Risk Management speakers

Why organisations work with Stephen Sackur Access to a perspective built across nearly four decades of frontline reporting, from the Gulf War and the fall of the Berlin Wall to two decades of adversarial interviews with presidents, prime ministers, and heads of international institutions, that cannot be replicated by analysts working from secondary sources. A forensic, barristerial framework for examining how leaders think and deflect under pressure, drawn from nearly 20 years presenting HARDtalk to audiences in over 200 countries, that translates directly into sharper boardroom questioning and more rigorous scenario analysis. Timely relevance: his forthcoming book Hard Truth (Headline Press, 2026) addresses disinformation, authoritarian political power, and the fight to preserve truth-telling institutions, the precise threats organisations are being asked to assess and respond to now. The ability to moderate high-stakes discussions at board or senior leadership level with the structural discipline of a trained interviewer, not merely facilitating, but drawing out what participants actually believe rather than what they intend to say. Credibility built through direct engagement with the figures who shape geopolitical risk, including Hugo Chávez, Alexei Navalny, Emmanuel Macron, Christine Lagarde, and Bill Clinton, giving his analysis a texture that is absent from most expert commentary. Biography highlights Presented BBC HARDtalk for 19 years (2005–2025), conducting in-depth accountability interviews with heads of state and global leaders broadcast across more than 200 countries 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent, based in Cairo, Jerusalem, Brussels, and Washington DC; covered the Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and 9/11 First correspondent to report the mass killing on the Basra road at the end of the Gulf War; author of On the Basra Road (1991), named a Spectator Book of the Year Named International TV Personality of the Year (Television) by the Association for International Broadcasting, 2010; nominated Speech Broadcaster of the Year, Sony Radio Awards, 2013 Honorary Doctorate, University of Warwick (2018); Henry Fellow, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; BA History (Hons), Emmanuel College, Cambridge Contributor to The Observer, London Review of Books, New Statesman, The Guardian, and The Daily Telegraph; currently presenter of The Times at One, Times Radio Under contract with Headline Press for Hard Truth: 10 Investigations That Shook the World – and Why They Matter Now (due September 2026) Biography When organisations need to understand how geopolitical risk is constructed as the product of decisions made by identifiable people operating under specific pressures, they are looking for something that most commentary cannot supply: direct, structured, adversarial engagement with the people who make those decisions. That is the experience Stephen Sackur brings. As the presenter of BBC HARDtalk from 2005 to 2025, Sackur conducted in-depth accountability interviews with figures including Hugo Chávez, Emmanuel Macron, Alexei Navalny, Christine Lagarde, and Bill Clinton that reached audiences across more than 200 countries. The programme’s defining characteristic was not access but interrogation: a forensic, evidence-based questioning method that was designed to surface what leaders believe rather than what they wish to project. Over nearly two decades, this produced an unusually detailed map of how power operates, deflects, and occasionally fractures under scrutiny. Before HARDtalk, Sackur spent 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent in Cairo, Jerusalem, Brussels, and Washington DC. He reported on the Gulf War, the Velvet Revolution, the collapse of the peace process in the Middle East, and the political crises of the Clinton era. His 1991 book On the Basra Road, which emerged from being the first correspondent to report the mass killing of retreating Iraqi forces at the end of the Gulf War, was named a Spectator Book of the Year and established the analytical seriousness that has characterised his work since. His forthcoming book Hard Truth: 10 Investigations That Shook the World – and Why They Matter Now (Headline Press, September 2026) makes the case for investigative journalism as a democratic safeguard against disinformation, authoritarian capture, and institutional erosion. Educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Sackur now presents The Times at One on Times Radio and works regularly with international forums and senior leadership audiences as a moderator and speaker on geopolitics, accountability, and the anatomy of power. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and global power dynamics Political risk and democratic accountability Leadership under pressure and public scrutiny The media’s role in holding institutions to account Disinformation and the future of truth-telling High-stakes questioning and structured decision-making International affairs: Middle East, US politics, European security Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership teams seeking structured geopolitical context rather than generic risk briefings Risk, strategy, and government affairs functions in international financial services, energy, and professional services firms Senior leadership conferences where geopolitical volatility, democratic risk, or institutional trust is on the agenda Organisations seeking a high-calibre moderator for multi-stakeholder panels on international affairs or governance Audience outcomes A clearer framework for distinguishing genuine geopolitical signal from media and political noise Insight into how senior political leaders actually think and behave when their positions are challenged, and what that reveals about institutional resilience A more rigorous vocabulary for assessing democratic risk, disinformation threats, and the erosion of accountability structures that underpin stable operating environments Practical understanding of how adversarial questioning works as a leadership and governance tool, applicable to board effectiveness, media engagement, and stakeholder management A grounded, non-sensationalised view of geopolitical risk derived from direct engagement with many of the figures who have shaped it

Why organisations work with Steve Gaskin Direct senior operational experience at Scotland Yard. DCI rank with homicide and counter-terrorism case exposure is uncommon in the speaker market, where “former detective” often means a junior career repackaged. Pattern recognition that translates between domains. His sales-focused talk shows how the structure of a police suspect interview can be applied directly to a customer conversion conversation, as a working method. Current broadcast credibility. Contributions to Channel 5’s Wayne Couzens: Killer in Plain Sight and ITV’s Playboy Bunny Club Murders keep his analysis grounded in cases audiences may have followed. Decision-making content shaped by real consequences. The material is built from environments where wrong calls had immediate legal and human stakes, which gives it a weight classroom case studies cannot match. Biography highlights Former Detective Chief Inspector with the Metropolitan Police, based at New Scotland Yard, with more than 25 years of service. Case experience spans homicide, counter-terrorism-related operations and serious drug trafficking, including undercover deployment at New Scotland Yard. Contributor to UK true-crime documentary programming, including Channel 5’s Wayne Couzens: Killer in Plain Sight. Director of Huxley Events Ltd and The Crime Lab Ltd, both delivering corporate crime-themed events and consultancy. BSc in Psychology and Mathematics; executive programme at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management; Associate Tutor at Anglia Ruskin University. Biography Senior detectives at Scotland Yard make calls under pressure, where errors carry immediate legal and human stakes. Structured interviewing and evidence-led decision-making, the disciplines that hold up in those conditions, are learned by practice on real cases. Steve Gaskin spent more than 25 years in that environment and retired as a Detective Chief Inspector. His case experience runs from early 1980s work on the Hyde Park bombing investigation through to homicide and counter-terrorism-related operations. He also served in serious drug trafficking work at New Scotland Yard, including undercover deployment. The connecting thread is decision-making at the point where evidence is incomplete and the cost of waiting is real. That is the foundation of his corporate work. His talks draw structural parallels: police suspect interview frameworks mapped onto sales conversations, and murder squad management compared with leading teams under pressure. The result is applied technique an audience can use the next day. He contributes regularly to UK broadcast crime journalism, including Channel 5’s Wayne Couzens: Killer in Plain Sight and ITV’s Playboy Bunny Club Murders. The cases he discusses on screen are often the same ones that surface in his corporate keynotes. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Investigative interviewing technique Leadership in high-stakes operational environments Workplace psychopathy and personality reading Sales conversation structure drawn from suspect interviewing Crime-based corporate storytelling Ideal for Sales leadership teams looking to apply structured suspect interviewing techniques to prospecting and conversion Senior leadership groups working on decision-making, team management and risk under pressure Corporate audiences seeking substantive after-dinner content with operational credibility Conferences in financial services, professional services and risk-focused sectors Audience outcomes A method for structuring interviews where information accuracy matters, applicable to either suspect interrogation or sales discovery Names and behavioural markers for the personality patterns most likely to disrupt a workplace, drawn from criminal psychology Concrete examples of how operational teams are led through high-pressure investigations Material drawn from recent high-profile cases he has analysed for UK broadcast

Why organisations work with Steven Sitao Xu A working chief economist at a Big Four firm in China, briefing on the same data, policy reads and forecasts that Deloitte uses with its own clients, not a retired view from outside. Two careers’ worth of forecasting: a decade running China forecasting at the Economist Intelligence Unit, then more than a decade as Chief Economist of Deloitte China. Prior roles as Chief Economist for Asia at Societe Generale and Head of Economics at ICBC (Asia) give a markets-side reading that translates directly to CFO and treasury audiences. Used as a regular China commentator by CNBC, Bloomberg, CCTV, the Financial Times and YaleGlobal Online; the same voice editors trust on a deadline. A visiting scholar appointment at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a guest professorship at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management; the international and domestic Chinese reads of the same economy. Biography highlights Chief Economist and Partner, Deloitte China. Former Chief Representative in China and forecasting director, Economist Intelligence Unit, The Economist Group. Former Chief Economist for Asia at Societe Generale; former Head of Economics at ICBC (Asia). Visiting Scholar, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; guest professor at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management. Regular contributor on CNBC, Bloomberg, CCTV; bylines in the Financial Times, Asian Wall Street Journal, YaleGlobal Online, Caijing, Caixin and 21st Century Business Herald. Education: Peking University (BA Economics), University of Connecticut (MA Economics), Boston College (MS Finance). Biography China is the single largest variable on most large boards’ five-year planning grids, and the data on it is contested. Official statistics, financial-market signals and policy direction often point in different directions in the same quarter. Boards need someone who can hold all three at once and translate them into operating implications. Steven Sitao Xu does that work day to day. As Chief Economist of Deloitte China, he leads the firm’s economic and industry research and is the voice Deloitte’s own clients hear when they want a calibrated read on Chinese growth, monetary policy and sectoral risk. The role sits inside live client decisions, not on a podium. The path to it was unusual in its breadth. Xu spent a decade as forecasting director of the Economist Intelligence Unit in China and Chief Representative for The Economist Group, before which he ran Asia economics for Societe Generale and headed economics at ICBC (Asia). That sequence gave him the editorial and the markets ear in the same career, which is why CNBC, Bloomberg, the Financial Times and CCTV come back to him for live commentary. His academic anchors connect both sides of the conversation: a visiting scholar appointment at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a guest professorship at Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management. The result is a speaker who can sit with a CFO on currency exposure, a strategy team on consumer demand, and a board on the geopolitics behind both, without changing register. Key speaking topics China macro outlook and policy direction Chinese financial markets and currency Geopolitics and US-China economic relations Asia-Pacific economic trends Consumer and structural shifts in the Chinese economy Implications of Chinese policy for multinational strategy Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material China revenue or supply exposure CFOs, treasurers and capital allocation committees pricing China risk Strategy and corporate development leaders evaluating China entry, scaling or exit Investor and partner conferences in financial services, manufacturing and consumer sectors Audience outcomes A current read on China’s growth trajectory, policy stance and financial-market signals from a working Big Four chief economist A clearer view of where official Chinese statistics, market pricing and policy intent agree and where they do not A framework for translating Chinese macro and policy moves into specific implications for revenue, supply chain and capital decisions An informed perspective on US-China economic friction and what it means operationally for non-Chinese firms

Why organisations work with Sue Garrard She has operated inside one of the most scrutinised corporate sustainability programmes in the world – accountable for 72 time-bound targets, managing teams across 180 markets, and delivering the commercial result: Unilever’s sustainable living brands growing 67% faster than the rest of the portfolio. She was part of the four-person leadership team that handled Kraft Heinz’s hostile takeover approach – giving her first-hand experience of the moment ESG strategy is tested by investor pressure in real time. She brings a specific, transferable argument: that sustainability is not a constraint on commercial performance but, if properly embedded, a measurable driver of brand growth. She has the data to demonstrate it. Her advisory work spans financial services (Lloyds Bank, NatWest), consumer goods (Mars, Danone, Heineken), and retail (Primark, O2) – sectors with structurally different ESG pressures – which means she can hold a credible board conversation across industries, not just in one. As Chair of Trustees at Blueprint for Better Business and a Fellow at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, she is positioned at the intersection of corporate practice and governance – not a pure consultant, not a pure academic. Biography highlights Former Executive Vice President, Sustainable Business and Communications, Unilever (2014–2018) – accountable for the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan across 180 markets Founder, Sue Garrard Consulting (2019–present); advisory clients include Mars, ABF/Primark, Lloyds Bank, NatWest Banking Group, Danone, Heineken, Natura, O2, the RHS, and the BBC Chair of Trustees, Blueprint for Better Business (founder trustee) Fellow, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL); tutors on senior executive education programmes Visiting Fellow, Cranfield School of Management; Fellow of the RSA Ranked 13th in Forbes’ Top 100 Women Sustainability Influencers Worldwide (November 2020) Board member, Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit Former Director General, Customer Strategy and Communications, UK Department for Work and Pensions Biography At Unilever, Sue Garrard held responsibility for the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan – 72 quantified, time-bound targets, teams across 180 markets, and a direct mandate to make sustainability a driver of brand performance. By the time she left in 2018, Unilever’s sustainable living brands were growing 67% faster than the rest of the portfolio and representing 70% of company growth. That is not a communications outcome; it is a commercial one, and it was achieved by connecting ESG commitments to operational accountability across the business. She was also part of the four-person team, led by the CEO, that managed the rebuttal of Kraft Heinz’s hostile takeover bid. That experience – sustainability strategy meeting acute investor pressure – gives her a board-level fluency that most advisers in this space do not have. She understands what it looks like when a company’s long-term purpose is tested by short-term market logic. Since founding Sue Garrard Consulting in 2019, she has advised boards and executive teams at Mars, Danone, Lloyds Bank, NatWest, ABF/Primark, Heineken, O2, and others across consumer goods, financial services, and retail. Both Primark and the Royal Horticultural Society launched public sustainability strategies in 2021 built on her work. She tutors on CISL’s senior executive education programmes at Cambridge, and serves as Chair of Trustees at Blueprint for Better Business. Forbes placed her 13th in its global ranking of the top 100 women sustainability influencers in 2020. Her public argument, consistently made across interviews and platforms, is direct: sustainability is not a moral addition to business strategy – it is business strategy, and the organisations that treat it otherwise are building structural risk into their commercial model. Key speaking topics Corporate sustainability strategy and commercial integration ESG governance and board accountability Sustainable brand growth and marketing Stakeholder and investor scrutiny Net zero strategy and organisational transition Purpose-led business leadership Public–private sector leadership Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives navigating ESG accountability and investor pressure Chief Sustainability Officers and sustainability leadership teams building or overhauling strategy Brand and marketing leadership teams connecting sustainability to growth Organisations in financial services, consumer goods, or retail at a strategic inflection point on sustainability Audience outcomes A clearer framework for connecting sustainability targets to commercial performance metrics, not just reporting obligations Practical understanding of what large-scale ESG integration looks like operationally – including where it fails and why A more credible way to articulate the business case for sustainability to boards, investors, and senior leadership teams Insight into how to navigate investor and stakeholder scrutiny when sustainability commitments are challenged Perspective on the governance structures that sustain long-term sustainability commitment through leadership and market cycles

Why organisations work with Tanya Beckett Her banking career at Citibank and Commerzbank means she reads financial and economic data with the fluency of a practitioner, not just a reporter: and audiences notice the difference. Thirty years of front-line international broadcasting with BBC, CNN, Sky News, and CNBC has produced a presenter with genuine command of geopolitical complexity rather than surface-level confidence in it. Her advisory work with the World Bank, EBRD, EIB, ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office gives her direct insight into how trade and policy decisions are actually made, not just reported. She makes complex global dynamics legible for senior audiences without simplifying them, a skill that comes from structuring coverage for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service audiences with a high tolerance for nuance. As a facilitator and panel chair, she brings the interrogative discipline of a seasoned broadcast journalist to conference formats, which produces sharper discussions than a conventional MC approach. Biography highlights BBC broadcaster since 1998, with presenter credits on World Business Report, Working Lunch, Newsnight, Today, Our World, The Inquiry, and Talking Business across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Radio 4, BBC World News, and the BBC World Service Three-year posting to New York as BBC World US Business Anchor, reporting from Times Square and Washington DC Earlier broadcast career at CNBC Europe, Sky News, and CNN International (1993–1998) Career began in journalism at the Financial Times Former investment banker at Citibank (London, Credit Analysis) and Commerzbank (Frankfurt, Capital Markets Division) Advisory and facilitation work for the World Bank, EBRD, EIB, ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office, among other multilateral and government bodies Degree in Metallurgy and Materials Science, Pembroke College, Oxford; fluent German and French Biography Tanya Beckett started her career not in a newsroom but on a trading floor. Her years in investment banking at Citibank in London and Commerzbank in Frankfurt gave her a working understanding of capital markets, credit risk, and cross-border financial transactions before she ever picked up a microphone. When she moved into journalism, starting at the Financial Times and then building her broadcast career at CNBC Europe, Sky News, and CNN International, that foundation travelled with her. At the BBC, where she has worked since 1998, she has presented across the full range of the corporation’s business and economics output: World Business Report, Newsnight, Today on Radio 4, Our World, Working Lunch, and The Inquiry, the BBC World Service’s weekly current affairs documentary. Her three-year posting to New York as BBC World US Business Anchor placed her at the centre of transatlantic financial and political coverage during a period of sustained global market volatility. What distinguishes her from most journalists who move into the conference circuit is the institutional depth behind the broadcast profile. She has worked with the World Bank, the EBRD, the EIB, the ADB, Chatham House, and the British Foreign Office on matters of trade and communication, giving her direct exposure to how policy is shaped and where geopolitical risk is actually concentrated, not just how it is narrated. For organisations hosting high-stakes leadership events, that combination – thirty years of international broadcast experience, a banking foundation, and access to the institutions that shape global economic policy – produces a facilitator and keynote voice whose grasp of the material is substantive rather than performative. Key speaking topics Global economic trends and financial markets Geopolitical risk and international trade International institutions and multilateral policy Business communication and economic literacy for leaders Transatlantic business and US–Europe dynamics Current affairs in context: interpreting global risk Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership conferences requiring substantive economic and geopolitical framing Financial services organisations hosting client, leadership, or regulatory briefings International trade and policy forums needing a credible facilitator with institutional fluency Global corporates running town halls or leadership summits with a geopolitical or macro-economic agenda Audience outcomes A clearer framework for interpreting current global economic and geopolitical developments, anchored in how those events are shaped by international institutions Confidence engaging with financial and trade data without requiring an economics background Practical context for how major macroeconomic shifts – in trade policy, financial markets, or geopolitical realignment – translate into business risk and opportunity Greater precision in the questions leadership teams ask when briefed by economists or policy advisers

Why organisations work with Terry Virts He has held command in an environment where a missed checklist item ends a mission. That experience reframes what risk discipline looks like inside a corporate operating model. His ISS tour was a multinational, multilingual command, including Russian, American, and European crew members during a politically tense period. He speaks credibly to leaders managing cross-border teams under strain. He filmed A Beautiful Planet from orbit and authored View From Above with National Geographic. The visual material is a working asset for keynote audiences, not a slideshow. The 2019 One More Orbit polar circumnavigation is a current, civilian, board-relevant case study in mission planning, contingency design, and small-team execution. He writes and speaks fluently on the practical content of command, not the metaphor of it. His book How to Astronaut is the operating manual version of his keynote material. Beyond the keynote, he runs an experiential exercise built on the Apollo 13 carbon dioxide emergency, where teams split into mission control and flight crew and build a working scrubber from mismatched parts against a countdown. The room lives the coordination problem under time pressure. Biography highlights Retired NASA astronaut, US Air Force colonel, and former F-16 test pilot with over 5,300 flight hours across 40-plus aircraft types. Pilot of STS-130 aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, 2010. Commander of the International Space Station, Expedition 43, with 200 days in orbit and three spacewalks. Author of View From Above (National Geographic, 2017) and How to Astronaut (Workman Publishing, 2020). Lead astronaut cinematographer on the IMAX feature A Beautiful Planet, narrated by Jennifer Lawrence. Captain of the One More Orbit crew that set the FAI- and Guinness-certified world record for fastest pole-to-pole circumnavigation of Earth in July 2019. Biography A space station does not forgive a poorly briefed handover. Six people from three countries, in a structure travelling at 17,500 miles per hour, run on a checklist culture so disciplined it sounds bureaucratic until it saves a life. Terry Virts commanded that environment for Expedition 43, and the reason serious organisations book him is that the discipline travels. His route into that command is the spine of credibility. US Air Force Academy in Mathematics, F-16 pilot, test pilot, NASA selection in 2000, pilot of Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-130, then 200 days aboard the ISS with three spacewalks and the command of a multinational crew. A General Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2011 sits in the middle of that arc, which matters: he reads commercial decision-making in the language an executive audience uses. The post-NASA work is where the speaking proposition sharpens. He photographed and filmed the ISS for the IMAX feature A Beautiful Planet, published View From Above with National Geographic, and wrote How to Astronaut for Workman in 2020. In 2019, he led the One More Orbit crew that circled the planet over both poles in 46 hours 40 minutes, setting the FAI- and Guinness-certified world record. It is a civilian mission with a board-room shape: small team, hard constraint, narrow window. What sets Virts apart from the broader astronaut speaker pool is how specific his operational material is. He does not deliver awe. He delivers the structure beneath the awe, which is what senior teams come for. Key speaking topics Crisis leadership and command decision-making Risk discipline in high-consequence operations Cross-cultural team leadership under pressure Mission planning and contingency design Lessons from human spaceflight for executive teams Innovation in extreme environments Earth observation and the climate perspective from orbit Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and operating leaders running businesses with high-consequence decisions Boards and executive committees focused on crisis preparedness and operational resilience Senior teams managing cross-border or multinational workforces under political strain Aerospace, defence, energy, and engineering leadership audiences Audience outcomes A working model of how command-grade decision discipline operates when checklists run out A clearer view of what risk leadership looks like in environments where errors are irreversible Concrete examples of multinational team management under sustained operational stress A perspective on Earth, climate, and human capability that lifts the room without softening the argument

Why organisations work with Theresa Payton She has held the most accountable technology seat in the world – not as an adviser, but as the operator responsible for securing the Executive Office of the President. That is a different class of credential from the vendor or think-tank backgrounds most cybersecurity speakers bring. Her book Manipulated – on The Guardian’s Top 10 Books About Cybercrime list, maps the specific mechanics of AI-driven disinformation, deepfakes, and election interference; organisations working on trust, governance, or brand integrity get a strategic framework they can act on. As a patented inventor of security designs and co-founder of a cybersecurity product company (Dark3, acquired by Celerium), she brings the practitioner’s perspective, not the theorist’s: she has built the solutions, not just described the problem. She translates threat intelligence into board-level language. Her seventeen years across banking technology, government, and private advisory work means she can speak credibly to risk committees, technology leaders, and general business audiences in the same event. Biography highlights First female White House Chief Information Officer, serving under President George W. Bush, 2006–2008 Founder and CEO of Fortalice Solutions, ranked in the Global Cybersecurity Top 500 by Cybercrime Magazine Prior senior technology executive roles at Bank of America and Wells Fargo Author of Manipulated: Inside the Cyberwar to Hijack Elections and Distort the Truth, The Guardian Top 10 Books About Cybercrime list; revised edition published 2024 Co-inventor on an approved U.S. patent in security design Recipient of the FBI Director’s Award for Community Service; 2020 CISO MAG Cybersecurity Crusader of the Year; 2019 Woman Cybersecurity Leader of the Year Starred as Deputy Commander of Intelligence on the CBS reality series Hunted Regular security commentator on the Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, CBS News, Fox News, and MSNBC Biography Theresa Payton ran cybersecurity for the White House. From 2006 to 2008, as Chief Information Officer for the Executive Office of the President under George W. Bush, she was accountable for the security of IT systems used by the President and 3,000 staff: not as an adviser, but as the person responsible. Before that, she spent sixteen years in senior technology roles at Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The combination is unusual: operational authority at the highest level of government, built on a banking technology foundation. That background shapes how she approaches cyber risk with corporate audiences. The question she puts to boards is not whether their organisation will face a breach, but whether their governance structures are designed to know about it, act on it, and contain it. As CEO of Fortalice Solutions, listed in the Global Cybersecurity Top 500, she has spent fifteen years working through exactly that question with Fortune 100 clients. Her book Manipulated, named one of The Guardian’s Top 10 Books About Cybercrime, examines how AI-generated deepfakes, self-replicating chatbots, and coordinated disinformation campaigns are used to compromise institutions from the outside in. A revised edition was published in 2024. She is also a co-inventor on an approved U.S. patent in security design, and previously co-founded Dark3, a cybersecurity product company later acquired by Celerium. Her profile extends beyond the conference circuit. She has testified before government bodies, served as Deputy Commander of Intelligence on the CBS series Hunted, and is a regular security analyst on networks including CNN, CBS News, and MSNBC. For organisations where the board genuinely needs to understand what it owns and what it is exposed to, she is one of the few speakers who has actually sat in that seat. Key speaking topics Cybersecurity governance and board-level risk AI-driven threats and deepfake manipulation Secured digital transformation Election security and information integrity Data privacy and digital identity Fraud and social engineering Cybersecurity leadership and workforce Ideal for Boards and non-executive directors navigating cyber and AI governance CISOs, CIOs, and CTOs developing organisation-wide security strategy Risk, compliance, and audit committees in regulated sectors Technology and transformation leaders in financial services, healthcare, and government-adjacent industries Audience outcomes A board-ready framework for assessing the gap between digital investment and security governance Practical understanding of how AI-driven threats – deepfakes, disinformation, autonomous attack tools – operate in practice, not just in theory Clearer accountability structures for cyber risk at executive level Awareness of the specific ways social engineering and fraud are evolving, with concrete defensive steps Language and framing to take cybersecurity from a technical department concern to a strategic leadership conversation

Why organisations work with Tim Bouverie A prize-winning historian whose two books, Appeasing Hitler and the Duff Cooper Prize-winning Allies at War, sit on exactly the questions boards now face: when to confront, when to compromise, and how to hold a fragile coalition together. Trained as a political journalist at Channel 4 News under Michael Crick, so the material is delivered as argument and narrative, not lecture. Brings a specific, named angle on negotiation: the Big Three at Tehran and Yalta as a working case study for M&A, joint ventures and competitive collaboration. Comfortable in serious rooms. Has interviewed George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson on stage at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and lectures regularly across the UK and US, including at the Hoover Institution. An Oxford-trained historian (Christ Church, Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony’s) whose readership includes Max Hastings, Antony Beevor and Margaret MacMillan, all of whom have publicly endorsed the work. Biography highlights Author of Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War (Bodley Head, 2019), Sunday Times bestseller, Orwell Prize shortlist. Author of Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler (Bodley Head), winner of the 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize. Christ Church, Oxford. 2020-21 Alistair Horne Visiting Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford. Political journalist at Channel 4 News, 2013-2017, working with Michael Crick on Dispatches and covering two general elections, the Scottish referendum and the EU referendum. Regular contributor of book reviews on history and politics to the Spectator, the Observer and the Daily Telegraph. Speaker and interviewer at the Chalke Valley History Festival and at the Hoover Institution, with public sessions alongside George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson. Biography The diplomatic record of the 1930s is one of the best-documented examples of senior decision-makers misreading a hostile counterparty. It is also one of the most relevant to today’s boardroom. Tim Bouverie’s first book, Appeasing Hitler, took that record apart in detail, working from cabinet papers, private diaries and Foreign Office files to show how a generation of competent, well-informed leaders talked themselves into a strategic disaster. The book became a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. His second, Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler, drew on more than a hundred archives to reconstruct the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin coalition as the brittle, mistrustful negotiation it actually was. It won the 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, one of the most credited awards in narrative non-fiction. The training behind the work matters to a corporate audience. Bouverie read history at Christ Church, Oxford, and held the 2020-21 Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College. Before the books, he spent four and a half years as a political journalist at Channel 4 News, working with Michael Crick across two general elections and the Scottish and EU referendums. The combination shows up in the keynotes: archival depth, delivered with a working journalist’s instinct for argument. On stage he is a fluent interviewer as well as a lecturer, having questioned George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and presented at the Hoover Institution and at festivals across the United States. The signature talks pull directly from the books: appeasement as a study in strategic miscalculation, and the Big Three as a working manual on how to negotiate inside an alliance you cannot afford to walk away from. Key speaking topics Lessons from appeasement and strategic miscalculation Alliance management and coalition negotiation Leadership decisions under geopolitical pressure Diplomatic history of the Second World War The fragility of the rules-based order Negotiation in M&A, joint ventures and competitive collaboration Narrative history and archival research Ideal for Board and ExCo offsites focused on geopolitical risk and long-horizon strategy CEO and senior leadership audiences negotiating major partnerships, alliances or M&A Heads of strategy, government affairs and corporate affairs working on sanctions, China exposure and political risk After-dinner audiences at industry conferences where intellectual seriousness is part of the brief Audience outcomes A sharper read on how senior leaders misjudge hostile counterparties, with named historical examples that stick. Specific lessons from the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin alliance applicable to coalition negotiations today. A historical frame for current debates on the rules-based order, sanctions and Western unity that goes beyond the news cycle. A model for how to use evidence and narrative together when communicating high-stakes decisions internally.

Why organisations work with Tim Bradshaw His authority sits in operational tradecraft, not theory. As a Covert Human Intelligence Officer he recruited and ran foreign agents in environments where misjudging a person or a moment carried real consequences. That experience translates directly into how senior leaders read rooms, build trust quickly, and influence outcomes without formal authority. He treats resilience as a leadership system, not an individual virtue. His work focuses on how decision-making structures and cultural signals shape whether teams hold together under sustained pressure, which is the version boards actually need. He has tested his content with operationally serious clients across regulated and high-stakes sectors, including Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, Clyde & Co, Knight Frank, St James’s Place and Netflix. Through Sandstone Communications and the Sandstone Foundation he runs the same material at executive level and in schools, which keeps the language plain and the frameworks usable rather than abstract. Biography highlights Former British Army Intelligence Officer, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst graduate, served as a Covert Human Intelligence Officer. Founder and director of Sandstone Communications, an international leadership and trauma-informed training consultancy. Chief Executive of the Sandstone Foundation, delivering leadership and resilience programmes across corporate, public and education sectors. Author of Because I Can, a practical guide to personal effectiveness under pressure. Keynote client roster includes Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover, Netflix, Deloitte, Knight Frank, Clyde & Co, St James’s Place, Fujifilm Europe, Hitachi Solutions, Taylor Wessing and Gateley. Personal endurance record includes Ironman, summit of Everest, summit of the Matterhorn, and seven triathlons in one weekend. Biography Most leadership programmes train people for clarity. The harder problem is the meeting where the information is incomplete, the timeline has collapsed, and the person in charge has to commit anyway. That is the territory Tim Bradshaw works in, and it is where his content earns its weight. His authority comes from operational practice rather than research. As a Covert Human Intelligence Officer in the British Army, a Royal Military Academy Sandhurst graduate, he recruited and handled foreign agents in environments where reading a person wrongly had immediate consequences. The discipline he brings into the room is not motivational. It is practical tradecraft: how to make decisions when the picture refuses to clarify, how to build trust at speed, how to influence outcomes when hierarchy gives you nothing to lean on. Through Sandstone Communications, the consultancy he founded, and the Sandstone Foundation, where he is chief executive, he applies that work to senior teams in regulated and operationally complex businesses. Clients include Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, Clyde & Co, Knight Frank, St James’s Place, Netflix, Fujifilm Europe and Taylor Wessing. His book Because I Can sets out the personal effectiveness framework that underpins the keynotes. What makes his work usable is the refusal to treat resilience as an individual quality. He argues that leadership behaviour, decision structures and cultural signals are what determine whether a team stays effective under sustained pressure. That reframes a topic boards often hear as a wellbeing conversation into a question about how the organisation is actually run. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure and uncertainty Influence and trust without formal authority Leadership in high-stakes operational environments Team resilience as a leadership system Crisis management and composure Leading change without creating fragility Ideal for CEOs and executive teams in regulated, safety-critical or operationally complex sectors Senior leadership offsites where decision-making and judgment under pressure are the headline themes Sales, advisory and client-facing teams that depend on rapid trust-building with senior counterparties Risk, security and crisis leadership functions, including CROs, CISOs and continuity leads Audience outcomes A working method for committing to a decision when the information is incomplete A specific way to build trust and influence at speed without relying on title or authority A view of resilience as something leaders engineer into teams, not something they ask of individuals Composure as a teachable behaviour, with the cues senior leaders can use to model it A clearer read on which organisational habits actively erode performance when pressure is sustained

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

Why organisations work with Tim Willcox Two decades of live BBC anchoring on the stories boards now name as risk: the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the Libyan civil war, the Athens bailout, the Catalan crisis, Ukraine, Brexit. He has interviewed the principals, not just read the wires. Conference moderator credits at IATA World Aviation Day, World Travel and Tourism Council, World Science Forum, the Emirates Literature Festival and the ipSoft AI Conference. Senior international audiences, technical content, multilingual rooms. Media training and crisis-communication coaching for executives at Novartis, HSBC, BT, Nationwide, Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office and the National Audit Office. Direct experience of how a board sounds, and fails to sound, under pressure from a journalist. Fluent Spanish and conversational French, with first-hand reporting from Chile, Spain, Argentina, Libya, Egypt, Japan and the Philippines. Useful in any conference room that is not solely Anglophone. A trained newsroom interviewer, not a celebrity host. He extracts content from senior executives rather than displacing them. Biography highlights Twenty-plus years as a BBC News anchor across BBC One, BBC World News, the BBC News Channel, BBC Four and BBC radio. Former ITN Arts and Media Correspondent whose field reporting ran from the 1994 Rwanda genocide to Iraq under Saddam Hussein; presented live from New York during the 9/11 attacks and was the first ITN journalist to break news of the Paris crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales. Live BBC anchor on the 2010 Chilean mining rescue, the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the 2011 Libyan civil war and the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Conference chair credits include IATA World Aviation Day (Mauritius), World Travel and Tourism Council (Buenos Aires), World Science Forum (Jordan), ipSoft AI Conference (Barcelona), Emirates Literature Festival (Dubai), Maritime Standard Awards (Dubai) and NHS Expo (Manchester). Media training and crisis-communications coaching for Novartis, HSBC, BT, Nationwide, Crown Prosecution Service, Severn Trent Water, the Serious Fraud Office and the National Audit Office. Documentaries for Channel 4 and Channel 5; began on Fleet Street writing for The Times, The Telegraph, Mirror Group, the Financial Times and The Spectator. Biography The chair of a senior conference is the variable that decides whether a panel becomes a frank discussion or a sequence of pre-cleared talking points. Tim Willcox spent more than twenty years as a BBC News anchor running live interviews under deadline, including with sitting heads of state, and that is the craft he brings to a corporate room. His on-air career covered the stories that now sit on board risk registers: the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the Libyan civil war, the Athens bailout, the Catalan independence crisis, the Ukraine war, Brexit. Before the BBC he was ITN’s Arts and Media Correspondent, reporting from the front line of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and from Iraq under Saddam Hussein. He presented live from New York during the 9/11 attacks and broke news of the Paris crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales. That ground translates directly to international conference work. He has chaired at IATA World Aviation Day in Mauritius, the World Travel and Tourism Council summit in Buenos Aires, the World Science Forum in Jordan, the ipSoft AI Conference in Barcelona and the Emirates Literature Festival in Dubai. He works in fluent Spanish and reasonable French, which matters when the audience is not solely Anglophone. The third strand is media training. Novartis, HSBC, BT, Nationwide, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Serious Fraud Office and the National Audit Office have used him to coach executives on hostile interviews and crisis communications. The value is the same as on stage: a trained newsroom interviewer who knows exactly how a board sounds when it is not ready. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and live news literacy for boards Crisis communications and executive media performance Leadership under live media scrutiny International conference moderation and panel facilitation Awards and after-dinner hosting Reporting on the front line: lessons from twenty years of breaking news Spanish and Latin American business and political coverage Ideal for Boards and ExCos commissioning a chair for senior off-sites on geopolitical, regulatory or reputational risk CEOs, CFOs and Chief Communications Officers preparing for hostile media or crisis press conferences International industry associations running multilingual flagship summits and awards Conference programmers needing a moderator who can carry a head-of-state interview as readily as a panel of operators Audience outcomes A moderated panel that produces actual exchange between senior speakers, not parallel monologues Sharper executive performance under journalist-style questioning A working sense of how a live news cycle interprets a corporate statement and where the pressure points sit Specific reporting examples (Egypt, Libya, Chile, Catalonia, Brexit) that connect macro events to commercial decisions A flagship event held to BBC interviewing standards from the chair

Why organisations work with Tina Stowell She has run a national regulator from the inside. As Chair of the Charity Commission for three years, she rebuilt how a public body holds an entire sector to account, and can speak to regulatory pressure with the authority of someone who has applied it. She is one of the few practitioners who has led a legislative chamber through politically contested change, including the passage of equal marriage law through the House of Lords. Her current chairmanship of the Lords Communications and Digital Committee places her at the centre of UK scrutiny on generative AI, large language models and the future of news, with published committee reports cited by government and industry. She offers a working insight into how organisations earn or lose public trust, drawn from BBC corporate affairs, No. 10, the Cabinet table and a non-executive seat at Impellam Group plc. She speaks without political performance. Buyers commission her when the room contains regulators, ministers, journalists and executives who would all detect spin instantly. Biography highlights Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal, 2014 to 2016, full Cabinet member from 2015. Chair, Charity Commission for England and Wales, 2018 to 2021. Chair, House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, with reports on generative AI, media literacy and the future of news. Nearly a decade at the BBC, including Head of Corporate Affairs and Head of Communications for the BBC Trust. MBE in the 1996 Birthday Honours for service in the No. 10 Press Office under Prime Minister John Major. Spectator Peer of the Year, 2013 and 2024; Stonewall Politician of the Year, 2013. Non-executive director, Impellam Group plc; board member, ABTA; Social Mobility Commissioner since 2023. Biography The Charity Commission was a regulator that few outside the sector took seriously when Tina Stowell took the chair in 2018. Three years later it was setting the public conversation about how charities behave. That arc, from background body to active regulator, captures the kind of work she has built a career around: institutions under pressure, and the leadership choices that decide whether they recover authority or lose it. She came to that chairmanship through a route few in the Lords have taken. Five years in the No. 10 Press Office under John Major, recognised with an MBE in 1996. Nearly a decade at the BBC, including Head of Corporate Affairs during a period of intense scrutiny of the Corporation. Deputy chief of staff to William Hague at Conservative Party headquarters. The pattern is consistent: senior communications and governance roles inside organisations whose legitimacy was being publicly tested. In 2014 she was appointed Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal, becoming a full member of the Cabinet after the 2015 election. The previous year she had taken the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill through the Lords, work that drew Politician of the Year recognition from Stonewall and PinkNews and a first Spectator Peer of the Year award. Her current chairmanship of the Lords Communications and Digital Committee has produced some of the more substantive UK parliamentary work on large language models, generative AI and the future of news, with the 2024 report on LLMs widely cited in the policy debate on AI safety and opportunity. She also brings the texture that comes from having grown up in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, the daughter of a painter-decorator and a factory worker, with five O-levels and no university degree. That biography matters in the room. She has held cabinet rank, regulated a sector, and chaired the parliamentary committee scrutinising AI, without the credentialism that often accompanies those roles. Her Spectator Peer of the Year award was repeated in 2024 for parliamentary work on the ownership of UK newspapers. Key speaking topics Leadership and trust under public scrutiny AI governance and the UK regulatory environment Regulation as a leadership tool, not a compliance burden Decision-making in politically contested terrain Media, communications and reputational risk Public sector and charity sector governance Bridging divides across political, generational and institutional lines Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing regulatory or political exposure Senior leaders in regulated industries, charities, media and the public sector Communications, public affairs and corporate affairs leadership Policy and government relations teams in technology, financial services and consumer-facing businesses Audience outcomes A clearer view of what earns institutional trust in front of regulators, media and elected officials A practical reading of how UK and parliamentary scrutiny of AI is actually evolving Sharper instincts for spotting where leadership communication is hardening or losing the room A more honest sense of what the public sector expects of senior corporate leaders, from someone who has sat on both sides