published by Cornell University Press, made a specific and consequential argument – that the conditions attached to IMF and World Bank lending were shaped as much by the geopolitical priorities of dominant states as by economic theory. Her subsequent work, including “The Politics of Global Regulation” (Princeton University Press, 2009, co-authored with Walter Mattli), extended the analysis to how regulatory systems are constructed, contested and fragmented across global markets. These are not abstract frameworks; they are the tools that senior officials and corporate strategists use to understand conditions that resist simpler explanations. In 2011, Woods became the founding Dean of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government – an institution she built from proposal to one of the world’s foremost schools of public policy. The school trains ministers, senior officials and public leaders from across the world; its alumni hold government positions on multiple continents. In 2021, the G20 appointed her to its High Level Independent Panel on pandemic financing, alongside Lawrence Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to propose how global commons could be financed in an era of systemic and cross-border risk. For organisations navigating a period in which the rules governing global trade, investment and regulation are being openly contested, Woods offers something specific: a structural account of where power sits, which institutions are losing coherence, and which are quietly accumulating it. She currently serves as Independent Non-Executive Director at Rio Tinto and Co-Chair of the WEF Global Future Council on Good Governance – roles that keep her analysis grounded in live institutional reality rather than historical retrospect. Key speaking topics Global economic governance and international institutions Geopolitics and the fracturing of the multilateral order Political risk and the regulatory environment for global business The IMF, World Bank and the politics of conditionality Global development and institutional reform Pandemic preparedness and the financing of global commons Democracy, governance and the erosion of public trust Ideal for Boards and senior executive teams operating across multiple jurisdictions and regulatory regimes Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers in global businesses navigating geopolitical uncertainty Government and public sector leaders, and executives within multilateral institutions Conferences focused on global economics, institutional risk and geopolitical strategy Audience outcomes A working framework for understanding how international institutions shape the conditions that corporate and government strategy depends on Sharper analysis of where power is shifting in the global economic order – and what this means for investment, regulation and market access decisions Clearer sight of the political and governance risks embedded in global operations that conventional risk tools typically miss Insight into how policy is made, and how conditions are set, inside multilateral institutions – from someone who has advised them directly A more realistic account of which elements of the post-war international order remain durable, and which are already being renegotiated

Why organisations work with Michael Yaziji He wrote the standard reference on NGO–corporate relations. NGOs and Corporations: Conflict and Collaboration (Cambridge University Press) carried cover endorsements from the chairmen of Nestlé, Unilever, Shell, and PepsiCo. He holds doctorates in both analytic philosophy (University of California) and management strategy (INSEAD), a combination that brings serious ethical reasoning into his work on AI governance and corporate ownership design. His leadership work draws on the world’s largest survey tying psychological drivers and psychological safety to organisational performance, giving him empirical depth most speakers in the field do not have. He co-directs IMD’s Stakeholder Management for Boards programme and has trained boards and executive teams at Microsoft, Shell, PepsiCo, Ericsson, and Maersk. He thinks ahead of the consensus: his 2008 Harvard Business Review piece on the structural flaws of shareholder capitalism predated the mainstream stakeholder capitalism debate by close to a decade. Biography highlights Professor of Strategy and Leadership at IMD, Lausanne Co-Director of IMD’s Stakeholder Management for Boards programme Author of NGOs and Corporations: Conflict and Collaboration (Cambridge University Press), endorsed at publication by the chairmen of Nestlé, Unilever, Shell, and PepsiCo Two doctorates: analytic philosophy (University of California) and management strategy (INSEAD) Published in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review Gold Award, 2024 Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards (Excellence in Executive Education) for IMD’s Sprint programme with Bayer Biography Regulation and activist coalitions now shape more corporate outcomes than many of the competitive moves around which strategy frameworks are built. This nonmarket terrain is what Michael Yaziji has spent two decades mapping. He argues that political dynamics and stakeholder pressure are core variables of corporate strategy and should be treated as such by senior leaders. His training is unusual: a doctorate in analytic philosophy from the University of California, and a second in management and strategy from INSEAD. Both disciplines show up in the work. Yaziji treats ethical reasoning and institutional theory as practical tools, applied to live executive questions like AI governance and corporate ownership design. At the centre of his published work is NGOs and Corporations: Conflict and Collaboration (Cambridge University Press, 2009), co-authored with Villanova’s Jonathan Doh. The book carried cover endorsements from the chairmen of Nestlé, Unilever, Shell, and PepsiCo. It remains a standard reference for executives dealing with activist NGOs and contested social licence. His current research extends this work to artificial intelligence: who sets the rules, and who carries the cost of weak governance. He co-directs IMD’s Stakeholder Management for Boards programme. An executive education programme he co-led for the pharmaceutical group Bayer trained more than 12,000 leaders across ten months and won Gold at the 2024 Chief Learning Officer Learning in Practice Awards. Key speaking topics Nonmarket strategy and political risk NGO and stakeholder engagement Stakeholder management for boards AI governance and corporate strategy Corporate ethics and ownership design Psychological safety and organisational performance Sustainability and competitive advantage Ideal for Boards and chairs facing scrutiny on ESG and political risk C-suites in regulated or politically exposed industries (energy, pharma, financial services, extractives, technology platforms) Chief sustainability officers and corporate affairs heads building integrated nonmarket strategy Executive teams designing AI governance and stakeholder policy in large organisations Audience outcomes A working method that turns regulation and NGO pressure into variables leaders can shape Sharper thinking on how AI governance creates strategic risk and opportunity for their organisation Confidence in reading share ownership and stakeholder governance shifts as strategic variables A more direct vocabulary for talking to investors and regulators about the company’s social licence

Why organisations work with Luciano Floridi His AI4People framework, developed in 2018 and formally adopted by the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI in 2019, is one of the intellectual foundations of the EU AI Act – the world’s first major AI regulation. Organisations engaging him are drawing on the reasoning that shaped it. The Fourth Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2014) introduced the “infosphere” and “onlife” frameworks – giving organisations a principled vocabulary for what happens to human agency, identity, and accountability when AI systems become environmental forces rather than discrete tools. He holds a specific, counterintuitive argument – that AI is a new form of agency rather than a new form of intelligence – with direct consequences for how boards assign responsibility, structure oversight, and communicate accountability to regulators. His advisory work spans the European Commission, the German Ethics Council, the UK Cabinet Office, and companies including Google, IBM, and Microsoft – grounding his perspective in the institutional realities of AI governance, not abstracted from them. His five-volume tetralogy on the philosophy and ethics of information, published by Oxford University Press, is the most systematic academic treatment of the field – giving organisations access to a structured intellectual architecture that briefings and AI ethics summaries cannot replicate. Biography highlights Founding Director, Digital Ethics Center, Yale University; John K. Castle Professor in the Practice of Cognitive Science Formerly OII Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, University of Oxford, and Director of the Oxford Internet Institute’s Digital Ethics Lab Chair, AI4People Scientific Committee (2018); framework adopted by the European Commission’s HLEG on AI in 2019 and foundational to the EU AI Act Author of over 300 works; books include The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (OUP, 2023), The Fourth Revolution (OUP, 2014), and The Philosophy of Information (OUP, 2011) Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2022) – Italy’s highest national honour; IBM Thinker Award; Barwise Prize, American Philosophical Association Editor-in-Chief, Philosophy & Technology (Springer Nature), since 2010 Biography Most AI governance conversations begin with the technology and arrive at the harder questions only under pressure. What AI does to human agency, to accountability structures, and to the nature of responsibility inside organisations cannot be resolved by technical frameworks alone. Luciano Floridi has spent three decades building the conceptual tools that fill that gap. His 2014 book The Fourth Revolution (Oxford University Press) introduced the “infosphere” and “onlife” frameworks – arguing that digital technologies constitute a fourth revolution in human self-understanding, comparable in scale to those of Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud. His more recent work positions AI as a new form of agency rather than a new form of intelligence. That distinction has direct implications for how organisations assign accountability and design oversight structures. That thinking has had direct regulatory consequences. As chair of the AI4People Scientific Committee, Floridi developed the ethical framework the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI formally adopted in 2019. It underpins the EU AI Act – the world’s first major AI regulation. He also served on the HLEG itself. His advisory work spans the European Commission, the German Ethics Council, the UK Cabinet Office, and companies including Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Since 2023, he has been Founding Director of Yale University’s Digital Ethics Center, where he holds the John K. Castle Professorship in the Practice of Cognitive Science. He has published more than 300 works and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy & Technology (Springer Nature). In 2022 he was awarded the Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic – Italy’s highest national honour. Key speaking topics AI ethics and digital governance Philosophy of information The EU AI Act and responsible AI regulation Organisational accountability in AI-mediated environments Data protection and digital rights Generative AI: agency, not intelligence The infosphere and the digital transformation of human identity Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership teams making decisions about AI deployment and governance risk Chief Digital Officers, Chief Technology Officers, and Chief Risk Officers navigating AI regulation Regulatory, legal, and compliance functions operating under the EU AI Act or preparing for digital governance frameworks Government bodies and public sector organisations designing AI oversight structures Audience outcomes A working framework for understanding why existing AI governance policies often fail to address questions of accountability – and what a principled alternative looks like Familiarity with the “infosphere” and “onlife” concepts from The Fourth Revolution and their application to organisational decision-making A clear account of the “agency without intelligence” argument – and what it means for how organisations assign responsibility and structure oversight Practical orientation on the EU AI Act’s intellectual foundations and what genuine compliance requires beyond procedural checkboxes Insight into how governments, regulators, and major technology companies are approaching AI governance from someone who has participated directly in shaping those frameworks

Why organisations work with Karl Pilny Three decades of operating inside Asian deal rooms, not commentary from the outside. He opened Coudert Brothers’ Berlin office in 1995 and has structured M&A and joint ventures between European, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Indian companies since the late 1980s. A published long-range thesis on Asia. Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) sets out his case that four of the five most powerful economies will soon be Asian, with implications boards can act on. Legal and commercial fluency in the same person. PhD from the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property, professorship at bbw Hochschule Berlin, and a working life spent advising entrepreneurs and family offices through asia21 GmbH. Delivery in German, English and Japanese. Few European Asia speakers can hold a Tokyo board conversation in the language of the room. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director, asia21 GmbH, Zurich (since 2006). Professor of International Technology Transfer Management, bbw Hochschule Berlin (since 2018). Author of Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018), nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award 2020. Author of the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy and the Investment Guide Asien. Former resident partner at Coudert Brothers, where he opened the Berlin office in 1995; later Managing Partner Germany at Travers Smith. PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Japan Department; former lecturer at the universities of Kyoto and Osaka. Biography Asia 2030 (Campus Verlag, 2018) argued that four of the five most powerful economies would soon be Asian, and that European companies were already late to price the shift. The book was nominated for the getAbstract International Book Award in 2020. It set out the case that Karl Pilny had been making for years in board rooms across Germany, Switzerland and Japan. That argument is anchored in unusual depth of practice. After a PhD at the Max Planck Institute for International Intellectual Property and a teaching post in German law at Kyoto and Osaka, he spent a decade as a partner at Coudert Brothers, opening the firm’s Berlin office in 1995. He went on to lead Travers Smith’s German practice before founding asia21 GmbH in Zurich in 2006, advising entrepreneurs, family offices and corporates on investment into and out of Asia. The work spans renewable energy, infrastructure, financial services and consumer goods, and the books span a wider field still: the Das asiatische Jahrhundert trilogy, the Investment Guide Asien, and the political thrillers Japan Inc. and Korea Inc. Since 2018 he has held a professorship in International Technology Transfer Management at bbw Hochschule Berlin, where he teaches on innovation leadership in Asian companies and on digitalisation. For European leadership teams the value is direct. He has structured the deals, written the long-range analysis and worked in the languages. He can take a board through the political risk in a China exposure, the cultural mechanics of a Japanese joint venture and the capital flows reshaping Southeast Asia in a single session. Key speaking topics Asia macroeconomic trajectories to 2030 China, Japan, Korea and India political risk Cross-border M&A and joint ventures in Asia Investment strategy for European corporates and family offices Renewable energy and infrastructure capital flows in Asia Technology transfer and IP between Europe and Asia Cross-cultural negotiation with Asian counterparties Ideal for Boards and executive committees of European corporates with material Asia exposure Chief strategy officers, corporate development and M&A leads working on Asian deals Family offices, foundations and institutional investors allocating into emerging Asia Industry conferences on energy transition, infrastructure and financial services touching Asia Audience outcomes A defensible read on where capital, technology and political weight are moving across Asia to 2030 Specific implications for European market entry, joint ventures and M&A in China, Japan, Korea and India A sharper view of cross-cultural risk in Asian deal structures, drawn from named cases A framework for sequencing Asia exposure across sectors, from renewables to consumer goods

Why organisations work with Christoph M. Schmidt Seven years chairing the German Council of Economic Experts, the body that formally advises the federal government, gives him a working command of how policy is actually made in Berlin and Brussels. As co-chair of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts, he reads the Paris-Berlin axis from inside the room, useful for any business whose European strategy depends on it. His research sits where most boardroom questions now live: energy transition economics, CO2 pricing design, labour market structure, and inequality. He has published on all of them. Project Syndicate columnist and contributor to the World Economic Forum Agenda and Brookings, which means audiences are getting a voice already trusted by the serious business press. Recipient of the Gustav Stolper Award (2016), given by the Verein fuer Socialpolitik for economists who shape public debate with empirical work, not rhetoric. Biography highlights President of RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen since 2002. Chair for Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum. Chairman of the German Council of Economic Experts, 2013 to 2020. Co-chairman of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts since 2020. Gustav Stolper Award (2016); honorary doctorate, Leibniz Universitaet Hannover (2019). Ph.D. in Economics, Princeton University; CEPR Fellow; IZA Research Fellow. Biography The German Council of Economic Experts exists to tell the federal government what the data actually says, in writing, every year. Christoph M. Schmidt chaired that body from 2013 to 2020, which means he authored or co-authored seven annual reports that shaped how Berlin framed growth, fiscal policy, labour reform, and the energy transition. He has been President of RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research in Essen since 2002, while holding the Chair for Economic Policy and Applied Econometrics at Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum. The combination is unusual. RWI is one of Germany’s largest economic research institutes; Bochum keeps him teaching and publishing the empirical work that gives the policy voice its weight. Since 2020 he has served as co-chairman of the Franco-German Council of Economic Experts, a body set up to surface where the two largest eurozone economies can cooperate and where they cannot. For any executive team with European exposure, that bilateral view is rarely available from a single speaker. His training is Princeton applied econometrics, with a Ph.D. supervised in the Alfred P. Sloan tradition. The research output covers energy and CO2 pricing, labour markets, health, and inequality. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate, the World Economic Forum Agenda, and Brookings. The Gustav Stolper Award, given in 2016 by the Verein fuer Socialpolitik, recognises economists who translate serious empirical work into public debate. Schmidt is one of the few German economists to have done both at the scale the award implies. Key speaking topics European economic policy and the Franco-German axis Energy transition economics and CO2 pricing German and European labour market reform Income and wealth inequality Fiscal policy and debt sustainability in the eurozone The role of evidence-based economic advice in democracies Productivity and structural change in advanced economies Ideal for Boards and executive teams with European operations weighing the fiscal, energy, and labour policy outlook CFOs, strategy leads, and government affairs teams briefing on eurozone direction Investor audiences and policy forums examining the Franco-German economic relationship Industrial and energy sector leadership assessing the real cost trajectory of the transition Audience outcomes A sharper read on where German and European economic policy is heading and why A working framework for thinking about CO2 pricing, energy cost pass-through, and competitiveness A clearer view of the Franco-German policy interface and what it means for European business decisions A sense of which reform debates carry durable weight and which are political theatre Direct engagement with an economist who has sat inside the machinery of federal advice

Why organisations work with Brahma Chellaney He named the concept boards and ministries now use to discuss Chinese lending. Debt-trap diplomacy entered the policy lexicon through his January 2017 Project Syndicate column and is now cited by three successive US administrations. He wrote the canonical book on Asian water security. Water: Asia’s New Battleground won the Asia Society’s Bernard Schwartz Award in 2012, ahead of nearly 90 other titles. For organisations with manufacturing, agricultural or infrastructure exposure across South and Southeast Asia, he treats water as a hard strategic variable, not a sustainability slide. He helped draft India’s nuclear doctrine in 1999 as convener of the National Security Advisory Board’s External Security Group. When directors ask what New Delhi is actually thinking on Pakistan, China or the Quad, they are getting analysis from someone who has sat in the room. His distribution is institutional. Project Syndicate, Nikkei Asia, The Japan Times, The Hill, with op-eds in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and the South China Morning Post. The same readers who set strategy on Asia are reading him in primary sources. Biography highlights Professor of Strategic Studies, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Richard von Weizsacker Fellow, Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin; affiliate, International Centre for the Study of Radicalization, King’s College London. Former adviser to India’s National Security Council and convener of the External Security Group of the National Security Advisory Board. Author of nine books on strategic affairs, including Water: Asia’s New Battleground (Georgetown University Press), Asian Juggernaut (HarperCollins) and Water, Peace, and War (Rowman and Littlefield). Winner of the 2012 Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Book Award. Columnist for Project Syndicate, The Hill, Nikkei Asia and The Japan Times; visiting appointments at Harvard, Brookings, the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Johns Hopkins SAIS and the Australian National University. Biography Debt-trap diplomacy entered the language of Western policy in a single Project Syndicate column in January 2017. The author was Brahma Chellaney, writing on China’s Belt and Road lending. Within five years the phrase was being used by three successive US administrations, congressional committees and finance ministries across Asia and Africa. That trajectory is the clue to what he offers. Chellaney works on the structural fault lines of Asia, Chinese statecraft, India’s strategic posture, and the contest over rivers that sustain nearly half the world’s population, and gives them names that policymakers can act on. The work is grounded in primary sources and in years inside India’s own strategic apparatus, where he served as adviser to the National Security Council and convened the External Security Group of the National Security Advisory Board that drafted India’s nuclear doctrine in 1999. His books have set the terms of two distinct debates. Asian Juggernaut, published in the United States by HarperCollins in 2010, became a reference point for how China, India and Japan compete economically and militarily. Water: Asia’s New Battleground, published by Georgetown University Press, won the Asia Society’s Bernard Schwartz Book Award in 2012, beating nearly 90 other titles, and remains the canonical treatment of transboundary water risk in Asia. A follow-up, Water, Peace, and War, broadened the analysis to the global water crisis. His current platform is institutional and global. He holds the Richard von Weizsacker Fellowship at Berlin’s Robert Bosch Academy, is affiliated with King’s College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalization, and has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Brookings, the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Johns Hopkins SAIS and the Australian National University. His columns run in Project Syndicate, Nikkei Asia, The Japan Times and The Hill, with op-eds in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde and the South China Morning Post. For boards wrestling with China exposure, water-stressed supply chains, or the strategic logic of the Indo-Pacific, he is one of the very few analysts whose framing tends to be cited back to them by their own regulators. Key speaking topics China’s strategic statecraft and debt diplomacy The Indo-Pacific power balance and the rise of Asia India’s foreign and security policy Transboundary water risk and resource geopolitics Asian supply chain and infrastructure exposure Nuclear and security dynamics in South Asia Great-power competition and the fracturing global order Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to China, India or the wider Indo-Pacific CEOs, CSOs and government affairs leads reassessing political risk and country exposure Infrastructure, utilities, agriculture and manufacturing leaders facing water-related operational risk in Asia Investor and policy forums focused on geopolitical risk and capital allocation Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for Chinese economic statecraft, including the original mechanics of debt-trap diplomacy A sharper read on how Beijing, New Delhi and Tokyo each calculate strategic risk, and where their interests collide A defensible view of where transboundary water disputes are likely to disrupt supply chains, agriculture and infrastructure A clearer sense of what India’s foreign and security policy is, beyond Western reporting of it Frames for board-level conversations on Asia exposure that hold up under scrutiny from policy and regulatory readers

Why organisations work with Andrew Scott His published distinction between an “ageing society” and a “longevity society”, developed in The Lancet Healthy Longevity and across his books, gives leadership teams a concrete alternative to deficit-focused demographic thinking, with direct implications for workforce design, business model adaptation, and long-term investment. His two books, The 100-Year Life (over one million copies sold) and The Longevity Imperative (2024, shortlisted for the FT–Schroders Business Book of the Year), translate macroeconomic and health research into specific decisions organisations face: how to structure careers, what skills to invest in, how to redesign pension and benefits frameworks. His academic research, including a paper in Nature Aging co-authored with David Sinclair and Martin Ellison, connects macro-economic strategy to the science of ageing itself, giving organisations a basis for anticipating how advances in health and geroscience will affect labour supply and workforce composition over the next two decades. As leader of the CEPR Research Policy Network on the Economics of Longevity and Ageing, he has an overall view of policy, academic research, and applied economic intelligence: not a commentator on the trend, but one of the people who defines the research agenda. His advisory roles at the UK Office for Budget Responsibility, and his prior work with HM Treasury and the Bank of England, mean he can brief boards on the regulatory and fiscal changes that longevity economics will drive – before those changes arrive on the agenda. Biography highlights Professor of Economics at London Business School; Principal Scientist (Economics) at the Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford CBE, 2026 New Year’s Honours – for services to economics, research and public discourse Co-author of The 100-Year Life (with Lynda Gratton) – over one million copies sold; runner-up for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Author of The Longevity Imperative (2024) – shortlisted for the FT–Schroders Business Book of the Year; named one of the FT’s best summer economics reads Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research; leads the CEPR Research Policy Network on the Economics of Longevity and Ageing; member of the WEF Global Future Council on Healthy Ageing and Longevity Former Non-Executive Director, UK Financial Services Authority; former Managing Editor, Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal; advisory board member, UK Office for Budget Responsibility; adviser to HM Treasury and the Bank of England Biography The 100-Year Life, co-authored by Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton, has sold over a million copies. What made it resonate was not the data on life expectancy; it was the argument that longer lives require a fundamentally different structure for careers, organisations, and economic systems. That argument sits at the centre of Scott’s research at London Business School and the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford. Scott’s central distinction – between an “ageing society” and a “longevity society” – reframes longevity from a background risk into a strategic imperative. An ageing society focuses on supporting rising numbers of older people. The longevity society, as Scott defines it in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, demands that organisations prepare for fifty-year careers, not just older employees. The implication for workforce strategy, benefits design, and long-term investment is structural, not cosmetic. The Longevity Imperative (2024, shortlisted for the FT–Schroders Business Book of the Year) extends the analysis from individual careers into system-level change: health systems, fiscal policy, financial markets. Academic research published in Nature Aging with David Sinclair and Martin Ellison grounds this macro-economic framing in the science of ageing itself – connecting what medical advances mean for labour supply to decisions boards face today. Scott advises the UK Office for Budget Responsibility and has previously advised HM Treasury and the Bank of England. He co-founded The Longevity Forum and serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Healthy Ageing and Longevity. In 2026, he was appointed CBE for services to economics, research and public discourse. Key speaking topics Economics of longevity Demographic change and long-term economic growth Multigenerational workforce design Career reinvention and the 50-year working life Health, ageing, and the economics of prevention Fiscal sustainability and pension system reform AI, technology, and demographic change Business strategy and long-run demographic risk Ideal for CHROs and heads of people strategy at large, multigenerational organisations navigating career architecture and workforce planning for longer working lives Boards and senior leadership teams integrating demographic risk into long-term strategy alongside AI and geopolitical disruption Financial services leaders – asset managers, pension funds, insurers – whose business models are directly shaped by the structural economics of ageing populations Policymakers and public sector leaders with responsibility for labour market, health, or fiscal policy Audience outcomes A concrete framework – the ageing society vs longevity society distinction – for identifying where current workforce and business strategies are misaligned with demographic reality Clarity on the three-dimensional longevity dividend: what it means in practice to build for lives that are longer, healthier, and economically productive Specific implications for pension design, benefit frameworks, talent investment, and career architecture – not trend-watching, but decision-relevant analysis An evidence-based view of how advances in geroscience and health technology are likely to affect labour supply and workforce composition over the next two decades A new strategic vocabulary for the board conversation on longevity – one that moves from “ageing burden” to a concrete set of opportunities and organisational decisions

Why organisations work with Zanny Minton Beddoes She edits the publication that shapes how the world’s finance ministers, central bankers, and institutional investors read the global economy: her vantage point is not advisory, it is editorial, which means she sees patterns across geographies, sectors, and governments simultaneously rather than from within any single industry or country. Her pre-journalism career – macroeconomic adjustment programmes at the IMF and economic reform work in post-communist Poland as part of the Jeffrey Sachs team – gives her an understanding of what policy looks like under institutional stress, not just in theory. She has written and overseen major special reports on the world economy, European stagnation, Latin American finance, Central Asian development, and U.S. fiscal sustainability. Her depth on structural economic themes goes well beyond the commentary that most media-figure speakers provide. Two Gerald Loeb Awards (2012 and 2017, the latter for breaking the Saudi Aramco story) signal editorial credibility of a different order from standard speaker-bureau economics commentary. For financial services, institutional investors, and multinational boards, she offers a rare combination: the institutional authority of The Economist brand with the direct analytical access of someone who has run the publication for a decade. Biography highlights Editor-in-Chief of The Economist since February 2015 – the first woman to lead the publication in its 180-year history; also serves on the board of directors of The Economist Group Held successive senior roles at The Economist over 30 years: emerging markets correspondent, US Economics Editor, Economics Editor (Washington DC), Business Affairs Editor Economist at the IMF (1992-1994), working on macroeconomic adjustment programmes in Africa Economic reform adviser to Poland’s Minister of Finance under Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University Oxford PPE (St Hilda’s College); master’s degree, Harvard Kennedy School (Kennedy Scholar) Gerald Loeb Award winner in 2012 (economic journalism) and 2017 (Breaking News, Saudi Aramco scoop) Trustee, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; member, Research Advisory Board, Committee for Economic Development Named among Forbes’ «Most Powerful Women in the World»; featured in Debrett’s 500 as «one of the most influential voices in financial journalism» Biography The challenge that keeps most boards and strategy teams off-balance is not a lack of information about the global economy. It is the absence of a coherent framework for integrating macroeconomic dynamics, geopolitical risk, and policy shifts into decisions that were never designed to carry that weight. Very few people are positioned to provide that framework with both practitioner rigour and editorial breadth. Zanny Minton Beddoes is one of them. As Editor-in-Chief of The Economist – the first woman to hold that position in the publication’s 180-year history – she oversees the analytical infrastructure that shapes how central bankers, finance ministers, and institutional investors read the global economy. Her perspective is not that of an adviser operating within a single sector or region; it is the perspective of someone who has spent three decades at the editorial centre of the world’s most closely watched economics publication, watching structural forces play out across geographies and cycles. Before journalism, she was inside the machinery of policy under pressure. At the IMF she worked on macroeconomic adjustment programmes in Africa. In Poland, as part of the Jeffrey Sachs team, she was present during one of the most consequential economic transitions of the post-Cold War period. That experience of watching institutions, incentives, and political constraints interact in real time, is audible in the way she talks about markets and policy today: not as abstractions, but as systems with observable failure modes. Her special reports for The Economist – covering the world economy, European stagnation, Latin American finance, Central Asian development, and U.S. fiscal sustainability – reflect a career-long engagement with structural economic questions, not topical commentary. Combined with two Gerald Loeb Awards and a decade leading the publication, that record gives her a credibility in a board or leadership setting that no amount of media presence alone can substitute for. Key speaking topics Global macroeconomic outlook and structural economic change Geopolitics and the fracturing of the multilateral economic order U.S. fiscal sustainability and dollar dynamics European economic stagnation and structural reform Emerging market resilience and vulnerability The intersection of energy transition and economic growth Trade, protectionism, and the rewiring of global supply chains Democracy, governance, and economic performance Ideal for Corporate boards and C-suite leadership teams navigating macro-level strategic uncertainty Financial services, asset management, and institutional investment audiences Government, policy, and international institutions requiring independent editorial-grade analysis Global leadership summits and senior forums where geopolitical and economic context is the primary agenda Audience outcomes A structured framework for reading the interaction between political, macroeconomic, and institutional forces – rather than treating each as a separate news event Calibrated perspective on where structural economic risk is concentrated, versus where conventional wisdom is overstating or understating it Clearer language for discussing macro uncertainty internally – specifically, the difference between cyclical disruption and structural shift An updated analytical map of the major economies and how their trajectories affect sector-level and investment decisions Context for evaluating specific strategic choices – expansion, capital allocation, supply chain configuration – against a coherent view of the global environment

Why organisations work with Yuriko Koike She runs the world’s largest metropolitan economy. Few speakers can describe the operating reality of climate, security and fiscal trade-offs at megacity scale from the seat where the decisions are made. She authored the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy, with mandated solar panels on new detached homes from April 2025 and a target of halved emissions by 2030. Audiences hear how a major capital city is converting net zero language into capital allocation and regulation. As Environment Minister she designed Cool Biz, a behavioural and policy intervention that the Japanese Ministry of the Environment estimated cut 460,000 tons of CO2 in its first year. It is a rare example of a low-cost public policy producing measurable emissions reduction. She brings cabinet-level perspective on Japan’s geopolitical position. Former Minister of Defense, former National Security adviser, fluent Arabic speaker, Project Syndicate columnist on Asia, fiscal policy and the rules-based order since 2010. She is the first woman to govern Tokyo and the first to seek the LDP leadership. Her perspective on women in senior public and corporate roles is grounded in an actual executive career, not advocacy alone. Biography highlights Governor of Tokyo since 2016, re-elected in 2020 and 2024. Minister of the Environment of Japan (2003-2006); Minister of Defense (2007); Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for National Security. Architect of the Cool Biz campaign and the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy. Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award, 2019. Chair, OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth Initiative. Project Syndicate columnist since 2010; World Economic Forum Agenda contributor. Biography Tokyo, with a metropolitan population near 14 million and a GDP larger than most G20 economies, is one of the few cities where climate policy, fiscal stress and geopolitical exposure all run through the same office. Yuriko Koike has held that office since 2016, re-elected in 2020 and again in 2024. The decisions she has made there are the substance of her platform. Her policy track record predates the governorship. As Minister of the Environment under Junichiro Koizumi between 2003 and 2006, she launched Cool Biz, a behavioural and dress-code intervention that the Japanese Ministry of the Environment estimated reduced CO2 emissions by 460,000 tons in its first year. As Governor she authored the Zero Emission Tokyo Strategy in December 2019, setting a 2050 net zero target with halved emissions by 2030, and pushed through a mandate that new detached homes in Tokyo install solar panels from April 2025. Few city leaders globally have moved climate ambition into binding metropolitan regulation at this scale. She also brings cabinet-level perspective on geopolitics. She was Japan’s Minister of Defense, served as Special Adviser to the Prime Minister for National Security, ran for the LDP presidency in 2008 as the first woman to seek the leadership of a major Japanese party, and has written for Project Syndicate on Asian security, fiscal policy and the rules-based order since 2010. Before politics she was a Nippon TV anchor and Arabic-speaking foreign correspondent, with a sociology degree from Cairo University. She chairs the OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth Initiative and was awarded the Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award in 2019. Audiences who book her are typically working on the same problem she works on every day: how to govern an exposed, dense, ageing, ambitious economy when energy, geopolitics and capital are all moving at once. Key speaking topics Climate policy and city-scale decarbonisation Megacity resilience and inclusive urban growth Japan, China and the geopolitics of East Asia Energy transition and capital allocation Women in senior public and corporate leadership Public sector reform and fiscal discipline Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, energy and ESG strategy in Asia or with Asia exposure CFOs, CSOs and policy leads working on long-term capital allocation under climate and geopolitical risk Public-private convenings on urban resilience, infrastructure and inclusive growth Conferences on Japan, the Indo-Pacific and the global rules-based order Audience outcomes A first-hand view of how the world’s largest metropolitan economy is converting net zero policy into binding regulation and capital plans A sharper read on Japan’s economic and security position, and what it implies for organisations operating across East Asia A working example of behavioural climate policy that produced measurable emissions reduction at low fiscal cost A senior practitioner’s perspective on running large public institutions through fiscal pressure, demographic change and geopolitical realignment A direct account of breaking into senior leadership in a country and party where the path was not designed for women

Why organisations work with Vicky Pryce She has operated on both sides of the policy-commercial divide: as the senior government official responsible for UK productivity strategy at the Government Economic Service, and as Chief Economist and strategic adviser at KPMG and FTI Consulting. That combination is rare and difficult to replicate from outside it. Her book Women vs Capitalism (Hurst, 2019) makes a specifically economic case (not a social one) that gender inequality is a structural market failure with direct consequences for productivity and growth. It reframes inclusion as a strategic performance issue, supported by empirical evidence rather than advocacy. Her current position at CEBR means her economic analysis is grounded in live forecasting and modelling – not retrospective commentary or academic abstraction. She co-founded GoodCorporation, an advisory firm on corporate social responsibility and business ethics, giving her a rare combination of macro-economic credibility and applied governance insight. As the first woman to serve as Chief Economic Adviser at what is now the Department for Business, she brings direct experience of where the gap between policy intention and commercial impact typically opens: a perspective shaped by being inside the room when the policy was being made. Biography highlights Chief Economic Adviser and board member, Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) Former Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service and Director General for Economics, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills First woman appointed Chief Economic Adviser at the Department for Trade and Industry (2002) Former Partner and Chief Economist, KPMG; Senior Managing Director, FTI Consulting; earlier career roles at Williams & Glyn’s Bank (RBS) and Exxon Europe Author of seven books including Women vs Capitalism (Hurst Publishers, 2019) and How to be a Successful Economist (Oxford University Press, 2022) Visiting Professor, Birmingham City University and King’s College London; Fellow, UK Academy for Social Sciences; Companion, British Academy of Management Co-founder, GoodCorporation (corporate social responsibility and business ethics advisory) Senior Member, British Chambers of Commerce Economic Advisory Council; Advisory Board member, OMFIF (central banking think-tank) Biography UK productivity has been the central puzzle of British economic policy for three decades. Vicky Pryce worked on it from the inside, first as the first female Chief Economic Adviser at what is now the Department for Business, then as Joint Head of the Government Economic Service, overseeing economic analysis and evidence across Whitehall from 2007 to 2010. That insider perspective shapes how she reads the policy landscape now. At KPMG, where she served as Partner and Chief Economist, and at FTI Consulting as Senior Managing Director, she translated government intent into commercial implication, helping large organisations understand what regulatory and fiscal shifts meant for their strategic position. Her current role as Chief Economic Adviser and board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) keeps that analytical work live, grounded in ongoing economic modelling and forecasting. Her book Women vs Capitalism (Hurst, 2019) makes an argument that separates her from most economics commentators: gender inequality is not a social problem the market will eventually correct, but a structural market failure with direct consequences for productivity and growth. The case is economic and evidential. Greekonomics (Biteback, 2012), which was shortlisted for the Spear’s best business book award, applied the same forensic clarity to the eurozone crisis, and led to her appearing as an expert witness before the House of Lords cross-party subcommittee on economic and financial affairs. Pryce also co-founded GoodCorporation, advising organisations on corporate social responsibility and ethics. She is Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University and King’s College London, a Fellow of the UK Academy for Social Sciences, and a Senior Member of the British Chambers of Commerce Economic Advisory Council. Key speaking topics UK and global economic outlook Economic policy, fiscal strategy, and government reform Productivity, competitiveness, and long-term growth Political and regulatory risk for business Gender economics and labour market policy Corporate ethics and responsible business practice Manufacturing, industrial policy, and economic rebalancing Ideal for CFOs, strategy directors, and board executives navigating policy-driven economic risk Financial services, professional services, and public affairs organisations requiring independent economic analysis HR and talent leaders seeking an evidence-based, economic case for gender inclusion Senior leadership conferences with a UK or European economic policy dimension Audience outcomes A framework for distinguishing short-term economic fluctuation from structural policy shifts that require a strategic response Clearer understanding of how the UK’s persistent productivity challenge affects their sector and what policy instruments are actually in play An economic – not ideological – argument for why gender inclusion is a business performance issue, grounded in market failure analysis and labour market evidence Sharper contextual understanding of the regulatory and fiscal environment shaping their planning horizon Practical basis for scenario planning under conditions of domestic and international economic uncertainty