Risk Management

Why organisations work with Robert Mazur Twenty-seven years across IRS Criminal Investigation, US Customs and the DEA gives him a breadth of federal financial-crime experience that is rare in the speaker circuit and specifically relevant to banking and regulated audiences. Operation C-Chase, his two-year undercover infiltration of Pablo Escobar’s money-laundering network and BCCI, one of the largest private banks in the world at the time, is one of the most studied financial-crime cases in history, and it is his case to tell. The Infiltrator, his New York Times bestseller, was adapted into a 2016 feature film starring Bryan Cranston, which gives audiences a shared cultural reference point before the session begins. His court certification as a money-laundering expert in the US and Canada means his material holds up in front of compliance, legal and risk audiences who will test it against their own casework. He combines war-story delivery with technical specificity, which is useful for organisations that need to energise a compliance programme without sacrificing the substance. Biography highlights Former US federal agent, 27-year career across IRS Criminal Investigation, US Customs Service and DEA Led Operation C-Chase, the mid-1980s undercover investigation of Pablo Escobar’s money-laundering network and BCCI Undercover alias «Robert Musella» for two years inside a $20 billion global banking fraud Court-certified money-laundering expert in the United States and Canada Author of The Infiltrator, New York Times bestseller, adapted into a 2016 feature film starring Bryan Cranston Author of second memoir The Betrayal Biography The Bank of Credit and Commerce International had $20 billion in assets and operations across more than 70 countries when Robert Mazur, posing as New Jersey businessman «Robert Musella», spent two years inside its money-laundering operations. Operation C-Chase, the US government infiltration he led, ultimately produced one of the most consequential financial-crime prosecutions of the twentieth century and the collapse of BCCI itself. The same investigation reached Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, which was using the bank to move drug proceeds through the global financial system. His route to that case was a 27-year federal career that ran through IRS Criminal Investigation, the US Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Mazur is court-certified as a money-laundering expert in both the United States and Canada, which gives his analysis the standing to be cited in compliance programmes rather than simply admired in a keynote. The public record of the work is extensive. The Infiltrator, his bestselling memoir, was adapted into the 2016 feature film of the same name starring Bryan Cranston. His second memoir, The Betrayal, continues the inside account of how undercover operations against narcotics and money launderers are actually run, and where institutional complicity makes them possible. For global banks, compliance functions, regulators, law-enforcement audiences and corporate risk teams, the value proposition is direct. Mazur does not speak about financial crime; he speaks as someone whose work closed one of the largest laundering operations in financial history. The sessions combine the specific mechanics of how criminal networks move money with a clear-eyed view of what banks consistently fail to catch, and why. Key speaking topics Money laundering and the anatomy of financial crime Undercover investigations and infiltration methodology Banking compliance, AML and the weaknesses professional launderers exploit Drug cartels, organised crime and the global financial system Lessons from the BCCI and Pablo Escobar investigations Risk, governance and executive accountability for financial crime Ideal for Global banks, payment firms and fintech leadership teams strengthening financial-crime programmes Compliance, risk, audit and governance functions running internal training or board briefings Financial services regulators, supervisors and law-enforcement audiences Corporate risk leadership teams and boards exposed to financial-crime reputational risk Audience outcomes A detailed, first-hand view of how professional money launderers assess and exploit banking institutions Specific mechanisms used in the BCCI and Pablo Escobar cases, framed for modern compliance audiences A clearer read of where current AML and KYC approaches still fall short Practical prompts for internal programme design drawn from undercover investigative experience A reference point in The Infiltrator that leadership teams can share with wider compliance staff

Why organisations work with Jacquie Davis Direct operational authority on decisions made under live threat, including hostage rescue work in Pakistan and Iraq, that no academic or consultant voice can claim. Four years as personal protection officer to JK Rowling at the height of Harry Potter publicity, with a wider client list including Nicole Kidman, the Beckhams, and Middle Eastern royalty, which gives her credibility with audiences used to operating in a public eye. A reference point that few keynote speakers can offer: a Netflix feature film, Close (2019), built around her professional life, on which she served as the operational consultant. A perspective on team performance and trust forged inside small units where a wrong call has physical consequences, rather than abstracted from a leadership framework. An unusually credible voice on women operating at the senior end of a male-dominated profession, drawn from her own working life rather than a research project. Biography highlights Author of The Circuit, first published by Penguin and reprinted in 2020, an autobiographical account of her work from Metropolitan Police service to international close protection. Personal bodyguard to JK Rowling for four years during the peak of the Harry Potter phenomenon. The protagonist of the 2019 Netflix film Close, directed by Vicky Jewson and starring Noomi Rapace, is based on her career. Operational record includes hostage rescue work freeing a British woman held in Pakistan, and rescuing men held by Uday Hussein in Iraq. Trained in counter-surveillance, firearms, restraint tactics, bomb search, defensive driving, and hostage survival. Consults for television and film production companies and appears regularly as a security commentator on UK and US broadcast media. Biography Penguin published The Circuit in 1998 and reprinted it in 2020. The memoir is an operational account of close protection work, from a 1970s start in the Metropolitan Police through hostage rescues abroad and protection of named celebrity principals, by one of the few female operators to write the story down. Her career began in the Metropolitan Police in the 1970s and moved into close protection at a point when the field had almost no women in it. Over the following three decades she protected JK Rowling for four years at the peak of Harry Potter publicity, worked principals including Nicole Kidman, Diana Ross, and the Beckhams, and conducted hostage rescue operations in Pakistan and Iraq. The reason a boardroom listens is not the celebrity client list. It is that Davis has had to make consequential decisions, fast, in environments where information was partial and the cost of error was physical. She speaks about how composure is built, how small teams hold together when conditions deteriorate, and what trust actually looks like when it is being tested in real time. In 2019 Netflix released Close, a feature film directed by Vicky Jewson and starring Noomi Rapace, with a protagonist based on Davis’s working life and with Davis herself consulting on the production. The result is a speaker who arrives with operational evidence, a published account of the work, and a cultural artefact that anchors the story for an audience. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure Risk assessment and crisis planning Small-team performance in hostile environments Leadership composure and self-management Women in male-dominated professions Personal and organisational security awareness Ideal for Boards and executive committees building crisis decision-making capability Security, risk, and resilience leadership functions Women’s leadership programmes and senior development audiences Conferences with a substantive focus on personal and organisational composure under threat Audience outcomes A working sense of how field operators reach decisions when information is incomplete and consequences are immediate A more practical reference point for what crisis planning and small-team trust look like outside the training-room version A concrete account of how women operate at the senior end of a profession that resisted them, useful for leadership programmes that handle that subject substantively A reset on what risk awareness means in personal and organisational settings, drawn from operational experience rather than checklists

Why organisations work with Udo Lielischkies First-hand interpretation of Putin’s regime from a journalist who reported on it continuously from 1999 to 2018, including six years running ARD’s Moscow studio. A reading of Russia grounded in the provinces, not Moscow press briefings, drawn from years travelling beyond the capital and documented in “Im Schatten des Kreml”, reprinted four times since 2019. Editorial credibility recognised by the Deutscher Fernsehpreis, with a win for Best Reportage in 2004 and a Monte Carlo nomination in 2015 for reporting from eastern Ukraine. A senior journalist’s instinct for separating Kremlin signal from Kremlin noise, useful when boards are deciding what a Putin statement, sanction round, or escalation actually means for exposure and planning. Biography highlights Head of ARD studio Moscow, 2014 to 2018, for Germany’s largest public broadcaster. ARD correspondent in Moscow (1999 to 2006), Washington D.C. (2006 to 2012) and Moscow again (2012 to 2018), with an earlier Brussels and NATO posting from 1994. Author of “Im Schatten des Kreml: Unterwegs in Putins Russland”, Droemer Knaur, 2019, English rights title “In the Shadow of the Kremlin”. Winner of the German Television Award (Deutscher Fernsehpreis) 2004 for Best Reportage, “Kremlin, Prison and Corruption” (ARD/WDR). Further recognitions include the Golden Gong (1999), the Ernst Schneider Prize (1989), a Moscow festival special prize (2005) and a Monte Carlo Television Festival nomination (2015) for reporting on the war in Ukraine. Regular guest on German political programming (NDR, phoenix, ARD talk shows) on Russia, Ukraine and the Kremlin’s foreign policy. Biography The Kremlin is now a fixed entry on most board risk registers, alongside China, energy and supply chains. What boards struggle to source is interpretation of the regime that goes beyond headlines and beyond Western analyst convention. That is the gap Udo Lielischkies fills. For nearly 25 years he reported for ARD, Germany’s largest public broadcaster, across the three capitals that have defined the post-Cold War order: Brussels and NATO from 1994, Moscow from 1999, Washington D.C. from 2006, and Moscow again from 2012, where he ran ARD’s studio from 2014 until his retirement in 2018. He watched Putin’s arrival as an unknown FSB veteran and reported continuously through every phase that followed. His book “Im Schatten des Kreml: Unterwegs in Putins Russland” (Droemer Knaur, 2019) is the durable record of that work. It is now in its fourth edition and is widely read as having anticipated the trajectory that led to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The English-language edition, “In the Shadow of the Kremlin”, is offered through Droemer Knaur’s rights catalogue. The reporting that underpins the book also produced his 2004 German Television Award for Best Reportage and a 2015 Monte Carlo Television Festival nomination for “The Murderous War in Ukraine – Escape From Ilovajsk”. What this gives a serious audience is rare. Not a geopolitical taxonomy delivered in the abstract, but the texture of a system explained by someone who lived inside it: how Kremlin power actually moves, how Russian provinces read the war, where the regime is brittle and where it is not. For organisations exposed to Russia, Ukraine, sanctions regimes, or the wider authoritarian bloc, that texture matters more than another forecast. Key speaking topics Putin’s Russia and the architecture of the regime The war in Ukraine and Kremlin strategy Geopolitical risk for Western boards Authoritarian regimes and the rules-based order Russia, Europe and the United States: shifting alliances Inside the Kremlin: power, succession, propaganda Ideal for Boards and executive committees with direct or indirect exposure to Russia, Ukraine, the CIS or sanctions regimes CROs, heads of geopolitical risk, and corporate affairs leads briefing senior leadership on Kremlin scenarios Industry conferences in energy, defence, financial services and logistics where Russia exposure remains material Public-sector and policy audiences working on European security, transatlantic relations and the war in Ukraine Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how Kremlin decision-making actually works, beyond Western media framing A grounded sense of where the regime is fragile, where it is not, and what that means for the next phase of the war Sharper questions to put to internal Russia and CIS exposure analysis A view of the Russian provinces, not only Moscow, and why that distinction shapes outcomes Context for reading future Kremlin statements, sanction rounds and escalation signals with less noise

Why organisations work with Elin Hauge She translates AI from a vendor pitch into a leadership decision, naming the mathematics, the data risks and the regulatory exposure in language a board can act on. Her “artificial intelligence and natural stupidity” argument shifts accountability where it belongs, onto the humans designing, training and deploying the systems, which is exactly the framing regulators and litigators are moving to. A working combination of engineering, operational research and ongoing law studies lets her speak credibly across the EU AI Act, model risk and commercial strategy in a single conversation. She sits on non-executive boards, mostly as chair, so she speaks to other board members from inside the same governance problem rather than from a stage. She is rigorous about the limits of AI, including its environmental and human costs, which gives risk and sustainability committees a voice they trust rather than another adoption pitch. Biography highlights MEng in Biophysics and Medical Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. MSc in Management Science and Operational Research, Warwick Business School. Non-executive board director, chair on the majority of her current board positions. Currently in law studies focused on responsible business practice and AI regulation. Featured by Elle Canada on responsible AI development; interviewed by London Speaker Bureau as a futurist and AI strategist. Keynote speaker at international summits including LIMITL3SS 2024 in Romania and PostNord Strålfors Smarter Communication Summit 2024. Biography Boards now sign off on AI commitments without a clear view of where the technology actually adds value, where it introduces risk, and which decisions the EU AI Act will hold them to. Elin Hauge works inside that gap. Her contribution is to convert AI from a procurement conversation into a governance and strategy decision that senior leaders can defend. Her background is unusually wide for the field. An engineering degree in biophysics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, an operational research masters from Warwick Business School, more than two decades connecting data-driven technology to commercial value, and current law studies aimed at the regulatory layer. That span lets her move between model behaviour, business case and legal accountability without losing precision in any of them. The argument she returns to is that the dangerous variable in AI is not the algorithm. It is the human assumptions baked into the data and into the decision to deploy. Her framing of “natural stupidity” puts the accountability question back where regulators are putting it, on the people designing and approving the systems. For leadership teams trying to write defensible AI policy, that reframe is the work. She speaks from inside the governance problem, not from outside it. She sits on several non-executive boards, chair on most of them, and has been featured by Elle Canada and the London Speaker Bureau as a voice against irresponsible AI development. Clients including Embriq, HPE Ireland and The Future Work Forum point to the same quality: she cuts through vendor noise and tells executives what is actually decision-relevant. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and business strategy AI governance and the EU AI Act Responsible and accountable AI adoption Algorithmic bias and human accountability Digital transformation and leadership decisions Environmental cost of AI and digital infrastructure Data strategy for boards and executive teams Ideal for Boards and CEOs setting AI policy and accountability lines Chief Risk, Compliance and Legal Officers preparing for AI Act enforcement CIO, CDO and CTO leadership teams moving AI from pilots to operating decisions Sustainability and ESG committees assessing the digital footprint of AI deployment Audience outcomes A working mental model of what AI can and cannot do, stripped of vendor language. A clearer view of where accountability sits when an AI system causes harm, and what that means for governance design. Specific reference points for aligning AI deployment with the EU AI Act and adjacent regulation. A sharper read on the trade-offs between digital expansion and environmental and social cost. Confidence to challenge AI proposals at board level using the right questions, not the loudest ones.

Why organisations work with Mika Häkkinen Two World Championships won against Michael Schumacher, the rival Schumacher publicly named as the one he most respected. The competitive credibility is hard to manufacture. A near-fatal crash at the 1995 Australian Grand Prix, with a trackside tracheotomy keeping him alive, followed by championship titles in 1998 and 1999. The resilience story is documented, not retrofitted. Continues to operate inside elite Formula 1 as McLaren Partner Ambassador and as a permanent on-site Viaplay F1 analyst, which keeps the perspective current rather than nostalgic. Eleven seasons inside one of the most data-driven team environments in global sport, with first-hand experience of how engineers and decision-makers stay aligned when the consequences are immediate. Biography highlights Two-time Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion (1998, 1999) with McLaren-Mercedes 20 Grand Prix victories, 51 podium finishes and 26 pole positions across 11 F1 seasons 1990 British Formula 3 Champion with West Surrey Racing McLaren Partner Ambassador since 2017; F1 analyst for Viaplay since 2022, alongside David Coulthard and Jos Verstappen Autosport Gregor Grant Award (2018) for lifetime contribution to motorsport; member of the Laureus World Sports Academy Biography Eleven seasons in Formula 1 produces a particular kind of operator. The environment is data-rich and unforgiving of indecision. A driver wins or loses by hundredths of a second, but the result depends on hundreds of people working in alignment for months. Mika Häkkinen won two World Drivers’ Championships in that environment, with McLaren-Mercedes in 1998 and 1999. He secured 20 Grand Prix victories and 51 podiums across his F1 career. Michael Schumacher, his principal rival across both title-winning seasons, named Häkkinen as the driver he most respected during his own career. His career also includes a near-fatal accident. In 1995, a tyre failure during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix sent his McLaren into a barrier at high speed. FIA medical delegate Sid Watkins performed an emergency tracheotomy at the trackside, and Häkkinen spent two months in hospital. He returned to racing the following season and won his first championship three years later. Two roles keep Häkkinen close to the sport. He is McLaren’s Partner Ambassador, working with the team’s commercial leadership on strategic accounts. He is also part of Viaplay’s permanent on-site F1 broadcast team alongside David Coulthard and Jos Verstappen. The current exposure matters for the speaking work; the lessons land differently when the speaker is still inside the paddock most race weekends. Key speaking topics High-performance team execution Decision-making under pressure Resilience after public setbacks Sustained competitive performance over long campaigns Risk management in high-stakes environments Leadership in technically complex teams Focus and mental discipline Ideal for Senior leadership teams in sectors where execution margins are tight and outcomes are visible Sales and commercial organisations whose performance is measured continuously Annual conferences and after-dinner functions for high-performance corporate audiences Executive programmes focused on resilience and recovery from setbacks Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what sustained competitive excellence requires when the margins are narrow and the data is constant Specific lessons on how elite teams stay aligned through long, high-pressure campaigns A credible perspective on returning to the top after a serious public setback Direct insight into how senior operators make decisions in the seconds where most performance is decided

Why organisations work with Neil Martin He built the probabilistic strategy modelling systems now used by more than half the current Formula One grid – not a commentator on F1 decision-making, but the person who changed how the sport models decisions under uncertainty. Two specific, named race outcomes are directly attributed to his calls: Red Bull Racing’s first Formula One win at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, and Räikkönen’s win at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix – both the product of real-time probabilistic reasoning under extreme competitive pressure. He translates a specific, working methodology – Monte Carlo simulation and game theory applied to real-time competitive decisions – into frameworks organisations can use when multiple futures must be weighed against each other with no time to wait for certainty. His experience spans the full decision chain: building the analytical models, leading the strategy team live in the race, and managing the operational culture of teams working against non-negotiable deadlines with global coordination demands. As Co-Founder of PACETEQ GmbH, he continues to build and deploy competitive analytics tools across motorsport, which means his perspective is operational and current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights BSc in Mathematics with Computer Science and MSc in Operational Research, University of Southampton; MSc project on optimal pit-stop and refuelling strategies secured a full-time role at McLaren Racing Pioneered the application of Game Theory and Monte Carlo simulation to F1 race strategy at McLaren from 1998, replacing deterministic planning with stochastic models that could account for uncertain events in real time Team Leader of Operational Research at McLaren Racing; Chief Strategist at Red Bull Racing; Head of Operations Research and Strategy at Scuderia Ferrari (2011-2015) Strategic calls directly credited with Red Bull Racing’s first-ever Formula One win at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix and Räikkönen’s victory at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix Co-Founder of PACETEQ GmbH, an AI-powered motorsport analytics business; software originating from his work in active use across more than half the Formula One grid Covered in the Financial Times; featured speaker at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit Biography Neil Martin joined McLaren Racing in 1996 to solve a specific problem: race strategy was being built on deterministic models that assumed a single most-likely future. He replaced those models with stochastic ones, applying Game Theory and Monte Carlo simulation to uncertain events. Traffic patterns, overtake probabilities, safety car timing – these could now be modelled, and strategy built around a range of probable outcomes rather than one. That shift produced verifiable results at the highest level. At the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix, Martin sent an email from McLaren’s Woking base instructing Räikkönen to stay out under a safety car; the call won the race. At the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, as Red Bull Racing’s Chief Strategist, he kept both cars out in wet conditions when almost every competitor pitted. It was the team’s first-ever Formula One win – a 1-2 finish built on asymmetric risk reasoning under pressure. Martin joined Scuderia Ferrari in 2011 as Head of the newly created Operations Research department, brought in alongside Pat Fry to rebuild the team’s race operations. He left in 2015. Since then, he has founded Random Logic and co-founded PACETEQ GmbH, an AI-powered analytics business whose tools now run on more than half the current Formula One grid. For senior leaders, the argument is direct. Performance under pressure is not determined by the quantity of data available. It is determined by the quality of the frameworks used to act on it. Martin’s career is a proof of concept for what that discipline looks like when competitive stakes are at their highest. Key speaking topics Decision-making under uncertainty Probabilistic risk modelling Data-driven competitive strategy High-performance operations Risk management in live environments Marginal gains and continuous improvement Analytics-led performance optimisation Ideal for C-suite and senior strategy leaders making high-stakes decisions with incomplete data and competitive time pressure Risk, analytics, and data science functions seeking to operationalise probabilistic thinking across the organisation Boards and executive teams benchmarking their decision culture against elite performance environments Corporate conferences in financial services, technology, and professional services where data-driven decision-making is a strategic priority Audience outcomes A named conceptual shift: from deterministic “most likely scenario” planning to probabilistic mapping of multiple futures and their associated likelihoods Clarity on the conditions under which data produces better decisions, and the organisational habits that close the gap between having information and acting on it with confidence Specific, race-derived examples of asymmetric risk reasoning applicable to resource allocation, market entry, and competitive response decisions Practical understanding of how high-performance teams coordinate under non-negotiable deadlines without sacrificing analytical discipline A benchmark for what genuinely data-driven operational culture looks like when competitive stakes leave no margin for deterministic thinking

Why organisations work with Karun Chandhok He has lived inside two of the most exposed environments in elite sport: the cockpit of a backmarker F1 team trying to build a car around him, and a Sky Sports broadcast booth analysing the same paddock in real time. He sits on the Motorsport UK Board and the FIA Drivers’ Commission, so the governance, safety and DEI conversations he brings into the room are ones he is actively shaping, not commenting on from the outside. He translates how F1 teams turn millions of data points per race into decisive calls that engineers, strategists and a driver all act on within seconds, with examples a non-motorsport audience can follow. He is one of only two Indians ever to race in Formula One, which gives weight to his work on talent pipelines, representation and what it takes to break into a closed competitive system. He is a working broadcaster for a global audience, so the keynote is paced and structured for the room rather than delivered as a career retrospective. Biography highlights 11 Formula One Grand Prix starts for Hispania Racing in 2010 and Team Lotus in 2011. Sky Sports F1 analyst, co-commentator and pit-lane reporter, full-time since 2019. Board Director, Motorsport UK, and member of its Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Founding member of the FIA Drivers’ Commission since 2013, with further roles on the FIA Single Seater Commission and Driver Grading Committee. Williams Heritage driver since 2016, demonstrating the team’s championship-winning cars. Author of “Drive to Victory: Incredible True Stories from the Fastest Sport in the World”, Hachette Children’s, 2025. Biography A modern Formula One team is roughly a thousand engineers, strategists and operations staff who have to redesign their product every two weeks, inside a moving regulatory frame, while a driver they have never met executes the result on television. Karun Chandhok has been the driver in that picture, the analyst describing it for Sky Sports F1, and a director on the boards that write the rules around it. He raced 11 Grands Prix for Hispania Racing and Team Lotus, becoming the second Indian to compete in the championship. From there he moved into the FIA World Endurance Championship and five starts at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, then drove for Mahindra Racing in the inaugural Formula E season. The breadth matters: very few people have raced across the three categories actively reshaping motorsport’s relationship with technology, sustainability and global audiences. Since 2019 he has been part of the core Sky Sports F1 line-up as analyst, co-commentator and pit-lane reporter. The role is unusual because it sits between the engineers and the public; he has to read live telemetry, strategy calls and team radio quickly enough to explain them on air, and accurately enough that the paddock will keep talking to him next weekend. His governance work gives the keynote its third dimension. He has served on the FIA Drivers’ Commission since 2013 and joined the Motorsport UK board in 2021, where he sits on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Those seats are why his material on talent pipelines, safety reform and competitive integrity carries authority that most sports speakers cannot match. Key speaking topics Decision-making in high-pressure performance environments Leadership and team coordination in elite motorsport Data, technology and human judgement in Formula One Safety, governance and regulatory change Diversity, inclusion and talent pipelines in closed competitive systems Continuous transformation under external pressure Global sport as a commercial and operational system Ideal for Executive teams and boards working through sustained operational or regulatory change. CHROs, DEI leads and talent functions building pipelines into historically closed industries. Engineering, technology and data leadership audiences interested in how F1 turns data into action. Sales conferences and client events where a credible, broadcast-quality headline speaker is needed. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how elite teams sustain judgement and coordination when conditions keep shifting. A working sense of how F1 organisations turn data and technology into faster human decisions. Specific examples of how regulation, safety and competitive performance trade against each other inside a sport. A more honest picture of what genuine inclusion looks like in a sector that historically locked talent out.

Why organisations work with Linda Yueh A published framework for spotting and mitigating financial crashes, drawn from her book The Great Crashes and applied directly to board-level risk and capital allocation conversations. Sitting non-executive director on three FTSE 100 boards (Rentokil Initial, SEGRO, Standard Chartered), which means she reads the macro picture the way a director has to read it, not the way a commentator does. Direct working experience with the World Bank, European Commission, Asian Development Bank and the UK Treasury review panel, which lets her translate policy direction into commercial implication. A China specialism with academic depth: D.Phil. economics at Oxford, former Visiting Professor of Economics at Peking University, and author of China’s Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower (Oxford University Press). Broadcaster’s instinct for clarity, sharpened by years as Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News and Economics Editor at Bloomberg Television, so the analysis lands with a non-specialist audience. Biography highlights Fellow in Economics, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of Economics, London Business School. CBE for Services to Economics, King’s New Year’s Honours List 2023. Author/editor of 11 books, including The Great Crashes (Penguin Business), selected by the Financial Times as one of the Best New Books in Economics. Non-Executive Director of Rentokil Initial, SEGRO, and Standard Chartered; Chair of Baillie Gifford’s Schiehallion Fund. Former Chief Business Correspondent, BBC News, presenting Talking Business with Linda Yueh; former Economics Editor, Bloomberg Television. Associate Fellow, Chatham House; columnist for The Times, the Financial Times and The New York Times; advisor to the World Economic Forum, World Bank, European Commission and Asian Development Bank. Biography The financial crashes of the past forty years all rhyme. Currency crises in the 1980s, Japan’s housing bust, the dot-com unwind, 2008 and the pandemic each followed a recognisable arc, and in The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them, Linda Yueh sets out a three-step framework that boards and policymakers can use to read the early signals. Penguin Business published it in 2023 and the Financial Times selected it as one of its Best New Books in Economics. The analysis is grounded in serious academic work. Yueh holds a D.Phil. in economics from the University of Oxford, where she is Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, and she is Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School. Her earlier book The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today was named one of The Times’s Business Books of the Year, and the US edition was a Newsweek Best Book of the Year. China’s Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower was published by Oxford University Press. What separates her from most academic economists is the directness of her commercial vantage point. She sits as a non-executive director on the boards of Rentokil Initial, SEGRO and Standard Chartered, and chairs Baillie Gifford’s Schiehallion Fund Ltd. She has advised the World Bank, the European Commission, the Asian Development Bank, the World Economic Forum and the UK Treasury review panel, and she is an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. She communicates for a living. As Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News she hosted Talking Business with Linda Yueh, and before that she was Economics Editor at Bloomberg Television. She writes regularly for The Times, the Financial Times and The New York Times. In 2023 she was appointed CBE for Services to Economics. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook and macroeconomic risk Financial crashes and crisis prevention China’s economic rise and US-China-Europe relations Geopolitics, trade and the global rules-based order Currency markets and financial stability Economic ideas and policy innovation Ideal for Board and audit committee sessions on macro risk, capital allocation and crisis preparedness Executive offsites for FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and large privately held firms with material China or emerging-market exposure Investor conferences and asset management forums needing a credible economist on global outlook CFO, treasury and risk leadership audiences working through currency, rate cycle and political risk decisions Audience outcomes A working read on where the global economy is in the cycle and which signals matter for the next twelve to thirty-six months A structured way to think about the early indicators of financial crises, drawn from a published historical framework A clearer view of China’s growth trajectory and the commercial consequences of US, EU and UK policy responses Confidence to take that view back into a board or investment committee and defend it

Why organisations work with Helen Czerski She is an active research physicist inside the climate system, not a commentator on it. Her UCL work on bubbles at the ocean surface sits at the heart of how the atmosphere and ocean exchange heat and carbon, which gives her climate framing a physical basis that reads differently to a board than general sustainability narrative. Blue Machine gives her a defensible thesis audiences can hold onto: the ocean as a single connected engine that drives weather, food, trade and energy. That framing turns abstract climate discussion into something leaders can map to their own exposure. The Institute of Physics awarded her the 2018 Kelvin Medal specifically for translating physics to a mass audience. Few speakers pair that level of academic recognition with a track record on primetime BBC science. She has reached general business and policy audiences as the Wall Street Journal’s “Everyday Physics” columnist and as co-host of BBC Radio 4’s Rare Earth, which means she is used to explaining physics to readers and listeners who did not choose the subject. She treats curiosity as a leadership input. Her Storm in a Teacup thesis, that the rules governing the universe are visible in ordinary objects, lands as a practical argument for how technical organisations should see, question and investigate. Biography highlights Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, leading research on oceanic bubble physics, air-sea gas transfer and bubble acoustics. Natural Sciences (Physics) at Churchill College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD in experimental explosives physics; postdoctoral work at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Author of Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life and Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World (Penguin / W.W. Norton). 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation for Blue Machine. 2018 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for public communication of physics. BBC science presenter across Orbit, Operation Iceberg, Super Senses, Colour: The Spectrum of Science and Sound Waves; co-host of Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4; former “Everyday Physics” columnist at The Wall Street Journal. Biography The ocean is a physical engine that routes most of the planet’s heat, carbon and weather, and it is almost entirely absent from the way boards discuss climate. Helen Czerski’s work at University College London, where she leads research on breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface, sits precisely at the interface where that engine does its work. The research is technical. The implications are strategic. Blue Machine, her 2024 Wainwright Prize-winning book, is the public form of that argument. It treats the ocean as one connected system that moves nutrients, ships, storms and carbon, and explains why every industry with a coastline, a fleet or a climate commitment is already inside it. For leaders wrestling with transition plans, physical risk disclosures or supply chain exposure, Czerski offers a vocabulary that is physical rather than political. Her earlier book, Storm in a Teacup, established the method: start with something visible, coffee stains, popcorn, a magnet on a fridge, and work outward to the physics that governs how the world operates. That method earned her the 2018 Kelvin Medal from the Institute of Physics for public communication, and it carried through ten years of primetime BBC science including Orbit, Operation Iceberg and Super Senses, alongside her “Everyday Physics” column at The Wall Street Journal and co-hosting Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4. What she brings into a room is the rare combination of a working research scientist and a public explainer who has spent a decade translating physics for audiences that did not sign up to hear it. For an organisation trying to move from sustainability language to physical reality, that translation is the point. Key speaking topics Ocean physics and the climate system The ocean economy and physical risk Science of the energy transition Everyday physics for decision-makers Curiosity and scientific thinking in organisations Communicating technical complexity to non-technical audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, sustainability or transition strategy Energy, shipping, insurance and infrastructure leaders exposed to ocean and weather systems CTOs, heads of R&D and engineering leaders investing in technical capability Conferences where a serious science keynote needs to land with a mixed commercial audience Audience outcomes A working mental model of the ocean as a single physical system that connects weather, carbon, food and trade A sharper read on where climate and transition narratives rest on solid physics and where they do not Language for talking about physical risk and scientific uncertainty without defaulting to jargon or slogans A renewed case for curiosity as a disciplined practice inside technical and commercial teams

Why organisations work with Hannah Fry Hello World (2018) advances a specific governance argument: that AI fails not because the technology is wrong, but because accountability was poorly designed. That gives boards a working framework for AI governance, not just a sharper awareness of risk. Her UCL research was applied directly – she worked with governments, police forces, health analysts, and supermarkets, translating mathematical models of human behaviour into operational decisions. That applied track record is what separates her algorithmic analysis from academic commentary. The accuracy-versus-fairness trade-off in predictive systems is a mathematical problem before it is an ethical one. She can explain it precisely enough for legal, compliance, and strategy leaders to translate it into governance decisions – not just for data teams. She holds Cambridge’s inaugural Professorship in the Public Understanding of Mathematics – a chair that formalises the argument that making quantitative thinking accessible to non-specialists is itself a research discipline. As President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, her institutional credibility extends well beyond media profile. Biography highlights First Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge (from January 2025), joining the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Previously Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis; research applied to urban crime, transport, health analysis, and terrorism, with direct advisory roles across government and industry Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (elected 2022) and Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications Author of Hello World: How to Be Human in the Age of the Machine (2018) – winner of the 2020 Asimov Prize; shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Royal Society Science Book Prize Christopher Zeeman Medal (2018) and Royal Society David Attenborough Award (2024) for contributions to science communication Delivered the 2019 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures – only the fourth mathematician to do so since Michael Faraday established the series in 1825 BBC presenter across AI Confidential with Hannah Fry (2026), The Secret Genius of Modern Life (BBC Two), and Bloomberg Originals’ The Future with Hannah Fry (2023); regular contributor to The New Yorker; TED Talk «The Mathematics of Love» has exceeded five million views Biography Hannah Fry spent over a decade at UCL studying the mathematics of cities – how people move through urban space, where crime clusters, how disease propagates through populations. Her research was applied: she worked directly with governments, police forces, health analysts, and supermarkets. The question she returned to consistently was what happens when those decisions are automated, and whether the automation can be trusted. Her book Hello World (2018) answered that question with precision. Algorithms are not objective – they encode the biases embedded in the data they were trained on, often before anyone noticed. The response, she argued, is not to distrust AI but to design governance that keeps humans genuinely in the loop. She called this the «cyborg future» – a practical framework for accountability, not a metaphor. The book won the 2020 Asimov Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Royal Society Science Book Prize. In January 2025, she became Cambridge’s first Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics, following in the footsteps of David Spiegelhalter and Stephen Hawking as a public interpreter of the discipline. She also serves as President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and holds a Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Her media work extends the argument across audiences that no academic publication reaches. BBC Two’s AI Confidential with Hannah Fry (2026) investigated how AI is reshaping human relationships and institutional decisions. The Secret Genius of Modern Life ran over two BBC Two series. She delivered the 2019 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures – only the fourth mathematician in the lectures’ 200-year history to do so – and writes regularly for The New Yorker. For leadership teams moving from AI adoption to AI accountability, that combination of mathematical rigour and public clarity is not a communications asset. It is the substance of what she brings. Key speaking topics AI and algorithmic decision-making Data bias and algorithmic fairness Human-machine governance Risk and probability in complex systems The mathematics of human behaviour Urban data and city systems Science communication and mathematical literacy Ideal for Executive and board-level audiences setting AI governance and risk policy Chief Data Officers, Chief Technology Officers, and senior technology strategy teams Leadership conferences addressing responsible AI adoption in regulated industries – healthcare, financial services, criminal justice Public sector audiences navigating the use of predictive and automated systems Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how algorithmic bias is produced and why it is mathematically difficult to eliminate without deliberate trade-offs A practical mental model – drawn from the Hello World framework – for when to trust algorithmic output and when to retain human judgment Confidence to engage substantively with AI governance questions without requiring deep technical knowledge Greater ability to interrogate the assumptions behind data-driven outputs, rather than treating them as authoritative A vocabulary for discussing AI risk that is precise and usable in board-level and policy conversations

Why organisations work with Haiyan Wang A research-grounded view on the China and India axis from a co-founder of the China India Institute, built on three decades of work on global strategy with Anil K. Gupta. Authority drawn from a 200-corporation study underpinning The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition) and the Axiom Award-winning Getting China and India Right. A serious counter-position to the standard “deglobalisation” narrative: the argument that trade is shifting toward data, IP and services rather than retreating, sharpened in her 2024 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame work. Translates emerging-market signals into board-level capital, supply chain and market-entry choices, not country-trend commentary. Recognised by named bodies that buyers trust: Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee (2024), Thinkers50-ranked thinker, Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize. Biography highlights Managing Partner and co-founder, China India Institute, Washington DC Adjunct Professor of Strategy, INSEAD 2024 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee (with Anil K. Gupta) Co-author of The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition), Getting China and India Right (Axiom Awards Silver Prize, 2009) and The Silk Road Rediscovered Regular columnist for Bloomberg Businessweek, blogger for Harvard Business Review, with bylined pieces in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Wired, China Daily, Times of India and South China Morning Post Holds graduate degrees from the University of International Business and Economics (China) and the University of Maryland at College Park Biography The cheap-globalisation era is over, but globalisation itself is not. That is the working thesis behind the China India Institute, the Washington DC research and advisory firm Haiyan Wang co-founded and runs as Managing Partner. Her argument, developed across three decades with Anil K. Gupta, is that the flow of physical goods is plateauing while the flow of data, intellectual property and services is accelerating. Boards that read the first signal without the second are making the wrong calls on capital allocation and footprint. The argument is anchored in a long-running research programme on global strategy, including a study of more than 200 corporations that underpins The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition), co-authored with Gupta and Vijay Govindarajan. Getting China and India Right took the Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize for globalisation and international business in 2009. The Silk Road Rediscovered, written with Gupta and Girija Pande, examines how Indian and Chinese companies are using each other’s markets, a question most Western firms still treat as separate problems. Wang’s standing is recognised by the bodies senior buyers actually weigh. She and Gupta were inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2024, after appearing in the Thinkers50 ranking (most recently cited at #25 in 2021) and being shortlisted for Thinkers50 awards. She has held an Adjunct Professor of Strategy role at INSEAD and writes regularly for Bloomberg Businessweek and Harvard Business Review, with bylined commentary in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Times of India and the South China Morning Post. For a senior team trying to set a five-year stance on China, India and the next layer of emerging markets, the value is concrete: a credible read on which parts of globalisation are stalling, which are intensifying, and where that leaves a specific company’s growth and risk decisions. Key speaking topics Globalisation in a phase change China and India as strategic markets Emerging-market diverging futures Multinational strategy and global presence Global mindset for senior leadership Geopolitics and the rules-based economy Long-range scenario thinking on global trade Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors setting multi-year China and India exposure Heads of strategy, corporate development and M&A in multinationals Risk committees and supply chain leaders reassessing globalisation assumptions Investor and asset-management forums on emerging markets and capital allocation Audience outcomes A clear read on which parts of globalisation are retreating and which are intensifying A defensible frame for board-level decisions on China, India and other emerging markets A working view of where data, IP and services flows are creating new commercial ground A sharper test for capital allocation and footprint choices under geopolitical pressure Reference points from the long China India Institute research programme that buyers can use in their own strategy reviews

Why organisations work with Gillian Tett Her track record on the 2008 crisis is specific and verifiable: she conducted ethnographic research into JPMorgan’s banking culture from 2005 to 2007, published FT warnings about derivative risk before the crash, and documented the analysis in Fool’s Gold – giving organisations a concrete, tested basis for trusting her read of current systemic risk. The Anthro-Vision framework translates anthropological field methods into a practical leadership tool: a way to surface the unstated assumptions, classification systems, and cultural dynamics that standard data analysis cannot reach. The Silo Effect provides boards with a specific diagnostic – that the most dangerous organisational failure modes are cultural, not structural – and a set of case-studied arguments for why addressing them requires a different kind of analysis than process redesign. As co-founder of FT Moral Money, she has tracked the ESG movement from its earliest institutional phase, giving her a longitudinal perspective on how sustainability commitments become financial and reputational risk that few analysts or advisers can match. Her simultaneous role as an active FT journalist and Provost of King’s College Cambridge produces a form of authority that is genuinely rare: live market intelligence, editorial independence, and academic standing, without advisory-firm positioning. Biography highlights 45th Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, since October 2023 FT editorial board member and weekly columnist; former US managing editor (2013-2019) and former Chair of the FT US Editorial Board Co-founder, FT Moral Money newsletter Author of four books: Fool’s Gold (New York Times bestseller), The Silo Effect, Anthro-Vision (Porchlight best business book award; Columbia Business School Eccles prize), and Saving the Sun PhD in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge Awards: Wincott Prize for financial journalism (2007); British Press Awards – Business Journalist of the Year (2008), Journalist of the Year (2009), Columnist of the Year (2014); British Academy President’s Medal (2011); American Anthropological Association President’s Medal (2022); OBE for services to journalism (2024) Chair of the board of trustees, Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program in Economics and Business Journalism, Columbia University Biography Gillian Tett has spent thirty years at the Financial Times covering global markets. What she found, consistently, is that what moves them is cultural as much as numerical. The forces shaping systemic risk – tribal behaviour, unspoken institutional assumptions, rigid classification systems – are largely invisible in standard economic analysis. Her most verifiable proof point came before the 2008 financial crisis. From 2005 to 2007, she studied JPMorgan’s banking culture ethnographically and published FT warnings about the systemic risks of credit derivatives – risks that most economists and regulators had not yet identified. Fool’s Gold – a New York Times bestseller – documented that analysis and became one of the definitive accounts of how cultural insularity inside banking created the conditions for the crash. Her subsequent books formalised the method. The Silo Effect showed how cultural classification systems – not just structural inefficiencies – create the organisational blindness that precedes major strategic failures. Anthro-Vision – winner of the Porchlight best business book award and the Columbia Business School Eccles prize – translated this into a practical framework for applying anthropological field methods to business, markets, and geopolitical risk. Her current position is what makes her singular. As the 45th Provost of King’s College Cambridge and an active FT columnist, she reports on markets while leading one of the world’s most significant academic institutions. She co-founded FT Moral Money and holds the OBE for services to journalism. Key speaking topics Global economic risk and geopolitical uncertainty Financial markets and systemic risk Anthropological analysis in business and strategy Organisational silos and decision-making failure ESG and sustainable finance Political tribalism and social change Cultural dynamics of markets and institutions Ideal for Board directors and C-suite executives navigating economic and geopolitical uncertainty CFOs, CROs, and investment audiences requiring independent analysis of financial market dynamics CHROs and transformation leads addressing structural silos, organisational culture, and decision-making quality Policy, government, and public sector leaders facing complex political and economic risk Audience outcomes A framework for identifying the cultural assumptions and social dynamics that standard economic analysis tends to miss A clearer perspective on how organisational silos and cultural classification systems create the blindness that precedes strategic and financial failure Practical insight into how anthropological methods can be applied to risk assessment, market analysis, and organisational decision-making A grounded, independent reading of current global economic forces and geopolitical shifts, drawn from active FT journalism A reframing of ESG as a systemic risk discipline rather than a reputational management exercise