Risk Management

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

Why organisations work with Andreas Clenow He runs the strategies he teaches. ACIES is a working asset manager, not a consulting front. What audiences hear has been tested with real capital, not on a backtest deck. His books, Following the Trend, Stocks on the Move, and Trading Evolved, are reference texts on the CMT curriculum and inside multiple quant shops. Few practitioners can claim that level of influence on the field. He explains systematic investing in plain language that family offices, boards, and fintech founders can act on, without diluting the maths. He has done the operator’s job alongside the trader’s job: hedge fund co-founder, board member, fintech investor, former Reuters Global Head of quant analytics. He understands the business of asset management, not only the modelling. Biography highlights Chief Investment Officer and partner, ACIES Asset Management AG, Zurich Former Global Head of Equity and Commodity Quantitative Research, Reuters Author of Following the Trend (Wiley, 2012; 2nd edition 2022), Stocks on the Move (2015) and Trading Evolved (2019) Author of A Most Private Bank, a novel set inside Swiss private banking MSc Economics, School of Economics, Gothenburg University Keynote speaker at QuantCon NYC, QuantCon Singapore, Bloomberg events, and CMT Association programmes Biography Trend-following used to be a black box that institutional investors paid hedge funds to operate without ever seeing inside. Following the Trend, published by Wiley in 2012, opened the box. The book showed that the diversified managed futures industry runs on a small set of repeatable rules, and it remains a working reference inside CTA shops more than a decade later. Andreas Clenow wrote it as a working practitioner, not a commentator. He is Chief Investment Officer and partner at ACIES Asset Management AG in Zurich, having previously run global equity and commodity quantitative research at Reuters and co-founded hedge funds on both onshore and offshore structures. His follow-up books, Stocks on the Move on equity momentum and Trading Evolved on building strategies in Python, are now standard reading on the Chartered Market Technician programme and inside many quant teams. His argument with audiences is consistent. Most underperformance in capital allocation comes from discretion dressed up as analysis. The remedy is not more analysts. It is a rules-based process, tested across decades of data, with explicit risk budgets and an honest account of what the strategy will and will not do. That argument lands particularly well with family offices, boards of investment committees, and fintech founders trying to build scalable trading businesses, because Clenow has lived each of those roles. He has founded and sold companies, sat on boards, raised seed capital for a hedge fund, and managed institutional money through more than one cycle. The talks reflect that range: systematic investing, the economics of running a quant fund, and what separates a professional desk from a retail operation. Key speaking topics Systematic trend-following and managed futures Equity momentum strategies Quantitative trading and model design Asset management for family offices The business of running a hedge fund Risk budgeting and capital allocation under volatility Python and the modern quant stack Ideal for Family office principals, CIOs and investment committees Asset management and hedge fund leadership teams Fintech founders building systematic trading or wealth platforms Bank and brokerage quant and risk leadership Audience outcomes A clear view of how diversified trend-following actually works as a portfolio strategy, not as marketing language A working test for whether an internal strategy is systematic or discretion in a spreadsheet A realistic picture of the economics of running a quant fund: returns, drawdowns, capacity, and infrastructure Sharper questions to ask managers, vendors and internal teams about model risk and capital deployment

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

Why organisations work with Andrew Hessel He is one of a small group of people actually running a human-genome-scale project. Co-founding Genome Project-write with George Church and Jef Boeke gives him a direct line of sight into what will be technically and commercially real in the next ten years, not a commentator’s view. He has built companies in this space, not just written about it. Miikana Therapeutics, Pink Army Cooperative and Humane Genomics each tested a different commercial model for synthetic biology, which is what boards want when they are sizing their own exposure. His Autodesk work made the abstract concrete. The phiX174 genome his team synthesised sits in the Museum of Modern Art’s collection, which is a useful anchor for a room that has not yet understood that genomes can be printed. The Genesis Machine, co-authored with Amy Webb, gives leadership teams a shared reference point. It was named a New Yorker Best Book of 2022 and is already on the reading lists of strategy and R and D functions thinking through biotech platform bets. He speaks to risk as fluently as opportunity. Biosecurity, governance and dual-use are part of his core argument, which matters for regulated industries and for any board that has to sign off on a biology-forward strategy. Biography highlights Co-founder, Genome Project-write (GP-write), the international effort to engineer large genomes including the human genome, launched in 2016 with George Church, Jef Boeke and Nancy J. Kelley. Co-founder and President, Humane Genomics, a synthetic-virus cancer therapeutics company based in New York. Distinguished Researcher, Autodesk Bio/Nano Programmable Matter group, 2012 to 2018; led the synthesis of bacteriophage phiX174, a print of which entered the Museum of Modern Art’s collection. Founding faculty and former co-chair of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Singularity University. Co-author with Amy Webb of The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology (PublicAffairs, 2022), a New Yorker Best Book of 2022. AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador, 2015; contributor to Scientific American. Biography Genome Project-write launched in 2016 with a plan to engineer genomes at the scale of the human genome. Hessel co-founded it with Harvard geneticist George Church, NYU’s Jef Boeke, and Nancy J. Kelley, after a period advocating that biology needed an equivalent to the software industry’s write phase, not just the read phase delivered by the original Human Genome Project. That framing runs through his career. As Distinguished Researcher at Autodesk from 2012 to 2018, he led the team that designed and printed the bacteriophage phiX174 genome in three weeks for roughly a thousand dollars, a demonstration that biology had become a design discipline. A copy of that print entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Before Autodesk he was founding faculty at Singularity University, where he built and co-chaired the Bioinformatics and Biotechnology track. He is also an operator. He co-founded Miikana Therapeutics in 2002, launched Pink Army Cooperative in 2009 as an open-source biotech experiment in personalised cancer therapy, and co-founded Humane Genomics in 2017 to develop synthetic oncolytic viruses, starting with a veterinary indication before moving to human oncology. Each company is a different bet on how synthetic biology gets to market. His 2022 book with futurist Amy Webb, The Genesis Machine, is the clearest articulation of his argument: synthetic biology is on the same kind of curve that digital computing was in the 1970s, with the same mix of platform opportunities and governance risks. The book was named a New Yorker Best Book of 2022 and is widely used by strategy teams trying to build a common vocabulary for biotech decisions. He was named an AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador in 2015 and contributes to Scientific American. Key speaking topics Synthetic biology and the future of medicine Programmable genomes and the write phase of biotechnology Biosecurity and governance of engineering biology Personalised and precision cancer therapies Platform economics of bioengineering Convergence of AI, software and biology Ideal for Pharma, biotech and medtech boards sizing long-horizon platform bets CTOs, Chief Scientific Officers and heads of R and D in regulated industries Insurance, agriculture, food and materials leaders exposed to biological innovation Strategy and foresight teams building scenarios for the next decade of life sciences Audience outcomes A working model of synthetic biology as an industrial platform, not a research topic A clearer read on which biology-driven shifts are near-term commercial and which are still speculative Named examples of where programmable biology is already changing medicine, agriculture and materials A sharper view of the biosecurity and governance questions that sit alongside the commercial upside Language and reference points leadership teams can use to brief their own boards

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

Why organisations work with Andrew Verity He is the reporter who broke the evidence of central bank involvement in LIBOR rate-rigging on Panorama and in the Radio 4 podcast The Lowball Tapes, and then laid out the full case in his book Rigged. Few speakers in this field can claim that level of original work on a scandal they covered end to end. As BBC Economics Correspondent he explains interest rates, inflation and growth on air to a national audience every week. That training shows up on stage: dense economic material rendered in language a board can use. His investigative track record, from The Truth About Property ahead of the 2008 housing crash to on-the-ground reporting on money laundering in Ukraine, gives him a sharper instinct than most commentators for where institutional risk is actually building. He is a practised live broadcaster, which makes him a natural moderator and interviewer at internal leadership events, client summits and regulated-industry conferences where the stakes of the conversation are high. For financial services, risk and compliance audiences in particular, he offers a perspective that is informed by named regulators, named trials and named evidence, not generic commentary. Biography highlights Economics Correspondent, BBC News, reporting across television, radio and online since 2014. Author of Rigged (The History Press, 2023), a detailed account of the LIBOR scandal serialised in The Times. Presenter of The Lowball Tapes, the 2022 BBC Radio 4 investigative podcast series shortlisted for the British Journalism Awards and the Foreign Press Association Awards. Reporter and presenter for Panorama, including the investigation into the Bank of England’s role in LIBOR rate-rigging, with further contributions to Newsnight and File on Four. Former host of Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live for eight years, a daily programme on markets, the economy and personal finance. Previously Personal Finance Correspondent at The Independent, recognised with industry awards for personal finance journalism and broadcasting. Biography The LIBOR scandal was presented to the public as a story about rogue traders. The evidence Andrew Verity assembled, on Panorama, in The Lowball Tapes and then in his book Rigged, tells a different story about the role of central banks and the safety of the convictions that followed. That body of work is why senior financial audiences take him seriously when he speaks about misconduct, regulation and market structure. His day job is to translate macroeconomics for a national audience. As BBC Economics Correspondent since 2014 he has covered Brexit, the pandemic shock and post-pandemic inflation across television, radio and online. The discipline of explaining a rate decision or an inflation print in clear language, live, week after week, is what makes him effective in front of a leadership team. The investigative thread runs through the rest of his career. He presented BBC Two’s The Truth About Property before the 2008 housing crash, hosted Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live for eight years, and has reported from Ukraine on suspected money laundering. His book Rigged, published by The History Press in 2023 and serialised in The Times, has since been optioned for television. For boards, risk committees and regulated-industry audiences, the practical value is specific. He can moderate a results conference, interview a chief executive on the record, or deliver a keynote that takes the latest central bank move and shows what it changes for the people in the room. Key speaking topics The LIBOR scandal and financial misconduct Inflation, interest rates and monetary policy UK and global economic outlook Regulation and enforcement in financial services Investigative journalism and corporate accountability Housing, property markets and household finance Economics event moderation and on-stage interviewing Ideal for Financial services, banking and asset management leadership events Risk, compliance and internal audit conferences in regulated industries Board and executive offsites seeking a clear read on the macro environment Corporate and client summits needing a senior broadcast-grade moderator or interviewer Audience outcomes A clearer read on where inflation, interest rates and growth are heading and what actually drives the next move. A grounded view of the LIBOR scandal from the journalist who reported the cover-up, with direct relevance to conduct and culture questions today. A sharper sense of where regulatory and reputational risk tends to build inside large financial institutions. Confidence that the on-stage conversation with their own leaders or guests will be handled with the discipline of a live BBC broadcast.

Why organisations work with Anthony Hilton Five decades inside the City press, from trainee on The Guardian in 1968 to City Editor of The Times and the Evening Standard, give audiences a working memory of how UK financial crises, regulatory shifts and market cycles actually play out. A named position of record. As Senior Commentator for The Independent and The Standard his arguments on markets, pensions and the economy are already in public circulation, so organisations get a writer whose views are testable. Specific authority on pensions and long-term savings, an area he has covered as a weekly columnist for more than 30 years and on which he has been singled out by UK pensions industry awards. A track record of calling the 2008 crash, recognised by the University of Aberdeen with an honorary degree in 2010 for articles from 2005 to 2007 warning that the financial system was heading for trouble. Deep fluency in corporate and financial communication, drawn from his book How to Communicate Financial Information to Employees and a career running the editorial operation at the Evening Standard as Managing Director. Biography highlights Senior Commentator for The Independent and The London Standard, writing on markets, pensions, investor relations and the economy. Former City Editor of The Times (1981 to 1983) and City Editor of the Evening Standard (1984 to 1989), then Managing Director of the Evening Standard from 1989. Author of City Within a State: A Portrait of Britain’s Financial World, a study of how the City of London really works. Wincott Prize for Business Journalism; Business Journalist of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Financial Journalism at the 2014 ABI Financial Media Awards; Association of British Insurers Commentator of the Year (twice); Decade of Excellence Award, World Press Awards, 2007. Honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen, 2010, for services to journalism, including articles from 2005 to 2007 predicting the financial crash; MA in Economics, University of Aberdeen. Joint founder and past non-executive chairman of Newsdesk Media Group; Visiting Professor in Economics at London Metropolitan University, 2010 to 2012; former Editor of Accountancy Age. Biography The 1970s sterling story, the 1980s Big Bang, the dotcom crash, the 2008 banking collapse and the pensions and inflation shocks since: the same journalist has covered them in real time for a general reader, inside the British national press. That continuity is unusual, and it is the reason senior audiences listen when Anthony Hilton explains what is happening in the City. He joined Fleet Street in 1968 as a trainee on The Guardian, moved to New York in 1978 as Business Correspondent for the Sunday Times, and returned in 1981 to become City Editor of The Times. From 1984 he was City Editor of the Evening Standard, then its Managing Director from 1989, before returning to writing. He is now Senior Commentator for The Independent and The London Standard. The published argument is the other half of the case. City Within a State set out how the City of London actually works as a system of firms, regulators and capital flows. How to Communicate Financial Information to Employees codified what he has observed boards and finance chiefs get wrong when talking about money to their own people. His weekly columns on pensions, investor relations and the economic outlook have run for more than 30 years. The recognition is from bodies that matter in the field. The Wincott Prize for Business Journalism, Business Journalist of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Financial Journalism at the 2014 ABI Financial Media Awards, and Commentator of the Year from the Association of British Insurers, twice. The University of Aberdeen awarded him an honorary degree in 2010 in recognition of columns from 2005 to 2007 that warned the financial system was heading for serious trouble. Key speaking topics UK economic outlook and policy City of London, markets and investor relations Pensions, long-term savings and retirement policy Corporate governance and financial communication Financial journalism and the media view of business Economic history and lessons from past UK financial crises Ideal for Boards and CEOs in financial services, asset management, insurance and pensions needing an informed macro and markets read CFOs, heads of investor relations and corporate communications teams preparing for scrutiny from the City press Pensions trustees, scheme sponsors and providers running strategy or member communication programmes Conferences and industry dinners needing a senior City commentator as host, moderator or after-dinner speaker Audience outcomes A clearer read on how UK economic policy, Bank of England decisions and market conditions intersect with their own sector A working columnist’s view on how the City press is interpreting their industry and their company Named historical reference points for making sense of current market and pensions stress A sharper frame on pensions and long-term savings policy for employers and trustees An argument on where the UK economy is heading and what that implies for strategy and communication

Why organisations work with Araceli Segarra A first-hand account of the 1996 Everest disaster from inside the rescue effort, used as a case study in how teams hold together when conditions, command, and information all degrade at once. A career of high-altitude expeditions on K2, Kangchenjunga, Nanga Parbat, and Broad Peak, which gives her authority on prepared decision-making that almost no corporate speaker can claim. The first Spanish woman to summit Everest and to complete the Seven Summits, filmed for the IMAX Everest documentary, which gives the work cultural reach without leaning on celebrity framing. Sessions delivered in English, Spanish, or Catalan, useful for multinational leadership offsites where a single speaker needs to land across language groups. Biography highlights First Spanish woman to summit Mount Everest, 1996, on the expedition filmed for the IMAX documentary Everest by David Breashears. Member of the rescue team during the May 1996 Mount Everest disaster, the deadliest single event on the mountain at the time. Summits include K2, Kangchenjunga, Nanga Parbat, Broad Peak, Shishapangma, and a solo of Ama Dablam. Established new climbing routes in Oman, Iran, and Mali; technical climbs include El Capitan in Yosemite and Pomme d’Or in Canada. Author of Not That High and Not That Difficult, applying mountaineering decision frameworks to business, and the children’s series Los Viajes de Tina. Regular broadcast presenter on Catalan Radio and Barcelona’s Radio 1. Biography The 1996 Everest disaster killed eight climbers in a single afternoon. The IMAX expedition filming on the mountain that season included a climber called Araceli Segarra, who put down her oxygen and went into the rescue. She is credited with marking a helicopter landing zone with an X of red Kool-Aid powder, because at altitude the obvious solutions are usually the ones that work. That episode is the spine of the work she does with leadership teams. The substance is not the summit. It is what teams do when conditions collapse, when the chain of command is fragmented, and when the original plan is no longer a useful instruction set. She returns to the question of how a group of people who depend on each other under load make and revise decisions in real time. The technical record gives the argument weight. Segarra has climbed K2, Kangchenjunga, Nanga Parbat, and Broad Peak, soloed Ama Dablam, and opened new routes in Oman, Iran, and Mali. She is the first Spanish woman to summit Everest and to complete the Seven Summits. The credentials are not framing; they are the source of her position on preparation, role clarity, and the discipline of turning back. She has written Not That High and Not That Difficult, applying climbing decision frameworks to business, and a children’s book series, and she presents on Catalan Radio and Barcelona’s Radio 1. The leadership work draws on a body of named expeditions, a documented disaster, and a track record of technical climbing that almost no business speaker can match. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure and incomplete information Team behaviour when plans fail Leadership of small, high-dependency teams Risk assessment and the discipline of turning back Trust and shared responsibility in interdependent teams Resilience and composure under sustained pressure Expedition planning and execution Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards entering restructure, crisis, or strategic reset Senior and operational leaders responsible for high-stakes, low-margin-for-error environments Leadership offsites focused on team performance and decision-making under pressure Organisations working to strengthen trust and accountability inside interdependent teams International conferences and offsites delivered in English, Spanish, or Catalan Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a real team made decisions inside the 1996 Everest disaster, usable as a reference case for crisis behaviour Principles for risk assessment and the willingness to abandon a goal that is no longer survivable The behaviours that hold small interdependent teams together under load, and the ones that break them Sharper decision-making when information is incomplete and conditions are changing fast A renewed respect for the unglamorous preparation that decides whether a team holds when conditions degrade

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

Why organisations work with Ben Owen He has spent more than two decades on the operational side of intelligence, from sniper duties in Iraq to leading covert teams against counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage targets. Few cyber speakers can speak from that side of the line. He runs live OSINT demonstrations from the stage, exposing what an attacker can assemble about a named executive in minutes. Audiences leave with a visceral understanding of their own exposure, not a slide on the threat landscape. As co-founder of The OSINT Group and Co-Director EMEA for Fortalice Solutions, he advises corporates and high net worth principals on digital risk every week. The keynote content is drawn from current casework, not historical anecdote. His Hunted profile gives him cultural reach that board members already recognise, which lowers the resistance non-technical executives bring to cyber conversations. Biography highlights Co-founder, The OSINT Group, an intelligence-led cyber security consultancy. Co-Director, EMEA Region, Fortalice Solutions, the global cyber and intelligence firm founded by former White House CIO Theresa Payton. Former British intelligence officer, with operational experience in counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage. Former sniper in the British Forces, deployed to Cyprus, Kuwait, and Iraq. Lead hunter and Head of Intelligence across the UK, US, and Australian versions of Hunted (Channel 4, CBS, Channel 10). Quoted by The National and Transport + Energy on online fraud and EV charging cyber risk. Biography The attack surface that matters to senior leaders is no longer the corporate firewall. It is the LinkedIn post that confirms a travel date, the loyalty programme that leaks an address, the family member whose social profile fills in the gap. Adversaries assemble these fragments into a picture. Most boards have never been shown that picture. Ben Owen has spent his career on the other side of it. He served as a sniper in the British Forces in Cyprus, Kuwait, and Iraq, then moved into the British intelligence services, where he led covert teams running counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, and counter-espionage operations. Twenty-five years of operational work sits behind the keynote. He now co-runs The OSINT Group, an intelligence-led cyber consultancy, and serves as Co-Director EMEA at Fortalice Solutions, the firm founded by former White House CIO Theresa Payton. Current client work, on high net worth principals, corporate executives, and institutional risk, supplies the material for his speaking. Television audiences know him as a recurring hunter across the UK, US, and Australian versions of Hunted; corporate audiences see the same skill set turned on their own organisation. On stage he runs live demonstrations. A volunteer’s name and employer are usually enough to build a profile in front of the room. The point is not theatre. It is to compress the gap between abstract cyber briefings and the operational reality a board now has to govern. Key speaking topics Cyber security as a board-level risk Open-source intelligence and digital footprint exposure The human element of modern cyber threats Executive and principal protection in a digital environment Counter-fraud and social engineering Operational leadership under pressure Surveillance, evasion, and the Hunted methodology Ideal for Boards, CISOs, and CROs commissioning a non-technical reset on cyber risk Executive offboarding, principal protection, and family office audiences Sales kick-offs and client events where a recognisable name needs to land a serious message Industry conferences on financial services, energy, transport, and professional services Audience outcomes A working picture of what a determined adversary can learn about a named executive from open sources alone Specific changes to personal digital hygiene that materially reduce exposure within a week A vocabulary for boards to interrogate their cyber and intelligence functions without retreating into IT jargon A sharper sense of where social engineering and OSINT meet, and why the human layer is now the primary breach vector

Why organisations work with Benedikt Böhm A working CEO, not a retired one. He runs an international outdoor brand and continues to ski 8,000-metre peaks, so the leadership material is current and tested, not memoir. A documented record in the most unforgiving operating environment in sport. Speed ascents of Muztagata, Gasherbrum II and Manaslu without oxygen are public, verifiable proof points for the arguments he makes about preparation, role clarity and team recovery. A peer-reviewed intellectual platform. His Routledge book with ESSEC professor Stefan Gröschl frames the work as leadership scholarship, which gives the content credibility with HR, executive development and L&D buyers who screen out motivational content. A live test case for sustainability as commercial strategy. The DYNAFIT lifetime guarantee and the Helping Band WWF partnership are operating decisions, not communications. Survivor and rescuer in the 2012 Manaslu avalanche. The account of decision-making in and after that event is one of the few first-hand executive narratives of catastrophic shock and sustained recovery. Biography highlights International Managing Director of DYNAFIT, the ski-touring brand he led from insolvency in 2003 to global category leadership. Co-author with Professor Stefan Gröschl of ESSEC Business School of “From the Death Zone to the Boardroom” (Routledge, 2019). Speed records on Muztagata (7,546m, 2005) and Gasherbrum II (8,035m, 2006) with Sebastian Haag; speed ascent and ski descent of Manaslu (8,163m, 2012) without supplemental oxygen. WWF Foundation ambassador for the Himalaya region and snow leopards. Founder of Helping Band, a wristband initiative committing approximately 60,000 euros per year to WWF. Former member of the German national ski mountaineering team. Biography DYNAFIT was effectively insolvent when Benedikt Böhm joined its marketing team in 2003. Two decades later the brand is the international category leader in ski touring, with a lifetime product guarantee and an institutional partnership with WWF that he built personally. The arc is unusual because it has been run in parallel with an active expedition career at 8,000 metres. That second career is the source of his leadership material. Speed ascents of Muztagata, Gasherbrum II and Manaslu without supplemental oxygen require a precision of role allocation, recovery management and judgement under hypoxia that ordinary corporate planning does not test for. Böhm has spent twenty years moving between the two settings, and the comparison is what makes the work substantive. His 2019 book with ESSEC professor Stefan Gröschl, “From the Death Zone to the Boardroom,” published by Routledge, is the formal statement of that work. The book sits deliberately outside the usual business-and-management canon, drawing on research into fear, pain, suffering and failure to argue that conventional models of executive resilience are too clean to describe how senior leaders actually behave under sustained pressure. The 2012 Manaslu avalanche, which killed eleven climbers and which Böhm and his climbing partner survived and helped rescue from, anchors much of the recovery and decision-making content. It is the rare case where the speaker has lived the catastrophic-shock material he discusses, and continued, after a deliberate pause, to operate at the same altitude and at the head of the same company. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under extreme uncertainty Resilience and recovery after operational shock Team performance in high-stakes environments Risk management and the discipline of preparation Sustainability as commercial strategy Change leadership and organisational reinvention Personal performance and self-leadership at executive level Ideal for Executive committees and boards rebuilding after restructure, crisis or sustained pressure CHROs and heads of executive development designing leadership programmes with substance under the keynote CEOs and senior commercial leaders wrestling with sustainability as an operating decision rather than a communications line Senior teams preparing for major change, market entry or expedition-style strategic bets Audience outcomes A language for separating preparation, role discipline and recovery as three distinct leadership capabilities rather than one blurred idea of “resilience” A clearer view of how senior teams should behave in the first hours and days after a serious operational shock A working example of a CEO who has run sustainability as a product decision, not as a marketing position A grounded counterweight to motivational adventure content, with named expeditions, named outcomes and a named peer-reviewed text behind the argument

Why organisations work with Bernie Collins She ran race strategy at Aston Martin F1, a role that required committing several hundred engineers to a single decision in under thirty seconds, with the result televised live. Very few speakers have carried that kind of accountability. Her book with Maurice Hamilton, How to Win a Grand Prix, translates the mechanics of F1 decision making into a framework leaders can apply to their own operating rhythm. She brings a working broadcaster’s clarity. As Sky Sports F1’s strategy analyst, she explains complex trade-offs to a lay audience every race weekend, which transfers directly to boardroom and all-hands contexts. Her perspective on diversity in engineering is grounded in her own path through a male-dominated paddock, not in consultancy talking points. She is Irish, plain-spoken, and unafraid to be specific about what went wrong on a given decision. That honesty is rare in sports-adjacent keynotes. Biography highlights Former Head of Race Strategy, Aston Martin F1, 2020 to 2022. Performance and strategy engineer at Force India, Racing Point, and Aston Martin from 2015, working with Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg. Began her F1 career at McLaren in 2009 as a graduate trainee, becoming performance engineer to Jenson Button. Formula 1 strategy analyst for Sky Sports F1 and F1TV. Author of How to Win a Grand Prix: From Pit Lane to Podium with Maurice Hamilton, Quercus, 2024. Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe, Manufacturing and Industry, 2016. Honorary degree from Queen’s University Belfast, 2023. Biography An F1 race strategist has around thirty seconds to recommend a tyre change that commits the team for the rest of the Grand Prix. Bernie Collins spent more than a decade in that seat, ending as Head of Race Strategy at Aston Martin F1, where she called the race at Sergio Perez’s maiden victory at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix. Her route there ran through McLaren, where she arrived as a graduate from Queen’s University Belfast in 2009 and eventually worked trackside with Jenson Button, and then Force India, where she moved into strategy alongside Nico Hulkenberg and Perez. The team rebranded twice while she stayed in the same chair, which gave her an unusual view of how a technical organisation holds its culture together through ownership changes. What makes Collins useful to senior audiences is the structure of the F1 strategy job itself. A pit-wall call blends incomplete telemetry, weather models, competitor behaviour, and driver feedback into a single recommendation, made under time pressure, with the outcome visible on live television within minutes. In How to Win a Grand Prix, her 2024 book with journalist Maurice Hamilton, she sets out how that decision is actually made, and what organisations elsewhere tend to get wrong about it. She now works as Sky Sports F1’s strategy analyst, explaining those decisions in real time to a mass audience. The broadcaster’s discipline, saying what matters in plain language without hedging, carries into her speaking. Queen’s University Belfast awarded her an honorary degree in 2023. Key speaking topics Decision making under time pressure High-performance team culture Strategy in complex, data-rich environments Leadership in distributed technical organisations Women in engineering and motorsport Risk and safety in regulated, high-stakes settings Ideal for Executive leadership teams in fast-moving competitive markets Engineering, technology, and operations organisations Strategy, risk, and transformation functions Conferences on performance, decision making, and team culture Audience outcomes A clearer model of how high-performing teams decide when evidence is incomplete A frank look at what accountability actually feels like when your call is public Specific examples of how F1 teams align hundreds of people on a single decision in seconds A useful perspective on women in technical roles from someone who sat at the top of one