Scenario Planning & Strategic Foresight

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 Igor Beuker He has built, scaled and exited agencies from the inside. LaComunidad was acquired by GroupM, so the advice comes from an operator, not a commentator. He co-founded IAB Netherlands and chaired it in the formative years of digital advertising in Europe. That gives him a structural read on where the industry compensates and where it is still broken. He advises CMOs at Nike, Amazon, L’Oreal and Unilever on marketing innovation, which means the room he is speaking to usually recognises the problems he names. He has juried Cannes Lions and the Webby Awards, which gives him a defensible position on what actually separates work that moves a brand from work that wins a press release. He writes for Rolling Stone’s Culture Council, so his read on culture is not a keynote flourish. It is published and tested in front of a consumer-facing audience. Biography highlights Founder of LaComunidad, acquired by GroupM (WPP) in 2008. Co-founder and former chairman of IAB Netherlands. Founder of ViralBlog and SocialMedia8. Jury member, Cannes Lions and the Webby Awards. Member and published contributor, Rolling Stone Culture Council. Advisor to consumer brands including Nike, Amazon, L’Oreal and Unilever. Biography LaComunidad was a Dutch interactive agency that most of the global holding companies missed. GroupM did not. In 2008, WPP’s media arm acquired it, and the founder stayed on in a senior role to help integrate the thinking into a global network. That founder is Igor Beuker. Before the acquisition he had already co-founded IAB Netherlands and served as its chair through the years when the European digital advertising market went from fringe to structural. That combination, an operator who built inside the industry and a convenor who helped shape its rules, is what most CMO-facing speakers do not have. His work since has kept the same center of gravity. He advises consumer brands on where marketing and media are moving, with Nike, Amazon, L’Oreal and Unilever among the names that recur. He juries Cannes Lions and the Webby Awards, which keeps him close to the work itself rather than to the theory of the work. He writes for Rolling Stone’s Culture Council on how culture, technology and commerce intersect. The argument he brings to a room is commercial. Advertising wins quarters. Innovation in how a brand shows up, sells, and earns cultural permission is what compounds over a decade. For a CMO trying to defend a marketing budget to a CFO, that distinction is the conversation. Key speaking topics Marketing innovation Brand strategy in the digital economy Trend forecasting for consumer brands Media and advertising transformation Purpose-driven brand building Customer experience and engagement Commercial creativity Ideal for CMOs and senior marketing leadership at consumer brands Digital, media and brand teams inside global advertisers Boards and executive teams reviewing the return on marketing investment Agency leadership and industry associations Audience outcomes A sharper read on which marketing and media shifts are structural and which are noise. A working argument for why brand and innovation investment outperforms short-term activation over a cycle. Named examples from inside global consumer brands, not abstract case studies. A clearer view of where culture, technology and commerce are converging and what that means for the next planning cycle. A vocabulary a CMO can take into the CFO conversation.

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

Why organisations work with Gavin Esler Four decades of frontline political reporting, including twelve years presenting Newsnight and several as BBC Chief North America Correspondent in Washington, give him a working feel for how Westminster and US politics actually behave under stress. His three political books (How Britain Ends, Brexit Without the Bullshit, Britain Is Better Than This) make a coherent argument about constitutional drift, English nationalism and institutional decay that has shaped serious debate about the UK’s direction. A Sony Gold Award and a Royal Television Society award signal that his work meets the standard of named broadcast bodies, not just bureau claims. Ten years as Chancellor of the University of Kent gave him extensive experience chairing formal occasions and speaking to large mixed audiences, which carries through to moderation and awards hosting. He is one of the few broadcasters who can move between a geopolitical keynote, a board Q and A on US politics, and a polished on-stage interview with a chief executive in the same brief. Biography highlights Main presenter of BBC Two’s Newsnight, January 2003 to January 2014. BBC Chief North America Correspondent, Washington DC, covering the Bush and Clinton administrations. Presenter of Dateline London on BBC News and BBC World News until 2017. Sixth Chancellor of the University of Kent, July 2014 to January 2024. Sony Gold Award for the BBC Radio 4 documentary Letters from Guantanamo, and a Royal Television Society award for foreign reporting. Author of Lessons from the Top (Profile Books, 2012), How Britain Ends (2021), Brexit Without the Bullshit and Britain Is Better Than This (2023). Biography Most political analysis on conference stages still treats Westminster and Washington as two separate beats. The interesting question is what happens when they are read as one continuous story about fraying constitutional settlements, contested legitimacy, and the strain these place on business planning. That is the territory Gavin Esler has worked in for four decades. He presented BBC Two’s Newsnight from 2003 to 2014, and before that was BBC Chief North America Correspondent in Washington, shaping the corporation’s US coverage through the first Bush and Clinton administrations. He went on to front Dateline London on BBC News and BBC World News, bringing foreign correspondents into weekly argument about events in their own capitals. His three political books run a consistent thread. How Britain Ends argues that English nationalism, not Scottish independence, is the force most likely to break the British union. Britain Is Better Than This reads the expenses scandal, Brexit, Partygate and the Truss premiership as symptoms of institutional decay rather than isolated failures. Lessons from the Top, written earlier, distils three decades of interviewing figures from Bill Clinton to senior military commanders into a framework for how leaders use story to hold legitimacy. He served ten years as Chancellor of the University of Kent, conferring degrees and chairing formal university occasions through a period of significant change in UK higher education. His Sony Gold Award for Letters from Guantanamo and his Royal Television Society award sit alongside that body of reporting and writing as evidence that his judgement has been tested in public for longer than most commentators now working. Key speaking topics UK politics and constitutional change Brexit and its long tail US politics and the transatlantic relationship Geopolitical risk for boards and investors Trust, disinformation and the media Leadership and storytelling On-stage interviewing and moderation Ideal for Board and executive committee sessions pricing UK and US political risk into three-year strategy. Public affairs, legal and financial services conferences needing a named political analyst rather than a generalist keynote. Awards ceremonies, annual dinners and flagship conferences that need a senior broadcaster as host, interviewer or moderator. Leadership forums examining how institutional trust erodes and how communication holds or loses legitimacy. Audience outcomes A sharper read of where UK constitutional politics is heading and what would have to be true for different outcomes. A working sense of how US political cycles translate into risk for European businesses and investors. A more concrete view of how disinformation and declining institutional trust affect corporate reputation and policy environments. A framework for how leaders use narrative to sustain authority, drawn from his interviews with heads of state and senior executives.

Why organisations work with Garry Kasparov He is the person who sat across the board from Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997. When he talks about AI and human judgement, the source material is his own. He turns chess into a working vocabulary for executive decision-making, separating strategy from tactics in a way senior leaders can use the next morning. As a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School and long-time Security Ambassador for Avast, he speaks about AI, cybersecurity and privacy from inside the conversation, not as a commentator on it. His books “How Life Imitates Chess” and “Deep Thinking” give audiences a durable framework and a shared reference point after the session ends. He brings a second register that few speakers in this space can match: a first-hand view of Russia, Putin and the fragility of democratic institutions, grounded in decades of activism and the book “Winter Is Coming.” Biography highlights Youngest undisputed World Chess Champion at 22, in 1985, after defeating Anatoly Karpov. Held the world number one ranking from 1986 until his retirement from professional chess in 2005. Played IBM’s Deep Blue in 1996 and 1997, the first reigning world champion to lose a match to a computer under tournament conditions. Senior Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, working on human-machine collaboration. Founder and chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative; former chairman of the Human Rights Foundation. Author of “How Life Imitates Chess,” “Winter Is Coming” and “Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins.” Biography In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue beat the reigning world chess champion under tournament conditions for the first time in history. The champion on the other side of the board was Garry Kasparov. Nearly three decades later, the questions that match raised about human judgement and machine intelligence are now the everyday questions of corporate strategy. Kasparov has spent the years since making those questions usable for leaders. At the Oxford Martin School, where he is a Senior Visiting Fellow, he works on the evolving relationship between humans and technology. As Security Ambassador for Avast, he has spent nearly a decade inside the cybersecurity and AI debate, not commenting from outside it. His book “Deep Thinking,” written with Mig Greengard, argues that machines that think are not the end of human creativity but a forcing function for it. The chess career underwrites all of it. Becoming the youngest undisputed world champion at 22, holding the number one ranking for almost twenty years, and defending the title across multiple cycles against Anatoly Karpov gave him a working vocabulary for strategy, tactics, preparation and competitive psychology. “How Life Imitates Chess” is the book executives quote back to him. The distinction he draws between long-term strategy and short-term tactics is one of the most portable ideas a senior team can bring out of a keynote. There is a second strand to the work, and buyers should know it is there. Kasparov founded the Renew Democracy Initiative in 2017 and chaired the Human Rights Foundation for over a decade. His book “Winter Is Coming” was one of the earliest serious warnings about Vladimir Putin’s intentions, written well before events made that view consensus. For audiences who want a voice on geopolitical risk alongside the AI and strategy material, he delivers it with the same directness. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and human-machine collaboration Strategic thinking and decision-making under pressure Cybersecurity, privacy and digital freedom The future of work in an age of intelligent machines Russia, Putin and the defence of democratic institutions Leadership, preparation and competitive performance Ideal for CEOs, boards and executive teams rethinking strategy and decision rights as AI moves deeper into the business. CIOs, CISOs and technology leaders navigating cybersecurity, AI adoption and trust. Leadership and talent events where audiences want a working model for strategy versus tactics, not a motivational talk. Policy, risk and government affairs audiences who want an informed voice on Russia and the state of liberal democracy. Audience outcomes A clear distinction between strategy and tactics that senior teams can apply to their own decisions the week after the session. A realistic view of what AI changes in knowledge work, from a speaker who lived the original turning point. Sharper questions about where human judgement still adds value, and where defending it is a waste of effort. A first-hand perspective on Russia and authoritarian risk that frames geopolitical uncertainty in concrete terms. A shared reference point, drawn from chess, that stays useful in strategy conversations long after the event.