Scenario Planning & Strategic Foresight

Why organisations work with Stephen Roach His false narratives framework, argued across two Yale University Press books and cited by senior Financial Times columnists Martin Wolf, Gillian Tett, and Rana Foroohar, as well as multiple Nobel laureates in economics, gives leaders a forensically grounded alternative to the prevailing decoupling consensus. Three decades as Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist and then Chairman of its Asia operations means he has spent equal time analysing the US macro economy and operating inside Asian financial markets: a bilateral vantage point that most China analysts or US economists hold separately, not together. His analysis attributes much of the US-China conflict to domestic failures on both sides – America’s savings shortfall, China’s failed economic rebalancing – rather than to strategic malice. This reframes the risk calculus for leaders making long-term decisions about market exposure and technology strategy. As a monthly columnist for Project Syndicate and an active commentator on current US-China developments, he tracks the relationship in real time, not from a static academic framework. He was among the earliest economists identified as having predicted the structural conditions leading to the 2008 financial crisis – a forecasting record that lends credibility to his current warnings about the misread trajectory of US-China conflict escalation. Biography highlights Senior Research Scholar, Paul Tsai China Center, Yale Law School; formerly Senior Fellow, Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs (2010–2022) and Senior Lecturer, Yale School of Management Chief Economist, Morgan Stanley (from 1982), heading a global team across New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Paris; Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia (2007–2010), based in Hong Kong Research staff, Federal Reserve Board; Research Fellow, Brookings Institution Author of Accidental Conflict: America, China, and the Clash of False Narratives (Yale University Press, 2022) – Financial Times Best Book of the Year: Economics; endorsed by Nobel laureates Robert Shiller and Robert Engle Author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China (Yale University Press, 2014) and The Next Asia (Wiley, 2009) Monthly columnist, Project Syndicate; Member, Council on Foreign Relations PhD in Economics, New York University Biography The US-China relationship is the most consequential and most misread economic partnership of the 21st century. Most boardroom analysis of the conflict treats it as a zero-sum structural rivalry between two incompatible powers. Stephen Roach’s argument is more uncomfortable: much of the conflict is self-inflicted, driven not by genuine strategic incompatibility but by false narratives that each nation has constructed to deflect accountability for its own economic shortcomings. That argument is made with unusual authority. Roach spent thirty years at Morgan Stanley, first as Chief Economist leading a global team across six major financial centres, then as Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, where he worked directly with governments, financial institutions, and multinationals operating at the intersection of the two economies. When he joined Yale in 2010, first at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and subsequently at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, he brought that bilateral operating experience into academic research and graduate teaching, developing courses including «The Next China» and «The Lessons of Japan.» His two Yale University Press books make a cumulative argument. Unbalanced (2014) identified the structural codependency binding the two economies. Accidental Conflict (2022), named a Financial Times Best Book of the Year in Economics, diagnosed the false narratives on both sides now pushing that codependency toward confrontation. The analysis drew endorsements from Nobel laureates Robert Shiller and Robert Engle, and was reviewed by Financial Times senior columnists Martin Wolf, Gillian Tett, and Rana Foroohar. For boards making consequential decisions about market exposure, supply chain configuration, and technology strategy, the practical question is not which side of the conflict to believe. It is whether the conflict they are planning for is the conflict that actually exists. Key speaking topics US-China economic and geopolitical relations Global macroeconomic risk and policy Trade conflict and the structural limits of decoupling Asian economies and market dynamics False narratives and strategic misperception International trade and globalisation US savings, fiscal imbalance, and structural economic vulnerability Ideal for Boards and executive committees with material exposure to US or China market risk CFOs, Chief Risk Officers, and heads of strategy in global financial services, technology, and industrial manufacturing Government, diplomatic, and policy audiences engaged in trade, investment, or security posture toward China Investment management firms and sovereign wealth funds requiring a rigorous bilateral economic framework for allocation decisions Audience outcomes A structured framework for separating the rhetoric driving US-China conflict from the underlying structural economic forces that actually shape it Sharper clarity on what decoupling, reshoring, and geopolitical hedging strategies address – and what they leave unexamined A more rigorous basis for assessing China-related risk in capital allocation, supply chain design, and technology partnership decisions Exposure to a track record of independent, contrarian macroeconomic forecasting, including early identification of conditions leading to the 2008 financial crisis Greater confidence in framing the US-China trajectory for boards, investors, and senior stakeholders

Why organisations work with Stephane Garelli He created the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook in 1989, the reference benchmark used by governments and multinationals for more than three decades. When he interprets a country’s position, he is the source, not a commentator on the source. His 2025 book World Competitiveness: Rewriting the Rules of Global Prosperity (Wiley) is the first sustained reframing of his own thesis for the post-globalisation era, which gives boards a coherent argument for capital allocation under fragmentation rather than a list of risks. Thirteen years running the World Economic Forum and the Davos Annual Meetings, plus twelve years advising the European management of Hewlett-Packard, mean his counsel is informed by how senior executives and heads of state actually decide, not how they describe themselves on stage. His positions at IMD and the University of Lausanne, alongside long board service at Sandoz Financial and Banking Holding and Le Temps, place him at the intersection of academic originality and Swiss-grade institutional discipline, an unusual combination among economic speakers. Biography highlights Founder of the IMD World Competitiveness Center and creator of the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, the leading annual ranking of national competitiveness since 1989. Professor Emeritus of World Competitiveness at IMD Business School and Professor Emeritus at the University of Lausanne. Former Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and the Davos Annual Meetings for 13 years. Author of Top Class Competitors (Wiley) and World Competitiveness: Rewriting the Rules of Global Prosperity (Wiley, 2025). Former Chairman of FF Sandoz Financial and Banking Holding and long-tenured Chairman of Le Temps, the leading French-language Swiss newspaper. Member of the International Olympic Committee Commission on Sustainability and Legacy, chaired by Prince Albert of Monaco. Biography Most economic commentary on the new global order describes the symptoms. Garelli wrote the underlying framework. In 1989, he founded the IMD World Competitiveness Center and created the World Competitiveness Yearbook, the first systematic annual ranking of how nations build and sustain prosperity. The Yearbook now benchmarks more than sixty economies across hundreds of indicators and remains the reference governments and multinationals reach for when they want to know where a country actually stands. His 2025 book, World Competitiveness: Rewriting the Rules of Global Prosperity, published by Wiley, extends that work into the period after the “golden era of globalization”, the four decades from China’s 1978 opening to the COVID shock. The argument is that the world will remain global but no longer united, and that competitiveness now has to be rebuilt around bloc-level alignment, industrial policy, and resilience rather than open markets. For boards setting capital allocation under sanctions, tariffs, and supply chain rewiring, this is operating guidance, not theory. The institutional spine behind the work is unusual. Thirteen years as Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and the Davos Annual Meetings, twelve years as permanent senior adviser to the European management of Hewlett-Packard, and chairmanship of FF Sandoz Financial and Banking Holding and of Le Temps, the leading French-language Swiss newspaper. He has sat on the IOC Commission on Sustainability and Legacy chaired by Prince Albert of Monaco. He has held faculty positions at IMD and the University of Lausanne, where he is Professor Emeritus at both. The credentials matter because the analysis is informed by how senior leaders actually decide, not how they describe their decisions in retrospect. The earlier Wiley book, Top Class Competitors, defined competitiveness as the ability to manage a set of disparate competencies, including education, security, brand, and individual reinvention, to achieve prosperity. The 2025 work argues that the components have changed but the discipline has not. Key speaking topics World competitiveness in a fragmented global economy The end of the golden era of globalisation National strategy under bloc-level alignment Enterprise competitiveness and value chain reconfiguration Capital allocation and country selection under fragmentation The competitiveness implications of industrial policy Ideal for Boards and executive committees rewriting global strategy under sanctions, tariffs, and bloc-level alignment. CFOs, CSOs, and corporate development leaders making country-level capital allocation decisions. Government, sovereign, and policy audiences benchmarking national competitiveness against credible peers. Senior leadership offsites where the agenda turns on what comes after the open-markets era. Audience outcomes A working frame for what competitiveness now means when blocs, not markets, set the rules. Sharper questions for the board on country exposure, supply chain dependence, and capital allocation under fragmentation. A clearer read on how industrial policy, sanctions, and multi-alignment strategies are reshaping where prosperity now accrues. The vocabulary and evidence base of the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook applied directly to the audience’s strategic situation.

Why organisations work with Stefan Hyttfors He translates AI, climate and geopolitical signals into the specific operating choices a board actually has to make, rather than leaving leaders with a trend deck. His thesis in Yoga for Leaders connects disruptive technology to human behaviour, which gives the room a usable language for the cultural side of transformation, not just the technology side. Two-time Swedish Speaker of the Year, with more than 1,000 engagements across 40+ countries, including IKEA, Microsoft, H&M, Spotify, Deloitte and AstraZeneca. A journalist’s instinct for narrative means complex foresight content lands with senior, mixed-discipline audiences without being diluted. Nordic register, low on hype, high on argument, which suits boards that have already heard the standard Silicon Valley futurism pitch and want something sharper. Biography highlights Author of Yoga for Leaders: How to manage self-disruption in a world of self-destruction, LID Publishing, 2016. Twice named Swedish Speaker of the Year by Talarforum. TEDx speaker, including “We don’t need jobs” (TEDxArendal) and “Can we really trust human intelligence?” (TEDxStockholm). Former photo journalist at Expressen and Photo Editor-in-Chief at a Swedish daily; trained economist. Co-founder of Swedish PR agency Wenderfalck. Client roster includes IKEA, Microsoft, Klarna, Spotify, H&M, Deloitte, AstraZeneca, Gartner, Ericsson, BMW, Toyota, Unilever, Nike, Skanska and E.ON. Biography Most organisations still treat foresight as a forecasting exercise. The default question is what is going to happen, and the default output is a slide of trends. The harder question, what kind of organisation can keep deciding well when the trend lines stop being reliable, is the one Stefan Hyttfors works on with leadership teams across Europe. His thesis is that disruption is misread when it is treated as a purely technological event. In Yoga for Leaders: How to manage self-disruption in a world of self-destruction, published by LID in 2016, he sets technology alongside human behaviour and argues that the binding constraint on adaptation is rarely the tool, it is the mind of the leader using it. That argument has carried into his current work on AI, climate, and geopolitical instability, where he frames the leadership task as composure under accelerating change rather than mastery of any single trend. The credibility sits on volume and range. More than a thousand keynotes across forty-plus countries, twice named Swedish Speaker of the Year by Talarforum, TEDx talks at Arendal and Stockholm, and a client list that runs from IKEA, H&M and Spotify to Microsoft, Deloitte and AstraZeneca. His training as a journalist and economist shows in how the material is built: trend data on one side, behavioural and cultural argument on the other, no filler in between. What buyers tend to single out is the tone. Hyttfors is sceptical of futurism that sells inevitability, and equally sceptical of leadership content that ignores the technology shift underneath. The talk lands as a working brief for the next twelve months, not a prediction about 2035. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight under accelerating change Artificial intelligence and the future of work Digital transformation and behavioural change Leadership in unstable conditions Sustainability and climate as strategic variables Disruptive technology and business model change Trust as a commercial differentiator Ideal for Board and ExCo offsites setting direction under AI, climate and geopolitical uncertainty CHRO and CPO audiences re-scoping workforce strategy around AI capability CSO and strategy leadership teams refreshing planning assumptions for the next cycle Industry conferences in financial services, technology, industrials and consumer where future-of-business framing anchors the programme Audience outcomes A working language for distinguishing signal from noise across AI, climate and geopolitical shifts A clearer view of where their own organisation is over-indexed on predictability and under-indexed on adaptive capacity A behavioural read on why transformation programmes stall, beyond the usual technology or governance explanations Specific prompts for the conversations the leadership team should be having internally in the next two quarters

Why organisations work with Sławomir Sierakowski His argument that Eastern European populism is rooted in post-communist institutional weakness – not economic grievance – gives organisations a structural framework for market risk that standard political analysis does not provide. As founder of Krytyka Polityczna since 2002, he built and led the largest intellectual and civic network in Central and Eastern Europe; his intelligence on how political and social forces actually operate in the region is embedded, not desk-based. His current Senior Fellow role at the DGAP Europe Center, combined with his monthly Project Syndicate column and contributions to the FT, Foreign Policy, and Le Monde, puts him at the intersection of live policy debate and long-form analytical rigour: an unusual combination for a single voice. As Head of the Program Board of Impact CEE – Central and Eastern Europe’s largest leadership conference, drawing 8,000 participants and 700 speakers – he sits at the organisational intersection of business, policy, and intellectual life in the region. He is one of the few analysts who can position a single election result, a court ruling, or a Kremlin provocation within the deeper sociological argument, making his briefings more durable than a news cycle. Biography highlights Founder and editor-in-chief of Krytyka Polityczna (Political Critique), established 2002: the largest intellectual and civic movement in Central and Eastern Europe, with branches in Ukraine and Germany Senior Fellow, DGAP Europe Center (German Council on Foreign Relations), Berlin: Europe’s equivalent of Chatham House or the Council on Foreign Relations Monthly columnist for Project Syndicate; contributing author to The New York Times (since 2013); regular contributor to the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Die Zeit, Le Monde, El País, and Haaretz Head of the Program Board, Impact CEE, Central and Eastern Europe’s largest innovation and leadership conference Former Director, Institute for Advanced Studies in Warsaw Fellowships from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, the German Marshall Fund, IWM Vienna, Mercator Stiftung, and the Bosch Academy Contributor to the Journal of Democracy and the New York Review of Books Biography Most Western organisations treat European political risk as a single problem. Sławomir Sierakowski has spent two decades arguing that it is not. Central and Eastern Europe operates under different political logic: weak institutional checks, middle-class populist majorities, and a post-communist legacy that renders standard Western analytical models unreliable. Sierakowski is the founder of Krytyka Polityczna, the intellectual and civic movement he launched in Warsaw in 2002, which grew into the largest network of liberal intellectuals, artists, and activists in the region. The movement was built on the argument that cultural and political analysis had to be integrated, not separated. And it produced a body of public debate that placed Sierakowski at the centre of European civic life for more than two decades. His current work as a Senior Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations’ Europe Center, combined with his long-running monthly column for Project Syndicate and regular contributions to the Financial Times, Le Monde, and Foreign Policy, keeps that analysis close to the decision-making environments where it matters. As Head of the Program Board of Impact CEE – a conference that brings together 8,000 business leaders, policymakers, and academics annually – he also operates at the precise intersection where political intelligence reaches commercial leadership. The result is a perspective that is neither purely academic nor purely journalistic. Sierakowski reads what is happening in Warsaw, Budapest, or Bucharest not as news, but as evidence for structural arguments about where European democracy is going, and what that means for the organisations that have to operate within it. Key speaking topics Populism and democratic erosion in Europe Central and Eastern European politics and institutions European geopolitical risk EU cohesion, enlargement, and strategic autonomy Russia, Ukraine, and European security Political risk and its implications for business strategy The divergence between Western and Eastern European political cultures Ideal for Strategy, risk, and government affairs teams at multinational organisations with operations or investment exposure in Central and Eastern Europe Boards and C-suite seeking geopolitical context on EU political stability and regulatory environments Policy and investment conferences focused on European markets, democracy, or security Senior leadership forums where geopolitical volatility is the central strategic theme Audience outcomes A structural framework for understanding why Central and Eastern European politics behaves differently from Western Europe, with direct implications for risk assessment Clearer analytical tools for distinguishing durable political trends from short-term electoral noise in European markets An informed basis for evaluating how democratic erosion affects regulatory predictability and institutional reliability in specific markets Context for recent and likely near-term developments – elections, judicial conflicts, security flashpoints – drawn from active policy engagement rather than retrospective commentary

Why organisations work with Simon Sinek The Golden Circle gives leadership teams a named, diagrammatic model for examining whether their communication and strategy starts from purpose or defaults to product; concrete enough to run a board session around, not just a concept to absorb from a stage. The Infinite Game framework reframes how organisations think about competition: the argument that most organisations are playing a finite game in an inherently infinite one gives senior leaders a precise diagnostic for why short-termism is corroding their culture and decision-making. His work on the Circle of Safety – drawn from military and organisational research – gives leaders a specific language and accountability structure for psychological safety, distinguishing it from vague “culture” conversations. Three consecutive Thinkers50 appearances (2017, 2019, 2021), including the Future Thinker award, position him inside the recognised canon of serious management thinking – relevant where senior buyers are evaluating credibility, not just popularity. His reach into the US Armed Forces, the United Nations, and the US Congress alongside global corporate work gives his frameworks a cross-sector validation that most leadership speakers cannot match. Biography highlights Author of five books on leadership and purpose, including Start with Why (global bestseller, over one million copies sold in the US alone), Leaders Eat Last (New York Times bestseller), and The Infinite Game (New York Times bestseller); published by Portfolio/Penguin and Penguin Random House Creator of the Golden Circle framework, one of the most widely adopted models in leadership communication and organisational purpose TED Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” (2009) is the third most-watched talk on TED.com, with over 60 million views Named to the Thinkers50 ranking three consecutive times (2017, 2019, 2021); recipient of the Thinkers50 Future Thinker Award Adjunct staff member, RAND Corporation (since 2010); former instructor in Strategic Communications, Columbia University Founder of The Optimism Company, a leadership learning and development platform, and Optimism Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House; has spoken at the United Nations, US Congress, and across senior US military leadership Biography Most leadership conversations begin in the wrong place. They start with what an organisation does or how it does it – and never reach the question that actually determines whether people are engaged, aligned, and willing to give discretionary effort: why. The inability to answer that question convincingly is not a branding gap; it is a leadership gap, and Simon Sinek has built one of the most recognised frameworks in contemporary management thinking to address it. His Golden Circle model – introduced in Start with Why (2009) and subsequently the subject of the third most-watched TED Talk in history – provides organisations with a structured means of diagnosing whether their leadership, communication, and strategy is purpose-led or merely product-led. The argument is grounded in the biology of decision-making: people do not respond primarily to logic and features, but to belief and identity. The practical implication for leadership is significant, and it is why the framework has moved from conference rooms into board strategy sessions, culture programmes, and military leadership curricula. His later work extends the argument. The Infinite Game (2019, New York Times bestseller) identifies a structural problem in how most organisations compete: treating an inherently infinite game – business, leadership, institutional relevance – as if it has a finish line. Leaders operating with a finite mindset optimise for short-term metrics and burn through the trust, culture, and purpose that actually determine longevity. This is not motivational language; it is a specific claim about strategic error, and it gives senior leaders a framework for examining decisions that are degrading their organisations from the inside. Sinek’s affiliations reflect the range at which his work operates. As an adjunct staff member at the RAND Corporation since 2010, advising on military innovation, and having spoken at the United Nations Global Compact Leaders Summit and directly to senior leadership across every branch of the US Armed Forces, he brings institutional credibility that extends well beyond the corporate speaker circuit. Three consecutive Thinkers50 appearances, including the Future Thinker Award, confirm his standing within the serious canon of management thinking. Key speaking topics Purpose-driven leadership and the Golden Circle Organisational trust and psychological safety Finite vs. infinite mindset in strategy and leadership Leadership culture and the conditions for engagement Long-term organisational performance and decision-making Inspiring communication for leaders and teams Values, identity, and organisational alignment Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership development programmes where the strategic case for culture and purpose needs to be made at an executive level CHROs and People directors working on engagement, trust, and the conditions under which employees perform at their best Transformation leads and strategy teams examining how short-term competitive pressures are eroding long-term capability Senior leadership conferences requiring a speaker with both mass-market name recognition and a defensible intellectual framework Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary – Golden Circle, Circle of Safety, Infinite Game – that gives leadership teams a common reference point for conversations about purpose, trust, and strategy A framework for diagnosing whether their organisation’s leadership and communication starts from why or defaults to what A reframe of competitive strategy: the finite vs. infinite mindset distinction as a diagnostic tool for identifying decisions that are weakening organisational resilience Greater clarity on the specific leadership behaviours – protection, consistency, accountability – that build psychological safety and sustain discretionary effort A practical case for why culture and purpose are strategic variables, not HR programmes

Why organisations work with Simon Johnson The Nobel Prize-cited research demonstrates, with causal rigour, that institutions shape economic outcomes more decisively than market forces alone, giving boards a framework for evaluating political and regulatory risk that goes beyond scenario planning or macro-forecasting Power and Progress argues that AI and major technologies historically concentrate gains in the hands of those who direct their development, not those who use them – a counter-argument to standard innovation optimism that risk committees and executive teams are increasingly required to engage with His time as IMF Chief Economist during the 2007–08 financial crisis positions his analysis of systemic risk as empirical rather than theoretical: he was inside the global institutional response as it happened Named a UK Government AI Ambassador in December 2025, Johnson is an active participant in policy formation on AI and productivity – organisations engaging him access thinking that is shaping government strategy in real time, not retrospectively His analytical method – using historical variation in colonial institutions as a natural experiment – gives him an unusually precise way of explaining why structural constraints persist, cutting through ideological framing on both left and right Biography highlights 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity” – Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management; head of the Global Economics and Management group Chief Economist (Economic Counsellor) and Director of Research, International Monetary Fund, 2007–08 Co-author of Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity (2023, with Acemoglu); 13 Bankers (2010); Jump-Starting America (2019) Named UK Government AI Ambassador, December 2025 Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research; Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research; board of directors, Fannie Mae Project Syndicate contributor since 2007; undergraduate PPE, Corpus Christi College, Oxford; PhD Economics, MIT Biography The question of why some economies generate broad prosperity while others stagnate – despite access to similar technologies and capital – occupied Simon Johnson, Daron Acemoglu, and James Robinson for more than two decades. Their answer: institutions. The political and economic rules that determine who can participate in growth are not neutral infrastructure – they are the primary driver of long-term economic outcomes. That conclusion, now validated by the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, has a direct implication for how senior leaders should read structural risk. Johnson’s position as IMF Chief Economist during the 2007–08 global financial crisis adds a dimension that academic credentials alone cannot. He was at the centre of the institutional response to a systemic collapse in real time. 13 Bankers, written in its aftermath, argued that the US financial sector’s political capture had created the conditions for catastrophic failure – a thesis that has since shaped how regulators, boards, and risk professionals think about the relationship between financial power and institutional design. His most recent major work, Power and Progress (co-authored with Acemoglu), extends the institutions framework to technology. The central argument is that technological progress – from the printing press to AI – does not automatically distribute its gains. Who benefits depends on who holds the power to direct how a technology is built and deployed. For organisations navigating AI investment decisions, that argument reframes the question: not “what will AI do?” but “who will AI benefit, and why?” Since December 2025 Johnson has served as a UK Government AI Ambassador, working on initiatives to direct AI development towards productivity gains that are broadly shared. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and contributes regularly to Project Syndicate. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, and MIT. Key speaking topics Institutions, political economy, and long-term prosperity Systemic financial risk and banking reform AI, technology, and economic inequality Global economic governance and policy design Innovation-led growth and its distributional consequences Geopolitical risk and institutional resilience The political economy of financial crises Ideal for Board directors and executive leadership teams navigating political and regulatory risk Financial services organisations and risk committees Government, central bank, and public policy forums Chief Strategy Officers and scenario planning teams at global organisations Audience outcomes A research-grounded framework for understanding why institutions – not market dynamics alone – determine where economic value concentrates A clearer model for evaluating political and regulatory risk as a structural, not episodic, factor in long-term strategy A more critical lens on AI investment decisions, grounded in the historical pattern of how technologies distribute – or fail to distribute – their gains Direct insight into how systemic financial risk forms, drawn from IMF experience during the 2007–08 crisis Context for the current policy environment on AI and productivity, including where government thinking is heading

Why organisations work with Shlomo Ben-Ami He led the Israeli negotiating team at the 2000 Camp David Summit and the Taba talks that followed, which remain the high-water mark of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiation. Briefing audiences on the region from outside that room is a different proposition to briefing from inside it. His academic base is serious: a PhD from Oxford, headship of the Tel Aviv University School of History, and the Elias Sourasky Chair for Spanish and Latin American Studies. His analysis reads as historian’s work rather than political memoir. Two Oxford University Press books, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace (2006) and Prophets Without Honor (2022), give audiences reference texts rather than talking points. Co-founding and Vice Presidency of the Toledo International Centre for Peace in Spain places him inside the European-Mediterranean diplomatic network, useful for international audiences. Project Syndicate syndication means his analysis is already in the diet of many executive and board readers, which shortens the framing time inside a session. Biography highlights Former Foreign Minister of Israel (2000); former Minister of Public Security (1999) Israel’s first Ambassador to Spain, 1987 to 1991 Head of the Israeli delegation at the 2000 Camp David Summit and the Taba talks Co-founder and Vice President of the Toledo International Centre for Peace PhD in History, University of Oxford; Head of the School of History, Tel Aviv University, 1982 to 1986 Author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace (Oxford University Press, 2006) and Prophets Without Honor (Oxford University Press, 2022); Project Syndicate columnist Biography The Camp David Summit of 2000 is the most-analysed moment in contemporary Middle East diplomacy, and the person who led the Israeli negotiating team at it is Shlomo Ben-Ami. A serving Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, he had by that point spent almost a decade at the centre of Israel’s foreign relations: first as Israel’s first Ambassador to Spain from 1987 to 1991, then as a Knesset member on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, then as Minister of Public Security, before taking the foreign portfolio in 2000. His diplomatic record predates that. He served on Israel’s delegation to the 1993 Madrid Peace Conference and led the Israeli delegation at the Multilateral Talks on Refugees in Ottawa. The credibility behind the work is academic: a PhD in History from Oxford, a period as Head of the School of History at Tel Aviv University, and the Elias Sourasky Chair for Spanish and Latin American Studies. Since leaving government he has written what are now the standard practitioner accounts of the process he was part of. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy, published by Oxford University Press in 2006, challenges a number of founding myths about Israel’s early history. Prophets Without Honor: The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-State Solution, published by Oxford University Press in 2022, is the definitive inside account of the summit he chaired. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate, which places his commentary in front of international executive and policy audiences. He co-founded the Toledo International Centre for Peace in Spain and serves as its Vice President, keeping him inside the European-Mediterranean diplomatic networks still working on conflict resolution in the region. For investor, corporate and policy audiences trying to read the Middle East with the seriousness the region now demands, Ben-Ami is one of the few voices whose analysis is built on both direct negotiation experience and Oxford-trained historical scholarship. Key speaking topics Middle East geopolitics and the Israeli-Arab conflict Inside the 2000 Camp David Summit and the Taba talks International negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution Israeli domestic politics and foreign policy The two-state solution and post-Oslo process Europe, Spain and the Mediterranean security picture Ideal for Boards, CEOs and investment committees assessing Middle East geopolitical risk Financial institutions, energy companies and multinationals with Middle East exposure Policy forums, think tanks and international affairs audiences Conferences on diplomacy, international negotiation and historical scholarship Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what actually happened inside Camp David and Taba, not the public version A clearer view of how and why two-state diplomacy stalled and what would be required to move it Historical context drawn from his Oxford University Press books and long academic record Insight into Spain, the EU and the Mediterranean framework around Middle East conflict, from a former Israeli Ambassador to Madrid Reference material in Scars of War, Wounds of Peace and Prophets Without Honor for follow-up reading

Why organisations work with Scott Steinberg A method for foresight that produces decisions, not predictions. The POP FUTURE workshop format converts trend analysis into specific moves on product, talent, and customer strategy. A working library of 30 published books across futurism, innovation, change, and digital transformation, which means buyers can match a programme to a specific board agenda rather than a generic keynote. Direct advisory exposure to Fortune 500 operators and US defence leadership, including IBM, PwC, Intel, Microsoft, and the US Department of Defense, with the language and pace that environment demands. A trends franchise visible through CNBC, BBC, NPR, and Forbes, which gives senior audiences confidence that the speaker on stage is the same voice they have heard analysing the market elsewhere. Biography highlights CEO of FutureProof Strategies and of BIZDEV, the International Association for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships. Author of Make Change Work for You (Perigee/Penguin) and Think Like a Futurist, part of a published catalogue of more than 30 books. Named Master of Innovation by Fortune magazine. Contributor and on-air expert for CNBC, BBC, CNN, NPR, ABC, CBS, and Fox Business; columnist for Forbes and Reader’s Digest. Advisory and consulting work with IBM, PwC, Intel, Sony, Microsoft, MTV, ESPN, American Express, and the US Department of Defense. Creator of the POP FUTURE methodology and the What’s the Future of…? and The Future is Yours applied foresight tools. Biography Most foresight work stops at the trend chart. Boards see the slide on AI, demographics, or customer behaviour, agree it matters, then return to the operating decisions in front of them. Scott Steinberg’s work is built around closing that gap. His POP FUTURE methodology and the What’s the Future of…? workshop tools are designed to take a leadership team from “this trend is real” to “this is what we do on Monday”. That bias toward decision shows up across his published catalogue. Make Change Work for You, published by Perigee, frames future-proofing as a set of practical disciplines for individuals and teams. Think Like a Futurist extends the same logic to enterprise planning. Across more than 30 books, the through-line is the same: foresight as an operating capability, not a corporate trend report. The credentials behind that argument are unusually broad. He runs FutureProof Strategies and BIZDEV, advises IBM, PwC, Intel, Microsoft, and the US Department of Defense, and was named Master of Innovation by Fortune. CNBC, BBC, NPR, and Forbes use him as a recurring voice on technology, work, and consumer behaviour, which means his audiences arrive already familiar with how he reasons. For senior buyers, the practical value is range. Boards working on AI adoption, generational change, customer experience, or change fatigue can put him in front of any of those audiences and get the same disciplined translation from trend to decision. That is what makes him useful when the brief is wide, the audience is mixed, and the agenda is more than a single topic. Key speaking topics Strategic foresight and future-proofing Artificial intelligence and the future of business Change leadership and innovation Digital transformation Customer experience and consumer trends Generational shift and future of work Organisational culture and resilience Ideal for Board and executive committee strategy offsites setting a multi-year agenda Transformation, innovation, and digital leaders running enterprise-wide change programmes CMOs and customer experience leaders planning around generational and behavioural shift Industry events where a mixed senior audience needs a single integrating view of technology, work, and customer trends Audience outcomes A working definition of what futurism is and is not, and how to use it inside an existing planning cycle A short list of the trends most likely to reshape the audience’s industry over the next planning horizon A method for translating trend analysis into specific decisions on product, customer, and workforce Language and frames that make foresight defensible to a sceptical board or investment committee

Why organisations work with Salim Ismail He authored the reference text on exponential organisational design. Exponential Organizations and its 2023 sequel are the most widely cited corporate playbooks for moving from linear operating models to ones built on AI, data, and external leverage. The ExO Sprint, codified in Exponential Transformation, gives boards a 10-week structured method for testing exponential business models inside an existing P&L. It is a managed process, not a keynote concept. He brings the founding-era credibility of Singularity University, where he built the curriculum and faculty alongside Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil, then carried that thesis into operating practice through ExO Works and OpenExO. He sits on the XPRIZE Foundation board, giving him direct line of sight on which technology categories are about to compress in cost and capability, and what that means for incumbents in adjacent industries. He speaks to boards and CEOs in the language of organisational structure, not innovation theatre. The takeaway is a diagnostic on where the company will be outpaced and what to redesign first. Biography highlights Lead author, Exponential Organizations (Diversion Books, 2014); Frost & Sullivan Growth, Innovation, and Leadership Book of the Year. Lead author, Exponential Organizations 2.0 (2023), with Peter Diamandis, Michael Malone, and a foreword by Ray Kurzweil. Co-author, Exponential Transformation (Wiley, 2018), the ExO Sprint implementation handbook. Founding Executive Director of Singularity University, with Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. Founder of ExO Works (2016) and Co-founder and Chairman of OpenExO. Board member, XPRIZE Foundation (since March 2017); previously Vice President and Head of Brickhouse, Yahoo’s internal incubator. Biography Most large companies are not slow because their leaders are slow. They are slow because their structure was designed for a linear world, where capability, headcount, and asset base scaled in step with revenue. The book that named this problem and offered an alternative model is Exponential Organizations, published in 2014 and updated in 2023. Its lead author is Salim Ismail. The framework came out of the founding years of Singularity University, where Ismail served as Executive Director alongside Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil. The question on the table was practical: if computing, sensing, biotech, and energy are all on cost curves that drop by orders of magnitude per decade, what does an organisation built to ride those curves actually look like. The answer became the 10 ExO attributes, including a Massive Transformative Purpose, staff on demand, community and crowd, algorithms, and leveraged assets. It is the reason the book has been picked up as a corporate operating reference rather than a futurist commentary. Through ExO Works and OpenExO, Ismail turned the framework into a transformation method. The ExO Sprint, documented in Exponential Transformation with Francisco Palao and Michelle Lapierre, is a 10-week board-level process for stress-testing existing business models against exponential disruption and building parallel ventures inside the company. He sits on the XPRIZE Foundation board, which keeps the diagnostic anchored to where technology cost curves are actually moving. His operating credentials sit underneath the writing. He led Brickhouse, Yahoo’s internal incubator, evaluating thousands of disruptive ideas and shipping four products. He co-founded PubSub Concepts and Angstro, the latter acquired by Google in 2010. He holds an honours degree in theoretical physics and computing from the University of Waterloo. The biography matters because the framework is not abstract; it is the synthesis of someone who built inside large companies, founded outside of them, and then taught both groups how to think about the next decade. Key speaking topics Exponential organisational design Disruptive convergence of AI, biotech, and energy Business model innovation under exponential cost curves Corporate venturing and the ExO Sprint Future of entrepreneurship and scale-up leverage Strategic foresight for boards Technology-driven workforce redesign Ideal for Boards and CEOs are evaluating whether the current operating model can survive the next decade of technology compression Chief strategy officers and corporate development leads are designing exponential ventures alongside the core business Innovation and digital transformation leaders are moving past pilots into operating-model change Industry forums in financial services, energy, life sciences, and industrials, where incumbents face exponential challengers Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the 10 ExO attributes and a way to score the audience’s own organisation against them A clearer view of which technology cost curves are about to bend in their industry and on what timeline Specific examples of incumbents that have applied the ExO Sprint and what changed in the P&L A diagnostic on where structural drag, not technology, is the actual constraint on exponential growth A point of view on what to centralise, what to distribute, and what to externalise as AI capability deepens

Why organisations work with Rohit Talwar His “Very Human Future” argument that the central strategic task is keeping human outcomes at the centre of AI and technology adoption, not merely managing adoption itself gives leadership teams a framing that is both commercially grounded and defensible at board level. He edits and contributes to multi-author research books that aggregate the work of 60+ futurists and practitioners across a single question; this publishing model means his content draws on current collective intelligence rather than a single perspective frozen at a point in time. As Co-Chair of the UK Node of The Millennium Project, he sits inside a global futures research network. His material reflects active scenario-building methodology, not retrospective trend commentary. He builds entire talks around sector-specific strategic implications: financial services, aviation, local economies, rather than delivering a generic future-of-technology keynote with surface-level industry references. Ranked among the Global Gurus Top 30 Futurist Professionals for 2025, he is a verifiably credentialled figure in an industry where credibility is difficult to assess. Biography highlights CEO and founder of Fast Future, a foresight research, publishing, and advisory firm Editor or lead contributor to more than eight books including A Very Human Future, Beyond Genuine Stupidity: Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, and The Future of Business Co-Chair of the UK Node of The Millennium Project, a global futures research organisation Ranked in the Global Gurus Top 30 Futurist Professionals for 2025; previously profiled by The Independent as a top 10 global futurist MBA from London Business School; BA in Electronics and Computer Science from the University of Keele; early career at British Telecom on AI research and at Andersen Consulting Delivered more than 1,500 keynotes and workshops across 70+ countries on six continents; regular contributor to international news networks on technology and innovation Biography Fast Future is not a typical consultancy. Rohit Talwar built it as a research and publishing operation, an ongoing mechanism for aggregating the work of futurists, practitioners, and emerging thinkers into books and advisory frameworks. That structural choice shapes the quality of what he brings to a leadership conversation. His central argument, developed across titles including A Very Human Future and Beyond Genuine Stupidity: Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, is specific: the question organisations are not asking clearly enough is not whether to adopt AI, but what kind of organisation they want to be when the adoption is complete. Strategy that treats AI as a technical problem consistently misses the governance, cultural, and human-capital decisions that determine whether the investment pays off. Talwar holds an MBA from London Business School and began his career in AI research at British Telecom before moving into management consulting. His foresight work is grounded in structured methodology: he serves as Co-Chair of the UK Node of The Millennium Project, a global futures research body, and brings scenario-building rigour to topics that, in other hands, often remain speculative. The Global Gurus research organisation ranked him among the Top 30 Futurist Professionals for 2025. The effect on senior audiences evidenced consistently across client feedback is a specific one: not inspiration, but productive disruption of existing strategic assumptions. His talks are built to destabilise complacent planning rather than to validate it. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and exponential technologies Strategic foresight and scenario planning Human-centred responses to digital transformation Business model innovation in the face of disruption Global megatrends and drivers of change The future of financial services and fintech Long-range futures and organisational resilience Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards stress-testing long-range strategy Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Innovation Officers building foresight capability Financial services leadership navigating AI and platform disruption Conference and association audiences in technology, aviation, professional services, and public sector Audience outcomes A structured vocabulary for discussing AI strategy that goes beyond adoption and automation Practical scenario-thinking tools that can be applied directly in strategy workshops Clearer understanding of which emerging technologies require immediate strategic response versus longer-horizon monitoring A sharper framing of the organisational and human-capital implications of accelerating technological change Reduced gap between awareness of disruption and the leadership confidence to act on it

Why organisations work with Robert Swan Lived proof that renewable energy can meet extreme operating conditions, drawn from the 2018 South Pole Energy Challenge powered by solar, advanced biofuels and lithium batteries in temperatures below minus forty. A founder’s perspective on the Antarctic Treaty’s 2041 review window, which gives leadership teams a concrete date and policy anchor for long-range climate scenario work. Two decades of practical engagement with corporate sustainability through the 2041 Foundation, having taken more than 4,000 young leaders from over 35 countries to Antarctica. A first-walked-to-both-Poles credential, recognised with the Polar Medal and OBE by HM Queen Elizabeth II, that gives ESG and energy-transition messages cut-through with sceptical senior audiences. A position recognised by the UN and UNESCO, useful when a board wants the climate conversation framed by someone who has worked the policy side as well as the field. Biography highlights First person in history to walk to both the South Pole (1986) and the North Pole (1989). Awarded the Polar Medal (1988) and appointed OBE (1995) by HM Queen Elizabeth II. Founder of the 2041 Foundation, dedicated to the preservation of Antarctica and to scaling renewable energy. Co-author of Antarctica 2041: My Quest to Save the Earth’s Last Wilderness with Gil Reavill, published by Broadway Books. Led the South Pole Energy Challenge in 2017 to 2018, the first polar expedition powered solely by renewable energy, reaching the Pole on 15 January 2018. UN Goodwill Ambassador for Youth and Special Envoy to the Director General of UNESCO (1994). Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Biography The Antarctic Treaty’s environmental protocol comes up for potential review in 2041. That date is the operating premise of the 2041 Foundation, established by Robert Swan after his 883-mile walk to the South Pole in 1986 and his subsequent trek to the North Pole in 1989. The Foundation has since taken more than 4,000 young leaders from over 35 countries to the Antarctic to study what is at stake. The exploration credentials are the platform, not the point. Swan was awarded the Polar Medal by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 1988 and appointed OBE in 1995. He was named UN Goodwill Ambassador for Youth and, in 1994, Special Envoy to the Director General of UNESCO. The intellectual work that followed is about how serious organisations move from climate language to climate decisions. The clearest evidence of that work is the South Pole Energy Challenge of 2017 to 2018. Swan and his son Barney travelled the final 600 miles to the geographic South Pole on solar power, advanced biofuels and lithium batteries, with NASA-designed ice melters for water. They reached the Pole on 15 January 2018. The expedition was not a stunt. It was a controlled proof that renewable systems can deliver in operating conditions most boardrooms will never face. For organisations weighing energy-transition strategy, supply chain redesign and long-range climate scenarios, Swan offers something most ESG speakers cannot: a corroborated record of testing the technology in the most hostile environment on earth, and a Foundation built around the year by which the policy framework for Antarctica may be rewritten. Key speaking topics Climate action and Antarctic stewardship Renewable energy in operating conditions Sustainability leadership for boards and executives Long-range environmental policy and the 2041 horizon Resilience and team leadership under extreme conditions Youth engagement and the next generation of climate leaders Ideal for CEOs, COOs and board members setting net zero and energy-transition strategy Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads moving from disclosure to operational delivery Energy, industrial and resource sector leadership teams reviewing renewable deployment Graduate, early-career and emerging leader programmes focused on climate and stewardship Audience outcomes A grounded sense of what renewable systems can do in extreme operating conditions, taken from the South Pole Energy Challenge. A clearer reading of the 2041 policy horizon for Antarctica and what it implies for long-range scenario planning. Renewed conviction at senior level that climate ambition can survive contact with real budgets and real operations. A vocabulary for resilience and team performance under sustained pressure, drawn from two completed polar walks.

Why organisations work with Robert Cringely Four decades of first-person reporting on Silicon Valley, from the InfoWorld “Notes from the Field” column (1987 to 1995) through PBSs “Triumph of the Nerds” and “NerdTV” to the long-running I, Cringely site, give him a pattern memory across every major computing wave that few other speakers can match. He runs a public, self-graded annual technology prediction column, which forces a level of accountability about where the industry is heading that most futurists avoid. His book “Accidental Empires” remains a reference text on how the personal computer industry actually got built, used by leaders who want to understand the cultural mechanics of Silicon Valley rather than the press-release version. He has written for The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and Worth on technology business, so the framing he brings to a corporate audience is editorial and argument-led, not a vendor pitch. Biography highlights Author of the 1992 best-seller “Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can’t Get a Date”. Wrote the “Notes from the Field” column at InfoWorld for eight years, 1987 to 1995. Host and writer behind the PBS documentary series “Triumph of the Nerds” (1996) and “Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet” (1998). Producer and host of “NerdTV” on PBS (2005 to 2006); wrote the “I, Cringely: The Pulpit” column on PBS.org through 2008. Bylines as Cringely have appeared in The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and Worth. M.A. in Communication Research from Stanford University; B.A. from the College of Wooster. Biography Silicon Valley keeps selling boards a story that the next wave will look nothing like the last one. The track record says otherwise. The same patterns of overfunding, platform consolidation, and quiet operating change show up in the PC era, the internet era, the cloud era, and now in generative AI. Robert Cringely has been writing those patterns down in real time since 1987. His column “Notes from the Field” ran in InfoWorld through the formative years of the PC industry, and the 1992 book “Accidental Empires” turned that reporting into the canonical account of how Silicon Valley actually behaves under pressure. PBS adapted the book into the three-part series “Triumph of the Nerds” in 1996, followed by “Nerds 2.0.1” on the rise of the internet, and later the “NerdTV” interview series. As Cringely, he has written for The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek and Worth. What sets the work apart is the prediction discipline. Each January he publishes specific calls on where computing, networks and now AI are heading, and each year he goes back and grades the prior years record in public. Few commentators in the field do this; almost none have done it for as long. For a corporate audience, the value is editorial judgement on a noisy market. Cringely will tell a leadership team which AI claims are doing real operating work, which look like the dot-com years repeating, and where the durable economics of compute, data and platforms actually sit. Key speaking topics Generative AI and the next phase of enterprise computing The economics and geopolitics of cloud and compute Silicon Valley business models and platform consolidation Annual technology predictions and the discipline of forecasting The history of the PC, internet and cloud as a guide to the AI cycle Cybersecurity and infrastructure risk in a connected economy Ideal for Boards and executive committees forming a view on AI investment and platform exposure Strategy, technology and innovation leaders responsible for the corporate AI agenda Industry conferences and offsites in technology, financial services, telecoms and media Investor and analyst audiences seeking an editorial read on Silicon Valley signals Audience outcomes A clearer read on which AI and platform claims are durable and which are cycle-driven Pattern recognition across the PC, internet, cloud and AI waves applied to the audience’s own bets Sharper questions for vendors, partners and internal technology teams A practical framework for tracking and grading technology predictions over time