Political Risk & Policy

Why organisations work with Ritula Shah Fifteen years anchoring BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight gives her the editorial reflexes to keep a senior panel honest under time pressure, on the record, without losing the audience. A working seat on the RUSI Advisory Board means she walks into defence, security and geopolitics briefings already inside the conversation, not learning it from a brief. Reporting experience from Guantanamo Bay, China, India, Brazil and Jordan gives her first-hand reference points when a panel drifts into abstraction on foreign policy or human rights. She is one of a small number of UK broadcasters trusted by ministers, regulators and dissenting voices to chair a discussion that needs to be both serious and broadcast-quality. Her ambassadorial work with the British Asian Trust and trusteeship of INIVA make her a credible host for organisations who want representation handled without performance. Biography highlights Lead presenter, The World Tonight, BBC Radio 4 (15 years, to 2023). Former presenter, The Real Story (BBC World Service), Woman’s Hour, The World Today, One to One. Current weekday-evening presenter, Calm Classics, Classic FM. Advisory Board member, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Ambassador, British Asian Trust; trustee, INIVA. Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Warwick (2019). Biography The World Tonight is the BBC Radio 4 programme senior leaders, diplomats and ministers tend to listen to on the drive home. Ritula Shah presented it for fifteen years. That fact alone places her in a small group of UK broadcasters who have spent a working career interrogating finance ministers, foreign secretaries, sanctioned oligarchs, generals and dissidents on the record, in real time, with no second take. The geographical footprint matters here. She has reported from Guantanamo Bay, China, India, Brazil, Jordan, Finland and Germany, and covered the Soviet collapse, 9/11 from New York, multiple US and UK elections and the slow grind of Brexit. When a panel on supply chains, sanctions or political risk drifts into theory, she pulls it back to a place she has actually been. The think-tank work is not decorative. Shah sits on the Advisory Board of RUSI, the world’s oldest defence and security institute, which means she chairs geopolitics and security sessions already inside the institutional conversation rather than reading in. She is also an ambassador for the British Asian Trust, a trustee of INIVA, and an honorary Doctor of Letters of the University of Warwick. For organisations, the practical offer is rarer than a keynote. She is a broadcaster who can take a sensitive board conversation, a regulator panel, a closed-room briefing on China exposure or a high-profile awards ceremony, and run it at the standard of a Radio 4 broadcast. The room hears something true, the recording is usable, and the senior speakers do not feel ambushed. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the multipolar world International affairs and foreign policy Defence and national security News literacy and trust in media Inclusion, identity and belonging in public life Conference, panel and awards moderation Board-level event chairing Ideal for Boards and executive committees commissioning a geopolitical, sanctions or China-exposure session Defence, security, foreign policy and policy-research convenings Awards ceremonies and flagship annual conferences requiring a broadcast-grade host Regulators, professional bodies and universities running on-the-record panels with public figures Audience outcomes A clearer mental map of where the multipolar world is actually moving, beyond headline framing Better-quality contributions from senior panellists, because the questions are sharper and the chairing is firmer A working sense of how to read news critically in an environment of declining trust and rising misinformation Confidence that a difficult conversation, on geopolitics, identity or institutional reform, can be held in public without becoming theatre

Why organisations work with Julia Ebner Direct field intelligence on extremist movements. She has gone undercover inside a dozen networks across the ideological spectrum, which gives her a granular read on how these groups recruit, organise and migrate between platforms. Institutional authority on both sides of the policy conversation. She leads the Violent Extremism Lab at Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion and is Co-Executive Director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the reference NGO in this field. A working brief with the organisations setting the rules. She has advised NATO, Europol, the World Bank, Google, Meta and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, which means she can speak to how platform governance and counter-extremism policy are actually being written. A track record of calling movements early. Going Mainstream (2023) traced how fringe conspiracy and extremist narratives were entering mainstream politics, an argument the subsequent two years of elections has substantively borne out. Two book awards from credible bodies. The Rage won the Bruno Kreisky Award for Political Book of the Year 2018; Going Dark won Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2020 and was long-listed for the Gold Dagger Award. Biography highlights Co-Executive Director, Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Leads the Violent Extremism Lab at the University of Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion. Postdoctoral Researcher at the Calleva Centre for Evolution and Human Sciences, Magdalen College, Oxford. Former Special Advisor on Terrorism Prevention to the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism. Author of Going Mainstream (2023), Going Dark (2019) and The Rage (2017); winner of the Bruno Kreisky Prize and Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres. Regular contributor to The Guardian, Financial Times, Sunday Times, Washington Post and Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Biography Most extremist movements look marginal until the moment they are not. By the time a conspiracy theory reaches a regulator, an election or a consumer boycott, the network behind it has been organising for years. Julia Ebner studies that interval. Her work explains how fringe ideas move from encrypted channels into mainstream politics, and what that movement means for governments, platforms and large employers. For Going Dark, her 2019 book, she spent two years undercover inside a dozen extremist groups, adopting five different identities to access neo-Nazi networks, jihadist recruiters, trad-wife communities and the alt-right channels that planned the Charlottesville rally. The book won Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres 2020 and the Dr Caspar Einem prize, and was long-listed for the Gold Dagger Award. Her follow-up, Going Mainstream (Ithaka Press, 2023), traced how those same networks were already shaping electoral and policy outcomes. That field work is anchored in serious institutional positions. She leads the Violent Extremism Lab at the University of Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, sits as a postdoctoral researcher at Magdalen College’s Calleva Centre, and is Co-Executive Director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London. She has advised NATO, Europol, the World Bank, Google and Meta, and served as Special Advisor on Terrorism Prevention to the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism. For corporate audiences, the value of that combination is concrete. She can tell a board which narratives are about to hit them, why the networks behind those narratives behave the way they do, and what platform governance, employee safety and political-risk teams should actually be doing about it. Key speaking topics Online radicalisation and extremist networks Disinformation, conspiracy movements and democratic risk AI-enabled influence operations Platform governance and trust and safety Polarisation as a political and corporate risk Counter-extremism policy and terrorism prevention Ideal for Boards and risk committees assessing political-violence and reputational exposure Chief Trust and Safety, Policy and Public Affairs leads at technology platforms Government, defence and intelligence audiences working on counter-extremism and election integrity CHRO and Communications leadership teams facing polarisation inside the workforce or the customer base Audience outcomes A working picture of how extremist and conspiracy networks recruit, organise and migrate across platforms The early-warning signals that distinguish a fringe movement from one about to enter the mainstream A clearer view of how AI-generated content is changing the economics of disinformation A frame for translating online radicalisation into board-level political, regulatory and reputational risk Reference points from her undercover work and from ISD and Oxford research that audiences can take into their own planning

Why organisations work with Jacinda Ardern Ardern made consequential governance decisions – not advisory ones – during a live-streamed act of mass terrorism, a major volcanic eruption, and a global pandemic, all within a single term in office. What she brings to organisations is a practitioner’s account of crisis governance under conditions of maximum accountability. She co-founded the Christchurch Call with French President Macron in 2019 and remains Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation today. That initiative – a multi-government, multi-platform framework for eliminating terrorist content online – gives her grounded authority on AI governance, platform accountability, and digital regulation that most governance specialists cannot match. Her memoir A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House/Pan Macmillan, 2025), a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, develops the concept of “pragmatic idealism” – the argument, backed by her own record in office, that empathy and decisive institutional action reinforce each other rather than pull against each other. Her Harvard appointments span three distinct domains: public leadership (Hauser Leader, Center for Public Leadership), AI and platform governance (Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow, Berkman Klein Center), and women’s policy (Senior Fellow, Women and Public Policy Program). This breadth reflects genuine multi-domain institutional credibility. As board member of The Earthshot Prize and Arnhold Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International, she engages with climate accountability at the level of institutional design – not as a cause, but as a governance and measurement problem that boards increasingly own. Biography highlights 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, 2017-2023; the world’s youngest female head of government at the time of her election, aged 37 Led the governmental response to the Christchurch mosque attacks (2019), the Whakaari White Island volcanic eruption, and the COVID-19 pandemic – each requiring real-time governance decisions at national scale Co-founded the Christchurch Call with President Macron (2019); Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation, the NGO established by New Zealand and France in 2024 to coordinate global action on violent extremist content online Multiple Harvard fellowships across Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, including the Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership, and Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow Author of A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House / Pan Macmillan, 2025) – New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller; shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Harvard Kennedy School Gleitsman International Activist Award (2020); Harvard 2022 Commencement speaker; Honorary Doctorate from Harvard University; twice named to Time Magazine’s Most Influential People list Board member, The Earthshot Prize; Arnhold Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International; founder of the Field Fellowship on empathetic leadership (2024) Biography New Zealand was four weeks past the Christchurch mosque attacks when Jacinda Ardern stood with French President Macron in Paris and co-launched the Christchurch Call – a commitment from governments and technology companies to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. It was a governance response to a governance failure, assembled at pace, and it is still operating. That sequence captures what is most useful about Ardern’s perspective: she did not observe the intersection of crisis leadership, platform accountability, and public trust from the outside. She was accountable for it. Her concept of “pragmatic idealism” – developed across her term in office and set out in her memoir A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House/Pan Macmillan, 2025, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller) – makes the case that empathy is not a soft alternative to decisive leadership but a structural condition of it. Leaders who build genuine trust before a crisis hits have more to draw on when decisions must be made under pressure and incomplete information. Leaders who do not find that the crisis itself destroys the conditions needed to manage it. Since leaving office in early 2023, Ardern has held multiple fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, where her focus has been AI governance, algorithmic accountability, and platform regulation. She is board member of The Earthshot Prize, Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation, Arnhold Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International, and founder of the Field Fellowship, a programme supporting political leaders in empathetic leadership practice. For boards navigating crisis preparedness, digital governance, or ESG accountability, Ardern brings a record of decisions taken, at national scale, under conditions that most leadership frameworks were not designed for. Key speaking topics Crisis decision-making and governance under pressure Trust, institutional credibility, and stakeholder communication Digital platform accountability and online safety AI governance and technology regulation Climate accountability and ESG leadership Empathetic leadership and values-based decision-making Women in leadership and inclusive governance Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences responsible for crisis response, reputation management, and stakeholder trust under public scrutiny Technology and digital governance leaders focused on platform accountability, AI regulation, and online safety policy ESG and sustainability officers translating climate commitments into credible, auditable, scrutiny-resistant action Public sector and government-adjacent leaders managing delivery under high institutional pressure Audience outcomes A practical decision-making framework developed through direct, accountable experience of national-scale crisis – not theoretical modelling A sharper understanding of how trust is built, maintained, and lost under crisis conditions – and what communication disciplines make the difference Grounded perspective on digital platform accountability and AI governance from someone who helped design one of the world’s first functioning multi-government frameworks in this space A working account of how “pragmatic idealism” operates as a leadership model: acting from values without sacrificing speed, coherence, or institutional effectiveness Concrete principles for maintaining organisational credibility when multiple stakeholder groups are applying conflicting pressure simultaneously

Why organisations work with Tim Hames He has run the trade body for British private equity and venture capital, so he speaks to investors, allocators and operators in their own language, not as an outside commentator. His China analysis is built on close study of the Chinese Communist Party’s internal operations, which is the level boards need when sanctions, supply chain and market access decisions are on the table. He spent a decade as chief leader writer and assistant editor at The Times, which means he can frame a complex political argument tightly enough for a board paper or an investor letter. He served as the first Special Adviser to the Speaker of the House of Commons, giving him direct experience of how Westminster machinery actually moves. He co-wrote The Long Shot with Dame Kate Bingham, the definitive insider account of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, and a Financial Times science book of the year. Biography highlights Director General of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), 2013 to 2019. Co-founder of Acuti Associates, a UK, US and China political and geopolitical risk advisory. Co-author with Dame Kate Bingham of The Long Shot: The Inside Story of the Race to Vaccinate Britain (Oneworld, 2022); Sunday Times business bestseller, FT science book of the year, Money Week politics book of the year. Former Assistant Editor, chief leader writer and weekly political columnist at The Times. First Special Adviser to the Speaker of the House of Commons, with a brief on parliamentary reform. Former Lecturer in Politics at Oxford University, 1989 to 1996, specialising in American and British government. Biography Most political risk advice on offer to boards is written by people who have only ever observed politics from outside. Hames has worked inside three of the systems that matter, Westminster, the British press, and the City, and the value comes from how he connects them. His BVCA years gave him an investor’s reflex for capital flows; his Times years taught him to write a sharp, defensible argument; his Speaker’s Office year showed him how Parliament actually decides. That combination shapes the way he reads the UK, US and China triangle through Acuti Associates, the advisory firm he co-founded. The focus is practical: what does a Trump second term mean for trans-Atlantic deal flow, how should a board think about China exposure when the signals from Beijing are deliberately opaque, what does the UK regulatory direction look like after a change of government. The answers are not generic. His co-authored book with Dame Kate Bingham, The Long Shot, is the inside record of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, the rare British state-led project of the last decade that actually worked. It was a Financial Times science book of the year and a Sunday Times business bestseller, and it doubles as a study in how political and commercial decision-making interact under pressure. He continues to advise financial institutions, professional services firms and technology companies, and serves as a Senior Adviser to FTI Consulting’s strategic communications practice. The work he is asked to do is consistent: translate political signal into commercial decision, before the headlines force the issue. Key speaking topics UK, US and China political risk Geopolitical risk for boards and investors US politics and the Trump factor Chinese Communist Party decision-making UK government, regulation and the post-election landscape Private equity and venture capital policy environment Lessons from the UK Vaccine Taskforce Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material China, US or UK regulatory exposure Private equity and venture capital firms briefing LPs on political risk Financial services and professional services leadership teams CEO and CFO offsites where geopolitics is a standing agenda item Audience outcomes A clearer read on what to take seriously and what to discount in current US, UK and China political coverage. Sharper questions to put to in-house government affairs, public policy and risk teams. A practical sense of how Westminster, Washington and Beijing actually decide, not how they are reported. A more disciplined frame for board discussions on China exposure, sanctions risk and regulatory direction.

Why organisations work with Penny Mordaunt A former Cabinet minister with direct authority on three of the topics now sitting on most board agendas: defence, trade policy, and international development. Front-line experience of UK trade reorientation, including the country’s accession to CPTPP and bilateral economic agreements with US states, useful to companies modelling supply chain and market access decisions. Built and led the cross-government defensive cyber function in its early form, and rebuilt UK civil contingencies and resilience as Paymaster General. Practical credibility on national resilience, not commentary. Read by US and Commonwealth audiences as a serious British voice on the transatlantic relationship; now Chair of the Coalition for Global Prosperity, where her case is that aid and defence are part of national resilience, not philanthropy. A genuine speaker, not a politician reading remarks. Parliamentary Wit of the Year and Spectator Speech of the Year, with a global audience earned at the 2023 Coronation. Biography highlights Former Secretary of State for Defence; first woman to hold the role. Former Secretary of State for International Development and UK Governor at the World Bank. Former Minister of State for Trade Policy; oversaw UK accession to CPTPP and bilateral economic agreements with US states. Former Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons; carried the Sword of State at the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023. Co-author of Greater: Britain After the Storm, winner of the 2021 Parliamentary Book Award. Appointed Chair of the Coalition for Global Prosperity in January 2025; made a Dame in the King’s Birthday Honours 2025. Honorary Captain, MCM2 Squadron, Royal Naval Reserve. Biography Trade, defence and development used to be three separate conversations inside government. They are now a single conversation, and most boards are catching up to it. The leaders who understand this best tend to be the ones who have held responsibility for all three. Penny Mordaunt is one of a small group who has. She served fourteen years as MP for Portsmouth North, holding nine ministerial roles across four Cabinet posts. She was the first woman to serve as Secretary of State for Defence, ran the Department for International Development, and as Minister of State for Trade Policy oversaw the UK’s accession to the CPTPP and a series of economic agreements at US state level. As Paymaster General she rebuilt the UK’s civil contingencies and resilience capability, and built the first cross-government defensive cyber lead. Her public profile is wider than Westminster. She carried the 17th-century Sword of State at the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023, the first woman to do so, and the role gave her a global audience that few former Cabinet ministers ever acquire. Her book Greater: Britain After the Storm, co-authored with Chris Lewis, won the 2021 Parliamentary Book Award and reached bestseller lists in the UK and US. Since leaving Parliament in 2024 she has chaired the Coalition for Global Prosperity, where she argues the case for the transatlantic partnership and for treating development and defence as components of national resilience rather than discretionary spend. For corporate audiences, the value is the access to a former insider’s view of how trade policy, sanctions architecture and security commitments are actually made, and what changes when an election cycle turns over. Key speaking topics UK trade policy, CPTPP and US state-level economic agreements Defence, security and the transatlantic relationship International development as national resilience Geopolitical risk and the future of the rules-based order Civil contingencies, cyber and national resilience Women in public leadership Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences modelling geopolitical and trade exposure CFOs and strategy teams reassessing market access and supply chain decisions post-Brexit and post-CPTPP CISOs and risk officers working at the intersection of cyber, national security and corporate resilience Public affairs, government affairs and ESG leaders briefing on UK policy direction Audience outcomes A clearer view of how UK and transatlantic policy choices translate into commercial and operational risk. A more accurate read of the post-Brexit trade architecture, including CPTPP and bilateral US engagement. A practical framing of national resilience that connects defence, cyber, supply chain and civil contingencies. An informed sense of where the UK government sees its own room for manoeuvre in a contested global order.

Why organisations work with Sir Graham Brady He held the formal mechanism by which four UK Prime Ministers came to office and, in several cases, by which they left it. Few speakers can describe leadership transition from inside the room rather than from press coverage of it. He spent fourteen years as the trusted channel between a parliamentary party and its leader, the longest tenure in the role’s history. That is a working case study in managing upward confidence and discretion at the top of a fractious organisation. His memoir “Kingmaker” was a Sunday Times bestseller and a Times Book of the Year, giving audiences a published, on-the-record reference point for the arguments he makes from the platform. He is one of a small group of public figures who can speak credibly about how political risk, party fragility and government instability translate into the operating environment that boards and executive teams now have to plan against. Biography highlights Member of Parliament for Altrincham and Sale West, 1997 to 2024 Chairman of the 1922 Committee, 2010 to 2024, the longest-serving in that role Created Baron Brady of Altrincham; sits in the House of Lords from August 2024 Knight Bachelor (2018); Privy Counsellor (2023); Freedom of the City of London (2023) Author of “Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies, and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers” (Bonnier Books, 2024), Sunday Times bestseller Deputy Chairman, Centre for Policy Studies Biography The 1922 Committee is the body inside the Conservative Party through which backbench MPs hold their leader to account, and through which leadership contests are run. For fourteen years its chair was Graham Brady. Four prime ministers, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, came into office through processes he oversaw. Several left the same way. That is an unusual vantage point. Most political memoirs are written by the principals; Brady’s account is written by the person who counted the letters, took the calls, and decided when a leader’s position had become untenable. “Kingmaker”, published by Bonnier Books in September 2024, was a Sunday Times bestseller and a Times Book of the Year, and it sets out in detail what those moments looked like from inside. For corporate audiences the value is not the political gossip. It is the structure of how confidence at the top of an organisation actually operates. When does a leader lose authority before they lose the title. How does a senior cohort below the leader signal that the line has been crossed. What does discretion cost, and what does it buy. Brady spent fourteen years in the practical mechanics of those questions, longer than anyone else has held the role. He sits in the House of Lords as Baron Brady of Altrincham, having been knighted in 2018 and appointed to the Privy Council in 2023. He is Deputy Chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies. He read law at Durham and entered the Commons in 1997 at the age of 29. The political career is the credential. The substantive offer to a serious audience is the mechanism behind it. Key speaking topics Leadership transitions and the loss of authority The mechanics of political risk in the UK Trust, discretion and confidence at the top of an organisation Westminster, Whitehall and the operating environment for business Conservative Party history and the post-2010 leadership cycle The role of intermediaries between leaders and the led Ideal for Boards and chairs navigating CEO succession or contested leadership change Executive committees and senior partner groups that need a frank account of how authority is won and lost Corporate affairs and public policy audiences working on UK political risk Membership organisations, associations and professional firms with a senior audience drawn from regulated industries Audience outcomes A clearer mental model of how leadership confidence is actually measured and signalled inside an organisation A first-hand account of four UK Prime Ministerial transitions and what each one reveals about leadership under pressure A working sense of how UK political instability is likely to affect the operating environment over the next parliament The texture of how discretion, loyalty and dissent are managed at the top of a fractious institution

Why organisations work with Audrey Tang She has run the experiment that most boards are still debating: AI governance, digital deliberation, and disinformation defence deployed at national scale, with measurable outcomes during a pandemic and a presidential election. She offers a working alternative to the binary of techno-libertarianism and centralised AI control, set out in “Plurality” with E. Glen Weyl and tested inside Taiwan’s government. She built the civic infrastructure she talks about. g0v, the Mask Map, vTaiwan, and Join.gov.tw are operational systems, not concepts, and have been adopted in Japan, the EU, and the United States. Her authority is rare in this category: a TIME100 AI honoree and Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinker who has signed off on policy decisions, not just commented on them. Biography highlights First Minister of Digital Affairs of Taiwan, 2022 to 2024; Digital Minister from 2016. Co-author with E. Glen Weyl of “Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy”. TIME100 Most Influential People in AI, 2023. Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers, 2019. Co-founder of g0v and architect of Taiwan’s open-data COVID-19 response, including the Mask Map. Ambassador-at-large, University of Oxford Accelerator Fellowship Programme. Biography Most governments responded to COVID-19 with top-down distribution and mandates. Taiwan ran an open-data Mask Map built with civic coders, a participatory platform called vTaiwan, and a disinformation playbook with a 20-minute response window. The minister responsible was Audrey Tang. Tang served as Taiwan’s first Digital Minister from 2016, and as the first Minister of Digital Affairs from 2022 to 2024. Before government, she was a Silicon Valley engineer and a core contributor to Perl and Haskell. She joined the g0v civic-tech community in its early years and helped shape the open-government practices that later became state policy. Her book with E. Glen Weyl, “Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy”, argues that AI and digital tools can be designed to widen democratic participation rather than narrow it. The book was written openly on GitHub, translated by volunteers into more than a dozen languages, and released into the public domain. It draws directly on what Taiwan built and ran. She has been named to TIME100 AI, Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, and serves as an ambassador-at-large in the University of Oxford’s Accelerator Fellowship Programme. For a senior audience weighing how to govern AI inside a regulated organisation, she offers something most speakers in this category cannot: a record of decisions made in office, with results visible in pandemic outcomes and election integrity. Key speaking topics Digital democracy and participatory governance AI ethics and trustworthy AI design Plurality and collaborative technology Disinformation defence and election integrity Open-source civic infrastructure Public trust in technology Cybersecurity as democratic resilience Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting AI governance and risk policy Chief Digital, Data, and AI Officers designing deployment frameworks Public-sector and regulated-industry leaders facing trust and legitimacy questions CISOs and risk leads responsible for disinformation, election, or platform integrity Audience outcomes A working mental model for AI governance grounded in a national case, not a thought experiment. A clear view of what participatory and open-source approaches add to organisational decision-making, and where they break. Specific tactics for disinformation response, drawn from Taiwan’s 2-2-2 playbook. A vocabulary for “Plurality” that gives leaders an alternative to the techno-libertarian and centralised-control framings of AI.

Why organisations work with Parag Khanna A trilogy of books on global order, connectivity and the Asian century gives clients a coherent thesis on where capital, people and supply chains are moving, not a topical scan of headlines. Founder of AlphaGeo, which operationalises his frameworks as geospatial risk analytics for institutional investors, so the work in the room connects to a product used inside investment processes. Advised US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends programme, which sharpens the briefing for boards weighing political risk and sanctions exposure. Sits inside the Gulf and Asian capital-allocation conversation through the UAE Ministry of Economy’s International Advisory Council and a senior advisory role at Gulf Capital, giving Western audiences access to perspectives they rarely hear directly. Multi-pillar fluency on geopolitics, climate adaptation and demographic mobility means a single keynote can reframe the same investment committee on country risk, supply chain and talent strategy. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, AlphaGeo, an AI-powered geospatial analytics platform for institutional investors. Author of seven books including Connectography, The Future is Asian and MOVE, published by Random House, Simon and Schuster and W&N. PhD in International Relations, London School of Economics; BSc and MA, Georgetown School of Foreign Service. Senior Geopolitical Adviser to US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (2007); adviser to the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends programme. Named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century”. Visiting Senior Fellow, LSE Data Science Institute (2025-27); member, UAE Ministry of Economy International Advisory Council. Biography The argument that capital follows borders has stopped working. Supply chains, energy flows, migration and digital infrastructure now describe the world more accurately than the political map, and Parag Khanna has spent two decades building the data and the language to read it. His trilogy Connectography, The Future is Asian and MOVE traces that shift from theory through to the operating reality facing investment committees and corporate boards. The work sits on serious institutional ground. A PhD from the London School of Economics, two degrees from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and senior research posts at Brookings, the New America Foundation and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. He has advised US Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends programme, work that informs how he handles questions on sanctions, China exposure and political risk in front of senior audiences. What separates the speaking work from the wider geopolitics circuit is that he runs the product. AlphaGeo, the company he founded and leads as CEO, turns the same geospatial and scenario frameworks into analytics used by sovereign wealth funds, pension plans and asset managers. The result is a keynote that connects a global thesis to the country, sector and asset-level decisions a board is already wrestling with. He also sits inside the conversations Western audiences rarely access directly. A seat on the UAE Ministry of Economy’s International Advisory Council, a senior advisory role at Gulf Capital, and a long working relationship with Asian governments and family offices give him a view of where Gulf and Asian capital is actually being committed, and why. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the new global macro Asia, the Gulf and shifting capital flows Supply chain restructuring and connectivity Climate-driven migration and demographic mobility Country risk for institutional investors AI-powered geospatial analytics for decision-making Scenario planning and strategic foresight Ideal for Boards and investment committees of asset managers, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds reweighting country and sector exposure CEOs and CSOs of multinationals revising supply chain, China and Gulf strategy Heads of strategy, risk and policy in financial services, energy and infrastructure Family office principals and private equity partners pricing geopolitical and climate risk into capital decisions Audience outcomes A working thesis on where capital, people and supply chains are moving over the next decade, anchored to named regions and corridors A clearer read on China exposure, sanctions risk and the Gulf and Asian counter-cycle for committee-level conversations Practical framing for how climate-driven migration and demographic shifts intersect with country risk Exposure to how leading sovereign and institutional investors are using geospatial analytics inside live investment processes

Why organisations work with Alok Sharma He chaired the negotiation that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact, working with nearly 200 governments. Few advisors can read multilateral climate dynamics from inside the chair. As Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, he is actively shaping how private capital is mobilised for transition, not commenting on it from a distance. His vantage spans Cabinet, COP, the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, Conservation International and Oxford Martin School, giving boards a single voice across policy, philanthropy, science and finance. TIME named him in the 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for his work mobilising transition finance, a credible external benchmark of current relevance. A 16-year investment banking career in London, Stockholm and Frankfurt gives him the financial fluency to discuss transition with CFOs and treasurers in their own language. Biography highlights President of COP26, Glasgow 2021, the conference that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact Former UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and previously Secretary of State for International Development Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, appointed by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation in 2025 Visiting Fellow, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Co-Chair, Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council; Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International KCMG, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to tackling climate change; created Baron Sharma of Reading, 2024; named to TIME 100 Climate, 2025 Biography The Glasgow Climate Pact was negotiated in a room with delegations from nearly 200 countries. Alok Sharma chaired that room as President of COP26. The pact, agreed in November 2021, kept the 1.5 degree goal in formal reach and pulled coal and fossil fuel subsidies into a UN climate text for the first time. Before COP, he was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and earlier Secretary of State for International Development. The route there was unusual for a climate principal: chartered accountant at Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte, then sixteen years in investment banking with Nikko Securities and Enskilda Securities across London, Stockholm and Frankfurt. That financial background sits behind his current work on capital flows. He now chairs the UK Transition Finance Council, set up by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation to make the UK a leading market for high integrity transition finance. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, Co-Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, and a Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International. TIME named him to its 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for that body of work. For boards, the value is the through-line. He has held the pen on a multilateral climate text, sat in a UK Cabinet making industrial policy, and now sits in the room where transition finance rules are being written. He was made KCMG in the 2023 New Year Honours and elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Sharma of Reading in 2024. Key speaking topics Transition finance and capital allocation under net zero Climate diplomacy and the post-Paris multilateral system Energy transition and industrial strategy COP outcomes and what they mean for corporate strategy Geopolitics of climate, including US, EU and emerging market dynamics ESG under regulatory and political pressure Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CFOs reconciling net zero commitments with capital plans Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of ESG and transition leads inside financial institutions Investor and asset owner audiences working on transition portfolios Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on climate and industrial strategy Audience outcomes A clear read of where multilateral climate policy stands after COP26 to today, from someone who chaired the room A grounded view of how transition finance is actually being structured in the UK and globally A senior-level perspective on how climate intersects with geopolitics, industrial policy and capital markets Specific signals to track for boards making transition-linked decisions over the next planning cycle

Why organisations work with Kwasi Kwarteng A first-person account of running HM Treasury during the September 2022 sterling and gilts crisis, with the candour of someone who has since written and spoken openly about what the markets did and why. Three years inside UK energy policy as Secretary of State at BEIS, including offshore wind auction reform and the Sizewell C nuclear decision, useful for any board pricing the gap between net zero ambition and capital reality. A Cambridge PhD in economic history with four published books on empire, debt and Thatcherism, giving long-cycle context to the inflation, sovereign debt and currency questions now back on board agendas. A vantage point shared by very few speakers in the market: cabinet-level decision making and post-government reflection on what political and market forces actually constrain a Chancellor. Biography highlights Chancellor of the Exchequer, September to October 2022. Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2021 to 2022. Member of Parliament for Spelthorne, 2010 to 2024; first Black Conservative MP and first Black Conservative to attend Cabinet. PhD in economic history, Trinity College, Cambridge; Kennedy Scholar at Harvard; Newcastle Scholar at Eton. Author of Ghosts of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2011), War and Gold (2014), Thatcher’s Trial (2015); co-author of Britannia Unchained (2012). Biography The September 2022 mini-budget is one of the cleanest case studies of political risk hitting a balance sheet that any boardroom will see this decade. Sterling fell to a record low against the dollar within days. Gilt yields spiked, the Bank of England intervened in the long-dated market, and a sitting government reversed almost every line of its own fiscal statement inside a month. Kwasi Kwarteng was the Chancellor who delivered it. He has since written and spoken openly about the episode, the orthodoxy he was challenging, and the market mechanics that overran the politics. That post-government candour, paired with the seat he occupied, is rare. Most former finance ministers either defend the record or disappear. He does neither. The credentials behind the role matter for serious audiences. Trinity College, Cambridge, a PhD in economic history on the 1690s recoinage crisis, a Kennedy Scholarship at Harvard, and four published books on empire, debt and Thatcher’s economic statecraft. Ghosts of Empire (Bloomsbury, 2011) reads imperial collapse as a story of individual improvisation rather than coherent design. War and Gold traces five hundred years of money, debt and speculation. The historian’s frame is what gives his account of 2022 weight beyond political memoir. His earlier ministerial brief at BEIS sits directly inside the energy transition conversation that now dominates capital allocation discussions. Annual offshore wind auction rounds, the UK’s first Innovation Strategy, and the Sizewell C nuclear funding decision were taken on his watch. For a board working through the gap between stated net zero policy and the cost of capital required to deliver it, that operational experience is unusually concrete. Key speaking topics UK and global macroeconomic policy Sovereign debt, currency and central bank credibility Energy transition and net zero policy UK politics and Whitehall decision-making Geopolitics, trade and post-Brexit positioning Empire, money and the long history of capital Ideal for Board and CFO audiences pricing political and fiscal risk into capital decisions. Energy, utilities and infrastructure leaders working through the policy-to-capital gap on net zero. Asset managers, banks and corporate treasury functions reading sovereign and currency risk. Senior public affairs and government relations teams operating across UK and EU policy. Audience outcomes A first-person read of how the September 2022 fiscal statement moved through markets and what it says about sovereign credibility today. A historian’s longer view of debt, currency and empire applied to current macro questions. Specific UK policy detail on offshore wind, nuclear and industrial strategy from inside the relevant department. A clearer mental model of how political decisions translate into balance sheet outcomes, and how quickly.

Why organisations work with John Bercow He held the Speaker’s Chair through Brexit and the most contested parliamentary period since the Second World War, and can explain why specific rulings landed the way they did. He worked alongside four prime ministers, from Blair-era Labour through Cameron, May, and Johnson, and reads cross-party Westminster dynamics with insider fluency. He authored The Bercow Report on speech, language and communication needs, a government-commissioned review that produced 40 recommendations and triggered £52 million in committed funding, evidence of policy weight beyond the Speaker’s role. He is Professor of Politics at Royal Holloway and a Fellow at Birkbeck, which gives the analysis academic discipline rather than memoir colour. He brings a confident platform voice, willing to take questions head-on, suited to senior internal audiences who want sharp answers, not diplomatic fog. Biography highlights 157th Speaker of the House of Commons, 2009 to 2019, longest-serving Speaker since Edward FitzRoy. Member of Parliament for Buckingham, 1997 to 2019, elected Speaker at the opening of three consecutive Parliaments. Author of Unspeakable: The Autobiography (Sunday Times bestseller) and Tennis Maestros (Biteback Publishing). Author of The Bercow Report on speech, language and communication needs, commissioned by the UK government. Professor of Politics, Royal Holloway, University of London; Fellow, Birkbeck, University of London. Chaired UK Youth Parliament sittings in the Commons Chamber for a decade. Biography The Speaker’s Chair in the House of Commons is one of the most exposed seats in British public life. Between 2009 and 2019, John Bercow occupied it through the financial crisis aftermath, the coalition years, the EU referendum, and the parliamentary deadlock that followed. He served alongside four prime ministers and was elected Speaker at the start of three consecutive Parliaments, a post-war first. His Brexit-era rulings reshaped the relationship between Parliament and government. In March 2019 he invoked a 1604 convention to block a third vote on the same Withdrawal Agreement, ruling the motion could not return unchanged. That September he called the proposed prorogation of Parliament a “constitutional outrage”. Constitutional scholars at Queen Mary and the Constitution Unit have since framed this period as the most significant power shift between executive and legislature since 1642. Before the Chair, Bercow was the MP for Buckingham from 1997. In 2008 he produced The Bercow Report for the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health, a 40-recommendation review of speech, language and communication services that prompted £52 million in committed funding and a National Year of Communication. He chaired UK Youth Parliament sittings in the Commons Chamber annually throughout his Speakership. He is now Professor of Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Fellow of Birkbeck, University of London. His memoir Unspeakable was a Sunday Times bestseller; Tennis Maestros, drawing on a parallel career as a coach and competitive junior, was published by Biteback. Key speaking topics UK parliamentary process and constitutional convention Westminster political risk and policy direction Brexit and its institutional aftermath The Speaker’s role and parliamentary scrutiny Public policy reform and legislative accountability Leadership and decision-making in contested arenas Ideal for Boards and executive teams with material UK regulatory or policy exposure General counsel, public affairs, and government relations leadership Financial services, professional services, and infrastructure sector leadership tracking Westminster Conferences on governance, democracy, and institutional change Audience outcomes A clearer read of how parliamentary procedure shapes UK policy outcomes that hit corporate plans. A first-hand account of the Brexit rulings and what they revealed about institutional power in Britain. Insight into how four prime ministers handled the Commons differently, and what that says about political leadership under pressure. Sharper questions to ask of in-house political risk and public affairs functions. A perspective on managing dissent, conflict, and high-stakes decisions in formal institutional settings.

Why organisations work with Yonah Welker Direct line into the European policy machinery shaping AI rules, through working group contributions to the EU AI Code of Practice and DG CNECT’s digital and critical infrastructure work. Specific expertise in the area regulators are now scrutinising hardest: how AI systems treat disability, neurodiversity, accessibility and other designated groups, with published frameworks and a MOOC catalogued by OECD.AI. Cross-institutional fluency across OECD, UN IGF, UNESCO and WHO governance processes, useful for organisations whose AI strategy now has to answer to several overlapping frameworks at once. A practitioner-policy bridge rather than a pure academic. The work moves between technology evaluation, ethics audit and policy drafting, which is the lane most boards now need filled. Biography highlights AI expert listed in the OECD.AI community directory; affiliated with MIT collaborative work and contributor to OECD.AI’s Wonk blog. Contributor to the EU AI Code of Practice (working Groups 2 and 3) and to DG CNECT digital and critical infrastructure programmes. World Economic Forum agenda contributor and TechPolicy.Press author on AI governance, accessibility and algorithmic equity. Co-founder of Hardwaretech think tank (2006), with evaluator and rapporteur roles on EU Commission-funded technology projects. Speaker at the AI Action Summit (Paris/Sorbonne), Sciences Po, Technical University of Munich, AI Safety Korea 2024 and the Delphi Economic Forum. Judge, Diversity in Tech Awards; contributor to UNESCO Digital Week programming and UN IGF Data and AI Governance Coalition. Biography AI governance has moved out of the engineering org and onto the board agenda. The EU AI Act, the OECD framework, UNESCO’s ethics recommendation and the G7 Hiroshima Process now overlap on the same operating decisions, and the speakers who can navigate all of them at once are scarce. Welker sits inside several of those processes at once. He has contributed to working groups on the EU AI Code of Practice, to DG CNECT’s digital and critical infrastructure work, and to OECD.AI’s policy outputs, including a disability-centred AI and ethics MOOC catalogued in the OECD.AI tools repository. He is listed as a contributor at the World Economic Forum and as an author at TechPolicy.Press, with commentary appearing in OECD, UN-related and national policy channels. His specific lane is how AI systems treat designated groups: people with disabilities, neurodivergent users, and other populations where algorithmic decisions can entrench or remove access. That is the area where regulators are now applying the most pressure, and where most organisations have the thinnest internal capability. The work draws on years of technology evaluation, including co-founding Hardwaretech think tank in 2006 and serving as an expert evaluator for EU Commission-funded innovation programmes. For senior leaders, the value is operational. Welker can speak to what an EU AI Act audit will actually examine, what a defensible accessibility claim looks like in an AI system, and how the OECD and UN governance layers connect to the decisions a CTO or general counsel has to make next quarter. Key speaking topics AI governance and the EU AI Act Algorithmic accountability and AI audit Disability-centred and accessibility AI policy Neurodiversity and inclusive AI design Sovereign AI and critical digital infrastructure AI safety and responsible deployment Public sector AI and citizen-facing systems Ideal for General counsel, chief compliance officers and CTOs preparing for EU AI Act enforcement Heads of AI, responsible AI leads and digital ethics committees Public sector and intergovernmental bodies designing AI policy Boards reviewing AI risk exposure across accessibility, bias and public-trust dimensions Audience outcomes A clearer map of how the EU AI Act, OECD framework and UN/UNESCO instruments interlock for their organisation Specific questions to put to vendors, internal teams and audit committees on algorithmic accountability A working definition of what disability-centred and accessibility AI obligations look like operationally Sharper instinct for where reputational and regulatory risk concentrates in current AI deployments A view of where European AI policy is heading next, drawn from inside the working groups shaping it