Risk Management speakers

Why organisations work with Pankaj Ghemawat He is the originator of the CAGE Distance Framework, the canonical model for evaluating cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic distance between countries, taught in MBA strategy courses worldwide and used inside boards making market entry decisions. He is principal author of the DHL Global Connectedness Index, the most widely cited empirical measure of cross-border flows of trade, capital, information, and people, which gives leadership teams a defensible reading of the global environment rather than headline narrative. His Law of Semiglobalization gives boards a precise corrective to the assumption that the world is either flat or fracturing, and reframes how to size international ambition against domestic baseline. He holds chairs at IESE Business School and NYU Stern, with 25 years of prior Harvard Business School faculty work, including a McKinsey Award for the best Harvard Business Review article of the year. World 3.0 won the Thinkers50 Book Award for best business book of 2010 to 2011, and The Economist named him among the greatest management thinkers in its 2008 guide. Biography highlights Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE Business School and Global Professor of Management and Strategy at NYU Stern. Director of the Center for the Globalization of Education and Management at NYU Stern. Principal author of the DHL Global Connectedness Index, introduced in 2011. Author of The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications (Cambridge University Press) and World 3.0 (Harvard Business Review Press), winner of the Thinkers50 Book Award. Recipient of the McKinsey Award for best Harvard Business Review article and the Booz Eminent Scholar Award of the Academy of Management’s International Management Division. Named among the greatest management thinkers in The Economist’s 2008 guide and ranked in the Thinkers50. Biography The hardest strategic question in front of most boards is also the one with the weakest data inside the building: how exposed are we to a world that may be fragmenting, and where should we still be investing across borders. Pankaj Ghemawat has spent his career building the empirical apparatus that answers that question. The CAGE Distance Framework, his contribution to global strategy in the 2000s, gave executives a precise way to measure cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic distance between countries. It is now standard material in MBA strategy courses and inside corporate development teams making market entry calls. World 3.0, published by Harvard Business Review Press, won the Thinkers50 Book Award for best business book of 2010 to 2011. His later work, The Laws of Globalization and Business Applications (Cambridge University Press, 2016), formalises two findings drawn from large datasets: international interactions are smaller than domestic ones, and they are dampened by distance along the CAGE dimensions. Boards that internalise both laws stop oscillating between flat-world enthusiasm and deglobalisation panic, and start sizing international ambition against measured reality. He is principal author of the DHL Global Connectedness Index, introduced in 2011 and now the most widely cited empirical measure of trade, capital, information, and people flows across borders. He holds chairs at IESE Business School and NYU Stern, where he directs the Center for the Globalization of Education and Management. Between 1983 and 2008 he was on the full-time faculty at Harvard Business School, where he was made a full professor in 1991, the youngest in the school’s history. Key speaking topics Globalisation and deglobalisation Cross-border strategy and CAGE distance Market entry and emerging markets Geopolitical risk and corporate exposure Supply chain and global value chain restructuring Global Connectedness Index and trade flows International competitive advantage Ideal for Boards and CEOs reviewing international portfolio exposure, China strategy, or sanctions risk Chief Strategy Officers and corporate development teams evaluating market entry or exit Heads of supply chain and operations restructuring after the end of cheap globalisation Senior leadership teams in multinationals setting the next horizon of cross-border investment Audience outcomes A defensible reading of the actual state of globalisation, drawn from the DHL Global Connectedness Index, not headline narrative. The CAGE Distance Framework as a working tool for evaluating country and market decisions. A clear distinction between semiglobalisation and full integration, and what that implies for strategy. Specific implications for boards on China exposure, regional concentration, and supply chain redesign. A sharper internal vocabulary for separating measurable cross-border risk from political mood.

Why organisations work with Paolo Scaroni He has run two of Europe’s largest energy companies, Enel from 2002 to 2005 and Eni from 2005 to 2014, through privatisation, restructuring and the early phase of the energy transition. He brings a working view of natural gas as a transition fuel from inside the boardrooms that bought, sold and shipped it, not from the outside as an analyst. His current chairmanship of Enel and nine years as Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co give him an unusually current read on capital allocation, M&A and governance in the European energy sector. He has sat on the boards of Veolia, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom, Assicurazioni Generali and the London Stock Exchange, which gives him cross-sector reference points few energy speakers can offer. Discussions are pragmatic rather than ideological, useful for boards trying to reconcile net zero commitments with capital, supply and political reality. Biography highlights CEO of Enel from May 2002 to May 2005 and CEO of Eni from 2005 to 2014. Chairman of Enel since May 2023; Chairman of A.C. Milan since July 2018. Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co Group from May 2014 to May 2023. CEO of Pilkington plc in London from 1997 to 2002, leading the turnaround of one of the world’s largest flat glass manufacturers; earlier CEO of Techint from 1985 to 1996. Past non-executive director at Veolia Environment, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom and Assicurazioni Generali; former Vice Chairman of the London Stock Exchange. Cavaliere del Lavoro (2004) and member of the Légion d’honneur (2007); Bocconi graduate and Columbia Business School MBA. Biography European energy is being asked to do three things at once: decarbonise, stay secure and remain affordable. Few executives have made those trade-offs at the scale Paolo Scaroni has. As CEO of Enel from 2002 and then of Eni from 2005 to 2014, he ran Italy’s two largest energy companies through privatisation, restructuring and the first wave of the climate agenda. At Enel he abandoned the multi-utility model and pushed the group back into core energy, set up a dedicated wind business, and brought the company into the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. At Eni he tilted the portfolio away from oil toward natural gas, framing gas as a transition fuel, and the group’s net worth rose from EUR 39 billion to EUR 61 billion over his tenure. Eni was added to the Carbon Performance Leadership Index in 2012. After Eni he spent nine years as Deputy Chairman of Rothschild & Co, advising on European deals across the energy and industrial sectors, before being appointed Chairman of Enel in May 2023. He has chaired A.C. Milan since 2018, including through the club’s 2022 Scudetto and the change of ownership to RedBird Capital. Past non-executive seats at Veolia, BAE Systems, ABN AMRO, Alstom, Assicurazioni Generali and the London Stock Exchange give him a working view of governance across regulated industries. His public position on the energy transition is unusually direct: renewables alone will not get Europe to its CO2 targets, energy efficiency and nuclear have to be part of the answer, and gas is the realistic bridge. That argument carries weight because he had to allocate capital against it, not just write about it. Key speaking topics Energy transition and energy security Geopolitical and regulatory risk in energy markets Natural gas, nuclear and the realistic path to net zero Large-scale transformation in legacy industries Board governance and stakeholder management in regulated sectors Capital allocation in capital-intensive industries European industrial competitiveness Ideal for Boards and executive committees in energy, utilities, industrials and infrastructure CFOs, heads of strategy and corporate development weighing transition capex Investor and lender audiences focused on European energy and industrial credit Senior leadership teams reframing decarbonisation strategy against geopolitical risk Audience outcomes A grounded read on where European energy security and the transition timetable actually meet. A sharper view of how natural gas, nuclear and renewables fit together in a credible decarbonisation plan. Boardroom-tested judgement on geopolitical and regulatory risk in capital-intensive industries. A reference frame from someone who has chaired and run companies on both sides of the energy table.

Why organisations work with Paolo Surico He has shown, using household and firm micro-data, that most of the consumption response to interest rates comes from mortgaged households, which is the single most useful framing for any business modelling consumer demand under a rate cycle. His American Economic Review paper on the long-run effects of government spending was cited in the UK Chancellor’s Spring Statement, which is rare evidence that academic work has moved actual fiscal policy. His advisory portfolio with the Bank of England, European Central Bank, European Commission, and Financial Conduct Authority means he reads central bank communications from the inside, not as a commentator. His ESRC GBP 1 million grant and ERC Starting Grant put him in the top tier of European macroeconomists by independent funder validation. He translates technical macro into language a non-economist board can use, which is the reason financial services and professional services firms book him repeatedly. Biography highlights Professor of Economics, London Business School Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research; Research Associate, LSE Centre for Macroeconomics Co-author, “The Long-Run Effects of Government Spending,” American Economic Review (2025), cited in the UK Chancellor’s Spring Statement Awarded a GBP 1 million ESRC grant for “Long-Run Consequences of Business-Cycle Fluctuations”; recipient of an ERC Starting Grant Former Adviser to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee; consultant to the European Central Bank, European Commission, and Financial Conduct Authority Regular contributor and commentator in the Financial Times, The Economist, Il Sole 24 Ore, and Corriere della Sera Biography Most macroeconomic commentary stops at the aggregate. Surico’s work begins where it usually ends: with the household and the firm. Using micro-data from the US and UK, he has shown that mortgaged households drive most of the consumption response to interest rate changes, while outright owners barely move at all. That finding has reframed how central banks think about transmission, and it gives commercial leaders something more useful than a forecast. His 2025 American Economic Review paper with Juan Antolin-Diaz, “The Long-Run Effects of Government Spending,” used 125 years of US data to show that military and public R&D spending produce large, persistent growth effects through their composition, not their size. The paper was cited in the UK Chancellor’s Spring Statement, which is an unusually direct line between academic research and fiscal policy. The credentials are substantial. Fellow of CEPR, Research Associate at the LSE Centre for Macroeconomics, former Adviser to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, current consultant to the European Central Bank and European Commission. A GBP 1 million ESRC grant and an ERC Starting Grant sit behind the academic record. He writes regularly for the Financial Times, The Economist, and the major Italian financial press. What sets him apart for boardroom audiences is the bridge he builds between empirical macro and decisions a leadership team has to make this quarter. When he talks about household debt, demographic change, or the redistributive effects of monetary policy, the argument lands in concrete terms that a CFO, a head of strategy, or a wealth-management chief can act on. Key speaking topics Monetary policy transmission and household debt Public debt sustainability and fiscal outlook Government spending, innovation, and long-run growth Inequality and the macroeconomy Housing, credit, and financial markets Demographic change and macroeconomic policy Ideal for CFO, treasury, and finance leadership teams in financial services, asset management, and insurance Boards and executive committees stress-testing strategy against rate, fiscal, and policy scenarios Wealth and private banking client events where senior clients want substantive macro analysis Strategy and economic-policy functions in industrials, real estate, and consumer-facing sectors Audience outcomes A clearer view of how rate decisions actually move through mortgaged households, renters, and balance sheets, rather than aggregate models A framework for reading central bank communications from the inside of the policy process Specific implications of public debt and government spending trajectories for medium-term growth and capital allocation A grounded read on inequality as a macroeconomic amplifier, not a social commentary point

Why organisations work with Patrick Cordingley He commanded 12,000 troops in the largest British armoured deployment since the Second World War, and can speak to high-stakes decision-making from inside the moment, not as analysis after the fact. His account of that command, In the Eye of the Storm, reached number one on the UK non-fiction bestseller list, giving boards a published, scrutinised record of how he led, not a curated anecdote set. He brings the discipline of military preparation to civilian audiences without translating it into platitudes; the link he draws between rehearsed routine and operational composure is concrete and usable. He carries credibility with senior audiences that few business speakers can match: a DSO for combat leadership, an OBE for sustained public service, and years as a BBC commentator on conflict. Biography highlights Commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade, the Desert Rats, during the 1991 Gulf War. Awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for leadership in combat. Promoted to Major General; held General Officer Commanding Eastern District and General Officer Commanding 2nd Division. Final military posting as Senior British Loan Service Officer to the Sultan of Oman; retired in 2000 after 35 years of service. Author of In the Eye of the Storm: Commanding the Desert Rats in the Gulf War (Hodder and Stoughton, 1996), a number one UK non-fiction bestseller. Appointed OBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to the National Memorial Arboretum; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Biography The 7th Armoured Brigade was the first British formation deployed to the Gulf in 1990, and the largest British armoured commitment since D-Day. Its commander spent the months before combat solving a problem most senior corporate leaders never face: how to keep 12,000 people performing at the edge of their training, in a desert, against an enemy whose intentions were unclear, with the eyes of the British public on every decision. That commander was Patrick Cordingley. The brigade fought through the ground campaign with low casualties and high tempo, and Cordingley was awarded the DSO. He published In the Eye of the Storm with Hodder and Stoughton in 1996. The book reached number one on the UK non-fiction bestseller list and remains the primary first-person record of British armoured command in the Gulf. After the Gulf, Cordingley was promoted to Major General. He held General Officer Commanding Eastern District and then 2nd Division, before a final posting as Senior British Loan Service Officer to the Sultan of Oman. He retired in 2000 after 35 years of service and spent eight years chairing a technology company, alongside work as a BBC military commentator on conflict and defence. His public service since has been substantial. He chaired the National Memorial Arboretum Appeal and the Defence and Security Forum, and was appointed OBE in 2017. For senior audiences, what he offers is rare: a credible account of leading a large organisation through a real test, told by someone who has spent the last two decades thinking about what transfers and what does not. Key speaking topics Leadership under operational pressure Decision-making with incomplete information Team performance and trust at scale Preparation, rehearsal, and operational readiness Composure and confidence in senior command Lessons from military command for civilian leaders Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing high-consequence decisions Senior leadership offsites focused on resilience and command under pressure Programmes for newly senior leaders building executive presence After-dinner audiences at corporate and association events seeking serious content rather than entertainment Audience outcomes A clearer sense of what genuine preparation looks like, and how it changes behaviour in the moment of decision. A direct, first-person account of leading a large team through a high-stakes operation, with the reasoning behind specific decisions made transparent. A working distinction between confidence as performance and confidence as the product of rehearsal. A more sober view of how teams hold together when information is incomplete and the cost of error is real.

Why organisations work with Paul Johnson He led the Institute for Fiscal Studies through fourteen years of fiscal events, Budgets and Spending Reviews, and is the economist most often cited when journalists need the numbers explained. He has been inside the machinery: Director of Public Spending at HM Treasury and Chief Economist at the Department for Education, so he speaks to how decisions are actually made, not how they are reported. His book Follow the Money is the clearest public account of how Britain raises and spends roughly £1 trillion a year, and it gives a board a shared vocabulary for fiscal risk. Eleven years on the UK Climate Change Committee mean he can connect net zero policy to the capital allocation choices it forces on boards, not just the headline target. As Provost of The Queen’s College, Oxford, he now sits at the intersection of economic policy, higher education funding and long-term institutional strategy. Biography highlights Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2011 to 2025. Provost of The Queen’s College, Oxford, from August 2025. Author of Follow the Money: How Much Does Britain Cost? (2023), Sunday Times bestseller. Weekly columnist for The Times; presenter of Austerity Audit on BBC Radio 4. CBE, 2018, for services to social sciences and economics. Honorary doctorates from UCL, York, Sussex and Exeter; member of the UK Climate Change Committee for eleven years. Biography The state raises and spends roughly £1 trillion a year in the UK. Most boards treat that figure as background. It is not. Tax policy, departmental budgets and the demographics behind them shape the cost of capital, the cost of labour and the regulatory weather every business operates in. For fourteen years as Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson was the public translator of those numbers. The IFS Budget briefings he led became the reference point for journalists, civil servants and parliamentary committees on fiscal events. Follow the Money, his 2023 book, is the most readable account of UK public finances in print, and it became a Sunday Times bestseller. His credibility is built on direct experience inside the system. He was Director of Public Spending at HM Treasury, Chief Economist at the Department for Education, and Deputy Head of the Government Economic Service. He served eleven years on the UK Climate Change Committee, where the policy gap between net zero ambition and capital allocation is most visible. He sat on the councils of the ESRC and the Royal Economic Society. In August 2025 he became Provost of The Queen’s College, Oxford. He continues to write a weekly column for The Times and to advise organisations whose strategic decisions are shaped by UK and global fiscal policy. He was appointed CBE in 2018 for services to social sciences and economics. Key speaking topics UK public finances and fiscal policy Tax, welfare and pensions reform Macroeconomic outlook and capital allocation Income inequality and the distributional effects of policy Climate change economics and net zero financing Government spending priorities and trade-offs Ideal for Boards and executive committees of UK and internationally exposed companies CFOs, treasurers and heads of strategy planning under fiscal and tax uncertainty Investor and asset-management audiences focused on macro and policy risk Public-sector leadership and regulated-industry executives Audience outcomes A clear read of how the next Budget, Spending Review or fiscal event is likely to land A shared vocabulary for fiscal risk that connects Treasury decisions to operating choices A grounded view of how net zero policy will translate into capital and tax pressure A sharper sense of where UK macroeconomic constraints will most affect their sector Direct answers to the questions a CFO or chair actually wants to ask an economist

Why organisations work with Paul Lewis He is the voice UK consumers associate with personal-finance scrutiny. For a pensions provider, bank or platform, putting him in front of customers, advisers or regulators is borrowing the most trusted editorial brand in retail finance. Three decades inside Money Box and Money Box Live means he reads regulatory shifts, scam patterns and adviser conduct from the perspective of the person being affected, not the firm being affected. He is a working broadcaster, not a retired one. Panels, fireside conversations and after-dinner sessions land in the same register listeners hear on Radio 4 every Saturday lunchtime. His record on consumer protection is recognised by the industry itself. The Association of British Insurers gave him a lifetime achievement award; the Association of Investment Companies named him Best Broadcast Journalist; the University of Essex awarded an honorary doctorate citing journalism in defence of consumers. He brings a journalist’s discipline on questions: pension providers, life companies, asset managers and intermediaries are interrogated on the substance their customers actually feel. Biography highlights Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Money Box and Money Box Live, the BBC’s flagship personal-finance programmes, since 2000. Author of Money Box: Your Toolkit for Balancing Your Budget, Growing Your Bank Balance and Living a Better Financial Life, published by Penguin Random House. Monthly Money Works columnist for Saga Magazine and longstanding columnist for Money Marketing. Lifetime achievement award, Association of British Insurers, 2006. Best Broadcast Journalist, Association of Investment Companies, 2011. Multiple Headline Money Awards Broadcast Journalist of the Year, including 2013. Honorary doctorate, University of Essex, 2013, for journalism defending consumers. Biography The pension freedoms reforms of 2015, the long pull of auto-enrolment, scam epidemics targeting older savers and the slow remediation of bad advice have made retail finance one of the most contested editorial territories in Britain. Money Box on BBC Radio 4 is where the issues land first, and Paul Lewis has been the programme’s presenter since September 2000. Three decades of independent journalism sit behind that chair. Lewis began reporting on personal finance in the 1980s and joined Money Box in the 1990s before returning to present it. He writes the monthly Money Works column for Saga Magazine, contributes to Money Marketing, and remains a regular voice on BBC Breakfast, Today, Woman’s Hour and You and Yours when consumer-finance stories break. The industry has recognised the work on its own terms. The Association of British Insurers gave him a lifetime achievement award in 2006. The Association of Investment Companies named him Best Broadcast Journalist in 2011. The University of Essex awarded an honorary doctorate in 2013, citing his journalism in defence of consumers. He is also the author of Money Box, published by Penguin Random House, a practical handbook drawn from years of listener questions on tax, pensions, debt, property and investing. For financial services audiences, the commercial value is editorial credibility most senior leaders cannot manufacture in-house. When Lewis questions a chief executive on a panel, or chairs a regulatory roundtable, or speaks after dinner to a firm’s adviser network, he carries the listening relationship he has built with retail savers into the room. Key speaking topics Personal finance and consumer money Pensions, retirement income and pension scams Personal taxation and tax policy Financial services regulation and conduct Fraud, scams and consumer protection Banking and savings Financial journalism and the consumer voice Ideal for Financial services firms: banks, insurers, life and pensions providers, asset managers, platforms. IFA networks, wealth managers and advice firms commissioning panels, conferences or adviser events. Regulators, trade bodies and consumer organisations working on retail conduct, scams or pension policy. Boards and senior leadership teams in retail-facing financial services who want a journalist’s pressure-test on customer experience. Audience outcomes A clearer read on what retail customers actually hear, miss and mistrust about pensions, tax and savings. Concrete recent cases of scams, mis-selling and conduct failure, drawn from Money Box reporting. A working journalist’s framing of how regulatory change lands with consumers, not with compliance teams. A view of the trust gap between financial services and the public, and where it can realistically be closed.

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

Why organisations work with Pete Goss He is one of very few speakers whose composure under pressure is documented in two state honours, the MBE and the Legion d’Honneur, awarded for a single named decision in the 1996 Vendee Globe. He has built and led multi-million pound sponsored projects with workforces of 100 plus, including Aqua Quorum, Team Philips and Spirit of Mystery, which gives him a working vocabulary for boards on stewardship, sponsor relationships and visible failure. The Team Philips abandonment in 2000 is part of his material, not edited out of it, so leaders get a credible account of what comes after a public, capital-heavy programme collapses. His teaching credentials sit inside serious institutions: Associate Fellow at Said Business School, Oxford, and regular lecturer at London Business School, which calibrates the content for senior audiences rather than after-dinner crowds. The Dinelli rescue is a teachable case, not a war story: a decision made on incomplete information, against the speaker’s own commercial interest, with a precise sequence of operational choices a board can interrogate. Biography highlights Skippered Aqua Quorum in the 1996/97 Vendee Globe; rescued Raphael Dinelli in a Southern Ocean hurricane on Christmas Day 1996. Awarded the MBE and France’s Legion d’Honneur for the Dinelli rescue. Named Yachtsman of the Year following the Vendee Globe. Author of Close to the Wind (Headline, 1998), an account of the race and rescue. Built and skippered Spirit of Mystery, a 37 ft Cornish lugger, on an 11,800 mile voyage from Newlyn to Melbourne in 2008 to 2009. Associate Fellow, Said Business School, University of Oxford; regular lecturer at London Business School; former Royal Marine. Biography The Vendee Globe is the hardest race in solo sailing: one boat, one person, no stops, around the world. On Christmas Day 1996, in 80 knot winds in the Southern Ocean, Pete Goss received a distress signal from Raphael Dinelli, a French competitor whose boat was sinking. Goss turned back, fought upwind for two days, and pulled Dinelli, near death, out of a life raft. The decision ended his race and won him the MBE from Queen Elizabeth II and the Legion d’Honneur from the President of France. Before that race, Goss was a Royal Marine. After it, he became one of the more credible voices on what leadership looks like when the plan stops working. He is the author of Close to the Wind (Headline, 1998), the bestselling account of the race and the rescue, and was named Yachtsman of the Year. He is an Associate Fellow of Said Business School at Oxford and lectures regularly at London Business School, so the material reads to senior audiences as judgement work, not adventure storytelling. His later projects sharpen the case. Team Philips, a 120 ft catamaran built for a round-the-world record, was abandoned in mid-Atlantic in December 2000 after structural damage in heavy weather. Spirit of Mystery, a 37 ft replica Cornish lugger, sailed 11,800 miles from Newlyn to Melbourne in 2008 to 2009 to recreate the 1854 voyage of the original lugger Mystery. One programme failed in public after large sponsor investment. The other succeeded after years of preparation in obscurity. Goss treats both as case material. What makes this useful in a boardroom is the specificity. The Dinelli decision is not a metaphor, it is a sequence of operational choices made against personal interest, with a paper trail. Senior leaders can interrogate it the way they would a real case, and most do. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure Self-leadership and composure Recovery after public failure Sponsor and stakeholder leadership in capital-intensive programmes Team conduct in small, high-stakes crews Long-form planning and execution Risk and judgement at sea and in business Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing a high-stakes call where the right answer is commercially costly Leadership programmes for senior operators who have not yet been tested in a public failure Capital project sponsors and programme directors managing visible, multi-year commitments Off-sites where the brief is judgement and resilience rather than motivation Audience outcomes A working reference case for what good looks like when a leader has to abandon a plan mid-execution. A clearer view of how to separate personal stake from organisational duty when the two diverge. A more honest account of what happens after a programme fails in public, drawn from Team Philips. Specific language for talking to sponsors, crews and boards in conditions of real uncertainty.

Why organisations work with Peter Crolla He has helped build two Formula 1 teams from scratch. He joined Haas in 2015 as the team’s 14th employee and joined Cadillac in 2025 to prepare its 2026 debut. Few F1 practitioners have stood up a competitive operation from zero more than once. His content is grounded in operational mechanics. Audiences leave with how the pit wall actually works, how a 1.8-second pit stop with 22 staff and 36 tasks is choreographed, and how compliance with FIA scrutineering is built into every weekend. Formula 1 sits where exacting regulation meets competitive margins of milliseconds. Leaders in pharmaceuticals, financial services, aviation, and energy find the comparison directly applicable to their own environments. He can explain how F1 reduced driver fatalities from over 40 between 1950 and 1994 to one in the three decades since. The shift came from a system in which safety stopped being a source of competitive advantage and was shared across rival teams. Two decades across British Touring Cars, F3, McLaren, Haas, and Cadillac give him grounded comparative views on which high-performance practices transfer between organisations and which collapse outside their original context. Biography highlights Race Team Manager at the Cadillac F1 Team, preparing the operation for its 2026 Formula 1 debut. Team Manager at Haas F1 Team for eight seasons, joining as the 14th employee in 2015 ahead of the team’s 2016 debut. Previously Team Leader at McLaren Racing, working alongside World Champions Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso. Oversaw Haas’s maiden Formula 1 pole position at the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix. Helped Haas secure FIA Three-Star Environmental Accreditation ahead of the 2023 season. Awarded the Teamwork Award at the 2013 MIA Business Excellence Awards during his time at Team Dynamics in the British Touring Car Championship. Biography In Formula 1, a pit stop now takes 1.8 seconds. Twenty-two people complete thirty-six tasks while the car is stationary. One missed cue and a podium becomes a points-paying afternoon. That kind of choreography is what Peter Crolla has spent his career producing. He joined the Haas F1 Team in 2015 as its fourteenth employee, before the team had been on a grid, and stayed for eight seasons as Team Manager. In 2025 he left to take the same role at the Cadillac F1 Team, where he is preparing the operation for its 2026 debut. Doing this work twice in a decade puts him in a small group of practitioners who have stood up a competitive Formula 1 team from a standing start. F1 teams of 1800 staff coordinate around twenty-four non-negotiable race weekend deadlines a year, under one of the most exacting regulatory regimes in commercial sport. Crolla speaks about how that machine actually runs. He explains the daily tension between psychological safety and personal accountability, and how F1 turned over forty driver fatalities between 1950 and 1994 into one in the three decades since. The change came from stopping competitive teams from hoarding what they learned about safety. Key speaking topics High-performance team operations Leadership in regulated, high-pressure environments Operational excellence under non-negotiable deadlines Safety culture and risk transformation Building organisations from a standing start Continuous improvement and marginal gains Sustainability in elite motorsport Ideal for COOs and operations directors in regulated sectors such as financial services, pharmaceuticals, aviation, and energy, where compliance and competitive performance have to be solved together. Founders, transformation leads, and executive teams building or rebuilding an organisation from a standing start. Senior risk and safety leaders looking at how F1’s cultural transformation was actually achieved over three decades. HR and people leaders focused on psychological safety and accountability in technical or engineering-led organisations. Audience outcomes The choreography of a 1.8-second pit stop across 22 staff, including where it most often breaks down. The specific practices that keep psychological safety and personal accountability in balance inside an F1 operation. How F1’s safety record went from over forty driver fatalities in its first four decades to one in its last three, including the specific decision to stop competing on safety. A clear separation between high-performance practices that transfer between industries and those that depend on the specifics of F1.

Why organisations work with Phil Osborn He ran UK Defence Intelligence at four-star level from 2015 to 2018, including the period covering Russia, China, Iran and the operationalisation of state cyber. Few civilian advisers have sat in that seat. He led UK Defence’s offensive and defensive cyber capability, so the boardroom conversation about hostile-state cyber risk is not theoretical for him. It is something he commanded. He sits inside the same problem from three angles at once: as Director of Universal Defence and Security Solutions, Senior Advisor to Lockheed Martin UK, and Senior Advisor to DXC Technology. That triangulation is rare. He established and ran the £2.5 billion annual Joint Forces Command Capability Portfolio, so capital-allocation conversations about resilience and sovereign capability are grounded in operating reality. CBE, Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Chair of the RAF Charitable Trust. The credentials sit on substance, not the other way round. Biography highlights Air Marshal (Retired), Royal Air Force, 1982 to 2019; Tornado navigator, station commander, deployed operational commander. Chief of Defence Intelligence, 2015 to 2018: strategic intelligence to UK Defence and Government, ISR coordination, counter-intelligence, and Defence cyber leadership. Air Officer Commanding No. 2 Group RAF, 2010 to 2012; Director Capability at Joint Forces Command, 2013. Director, Universal Defence and Security Solutions; Senior Advisor to Lockheed Martin UK and DXC Technology; Non-Executive Director, Inzpire. Chair, Royal Air Force Charitable Trust. CBE (2009 New Year Honours); Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Biography The boardroom conversation about geopolitics has changed. Sanctions, hostile-state cyber, supply-chain coercion, sovereign technology dependencies: these have moved from external context to first-order strategic risk. Most leadership teams do not have an intelligence-grade read on any of them. That is the seat Phil Osborn occupied at national level. As UK Chief of Defence Intelligence from 2015 to 2018, he was responsible for the strategic intelligence picture supplied to UK Defence and Government, for the coordination of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and for Defence’s leadership of offensive and defensive cyber. He did this through a period in which Russia, China, Iran and non-state actors all changed posture in observable ways. The career under that role matters. Thirty-seven years in the Royal Air Force, originally as a Tornado navigator, then through squadron and station command, then as Air Officer Commanding No. 2 Group, then at Joint Forces Command where he set up and ran the £2.5 billion annual Capability Portfolio that became part of Strategic Command. The capital-allocation muscle is real, not anecdotal. Since retiring as Air Marshal in 2019 he has worked the same problem from the commercial side: Director at Universal Defence and Security Solutions, Senior Advisor to Lockheed Martin UK and to DXC Technology, Non-Executive Director at Inzpire, and Chair of the Royal Air Force Charitable Trust. Boards looking for somebody who can connect the geopolitical signal, the cyber threat picture and the sovereign-capability question, in language a Chair can use, find one of the few people in the UK who has run all three. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and national security Defence intelligence and the strategic threat picture State and non-state cyber risk Sovereign capability and supply chain resilience Force design, capability portfolios and capital allocation Leadership and command in high-stakes environments Ideal for Boards and audit and risk committees confronting geopolitical and cyber exposure CEOs, CFOs and CSOs in defence, aerospace, critical infrastructure and government-facing industries Investors and capital allocators with sovereign-capability or sanctions-sensitive portfolios Senior leadership offsites in regulated industries where state-level risk is now a board agenda item Audience outcomes A clearer read on the geopolitical and security drivers that will most affect the next planning cycle A sharper distinction between hostile-state cyber risk and the generic cyber narrative A practical sense of how national-level intelligence assesses adversaries, applied to corporate risk A working view on sovereign capability, supply-chain dependency and what resilience actually costs The vocabulary to brief a Chair or audit committee on geopolitical and cyber exposure with confidence

Why organisations work with Pierluigi Collina He is the only figure in global sport who achieved celebrity status not as a player or coach but as the person whose sole function was to make consequential public judgments under pressure – his perspective on authority and decision-making has no direct equivalent in the business speaker market. His post-playing career adds institutional weight that most performance speakers cannot match: two decades in senior governance roles across Serie A, UEFA, and FIFA, including leading the global implementation of VAR – the most disruptive change to officiating rules in the sport’s history. My Rules of the Game, translated into more than ten languages across twenty countries, demonstrates that his framework for elite performance and disciplined decision-making has cross-cultural resonance far beyond football. His economics background (cum laude, University of Bologna) and career as a financial consultant mean his analytical lens on preparation, risk, and judgment is grounded in professional rigour, not athletic instinct alone. For organisations working through governance reform, accountability culture, or leadership under scrutiny, he offers a case study of sustained credibility at the highest levels of a globally watched, deeply contested environment. Biography highlights Refereed the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final (Brazil v Germany), the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final (Manchester United v Bayern Munich), the 1996 Olympic Games Final, and the 2004 UEFA Cup Final Named IFFHS World’s Best Referee for six consecutive years, 1998–2003; Serie A Referee of the Year six times Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee since January 2017; previously UEFA Chief Refereeing Officer and Chairman of the Referees Committee (2010–2018); Chairman of the Serie A referees committee (2007–2010) Led preparation and training of referees for VAR introduction at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Author of My Rules of the Game (Macmillan, 2003), translated into more than ten languages across twenty countries Economics graduate cum laude, University of Bologna; former professional financial consultant Appointed Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2003); Honorary Doctor of Science, University of Hull (2004) Biography Making a decision that 1.2 billion people will immediately scrutinise is not a leadership metaphor. For Pierluigi Collina, it was the 2002 FIFA World Cup Final – the most-watched sporting event on the planet, and the last in a career that also included the 1999 Champions League Final and the 1996 Olympic Games Final. What those moments produced was not simply a record of high-profile matches, but a working methodology for sustained authority under conditions of total public exposure. Collina was named IFFHS World’s Best Referee six consecutive years from 1998 to 2003 – a period that also produced My Rules of the Game, his account of the preparation, discipline, and judgment required to perform at the top of an intensely adversarial profession. Translated into more than ten languages across twenty countries, the book demonstrated that his thinking on decision-making under pressure had relevance well beyond the sport. His economics degree cum laude from the University of Bologna and a parallel career as a financial consultant are consistent with a mind that approached officiating analytically, not intuitively. His retirement from the pitch in 2005 opened a second, structurally significant chapter. He led the Serie A referees committee, moved to UEFA as Chief Refereeing Officer, and since January 2017 has served as Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee. In that role, he was central to the design and implementation of VAR – the most consequential change to football’s decision-making infrastructure in modern times – preparing referees globally for a system that required them to re-examine, in public and in real time, decisions already made. For organisations grappling with accountability culture, judgment under scrutiny, and the conditions under which authority holds – or fails – Collina brings something rare: not a sporting story applied to business by analogy, but a career-long, institutionally tested practice of making high-consequence decisions when the cost of error is immediate and the audience is watching every call. Key speaking topics Decision-making under public scrutiny Authority, credibility, and trust in leadership Performance preparation and elite standards Governance and institutional integrity Conflict management and de-escalation Accountability and rule-based leadership Technology-led change in high-stakes environments Ideal for Senior leadership teams navigating high-visibility, high-accountability environments Boards and governance professionals addressing decision-making culture and institutional integrity C-suite and executive development programmes focused on judgment, authority, and performance under pressure Transformation leads and HR directors building accountability frameworks within complex organisations Audience outcomes A structured understanding of how preparation, not instinct, is the foundation of sound judgment under pressure Practical perspectives on how authority is built and maintained – and the specific behaviours that erode it A framework for making and communicating consequential decisions in ways that command trust rather than invite challenge Clearer thinking on the relationship between governance structures and individual performance standards Concrete examples of how high-stakes decision-making principles from elite sport translate to organisational and leadership contexts

Why organisations work with Pierre-Yves Gerbeau A first-hand operating account of one of the most public corporate rescues in modern British memory, told by the executive who took the role on day one of the crisis. A career built inside live consumer assets at scale, from Disneyland Paris park operations through the X-Leisure portfolio he grew from roughly 70 million pounds to more than 1.3 billion pounds before the sale to Land Securities. Practical content for boards facing a hostile press cycle, a sceptical workforce and demanding political stakeholders at the same time, drawn from the Dome and the London Resort theme park CEO seat. A teaching practitioner, lecturing on the London Business School MBA programme and as Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Rescue at Imperial College, so the operating stories carry an analytical frame. Biography highlights Chief Executive of the New Millennium Experience Company from February 2000, with the Millennium Dome reaching more than six million visitors during its year of operation. Vice-President of Park Operations and Attractions at Euro Disney, with operational ownership of ticketing, safety, maintenance and queue management. Co-founder and Chief Executive of X-Leisure, operator of the Xscape centres, sold to Land Securities after a decade of growth. Chief Executive of London Resort Company Holdings, June 2019 to December 2022, leading the Paramount IP licensing arrangement for the proposed Kent resort. President of the French Ice Hockey Federation, appointed October 2021 and re-elected in 2022. Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Rescue at Imperial College, lecturer on the London Business School MBA programme, MBA from Sciences Po. Biography The Millennium Dome in January 2000 was the most publicly mocked asset in Britain. Tony Blair’s flagship project had opened to negative press, queues that did not move and visitor numbers well below plan. On 5 February that year Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, recommended by Disney CEO Michael Eisner, took over as Chief Executive of the New Millennium Experience Company. The Dome went on to attract more than six million visitors before its scheduled close. The Dome story is the headline, but the operating CV underneath it is what makes the perspective unusual on a stage. Gerbeau ran park operations at Disneyland Paris through its difficult early years, with direct responsibility for the unglamorous mechanics of a theme park: ticketing, safety, maintenance, queue flow. He then built X-Leisure, the platform behind the Xscape indoor ski and entertainment centres, growing it from roughly 70 million pounds of assets under management in 2003 to more than 1.3 billion pounds by 2007, and eventually selling to Land Securities. Subsequent roles have kept him close to the same set of problems. As CEO of London Resort Company Holdings from 2019 to 2022, he led negotiations for the Paramount IP deal that anchored the proposed Kent theme park before resigning in December 2022. In 2021 he was elected President of the French Ice Hockey Federation, a return to the sport in which he competed professionally before an ankle injury ended his playing career. The teaching work sits alongside the operating one. Gerbeau lectures on the London Business School MBA programme and is Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Rescue at Imperial College, holding an MBA from Sciences Po. The argument he carries into a senior boardroom is built from the seat: turnaround is an operating discipline executed under public pressure, not a slide deck about resilience. Key speaking topics Corporate turnaround and rescue Transformational leadership under public scrutiny Change management in consumer-facing assets Entrepreneurial discipline at scale Customer experience in live-operations businesses Risk management and crisis response Stakeholder management with political and media exposure Ideal for Boards and executive committees inheriting a publicly criticised asset, brand or programme Operating leaders running large customer-facing platforms in leisure, retail, hospitality and travel CEOs and transformation directors managing a turnaround under regulatory or political stakeholder pressure Senior teams in scale-up businesses moving from founder energy to institutional operating discipline Audience outcomes A working model of how an incoming CEO sequences the first weeks of a public-asset turnaround A clear view of where operating discipline and brand recovery interact, drawn from the Dome and X-Leisure A sharper read on managing political, media and workforce stakeholders simultaneously Reusable lessons on building and selling a leisure property platform at scale Confidence to make unpopular operating calls when values and commercial reality both demand them