Scenario Planning & Strategic Foresight

Why organisations work with James Woudhuysen He treats forecasting as a discipline, not a performance. His work is built on decades of market intelligence at Philips and Seymour Powell, which gives his calls on technology and consumer behaviour a base of operating evidence rather than commentary. He argues against received wisdom on energy, climate and innovation in print, repeatedly. For boards reviewing capital allocation in those areas, that contrarian record is the value, not a stylistic feature. He covers innovation across energy, IT, construction, transport and the office in a single frame. That breadth lets him explain why an emerging technology will or will not change a sector, drawing on adjacent precedents most specialists miss. He writes and lectures with named sources and statistics, not slogans. The work is closer to a serious editorial brief than to a futures keynote, and it stands up to scrutiny in a room of operators. Biography highlights Visiting Professor of Forecasting and Innovation, London South Bank University Co-author, Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation (Beautiful Books, 2009) with Joe Kaplinsky Co-author, Why is Construction so Backward? (Wiley-Academy, 2004) with Ian Abley Co-author, Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation (Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2012) Former Chief of Worldwide Market Intelligence, Philips Consumer Electronics; former Director, Seymour Powell Editor of Design magazine (1979 to 1982); co-founder of Blueprint; contributor to The Economist, The Times, The Independent, The Guardian and spiked Biography Most forecasts about technology repeat the dominant narrative back to the buyer. The harder, more useful question is which parts of the consensus are wrong, and where the capital and political assumptions behind it are about to break. That has been the working question across four decades of Woudhuysen’s career, from physics at Sussex to running worldwide market intelligence at Philips Consumer Electronics in the Netherlands. His chair at London South Bank University is in Forecasting and Innovation, and the topics he writes on cover energy systems, construction, IT, infrastructure and consumer technology in a single frame. Energise! A Future for Energy Innovation, co-authored with Joe Kaplinsky in 2009, argued that the response to climate change should be heavy investment in supply-side energy technology, not moralising about consumption. The argument set the template for his later commentary in spiked, The Economist and The Times. The corporate record matters because it grounds the work. Three years as Chief of Worldwide Market Intelligence at Philips, four years as a director at Seymour Powell, decades of consulting reports for clients including Amadeus, Brother UK and UK Trade and Investment. He edited Design magazine in the early 1980s and co-founded Blueprint. That combination of operating intelligence and sustained published commentary is what makes the forecasting calls credible. His co-authored manifesto Big Potatoes: The London Manifesto for Innovation was published in 2010 and republished by Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press in 2012, and his earlier book Why is Construction so Backward? remains a reference point in the industry’s productivity debate. The through-line across the work is a defence of ambitious innovation against what he sees as the cultural reasons organisations and governments hesitate to pursue it. Key speaking topics The future of energy and the limits of net zero policy Forecasting technology and consumer behaviour Innovation in construction, infrastructure and transport The economics and politics of climate policy The future of work and the office Globalisation, China and the geography of R&D Market intelligence and competitive foresight Ideal for Boards and executive committees reviewing long-range capital allocation in energy, infrastructure or industrial technology Chief Strategy Officers and innovation leads briefing on technology cycles and emerging markets Senior teams in construction, manufacturing and consumer technology rethinking their productivity assumptions Investor and analyst forums looking for a contrarian read on energy transition and innovation policy Audience outcomes A clearer sense of which technology and energy forecasts the audience should trust and which it should challenge A working framework for telling structural change from cyclical noise across sectors A concrete account of why innovation slows in mature sectors and what unblocks it Named arguments and data the audience can take into their own strategy and capital decisions

Why organisations work with James Rubin He has been the public face of U.S. foreign policy in two administrations, from the Kosovo war under Clinton to the Ukraine war under Biden, and can speak to how the machinery of American power actually operates when pressure is on. From November 2022 to December 2024 he ran the U.S. Global Engagement Center, coordinating the federal response to Russian and Chinese disinformation, including the intelligence-led exposure of Kremlin operations in Latin America and Africa. He was senior adviser and spokesman to Madeleine Albright at both the United Nations and the State Department, giving him a rare continuous view of how Washington handles allies, adversaries and crisis communications. He has reported the same terrain from the other side of the camera as anchor of Sky News’ World News Tonight and as a Sunday Times foreign affairs columnist, which lets him translate Washington for non-U.S. audiences without jargon. As Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Chair of International Policy and Strategy at Ballard Partners, he has worked on the business side of geopolitical risk, not only the policy side. Biography highlights U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and State Department Spokesman, 1997 to 2000, under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Special Envoy and Coordinator, U.S. State Department Global Engagement Center, November 2022 to December 2024, leading U.S. efforts against Russian and Chinese information warfare. Recipient of the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award, 2000. Anchor, Sky News World News Tonight, 2005 to 2006; weekly foreign affairs columnist, The Sunday Times of London. Visiting Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics; adjunct professor, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs; Scholar in Residence, Oxford University Rothermere American Institute. Senior national security adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and chief foreign policy spokesman for General Wesley Clark’s 2004 campaign. Biography U.S. foreign policy is rarely decided in the rooms people assume. It is shaped in briefings, in coalition calls, in the narrow space between what a Secretary of State can say in public and what the intelligence picture actually shows. Rubin has worked that space for three decades, first as spokesman and senior adviser to Madeleine Albright at the United Nations and the State Department, and most recently as the Biden administration’s point person on Russian and Chinese information warfare. The Clinton-era role is the one he is best known for. As Assistant Secretary of State and State Department Spokesman from 1997 to 2000, he was the daily voice of U.S. policy during the Kosovo war and served as a special negotiator on the demobilisation of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The State Department gave him its Distinguished Service Award in 2000. Between 2022 and 2024 he ran the Global Engagement Center, coordinating the U.S. government’s response to Kremlin and Chinese propaganda. Under his watch, the Center worked with the intelligence community to publicly expose Russian disinformation operations in Latin America and Africa, a different register of foreign policy work from the podium briefings of the 1990s and closer to the information battlefields that now sit on corporate risk registers. Outside government he has anchored Sky News’ World News Tonight, written a weekly foreign affairs column for The Sunday Times of London, taught at the London School of Economics and Columbia, and held a scholar in residence post at Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute. He has also served as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and now chairs international policy and strategy at Ballard Partners in Washington, working directly on how policy reaches business. Key speaking topics U.S. foreign policy and presidential decision-making Great-power competition with Russia and China Information warfare and state-backed disinformation Transatlantic relations and the war in Ukraine Diplomacy, national security and crisis communications Middle East policy and the post-October 7 landscape Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing geopolitical risk into strategy, capital allocation or expansion decisions Chief Communications Officers, Chief Risk Officers and General Counsel preparing for disinformation, sanctions exposure or state-linked information operations Investor, client and leadership summits where a senior U.S. foreign policy principal is required Government affairs, policy and ESG teams navigating U.S.-Europe-China alignment Audience outcomes A sharper read on how Washington is likely to act on Russia, China, the Middle East and Europe over the next phase of U.S. policy A working mental model for how state-backed disinformation is produced, amplified and exposed, drawn from the person who most recently ran the U.S. counter-effort A clearer view of where corporate exposure to political risk is concentrated and what early indicators to watch A direct, on-the-record sense of how senior U.S. policymakers weigh allies, adversaries and public opinion in real time

Why organisations work with Jacques Attali He built one of the institutions that defined the post-Cold War economic settlement. As founding president of the EBRD, he carries direct experience of structuring capital flows into a continent in political transition, the kind of frame few living economists can offer. A decade as special adviser to President Mitterrand and Sherpa for two G7 summits gives him an inside view of how heads of state actually make decisions under pressure, useful to any board navigating government exposure. His futures work, particularly A Brief History of the Future, sets out a coherent scenario framework (hyperempire, hyperconflict, hyperdemocracy) that boards can use as a long-range planning lens rather than as a single forecast. He has chaired two French government commissions on growth, one for Sarkozy and a positive economy report for Hollande, with proposals that fed directly into national reform agendas. The work is operational, not theoretical. Founder of Action Against Hunger, the EUREKA technology programme and Positive Planet. He has built and run institutions, not only written about them. Biography highlights Founding President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 1991 to 1993. Special adviser to President Francois Mitterrand, 1981 to 1991; G7 Sherpa for the Paris (1982) and Arche de la Defense (1989) summits. Chair, Commission for the Liberation of French Growth (Sarkozy, 2007 to 2008); author of the Positive Economy report (Hollande, 2013). Author of more than 80 books, including Noise: The Political Economy of Music, A Brief History of the Future and Verbatim, in 22 languages. Founder of Action Against Hunger (1979), the EUREKA European technology programme (1984) and Positive Planet (1998). Named one of Foreign Policy magazine’s Top 100 Global Thinkers (2009); graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique, Sciences Po, the Ecole des Mines and ENA; doctorate in economics. Biography The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development opened its doors in London in April 1991 with a mandate no institution had attempted before: channel Western capital into countries leaving state socialism without recreating the conditions that had broken them. Jacques Attali designed it and ran it for its first two years. The institution is still operating, with more than seventy countries of operations and shareholders today, which is the most useful evidence of the architecture he chose. Before the EBRD, ten years inside the Elysee under Francois Mitterrand. Attali was special adviser to the president from 1981 to 1991, sat in the cabinet meetings and the bilateral meetings with foreign heads of state, and served as France’s Sherpa at the G7 summits in Paris in 1982 and at the Arche de la Defense in 1989. The work he has done since, two growth commissions for two French presidents and consulting with governments and large companies through Attali & Associates, is built on that operating exposure to how state and economy actually intersect. The intellectual output runs alongside. Eighty-plus books, translated into twenty-two languages, with Noise: The Political Economy of Music (1977) and A Brief History of the Future (2006) the most widely cited. The futures work matters commercially because it gives boards a framework. The hyperempire, hyperconflict and hyperdemocracy scenarios in A Brief History of the Future are now nearly twenty years old, which is the right test of long-range writing. The frame still holds against the geopolitics of the present decade. He has also built things outside government. Action Against Hunger (1979), still one of the major humanitarian organisations operating in famine zones. The EUREKA technology programme (1984), the European R&D collaboration that, among other outputs, produced the standards work behind the MP3 format. Positive Planet (1998), the microfinance non-profit now active across more than 80 countries. Foreign Policy magazine named him among its Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and the next world order The future of Europe and European competitiveness Long-range scenarios and strategic foresight Global economic transformation The future of finance and microfinance Positive economy and intergenerational responsibility Globalisation and its commercial consequences Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals with material exposure to European and emerging-market policy shifts Chief strategy officers and corporate development teams working on long-range scenario planning Bank and asset management leadership groups exposed to sovereign and geopolitical risk Government and intergovernmental audiences working on growth, innovation and reform agendas Audience outcomes A longer historical frame for the current geopolitical realignment, anchored in firsthand experience of the post-1989 settlement. A working scenario lens, hyperempire, hyperconflict and hyperdemocracy, that senior teams can apply to their own strategy review. A sharper read on Europe’s commercial position relative to the US and China, from someone who has helped design European institutions. A serious account of how heads of state actually reach decisions, useful for executives operating across government interfaces.

Why organisations work with Jaap de Hoop Scheffer Five years running NATO through Afghanistan, the 2008 Bucharest summit, Russia-Georgia, and the alliance’s 60th-anniversary reset. Few living speakers can describe transatlantic decision-making from the chair. Direct line of sight into the machinery that shapes risk for multinationals: defence spending, sanctions architecture, Article 5, enlargement politics, EU-US friction. Dutch Foreign Minister during the Iraq War and OSCE Chair in 2003. He has operated at the national capital level and the multilateral level on the same files. Chaired the Netherlands’ Advisory Council on International Affairs for seven years, meaning his read on policy is current, not retrospective. Holds the Pieter Kooijmans Chair at Leiden and sits with the Trilateral Commission, Friends of Europe, and the European Leadership Network. The analysis is anchored in live institutional conversation, not memoir. Biography highlights 11th Secretary General of NATO, 2004 to 2009, and Chair of the North Atlantic Council. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, 2002 to 2003, and OSCE Chairman-in-Office during the Dutch chairmanship. Leader of the Christian Democratic Appeal, 1997 to 2001; Member of the House of Representatives, 1986 to 2002. Pieter Kooijmans Chair for Peace, Law and Security, Leiden University, from 2009; Distinguished Fellow, Leiden University College The Hague. Chair of the Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV), 2014 to 2021; Minister of State of the Netherlands from 2018. Non-executive Director, Air France-KLM, 2011 to 2020; Trustee, Friends of Europe; European Group of the Trilateral Commission. Biography NATO took on the lead security role in Afghanistan in October 2006 under a Secretary General who had started the job two years earlier with a fractured alliance and a disputed war in Iraq still on the table. That was de Hoop Scheffer’s first decisive test at the head of the North Atlantic Council, and it set the pattern for how he ran the alliance through Bucharest, the Russia-Georgia war, and the 60th-anniversary summit. Before NATO he was Dutch Foreign Minister under Jan Peter Balkenende and Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE in the Netherlands’ 2003 chairmanship. That sequence, national capital to multilateral chair to alliance lead, is what gives his reading of geopolitics its weight: he has operated at each level on the same files, and made calls at each level that had consequences for the others. The post-NATO work has kept him inside the policy conversation rather than above it. He holds the Pieter Kooijmans Chair for Peace, Law and Security at Leiden University, chaired the Advisory Council on International Affairs for the Dutch government from 2014 to 2021, and sits with the Trilateral Commission’s European Group, Friends of Europe, and the European Leadership Network. He served as a non-executive director at Air France-KLM for nearly a decade, which is where the geopolitical view meets the board agenda in practice. What boards get is a former alliance chief who can map a specific decision, a specific summit, a specific red line, onto the risk exposure a company is carrying today. In 2018 he was granted the honorary title of Minister of State, a recognition reserved in the Netherlands for senior former officials whose judgement the state continues to draw on. Key speaking topics Transatlantic security and the future of NATO European defence, enlargement, and the Russia question Geopolitical risk for multinational business Afghanistan, intervention, and the lessons for alliances Multilateral diplomacy and the G7/OSCE system EU-US relations and the Indo-Pacific pivot Ideal for Boards and audit committees pricing geopolitical and sanctions exposure into strategy CEOs and executive teams in defence, aerospace, energy, and critical infrastructure Government affairs, political risk, and corporate security leaders Investor and shareholder forums needing a senior read on alliance and policy direction Audience outcomes A sharper map of where transatlantic security policy is heading and what moves it A direct account of how NATO decisions are made, from someone who made them Concrete read on Russia, Ukraine, enlargement, and the European defence build-out Named risks and inflection points a board can carry into its next strategy review Confidence in distinguishing signal from noise in a daily news cycle dominated by geopolitics

Why organisations work with J Bradford DeLong His “long twentieth century” thesis – the argument that humanity’s technological leap from 1870 produced unprecedented wealth but not stability, and that this tension is still unresolved – gives boards and strategy teams a historically grounded framework for understanding current inequality, political volatility, and stalling growth, rather than treating them as separate problems. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury under Clinton, he was directly involved in NAFTA, the Uruguay Round, and the 1993 federal budget – trade and fiscal decisions whose consequences are still shaping today’s policy environment. Few economic historians have that level of direct institutional access. Concrete Economics (co-authored with Stephen Cohen) makes a specific, evidence-based case that every major US growth episode was driven by deliberate government direction of investment, not free-market spontaneity – a framework that directly challenges assumptions many organisations have about industrial policy and the role of the state. Slouching Towards Utopia was named a Best Book of 2022 by the Financial Times, The Economist, and Fast Company, and endorsed by Paul Krugman, Martin Wolf, and the former Chief Economist of the Bank of England – giving his arguments a cross-disciplinary credibility that translates directly into senior executive and board conversations. His dual role as academic economist and active public commentator – via Project Syndicate and the “Grasping Reality” Substack – means his frameworks are continuously applied to live events, not confined to historical analysis. Biography highlights Professor of Economics, University of California, Berkeley – faculty since 1993, full professor 1997 Author of Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century (Basic Books, 2022) – instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller; Best Book of 2022, Financial Times, The Economist, Fast Company Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, Clinton Administration, 1993–1995 Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Fellow, Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) Co-author, Concrete Economics: The Hamilton Approach to Economic Growth and Policy (2016); co-editor, After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality (Harvard University Press, 2017) Regular contributor, Project Syndicate; author, “Grasping Reality” Substack; BA and PhD, Harvard University Biography Brad DeLong spent twenty years working on a question that most economists consider settled: why did the most sustained period of technological and material progress in human history end in political dysfunction, rising inequality, and widespread loss of confidence in the institutions that produced it? His answer, developed in Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century, is that the period from 1870 to 2010 – what he calls the “long twentieth century” – delivered more economic progress than all previous human eras combined, yet consistently failed to convert that progress into stable, broadly shared prosperity. The book was an instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named a Best Book of 2022 by the Financial Times, The Economist, and Fast Company. That argument matters to organisations because it reframes current instability. The political volatility, slowing productivity growth, and distributional conflict that leaders are navigating are not surprises or aberrations – they are the unresolved inheritance of the same forces that created modern economic life. DeLong’s contribution is to show how this happened, which forces were decisive, and which policy choices made outcomes better or worse than they needed to be. His policy experience is direct. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury under the Clinton Administration, DeLong worked on the 1993 federal budget, NAFTA, the Uruguay Round, and macroeconomic policy. That institutional experience underpins Concrete Economics (2016), co-authored with Stephen Cohen, which argues that the United States has achieved its most significant growth periods through deliberate, pragmatic direction of investment – not ideological commitment to free markets. For executive audiences, the implication is concrete: industrial policy, trade architecture, and fiscal choices are not background noise; they are the environment in which long-term strategy either succeeds or fails. DeLong holds a PhD from Harvard and has been Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley since 1993. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and his “Grasping Reality” Substack, where his analysis engages with current events directly and accessibly. He is also a Fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Key speaking topics Long-run economic growth and structural inequality Macroeconomic policy and fiscal strategy Trade, globalisation, and industrial policy The political economy of the liberal economic order Economic history as a strategic framework Government, markets, and the future of growth Scenario planning under structural uncertainty Ideal for Chief Strategy Officers and boards navigating sustained political and economic volatility CFOs and finance leaders seeking a macro-level historical framework for long-term capital allocation and planning Government affairs, public policy, and regulatory teams in large organisations Executive education programmes requiring rigorous economic context for senior leadership cohorts Audience outcomes A historically grounded framework for understanding current economic volatility as a structural pattern – not a temporary disruption – enabling more durable strategic responses A clearer account of how trade policy, industrial policy, and fiscal choices are actually made, based on direct government experience at a senior level A practical corrective to standard free-market assumptions about growth, including a well-evidenced alternative drawn from Concrete Economics Sharper questions for stress-testing long-term strategy against macro scenarios – particularly around inequality, political instability, and the changing role of the state Familiarity with the “long twentieth century” thesis as a shared analytical reference point for ongoing internal strategic discussion

Why organisations work with Ian Goldin He predicted in The Butterfly Defect (2014) that a pandemic would be the most likely cause of the next global financial shock, six years before COVID. Boards looking for genuine foresight on systemic risk treat that record as evidence, not branding. He forecasts growth prospects across regions, including the US, Europe, China, and Asia, and across sectors such as manufacturing, banking, and AI. Asset allocators, central banks, and multinational boards use that view to stress-test capital and operating decisions over a five to fifteen year horizon. Few speakers carry both operating and academic authority on globalisation: Vice President of the World Bank, Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and Founding Director of the Oxford Martin School. His work translates directly into capital and policy decisions on geoeconomics, supply chains, urbanisation, and the impact of AI on jobs and development. These are the live questions on most international boards heading into the late 2020s. He moderates and facilitates as well as keynotes. Clients including J.P. Morgan and pharmaceutical and legal industry events have used him to open and connect multi-day programmes, shape agendas, and chair leadership conversations on top of delivering the headline keynote. Biography highlights Vice President of the World Bank (2003-2006) and Director of Development Policy (2001-2003). Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (1996-2001), advising President Nelson Mandela. Founding Director of the Oxford Martin School (2006-2016), establishing 45 research programmes and over 500 affiliated academics. Professor of Globalisation and Development, University of Oxford, and Professorial Fellow at Balliol College. Author of 25 books including The Butterfly Defect (Princeton, 2014), Age of the City (Bloomsbury, 2023, FT Best Books of 2023), and The Shortest History of Migration (Old Street, 2024). Writer and presenter of three BBC documentary series, including After the Crash and The Pandemic that Changed the World, and the BBC Analysis The Death of Globalisation (2023). Biography In 2014, The Butterfly Defect argued that the next major global financial shock was most likely to come from a pandemic running through the connective tissue of globalisation. Six years later, COVID proved the case. The book, written with Mike Mariathasan and published by Princeton, was Ian Goldin’s clearest statement of a thesis he had been building for two decades: globalisation has produced extraordinary gains and a new class of systemic risk that institutions are not yet built to manage. That argument carries weight because of where it comes from. Goldin was Vice President of the World Bank and, before that, Chief Executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, where he advised President Nelson Mandela through the early post-apartheid years. He was Principal Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a Programme Director at the OECD in Paris. The institutions sit behind the books. At Oxford, he founded the Oxford Martin School in 2006 and ran it for a decade, building 45 research programmes across more than 100 disciplines. He now leads three Oxford Martin programmes on technological and economic change, the future of work, and the future of development. His books, 25 in total, run from Exceptional People on migration to Age of the City on urban futures, with The Shortest History of Migration arriving in 2024. What boards and governments use him for is harder than topic coverage. It is the ability to connect migration, AI, climate, and supply chain stress into a coherent picture of where capital, talent, and political risk are moving over a five to fifteen year horizon, with the operational scars to know which policy moves actually land. Key speaking topics Economic growth prospects across countries, regions, and sectors Geopolitics, geoeconomics, and the fracturing rules-based order Systemic risk and globalisation AI, jobs, and the future of work The future of cities and urbanisation Long-horizon scenarios and crisis recovery Migration and demographic change Ideal for Boards and executive committees of multinationals navigating geopolitical exposure, supply chain risk, and growth divergence across regions. Government, central bank, and multilateral audiences setting policy on development, AI, and climate. Investor and asset-allocator forums sizing long-horizon risk across regions and sectors. CSOs, heads of strategy, and CFOs responsible for capital decisions under macro and political uncertainty. Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how today’s shocks connect: pandemics, AI, migration, climate, and political fracture as one system. Specific arguments and evidence boards can use when stress-testing strategy against the next decade of global change. A sharper view of how growth prospects diverge across regions and sectors, and what that means for capital allocation, supply chains, and talent strategy. Confidence to challenge assumptions baked into long-range plans, sourced from someone who has run the institutions setting global policy.

Why organisations work with Hugo Dixon Direct access to the thinking behind the Ukraine Reparations Loan, a $300bn policy proposal he co-authored that has been endorsed at European Commission level. A founder’s view of financial commentary as a business: he built Breakingviews from a 350-word format into a global Reuters franchise and sold it for £13m. Two decades of senior FT and Reuters editorial perspective on European banking, sovereign debt, and macro risk, applied to the questions boards are actually asking now. A track record of converting analysis into political action, through InFacts and the People’s Vote campaign, that few commentators of his standing can match. Biography highlights Founder of Breakingviews; sold to Reuters in 2009 for £13m. Editor-at-Large / Commentator-at-Large, Reuters. Co-author, with Lee Buchheit and Daleep Singh, of the Ukraine Reparations Loan plan, endorsed by Ursula von der Leyen in her 2025 State of the Union. Former Head of Lex, Financial Times, after 13 years on the paper; began career at The Economist. Business Journalist of the Year (British Press Awards), 2000 and 2008; Decade of Excellence Award, 2008. Author, The Penguin Guide to Finance (Penguin). Biography The Ukraine Reparations Loan, the proposal to channel roughly $300bn of frozen Russian sovereign assets into Ukraine’s reconstruction without an outright seizure, was endorsed by Ursula von der Leyen in her 2025 State of the Union. Hugo Dixon is one of its three principal architects, with the sovereign debt lawyer Lee Buchheit and the economist Daleep Singh. That work sits at the seam he has occupied for two decades: where financial structure meets geopolitical decision. After thirteen years at the Financial Times, latterly as Head of Lex, Dixon left in 1999 to co-found Breakingviews, a financial commentary business he sold to Reuters in 2009 for £13m and continued to edit until 2012. He now writes as Reuters’ Commentator-at-Large, with a focus on Europe, Russia, sovereign assets, and the EU’s macro choices. He was twice named Business Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards and won the Decade of Excellence Award in 2008. He is the author of The Penguin Guide to Finance. Dixon also has a record of translating analysis into political infrastructure. He founded and edited InFacts, the fact-based campaign against Brexit, and was a co-founder and leader of the People’s Vote campaign. For boards weighing geopolitical exposure, EU policy direction, or the financial mechanics of supporting Ukraine, he offers the rare combination of an insider’s grasp of the instruments and an operator’s grasp of what moves in Brussels. Key speaking topics Russia, Ukraine and the frozen sovereign assets question The EU’s macro and policy direction European banking and sovereign debt Brexit and UK-EU relations Financial markets and capital allocation Geopolitical risk for boards Ideal for Boards and audit committees with exposure to Russia, sanctions, or EU policy shifts CFOs and treasurers tracking sovereign debt and frozen-asset developments Senior teams in banking, asset management, and insurance with European footprints Foundations, policy institutions, and corporate affairs leaders working on Ukraine reconstruction Audience outcomes A clear read of where the frozen Russian assets debate is heading and what the realistic European pathways look like. Sharper framing of EU policy direction post the 2024 to 2026 political cycle and what it implies for capital and regulation. An informed view of UK-EU relations beyond the headlines, drawn from the inside of the Brexit fight. Connections between geopolitical decisions and concrete financial mechanisms that most macro talks leave abstract.

Why organisations work with Harold James A historian’s answer to the question leaders actually ask in a crisis: is this 1973, 2008, or something new? The framework from Seven Crashes gives boards a way to test that judgement rather than guess. Institutional access earned as the IMF’s official historian, with a chair at Princeton since 1986. Few commentators on globalization sit this close to the machinery they write about. A published thesis, not a view of the week: supply-driven crises expand markets, demand-driven crises shrink them. It changes how leaders interpret inflation, tariffs, and capital controls. Track record with serious business readers, including the Financial Times Global Business Book Award for the Deutsche Bank history and an FT Best Politics Books selection for The War of Words. Biography highlights Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies, Princeton University; Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. Official historian of the International Monetary Fund. Author of Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization (Yale University Press, 2023) and Making the European Monetary Union (Harvard University Press, 2012). Co-author of the authorised history of Deutsche Bank, winner of the Financial Times Global Business Book Award, 1996. Helmut Schmidt Prize for Economic History (2004); Ludwig Erhard Prize for writing about economics (2005); Ellen McArthur Prize for Economic History, Cambridge. Monthly columnist for Project Syndicate; associate of Princeton’s Bendheim Center for Finance. Biography Seven crashes, from the 1840s depression to Covid-19, do not all mean the same thing. In Seven Crashes (Yale, 2023), Harold James splits them into crises of supply, which tend to expand markets, and crises of demand, which tend to contract them. That distinction is the working tool he brings into boardrooms. The intellectual base is Princeton, where James has held the Claude and Lore Kelly Chair in European Studies since joining the faculty in 1986. He is Professor of History and International Affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs and an associate of the Bendheim Center for Finance. Making the European Monetary Union (Harvard, 2012) remains a standard reference on how the euro was built and what it assumed about member-state behaviour. The institutional access is unusual. James is the official historian of the International Monetary Fund, which gives him a documented inside view of how the post-war financial order actually operated through each shock. His authorised history of Deutsche Bank won the Financial Times Global Business Book Award in 1996. The War of Words, his glossary of globalization, was named to the Financial Times Best Politics Books of 2021. For corporate audiences the output is practical. A monthly Project Syndicate column tests his arguments against the news cycle. The Helmut Schmidt Prize (2004), Ludwig Erhard Prize (2005), and Cambridge’s Ellen McArthur Prize sit behind that record. When a risk committee is trying to decide whether tariffs, sanctions, or a monetary regime change is a shock or a structural shift, his Seven Crashes framework is a clean instrument for forcing that choice. Key speaking topics Globalization cycles and deglobalization Financial crises and crisis response European monetary union and the euro History of central banking Germany and the European economy International monetary and financial architecture Inflation, supply shocks, and political economy Ideal for Bank and asset manager boards setting multi-year macro and rate assumptions CROs, CFOs, and treasury leaders testing crisis playbooks against historical precedent Policy, regulatory, and central bank forums on monetary union and international finance Investor conferences and CEO summits addressing tariffs, sanctions, and the future of trade Audience outcomes A working distinction between supply-driven and demand-driven crises, with historical cases for each A sharper reading of current inflation, tariff, and capital-flow debates against the long record Perspective on the euro and European monetary policy from a historian who has written its formal history An IMF-informed view of how global financial institutions actually respond when the system is under stress

Why organisations work with Guy Verhofstadt He was the European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator – not an observer of the UK withdrawal process but the person responsible for the Parliament’s institutional position throughout the negotiations. No analyst or commentator holds that credential. His argument for a federal “United States of Europe” as the answer to EU structural fragility is a specific, published intellectual framework developed across four books since 2006 – not a commentary position adopted after the fact. Nearly a decade as Belgian Prime Minister gave him direct, operational experience of governing within EU frameworks during periods of genuine political and economic crisis, including the eurozone’s early stress points. He co-founded the Spinelli Group in 2010, the inter-parliamentary initiative specifically designed to push for EU federalisation – giving him an active network inside European institutions that no external adviser can replicate. As President of the European Movement International and a regular contributor to Project Syndicate, he remains engaged in current EU reform debates – his perspective reflects where those debates are now, not where they were when he left office. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Belgium, 1999-2008; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Budget, 1985-1992 European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator and Chair of the Brexit Steering Group, 2016-2020 Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Group in the European Parliament, 2009-2019 Co-founder of the Spinelli Group (2010), the inter-parliamentary initiative for EU federalisation President of the European Movement International; member of the Club de Madrid Author of four books on European governance, including Europe’s Last Chance (Basic Books, 2017), reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and New York Review of Books; regular contributor to Project Syndicate Biography Europe’s governance architecture was designed for consensus, not speed. Any member state can block legislation, opt out of core commitments, or exit entirely, as the UK demonstrated in 2016. For organisations with material European exposure, that creates a category of political risk that is structural rather than cyclical – the kind that most standard geopolitical analysis does not reach. Guy Verhofstadt spent nearly a decade as Prime Minister of Belgium, governing a federal state at the intersection of Flemish, Walloon, and European politics. He then led the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group in the European Parliament from 2009 to 2019. Those ten years spanned the eurozone debt crisis, the refugee surge, and the early fracturing of European political consensus. When the UK triggered Article 50 in 2016, he was appointed the European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator and chaired its Brexit Steering Group through the entire withdrawal process until 2020. That role placed him at the institutional centre of the most significant stress test EU governance had faced – not as an analyst, but as the person responsible for the Parliament’s negotiating position at every stage. His published argument, developed across books including The United States of Europe (2006) and Europe’s Last Chance (Basic Books, 2017), holds that EU structural weakness requires a federal solution. Reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and New York Review of Books, it is a practitioner’s diagnosis built on three decades inside the institutions he analyses. He remains active as President of the European Movement International and as a regular contributor to Project Syndicate. Key speaking topics EU institutional reform and governance European geopolitical risk Brexit and EU-UK relations The future of the European project Transatlantic relations and the liberal international order European economic governance and the currency union Political risk for organisations operating in Europe Ideal for CFOs, general counsel, and public affairs leads in multinationals with significant European market exposure Financial services boards and investment committees assessing European regulatory and political risk Policy and public affairs professionals tracking EU institutional reform Conference programmes focused on European geopolitics, global political risk, and the future of the international rules-based order Audience outcomes A clear account of how EU decision-making actually works and where its structural weaknesses lie – from someone who operated inside those structures at the highest level An insider’s reading of the Brexit process, its institutional mechanics, and its continuing implications for EU-UK relations A framework for assessing European political risk that goes beyond headline news and electoral cycles Grounded perspective on EU reform debates – the federal argument, its obstacles, and the realistic trajectories Context for understanding the shift from a rules-based international order to a world of competing power blocs, and what that means for organisations dependent on European stability

Why organisations work with Graeme Leach A working forecaster, not a commentator. Two decades as Chief Economist at the Institute of Directors and earlier at the Henley Centre for Forecasting give him a record of calling macro turning points for business audiences before they show up in headlines. One of the few UK economists who connects monetary policy, geopolitics, and long-horizon demographics in a single argument. His “The RACE” keynote forces leadership teams to think about technology adoption and demographic decline as the same strategic problem. A senior policy voice, not just a market voice. Membership of the IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee and the Legatum Institute senior fellowship put him inside the UK debate on interest rates, productivity, and prosperity, which matters to boards making capital allocation calls. Built for serious audiences. Nearly 1,000 keynotes in 25 countries, including Royal Albert Hall scale, with a reputation for making complex macro intelligible to non-economists in the room. Biography highlights CEO and Chief Economist, macronomics, a macroeconomic, geopolitical and future megatrends research consultancy founded in 2016. Chief Economist and Director of Policy, Institute of Directors, 1997 to 2014, and a main board director. Senior Fellow, Legatum Institute, and former Director of Economics and Prosperity Studies. Member, IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee. Weekly columnist, City AM. Former Chief UK and International Economist, The Henley Centre for Forecasting. Regular contributor on BBC News, Sky News, BBC Radio 4 Today and World at One. Almost 1,000 keynotes delivered across 25 countries. Biography The macroeconomic backdrop business leaders operate against has stopped being a single curve and become a set of intersecting ones. Interest rates, inflation, geopolitical risk, demographic decline, and the productivity story behind AI now move together. Boards need a forecaster who can read them as one system. That is the job Graeme Leach has done for UK business for more than two decades. As Chief Economist and Director of Policy at the Institute of Directors from 1997 to 2014, he was the macroeconomic voice for thousands of UK directors through the dotcom cycle, the financial crisis, and the early years of the post-2008 recovery. Before that he was Chief UK and International Economist at the Henley Centre for Forecasting, one of the original commercial forecasting houses in London. In 2016 he founded macronomics, where he advises corporate and institutional clients on global outlook, geopolitical risk, and the megatrends that sit underneath them. The work is reinforced by a Senior Fellowship at the Legatum Institute, a seat on the IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, and a weekly City AM column, giving him a continuous read on UK monetary policy and prosperity debates. His signature keynote, “The RACE for economic supremacy in the 21st century”, argues that the advanced economies are racing to capture the productivity gains of technology before demographic decline erodes growth. It is the kind of argument that connects what a CFO sees on the rate curve to what a CHRO sees in the workforce data. Across nearly 1,000 engagements in 25 countries, the reputation is consistent: he makes the complicated sound simple without making it sound small. Key speaking topics Global economic outlook UK economic outlook and monetary policy Geopolitical risk Demographic change and productivity Future megatrends Brexit and UK political economy Long-run scenarios for the world economy Ideal for Board and ExCo strategy offsites setting capital allocation under macro uncertainty CFO and treasury audiences planning against rate, inflation, and currency cycles Industry conferences and corporate client events needing a senior macro voice After-dinner and keynote slots where a serious economist must hold a non-specialist room Audience outcomes A coherent reading of the global and UK macro picture, with named risks rather than a checklist A clear view of how demography, technology, and geopolitics interact over a 10 to 20 year horizon A grounded position on UK interest rates, inflation, and growth from inside the policy debate Specific implications for capital allocation, workforce planning, and international exposure

Why organisations work with Gerd Leonhard The androrithms concept – Leonhard’s term for the human qualities (empathy, ethical reasoning, creative judgment) that algorithms cannot replicate – gives leadership teams a governance vocabulary that most AI advisors skip. It moves the conversation from “what can we automate?” to “what must we protect, and why is that a strategic decision?” He co-authored The Future of Music (Berklee Press, 2005), correctly forecasting that streaming would displace ownership as the dominant music model years before the industry accepted it. That verifiable prediction track record is what distinguishes his current AI arguments from speculation that cannot be tested against outcomes. The Ten Megashifts framework – mapping ten concurrent technological forces including digitisation, intelligisation, automation and robotisation as a compound system – gives strategy and transformation teams a tool for testing whether their roadmaps account for the full scope of disruption, not just the most visible trend. The HellVen scenario construct frames technology futures as a governance choice between radically different outcomes rather than as a prediction. It is a practical tool for boards running scenario planning exercises on AI strategy and long-term institutional risk. His 2016 argument that digital ethics would become a mandatory boardroom governance issue was published before AI regulation appeared on any major policy agenda. That argument has since been validated, lending weight to his current positions on AI accountability and corporate responsibility. Biography highlights Author of Technology vs Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Man and Machine (2016), published in 12 languages; co-author of The Future of Music (Berklee Press, 2005) Founder and CEO, The Futures Agency, Zurich; Visiting Professor, Fundação Dom Cabral, São Paulo Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (FRSA), London Listed by Wired UK as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Europe; named by The Wall Street Journal as “one of the leading media futurists in the World” (2006) Views and interviews published in or featured by The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider and Wired UK; TV appearances on BBC, CNN, ARTE and ZDF Berklee College of Music alumnus; Quincy Jones Award recipient (1985); former professional guitarist, composer and digital media entrepreneur, San Francisco Biography When Technology vs Humanity appeared in 2016, it arrived with a central claim: decisions about what to automate are fundamentally ethical decisions, not just operational ones. Boards mostly disagreed. They are now being forced to revisit that judgment. As CEO of The Futures Agency in Zurich, Gerd Leonhard has spent the intervening years building the frameworks leadership teams are now looking for. His most distinctive contribution is the distinction between algorithms and androrithms. Algorithms are the machine rules that govern digital systems. Androrithms – his term – are the human qualities that organisations risk losing when they optimise purely for efficiency: empathy, ethical reasoning, creative judgment, intuition. His Ten Megashifts framework maps ten concurrent technological forces as a compound system rather than a sequence of isolated disruptions. It gives boards a structured analytical lens rather than a single-trend narrative. The credibility of this perspective rests partly on record. Leonhard co-authored The Future of Music (Berklee Press, 2005), arguing that streaming would replace ownership as the dominant music model years before the industry accepted it. That early, accurate forecast – made when conventional wisdom pointed elsewhere – distinguishes his current AI arguments from commentary that arrives after the fact. A Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in London and Visiting Professor at Fundação Dom Cabral in São Paulo, Leonhard operates between the academic and advisory worlds. Wired UK lists him among the Top 100 Most Influential People in Europe. His perspective is shaped as much by his career as a professional musician and digital entrepreneur as by any institutional affiliation – a background that gives him a track record of having correctly called the trajectory of technological disruption before it became obvious. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the future of business Digital ethics and AI governance Technology and human values Digital transformation strategy Scenario planning for technological disruption Human-machine relationships and organisational decision-making Sustainability and the future of capitalism Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams setting AI governance policy or approving digital transformation roadmaps Chief Digital Officers, CTOs and technology leadership teams seeking frameworks for responsible AI adoption Strategy and foresight functions building scenario plans around the compound impact of technological disruption Corporate governance, risk and legal teams navigating emerging AI regulation and digital ethics requirements Audience outcomes A practical governance vocabulary for deciding which organisational capabilities should and should not be automated, grounded in the androrithms/algorithms framework A structured map of ten concurrent technological forces (the Megashifts) reshaping strategy, operations and competitive positioning simultaneously Understanding of how digital ethics is transitioning from a values conversation to a governance and regulatory requirement – and what that means for corporate accountability A scenario framework (HellVen) for stress-testing whether current AI strategies are likely to produce outcomes boards would endorse under scrutiny A more calibrated perspective on AI’s near-term trajectory, distinguishing intelligent assistance from AGI and assessing which predictions about the next decade are well-grounded

Why organisations work with George Papandreou He ran a G20 economy through the most acute phase of the eurozone crisis. His account of negotiating with the IMF, ECB and European Commission is operational, not theoretical. He has held the two roles that shape Greek and European foreign policy, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, giving him an unusual horizontal view of how European institutions actually decide. As President of the Socialist International for 16 years, he built and maintained relationships with heads of government across more than a hundred parties worldwide, which informs how he reads political risk outside Europe. His current Council of Europe role as General Rapporteur on Democracy puts him inside the live work on democratic backsliding across 46 member states, not commenting on it from outside. He brings a specific, named thesis on the eurozone, that the architecture is unfinished and that the political legitimacy of monetary union is the real binding constraint, and is willing to argue it on the record. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Greece, October 2009 to November 2011, through the first sovereign debt rescue inside the euro area. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, 1999 to 2004, the period of the Greek-Turkish diplomatic opening. President of the Socialist International, 2006 to 2022; now President Emeritus. General Rapporteur on Democracy, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, with PACE adopting his June 2024 report on participatory and deliberative democracy. Fellow, Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs (1992 to 1993) and Institute of Politics (Fall 2012); led the IOP study group “(Re)designing Europe”. Grand Cross decorations from Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Finland and Sweden; TED Global 2013 speaker on democratic deficit and trust. Biography Greece reached the edge of default inside the euro in 2010. The government that called the IMF was led by George Papandreou, who took office in October 2009 with a public finance hole that nobody on the European side had priced in. The decisions made in the following 24 months, on austerity, on bondholder participation, on whether the eurozone would let a member state fail, shaped a decade of European economic policy. Papandreou had reached that chair through a long political career. He had been Foreign Minister from 1999 to 2004, the period associated with the Greek-Turkish rapprochement, and President of PASOK from 2004. From 2006 to 2022 he was President of the Socialist International, which gave him direct working relationships with heads of government and party leaders across more than a hundred countries. His current work is at the Council of Europe, where he is General Rapporteur on Democracy for the Parliamentary Assembly. In June 2024 PACE adopted his report calling on member states to strengthen participatory and deliberative processes, a substantive technical agenda rather than rhetorical concern about democratic decline. He has paired this with academic work at Harvard, including the Institute of Politics study group “(Re)designing Europe”, and earlier as a Fellow at the Center for International Affairs. For boards and executive audiences, the value is specificity. He can describe how the Eurogroup made decisions in the early hours of a Monday morning, why the political economy of monetary union remains the binding constraint on European integration, and how participatory democratic reforms now under negotiation will change the regulatory environment that companies face across Europe. Key speaking topics The eurozone, sovereign debt and the unfinished architecture of monetary union European political risk and the future of European integration Democratic backsliding and institutional reform in Europe Greece, Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean Crisis leadership at the level of national government Participatory and deliberative democracy Global governance and multilateral cooperation Ideal for Boards and executive committees with significant European exposure assessing political and sovereign risk Heads of public affairs and government relations working on EU institutional reform Investor audiences and capital allocators with euro area sovereign and equity positions Foreign policy and security forums focused on the eastern Mediterranean and Europe’s neighbourhood Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a sovereign debt rescue inside the euro area was actually negotiated A reading of the political constraints that still sit underneath the euro and what could reopen them A view of which European democracies are most vulnerable to institutional erosion and why A clearer sense of how Council of Europe and EU-level democratic reforms will shape the operating environment A working framework for thinking about the link between economic shock, political legitimacy and policy