Scenario Planning & Strategic Foresight speakers

Why organisations work with Peter Cochrane A track record of forecasting major technology shifts before they entered mainstream conversation, including the wholesale move to remote working and biometric identification at scale, both documented in books from the early 2000s. Operational depth from running research and development at British Telecom, with a thousand-strong team and budgets up to £1 billion, reporting directly to the main board. Investor and founder credibility that connects foresight to commercial outcomes, including a founding director role at eBookers and a founding investment in Shazam. Active research at the University of Suffolk on AI sentience and cyber attack precursors, giving boards direct access to someone working on these problems rather than commenting on them after the fact. Communication credibility honed in the UK’s first Chair for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology at the University of Bristol, with a record of making complex engineering legible to non-technical executives. Biography highlights Former Chief Technology Officer of British Telecom (1999–2000), reporting to the main board with responsibility for a thousand-strong research team and budgets up to £1 billion. UK’s first Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology, holding the Collier Chair at the University of Bristol from 1999. Currently Visiting Professor at the University of Suffolk, the University of Hertfordshire and the University of Salford, with research focused on AI sentience, cyber attack precursors and truth engine development. Founding director of eBookers, which became the largest eTravel business in Europe within four years, and founding investor in Shazam. Recipient of the OBE for services to international communications (1999), the IEEE Millennium Medal (2000), the Queen’s Award for Innovation and Export (1990), and the City and Guilds Prince Philip Medal. Author of “Uncommon Sense: Out of the Box Thinking for an In the Box World” and “108 Tips for Time Travellers”, and co-editor of “Industry 4.0 and Engineering for a Sustainable Future”. Biography By the early 2000s, predictions of biometric identification at scale and a wholesale move to remote working sounded like science fiction to most boards. Peter Cochrane was already writing about both as engineering inevitabilities, with reasoning grounded in fibre economics and network behaviour. The work is rooted in four decades of operational engineering. A career at British Telecom progressed from linesman to Head of Research and then Chief Technology Officer, with a thousand-strong team studying optical fibre, mobile networks, eCommerce and artificial life. His doctoral research at Essex was pivotal in BT’s decision to go all-digital and all-optical in the 1970s, a call that shaped the company’s competitive position for decades. Outside BT, the work has spanned academia and venture investment. He held the Collier Chair at the University of Bristol as the UK’s first Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology. He co-founded ConceptLabs with members of Apple’s Advanced Technology team, was a founding director of eBookers and the founding investor in Shazam. Recognition includes an OBE for services to international communications, the IEEE Millennium Medal, the City and Guilds Prince Philip Medal, and the Queen’s Award for Innovation and Export. His current work at the University of Suffolk focuses on machine consciousness, cyber attack precursors and the engineering of trust in information systems. Key speaking topics Future of technology and AI Cybersecurity and cyber attack precursors Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0 Sentient systems and machine consciousness The engineering reality of 5G and 6G networks Innovation and the management of rapid change Ideal for Boards and executive committees making capital allocation decisions on AI, cybersecurity and connectivity infrastructure Chief Technology Officers and Chief Information Officers shaping multi-year technology and digital strategy Government departments and policy advisors on technology, communications and national resilience Industry conferences in telecoms, financial services, defence and energy where engineering reality matters to commercial decisions Audience outcomes A direct assessment of which emerging technologies will reshape industry over the next decade and which will not. A method for distinguishing engineering reality from commercial hype when evaluating AI, cybersecurity and infrastructure investment. Specific examples of how previous technology transitions played out, drawn from a CTO seat during the digitisation of telecommunications. An informed view of where current systems are most vulnerable to AI-augmented cyber attack, and what early warning signals look like.

Why organisations work with Peter Diamandis He has built the institutions that defined modern moonshot thinking. XPRIZE, Singularity University and the International Space University are his, not references he cites. Diamandis turned a USD 10 million prize into the catalyst for a private space industry now valued in the hundreds of billions. Boards get a practitioner view of how incentive design unlocks markets. His three New York Times bestsellers with Steven Kotler give executives a shared vocabulary, abundance, exponential, convergence, that travels easily into strategy offsites and board reviews. Through Abundance360 and BOLD Capital Partners he is in continuous contact with the founders building the next wave of AI, longevity and space companies, which keeps the content current rather than retrospective. He frames technology as a commercial and human opportunity, not a threat narrative, which lands with leadership teams that need their organisation to move from caution to considered ambition. Biography highlights Founder and Executive Chairman, XPRIZE Foundation, originator of the Ansari XPRIZE won by SpaceShipOne in 2004. Co-founder and Executive Chairman, Singularity University, with Ray Kurzweil. Co-founder, International Space University, 1987. New York Times bestselling author of Abundance, BOLD and The Future Is Faster Than You Think, with Steven Kotler. Named by Fortune in 2014 as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. Founder or co-founder of more than 25 companies across space, longevity, venture capital and education, including Planetary Resources, Human Longevity Inc, Celularity, Space Adventures and Zero Gravity Corporation. Holds degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from MIT and an MD from Harvard Medical School. Biography Most boards plan five years ahead while the technologies reshaping their markets are doubling in capability every eighteen months. The result is strategy that ages faster than it ships. This is the territory Peter Diamandis has spent three decades mapping, first as the entrepreneur who built XPRIZE to prove that private teams could reach space, then as the co-founder of Singularity University with Ray Kurzweil to teach leaders how to think about what compounds. The Ansari XPRIZE, announced in 1996 and won in 2004 by SpaceShipOne, was an early demonstration of his core thesis. A well-designed incentive can move a market faster than a government programme. That logic now sits behind the private space industry and a generation of XPRIZE competitions in fields from carbon removal to longevity. Boards meet a practitioner who has used the same mechanism repeatedly at scale, not a commentator describing it. His three bestsellers with Steven Kotler, Abundance, BOLD and The Future Is Faster Than You Think, give leadership teams a working language for AI, robotics, biotech and the convergence between them. Through Abundance360, his community of founders and investors, and BOLD Capital Partners, he keeps a direct line to the companies operationalising these technologies. The keynote draws on what he is funding and seeing now, not on case studies that have already cycled through the business press. His training is unusual for a futurist. Molecular genetics and aerospace engineering at MIT, an MD from Harvard Medical School, and the co-founding of the International Space University while still in medical school. That depth is what allows him to talk credibly to a healthcare board about longevity and to an industrials executive about space, in the same week, without the content collapsing into generality. Key speaking topics Exponential technologies and business strategy Artificial intelligence and convergence with robotics, biotech and energy Innovation, moonshot thinking and incentive prize design Future of work and leadership in accelerating environments Longevity, healthspan and the science of human performance Space, frontier industries and new commercial markets Entrepreneurship and the building of category-defining ventures Ideal for CEO and board audiences setting strategy under exponential technology pressure Innovation, R and D and corporate venture leaders rethinking how bets are made Healthcare, life sciences and longevity leadership teams Founders, scale-up CEOs and investors at private capital and family office gatherings Audience outcomes A working sense of which technologies are converging, on what timeline, and what that means for their industry A vocabulary for moonshot thinking and 10x targets that survives the trip back to the executive team Concrete examples of how incentive design and prize mechanisms have unlocked markets that traditional R and D could not A clearer view of where AI, longevity and space are creating new revenue categories rather than only disrupting existing ones Renewed appetite among senior leaders for ambition that is grounded in what is now technically achievable

Why organisations work with Peter Fisk He brings a structured framework for business reinvention. Business Recoded sets out seven mindset shifts and 49 codes drawn from deep work with senior leaders at companies including Microsoft, Adidas and Patagonia. Senior teams leave with a shared model to argue from. He sits in the rare overlap between marketer and strategist. As former CEO of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and now Professor of Strategy and Innovation at IE Business School in Madrid, he treats marketing, customer thinking and innovation as parts of one growth discipline. Most organisations still split them across separate functions and budgets. He has worked with senior leaders across more than 300 companies in over 55 countries, with particular depth in Asian innovation and emerging-market growth. The case material is current and varied, not the same handful of examples a leadership team has already seen. As former Thinkers50 Global Director and founder of the annual European Business Forum, he has unusual curatorial access to the leading management thinkers in the world. Sessions draw on what is actually moving across the field. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of GeniusWorks, a London-based strategy and innovation consultancy Professor of Leadership, Strategy and Innovation at IE Business School, Madrid; academic director of the Global Advanced Management Program Former Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Former Thinkers50 Global Director; founder of the annual Thinkers50 European Business Forum Author of nine business books, including Business Recoded, Gamechangers, and the Genius series, translated into 35 languages; Business Recoded shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year Earlier commercial career at British Airways, including responsibility for the Concorde brand Biography The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the world’s largest professional marketing organisation. Peter Fisk ran it before founding GeniusWorks. He used the role to argue that marketing, customer and innovation belong inside growth strategy, where most organisations still treat them as separate functions. That argument has shaped his work since. His career started in physics, in a superconductivity lab. He moved into commercial roles at British Airways, including managing the Concorde brand, before consulting work at PA Consulting Group and Brand Finance. After CIM he founded GeniusWorks, a London consultancy, and joined IE Business School in Madrid as Professor of Strategy and Innovation. His 2020 book Business Recoded sets out seven mindset shifts and 49 codes for reinventing how a business creates value. It is built on deep interviews with leaders at companies including Microsoft, Adidas, Patagonia and Spotify. The Financial Times reviewed it as “the book you have to read now”. It was shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year. Through the Thinkers50 European Business Forum, which he founded in 2017 as Thinkers50 Global Director, he convenes the world’s leading management thinkers each year. Recent stages have brought together Michael Porter, Rita McGrath, Erin Meyer and Alex Osterwalder. That curatorial position is unusual for a working consultant. The frameworks in his sessions are continually refreshed by direct contact with the academics and practitioners writing the next generation of management ideas. Key speaking topics Growth strategy in fast-changing markets Business model reinvention Innovation strategy and execution Customer strategy and brand growth The Business Recoded framework: seven shifts for reinventing the business Asian innovation and emerging-market growth Sustainable growth and purposeful business Ideal for CEOs and boards facing slowing growth in mature markets Strategy and innovation leaders responsible for new business models or category growth CMOs and customer experience leaders rethinking how marketing connects to commercial strategy Executive leadership teams running annual strategy or transformation offsites Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for the seven shifts that separate business reinvention from incremental change Case material from Asian innovators and global category leaders that most leadership teams will not have seen A connected view of innovation, customer and marketing strategy as one growth discipline Specific direction on where to stop investing, alongside where to grow

Why organisations work with Peter Frankopan His central argument in The Silk Roads – that Eurasian trade routes, not Western nation-states, were the real axis of wealth and power for most of human history – gives leaders a structurally different mental map for reading where global economic gravity is moving. This is not commentary; it is a published, peer-reviewed thesis that has sold over two million copies across forty languages. The Earth Transformed makes a specific and uncomfortable argument for boards: that climate and the natural environment are not a policy consideration layered onto geopolitics, but the primary driver of the rise and fall of economies and empires. It resets how serious organisations should be thinking about long-term risk, not just ESG compliance. His advisory work for the World Bank on South Asian transport corridors and with UNIDO on Belt and Road infrastructure means his analysis of global connectivity is grounded in live geopolitical and economic reality – not theoretical. Named one of Prospect Magazine’s World’s 50 Top Thinkers in 2019, his work is positioned at the intersection of serious scholarship and applied strategic relevance – carrying weight with both policymakers and corporate boards. His geographic scope is genuinely unusual: he works across the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Iran, Central Asia, and China as an integrated system – making him the rare authority on Eurasian dynamics as a whole rather than a single-region specialist. Biography highlights Professor of Global History, Oxford University; Stavros Niarchos Foundation Director, Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research; Senior Research Fellow, Worcester College UNESCO Professor of Silk Roads Studies; Bye-Fellow, King’s College, Cambridge Author of The Silk Roads (Bloomsbury) – No.1 Sunday Times bestseller, Sunday Times Book of the Decade 2010–19, translated into more than 40 languages, 2m+ copies sold Author of The Earth Transformed (Bloomsbury) – The Times History Book of the Year; Financial Times and Guardian/Observer Book of the Year Named one of Prospect Magazine’s World’s 50 Top Thinkers (2019); recipient of the Calliope Prize, German Emigration Center, and the Carical Foundation Human Sciences Prize Senior Advisor to the World Bank on South Asian transport corridors; involved with UNIDO’s Bridge for Cities Programme on Belt and Road and sustainable urban development Regular contributor to the Financial Times, Guardian, and New York Times; co-host of the Legacy podcast (Goalhanger/Wondery) with Afua Hirsch Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Royal Historical Society, Royal Asiatic Society, and Royal Geographical Society Biography The Silk Roads were not a romantic footnote to European history. They were the main event. That is the argument Peter Frankopan – Professor of Global History at Oxford and Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research – has spent two decades building: that the trade routes running through Central Asia, Persia, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean were the real axis of wealth, power, and exchange for most of recorded history, and that the West’s period of dominance was the exception, not the rule. His book The Silk Roads made that case to a global readership – No.1 in the Sunday Times, named Book of the Decade, translated into more than forty languages. The New Silk Roads brought the argument into the present, reading China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the re-emergence of Central Asian states, and the reconfiguration of energy markets not as emerging-market news but as the return of structural patterns. His most recent work, The Earth Transformed – The Times History Book of the Year 2023 – extends the argument further still: climate and the natural environment, he argues, are not a policy layer on top of geopolitics but the defining force in the rise and fall of civilisations and economies. Frankopan does not only write about geopolitics. He advises on it. He has served as Senior Advisor to the World Bank on South Asian transport corridors and worked with UNIDO on the future of sustainable cities along Belt and Road. Named one of Prospect Magazine’s World’s 50 Top Thinkers in 2019, he contributes to the Financial Times, Guardian, and New York Times, and advises governments, multilateral institutions, and multinational organisations on geopolitical risk. For boards navigating what is, by any historical measure, a genuine structural shift in where power, trade, and risk are concentrated, Frankopan offers something rarer than expertise: a framework for distinguishing what is structurally new from what has happened before, and knowing which is which. Key speaking topics Global power shifts and the rebalancing between East and West The Silk Roads: Eurasian trade, connectivity, and long-term economic patterns China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the new geography of global commerce Geopolitical risk: Russia, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Iran Climate and environment as long-term drivers of economic and geopolitical change The limits of Western strategic assumptions and the rules-based order BRICS, the global majority, and the emergence of new economic frameworks Ideal for Board members and C-suite teams assessing geopolitical risk in international trade, investment, or expansion Financial services, investment, and sovereign wealth fund audiences analysing long-term global economic trends Government, policy, and public sector leaders navigating strategic realignment between West and East International affairs forums and CEO-level summits seeking rigorous historical context for decisions with long time horizons Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of where global economic and political gravity is moving – grounded in historical evidence rather than current news cycles Clearer thinking about China, Central Asia, and the Middle East as structural actors, not simply emerging markets or risk zones to monitor A historical framework for treating climate and environmental factors as long-term geopolitical and economic forces rather than compliance issues Greater ability to distinguish structural shifts in the global order from cyclical volatility when making decisions that extend beyond the short term Specific historical precedents and patterns that challenge Western-centric assumptions embedded in most strategic planning frameworks

Why organisations work with Peter Hinssen His Never Normal concept and the seven transformation levers of The Uncertainty Principle give leadership teams a shared language for permanent disruption and a structured way to allocate innovation effort across multiple time horizons, a practical alternative to the generic instruction to “be more innovative.” His background runs the full organisational arc, from three technology exits (including a stock-exchange listing) to an Entrepreneur in Residence role at McKinsey & Company and a former non-executive board seat at Belfius Bank, which means he speaks with equal credibility to founders, operators, and board members. The Uncertainty Principle (Lannoo, 2025), endorsed by the Chairman of MIT CISR, gives boards seven concrete levers of transformation for treating systemic uncertainty as a strategic input. His client roster spans TSMC, Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, BMW, Unilever, PepsiCo, LVMH, Microsoft, and Bloomberg, which gives him cross-sector pattern recognition on how the innovation-operations tension shows up differently depending on industry structure and ownership context. Biography highlights Founder, nexxworks, an innovation company that runs masterclasses and innovation tours for established organisations Author of six books, including The Uncertainty Principle (Lannoo, 2025) Serial entrepreneur: founded e-COM (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent), Streamcase (acquired by Belgacom), and Porthus (listed on the stock exchange in 2006, acquired by Descartes) Entrepreneur in Residence, McKinsey & Company, focused on digital and technology strategy Visiting Lecturer, London Business School Former Non Executive Board Member, Belfius Bank; former board member, Mediahuis LinkedIn Top Voice Biography Most companies are built to deliver predictable results, which is precisely the wrong design when disruption becomes the climate rather than the weather. Peter Hinssen calls this state the Never Normal: a condition of permanent change in which the only constant is uncertainty. And yet budget cycles reward certainty. Governance structures penalise experiments that take longer than a financial year to pay off. The result is a structural gap between operational excellence and the capacity for genuine reinvention. His body of work is a sustained answer to that gap. The Never Normal reframes constant disruption as an operating condition to design for, not an exceptional period to wait out. The Day After Tomorrow, his 2017 book, introduced a now widely used way to think across three time horizons. Leaders fund today’s operations, tomorrow’s plans, and the reinvention that decides who is still relevant a decade out. That argument carries weight because Hinssen has lived the full arc of a company’s life. He founded and scaled three technology firms, including Porthus, which listed on the Belgian stock exchange in 2006 before Descartes acquired it. He served as Entrepreneur in Residence at McKinsey & Company, was a Non Executive Board Member at Belfius Bank, and today runs nexxworks, the innovation company he founded. He is a Visiting Lecturer at London Business School. His sixth book, The Uncertainty Principle (Lannoo, 2025), makes the case most directly: uncertainty is not a risk to hedge but the raw material from which bold organisations build advantage. The book works through seven levers of transformation, including strategy, foresight, organisational design, culture, innovation, risk appetite, and the changing nature of work. Dr Peter Weill, Chairman of MIT CISR, calls it a guide to navigating between the forces of pessimism and possibility. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy and multi-horizon investment The Never Normal and permanent disruption The Uncertainty Principle and decision-making under uncertainty Organisational reinvention and the Phoenix model Artificial intelligence and augmented intelligence Digital transformation and business-model change Leadership under permanent uncertainty Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams steering established businesses through structural disruption Chief Innovation Officers and transformation leads who own the innovation-operations tension Strategy teams that need a shared basis for multi-horizon investment decisions Large incumbents across consumer goods, healthcare, financial services, technology, and industrials facing a reinvention mandate Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for investing across three time horizons: today, tomorrow, and the bolder reinvention beyond A way to treat uncertainty as a strategic input rather than a threat, drawn from The Uncertainty Principle A reframing of AI as a structural accelerant of the innovation-operations challenge, not a standalone technology decision Clarity on the organisational design and governance choices that separate companies that reinvent from those that get disrupted

Why organisations work with Peter Siljerud Engineering training combined with twenty years in trend analysis and futures work. His AI commentary runs deeper than headline level into how machine learning and neural networks behave, and what that means for deployment risk. Author of AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University), with case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus. One of the few futurists with substantive applied work on public-sector AI. Co-author of Supertrends (ProSales Institute, English edition 2020), a framework of fifty structural shifts in commercial strategy. The book is built for sales and marketing leaders running real planning cycles. Long-running client work with Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom. The LRF programme reached 12,000 people across a two-year external-analysis curriculum. Biography highlights CEO and founder of Futurewise, a Stockholm-based trend research firm operating since 2008 Author of four books: 100 trender (2011), Bryt normerna (2015), Supertrenderna (2018), and AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, 2023) Two books nominated for Marketing Book of the Year by Sveriges Marknadsförbund (Swedish Marketing Federation) Named one of Sweden’s most creative people by media group IDG in 2012 Former future strategist at Kairos Future and world analyst at Intel Clients include Nordea, ICA, the Church of Sweden, LRF, SPP, and Teracom Biography Sweden’s public-sector AI investment sits at around three percent of national AI spending. The figure is small enough to embarrass policymakers and large enough to matter. Peter Siljerud’s 2023 book AI för offentlig sektor (Liber, foreword by Professor Fredrik Heintz of Linköping University) is the practical response: case studies of Bolagsverket, Riksarkivet, and Hallands sjukhus, written for the leadership teams making the actual deployment decisions. That instinct, work backwards from organisational reality, has shaped twenty years of his practice. He trained as a civil engineer before moving into futures work as a strategist at Kairos Future and a world analyst at Intel. Futurewise, the firm he founded in 2008, helps leadership teams turn external-analysis signals into specific budget and capability calls. The earlier books trace the same arc. 100 trender (2011) was nominated for Sweden’s Marketing Book of the Year and mapped structural shifts hitting Swedish business. Bryt normerna (2015) attacked the assumption that the working day and the employment contract are settled categories. Supertrenderna (2018), co-authored with Henrik Larsson-Broman and Markus Ejenäs of the ProSales Institute, distilled fifty shifts in commercial strategy into operating advice for sales and marketing leaders. What separates him from the broader futurist circuit is the engineering instinct. The talks press past signal identification into what the audience should do next quarter. AI is treated as a specific technology with specific behavioural patterns that leadership teams need to understand at working level. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI Strategic foresight and trend analysis Future of work Future of sales and marketing AI in the public sector Consumer behaviour and retail trends Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams in Nordic and European businesses making AI investment decisions Public-sector leadership in regions, municipalities, and central agencies working out where AI investment pays back Heads of marketing, sales, and customer experience facing structural change in how customers buy Boards and executive committees in mature industries (real estate, retail, financial services) where trend response is overdue Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of AI development that goes past press-cycle headlines A short list of trends worth genuine board attention this cycle, separated from the noise Specific case studies from Nordic public and private sector AI deployments, including Bolagsverket and Hallands sjukhus A method for translating external signals into capital and capability decisions Ideas they can put into a board paper inside a fortnight

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

Why organisations work with Philippe Dewost He has run digital transformation from inside the state. As director of a €4.25 billion programme at Caisse des Dépôts, he is one of the few practitioners who can speak to public capital, regulation, and operating execution as a single problem. He authored the 2013 report that produced La French Tech. Leaders briefing him on ecosystem strategy are talking to the person who designed one. He built LaBChain, the 27-partner blockchain consortium at Caisse des Dépôts, before most boards had a working vocabulary for distributed ledgers. His material on blockchain is mechanism-first, not hype. He has operated at every layer of the stack: co-founder of Wanadoo, CEO of a Cambridge startup acquired by Apple, head of Leonard at VINCI, director general of a French engineering school. The same person has shipped consumer products, sold technology to Apple, and built a national policy instrument. Biography highlights Co-founder of Wanadoo, France Telecom’s consumer internet service, which became Europe’s leading ISP at peak. Former CEO of imSense (Cambridge), the image-processing company acquired by Apple in 2010. Director of a €4.25 billion digital programme at Caisse des Dépôts under France’s Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir. Author of the 2013 report to the French Prime Minister that gave rise to La French Tech, announced in January 2014. Founder of LaBChain, a 27-partner blockchain R&D consortium led from Caisse des Dépôts. Director of Leonard, VINCI Group’s corporate innovation and foresight programme; led EPITA, the IT and cybersecurity engineering school; author of “De Mémoire Vive” (2022), preface by Cédric Villani. Biography Wanadoo was an internal France Telecom project in 1995 when Philippe Dewost helped build its product management. Four years later it was Europe’s leading internet service provider with over a million subscribers. That early experience set the pattern: technology only matters when it reaches operating scale and the institutions around it learn to govern it. After running imSense, the Cambridge image-processing company acquired by Apple in 2010, he joined Caisse des Dépôts in 2011 to direct a €4.25 billion digital investment package under France’s Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir. In 2013 he authored the report to the Prime Minister that became the design document for La French Tech, the initiative launched in January 2014 with €215 million of public funding. He then built LaBChain, a 27-partner blockchain consortium that became one of Europe’s earliest serious cross-sector experiments in distributed ledgers. At VINCI Group from 2017 he ran Leonard, the corporate innovation and foresight programme, leading exploration across autonomous vehicles, climate resilience, AI and four other long-horizon topics. The intrapreneurship engine he built there is now a reference model for other large corporates. From October 2021 he ran EPITA, the IONIS Group engineering school, focusing it on cybersecurity and on a presence at the cyber campus in La Défense. He is also Operating Partner at C4 Ventures, Pascal Cagni’s consumer high-tech fund, and sits on the board of agritech firm SunR. His 2022 book “De Mémoire Vive”, with a foreword by mathematician Cédric Villani, is a personal history of the digital revolution by someone who was inside several of its turning points. It was published with 42 unique NFT-numbered first editions, an editorial choice that says something about the author’s instinct for where the technology is going next. Key speaking topics Digital sovereignty Blockchain as institutional infrastructure Corporate innovation and intrapreneurship at scale Building national technology ecosystems Cybersecurity as a strategic capability Artificial intelligence in operating environments Smart cities and autonomous mobility The history and trajectory of the digital revolution Ideal for Board members and CEOs setting digital, AI or sovereignty strategy at a European scale CIOs, CTOs and Chief Innovation Officers moving from pilots into operating deployment Public sector leaders and policy teams designing ecosystem or industrial policy in technology Corporate venture and innovation leads building intrapreneurship and partnership engines Audience outcomes A working mental model of how digital ambition translates into operating capability, with named examples from French and European programmes. A clear-eyed read on blockchain as a coordination mechanism between institutions, not as a product category. A senior practitioner’s view of where corporate innovation programmes succeed and where they stall. A specific framing of digital sovereignty that boards can use to interrogate vendor, infrastructure and talent dependencies.

Why organisations work with Pippa Malmgren She has sat inside the room where US economic policy is set. As Special Assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Economic Council, she advised on the response to 9/11 from a financial markets and Pentagon technology procurement standpoint, which is a different vantage point from any academic economist. She bridges currency markets and geopolitics in a way few speakers can. She ran Bankers Trust Asset Management in Asia and was Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS, which means her geopolitical reads land with FX, fixed income and treasury audiences. She is a working operator, not just a commentator. Co-founding H Robotics, a CogX and National Technology Award winning industrial drone business, gives her a real seat at the table on industrial AI, autonomous systems and the defence-tech investment cycle. Her book The Leadership Lab won UK Business Book of the Year 2019 and her follow-up The Infinite Leader won the International Press Award for Best Book on Leadership 2021, which means leadership-track briefs are met with credentialed material rather than improvisation. She holds a Senior Associate Fellowship at RUSI, the UK defence and security institute, and judges the King’s Awards for Enterprise. Boards using her for geopolitics get an analyst whose reads are taken seriously inside the UK security and industrial establishment. Biography highlights Special Assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Economic Council and member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. Former Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS and head of Bankers Trust Asset Management in Asia. Author of Signals (Weidenfeld and Nicolson), Geopolitics for Investors, The Leadership Lab and The Infinite Leader. Co-founder of H Robotics, winner of the CogX Award for Autonomy and the 2020 National Technology Award. Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and a Fellow of the Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation 2022 to 2024. PhD and MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics. Biography The job of reading geopolitics for boards used to belong to a small circle of former diplomats and bank chief economists. That circle is no longer wide enough. Currency moves now sit downstream of sanctions decisions, supply chain costs sit downstream of industrial policy, and AI capex sits downstream of export controls. Reading those linkages is a working discipline, not a generalist’s hobby. Malmgren was inside that linkage early. She advised President George W. Bush on the National Economic Council and served on the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, including the post-9/11 work on terrorism risk to the economy and Pentagon technology procurement. Before the White House, she ran Bankers Trust Asset Management in Asia and was Deputy Head of Global Strategy at UBS. The combination of policy seat and trading-floor seat is rare, and it shapes how she briefs. The published work makes the argument visible. Signals reads consumer behaviour, magazine covers and shop fronts as evidence about inflation, social pressure and political risk. The Leadership Lab, co-written with Chris Lewis, won UK Business Book of the Year 2019. The Infinite Leader followed it with the 2021 International Press Award for Best Book on Leadership. None of these are commentator books. They argue specific theses about how decisions get made under volatile conditions. She also runs an operating business in the territory she briefs on. H Robotics, the industrial drone company she co-founded, won the CogX Award for Autonomy and the 2020 National Technology Award. She holds a Senior Associate Fellowship at RUSI, sits on the judging panel of the King’s Awards for Enterprise and was a Fellow of the Bertelsmann Stiftung from 2022 to 2024. When she briefs a board on industrial AI, defence-tech, the new space economy or the strategic-minerals fight, she is briefing as a participant, not a watcher. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and the global economy Macroeconomic volatility and capital allocation Industrial AI, autonomous systems and defence technology Currency markets and inflation signals The new space economy and strategic infrastructure Leadership under conditions of disruption Political risk and sovereign decision-making Ideal for Boards, CEOs and CFOs setting capital allocation policy under sanctions, currency and supply chain pressure. Treasury, FX and asset management leadership teams whose mandates now hinge on geopolitical reads. Strategy and corporate development teams in defence, energy, industrials, semiconductors and infrastructure. Investment committees of pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and family offices reassessing global exposure. Audience outcomes A working framework for translating geopolitical events into specific capital, currency and operating consequences. A clearer reading of where US, Chinese and European industrial policy is forcing reallocation of supply chains and capital. Specific signals to track in commodities, currencies and consumer behaviour as leading indicators of macro stress. A grounded view of where AI, autonomous systems and the space economy intersect with national security and corporate strategy. Confidence at board level that geopolitical scenarios have been pressure-tested by someone who has briefed at presidential level.

Why organisations work with Raghuram Rajan The Fault Lines framework – winner of the 2010 FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year – gives organisations a specific, named diagnostic for distinguishing structural economic imbalance from cyclical volatility. That is a different tool from scenario planning or macroeconomic outlook, and more useful at board level. He is the only prominent economist to have publicly and formally predicted the 2008 financial crisis in advance – at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium in 2005 – and been dismissed at the time. That track record is a credential no other economics speaker holds. He governed a major central bank through a period of acute currency stress and capital flight, giving senior audiences access to decision-making insight from inside a monetary authority under pressure – not retrospective academic analysis of one. His Third Pillar argument – that markets and states, operating without healthy communities, produce the political backlash that now defines operating risk for global organisations – provides a structural explanation for the instability that most business risk frameworks treat as noise. As Chairman of the Group of Thirty, the senior body that shapes global monetary and financial policy thinking, his analysis is current and policy-facing, not retrospective. Biography highlights Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (2013–2016); Vice-Chairman, Board of the Bank for International Settlements (2015–2016) Chief Economist and Director of Research, International Monetary Fund (2003–2006) Presented research at the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole symposium in 2005 warning of structural financial risk – widely recognised as a prescient forecast of the 2008 global financial crisis Author of Fault Lines (FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year, 2010) and The Third Pillar (shortlisted, FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, 2019); co-author of Breaking the Mould (Princeton University Press, 2024) Chairman, Group of Thirty; Chairman, Per Jacobsson Foundation; Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fischer Black Prize, American Finance Association (inaugural, 2003); Deutsche Bank Prize for Financial Economics (2013); Euromoney Central Banker of the Year (2014); Banker Magazine Central Banker of the Year (2016) Regular contributor to Project Syndicate on global economic and monetary policy Biography Financial crises don’t arrive without signals – they arrive without being believed. In 2005, at the Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole symposium, Rajan presented research identifying structural risks in the financial system that could, if unaddressed, precipitate a major crisis. The then-US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers dismissed the analysis publicly. Three years later, the 2008 financial crisis unfolded. That episode anchors Rajan’s central argument, developed in Fault Lines – the 2010 FT-Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year – that global financial crises are rooted in structural political and economic imbalances, not isolated market failures. He applied this framework at the level of actual policy: as Chief Economist at the IMF from 2003 to 2006, shaping global economic analysis across a period of significant financial stress; and as the 23rd Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, managing monetary policy through currency pressure and capital outflows that tested emerging market resilience. His 2019 book The Third Pillar, shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year, extends the argument into political economy. The conventional debate between markets and the state, Rajan contends, ignores the community as a third and equally necessary foundation of economic stability. When that pillar erodes – as globalisation concentrates gains and disperses costs – the political backlash follows. That dynamic now constitutes a primary operating risk for organisations across every sector. As Chairman of the Group of Thirty, a regular contributor to Project Syndicate, and co-author of Breaking the Mould (Princeton University Press, 2024) – which proposes a new economic development path for India as the traditional manufacturing-led growth model becomes less viable – Rajan continues to work at the intersection of economic analysis and practical policy, where the consequences of getting the diagnosis wrong are most clearly visible. Key speaking topics Global macroeconomics and financial stability Structural risk and the conditions that precede financial crises Central banking and monetary policy Emerging markets and economic development Political economy: globalisation, populism, and community India’s economic trajectory and structural reform ESG, corporate disclosure, and responsible capitalism Ideal for Boards and executive leadership teams at multinational organisations assessing macroeconomic and geopolitical risk Senior leadership in financial services – banking, asset management, insurance, and central banking institutions Chief strategy officers and chief risk officers stress-testing global market assumptions Government bodies, policy forums, and international economic organisations Audience outcomes A specific framework for reading structural fault lines in the global economy, distinct from standard macroeconomic forecasting Grounded understanding of how central banks weigh political pressure against policy mandates – from someone who managed that tension in office A clearer account of why globalisation generates political backlash, and what that means for organisations operating across different political environments Context for emerging market risk – particularly India – built on policy experience rather than external analysis A more rigorous basis for stress-testing the macroeconomic assumptions embedded in corporate strategy and investment decisions

Why organisations work with Rain Newton-Smith She makes the affirmative economic case that net-zero and growth are reinforcing – not competing – priorities, with CBI and OBR data showing the cost of failing to decarbonise is five times the cost of acting early. This reframes a question most boards are still treating as a trade-off. Her analysis of UK investment conditions is not retrospective commentary: as head of the CBI she is actively co-designing the UK Industrial Strategy with government, giving organisations access to intelligence that is live and consequential. Her China and emerging markets expertise – built as lead specialist at Oxford Economics – gives her a credible basis for the counter-consensus argument that full decoupling from China is economically untenable and inconsistent with any serious free-trade commitment. She bridges central bank monetary discipline (nine years at the Bank of England, IMF secondment) with the strategic language of the boardroom – a combination that is rare among economists who speak on UK macroeconomic and geopolitical risk. As Policy Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Economics and Non-Executive Director of F&C Investment Trust, she operates simultaneously inside academic economic policy debate and at the institutional investor level. Biography highlights Chief Executive of the Confederation of British Industry – the UK’s principal business advocacy body, representing over 170,000 firms Former Chief Economist at the CBI (2014–2023); led economic analysis, policy teams, and HM Treasury engagement Nine years at the Bank of England, including global forecasting for the Monetary Policy Committee; seconded to the IMF as adviser to the UK Executive Director (2004–2006) Former Head of Emerging Markets at Oxford Economics; lead expert on China and Asia Former Managing Director, Strategy and Policy, Sustainability and ESG at Barclays Policy Fellow, Department of Economics, University of Oxford; Council Member, Royal Economic Society; Member, LSE Centre for Economic Performance Policy Committee Non-Executive Director, F&C Investment Trust WEF Young Global Leader (2012); WEF Global Future Council on Monetary and Fiscal Policy (2020) Management Today 35 Women Under 35 (2010) PPE, University of Oxford; MSc Economics, London School of Economics Biography The question of whether UK business can afford the green transition is being asked backwards. Rain Newton-Smith, Chief Executive of the Confederation of British Industry, has built the evidence to reframe it. OBR projections show the cost of failing to decarbonise is five times the cost of acting early – making this a capital allocation question, not an environmental one. Her analytical foundation spans nine years at the Bank of England preparing forecasts for the Monetary Policy Committee, followed by a secondment to the IMF as adviser to the UK Executive Director. She then led the emerging markets practice at Oxford Economics as its lead expert on China – work that now informs her publicly stated position that full decoupling from China is economically untenable and inconsistent with a commitment to free trade. Before becoming CBI Chief Executive in 2023, she served as CBI Chief Economist for nine years, leading its economic analysis and policy teams and its engagement with HM Treasury, and as Managing Director of Strategy, Policy, Sustainability and ESG at Barclays. The combination – central bank economist, institutional strategist, and now the UK’s leading business advocate – places her above the policy debate rather than within it. She is a Policy Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Economics, a Council Member of the Royal Economic Society, and a Non-Executive Director of F&C Investment Trust. The World Economic Forum named her a Young Global Leader in 2012 and invited her to join its Global Future Council on Monetary and Fiscal Policy in 2020. Key speaking topics UK economic outlook and investment conditions Global trade, protectionism, and the China question Net-zero growth: the economic case for the green transition UK industrial strategy and business-government partnership Geopolitical risk and its consequences for capital allocation Emerging market dynamics and Asia ESG strategy and the business case for sustainability Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership evaluating UK investment and growth strategy CFOs, CSOs, and heads of strategy in financial services, energy, and manufacturing Government affairs and regulatory teams navigating post-Brexit trade and policy Institutional investors and pension funds assessing UK macroeconomic and ESG risk Audience outcomes A framework for understanding how fiscal pressure, geopolitical risk, and the green transition interact as a single investment decision Clarity on the UK-EU, US tariff, and China dynamics that are directly affecting corporate capital allocation An evidence-based rebuttal to the assumption that net-zero and economic competitiveness are in conflict Better understanding of how UK industrial strategy is being shaped and what it means for investment planning Context on how financial stability risks – sovereign debt, monetary tightening, energy costs – are translating into business conditions in the near term

Why organisations work with Ram Charan The Leadership Pipeline gives boards and CHROs a six-passage diagnostic framework – built from research across more than 100 global corporations – for selecting, developing, and assessing leaders at each organizational level. Most leadership development programmes describe this kind of architecture in principle. Charan operationalized it. His co-authored book Execution made a specific argument that most organizations resist: strategy failure is a discipline failure, not a strategy failure. Spending 150 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list suggests the argument landed. The named disciplines it identifies – talent selection, operating reviews, and decision accountability – give executive teams something to act on, not just reflect on. Client relationships at GE (approximately four decades) and DuPont (approximately three) are not testimonials. They are evidence of how a working model holds up under repeated stress at the apex of large, complex organizations. He originated business acumen as a teachable, measurable organizational capability rather than an executive personality trait. The curriculum built around What the CEO Wants You to Know has been adopted at major corporations as a tool for developing commercial judgment across all levels of leadership. His work on corporate governance, including Boards That Lead (co-authored with Dennis Carey and Michael Useem), gives directors specific tools for managing the boundary between governance and management – one of the most contested and consequential relationships in any large organization. Biography highlights Harvard Business School MBA and DBA; graduated Baker Scholar with high distinction Former faculty member at Harvard Business School, Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management), Wharton School, and GE’s Crotonville Leadership Institute Co-author of Execution (with Larry Bossidy, 2002) – number 1 Wall Street Journal bestseller and New York Times bestseller for 150 weeks Author and co-author of more than 30 books with over 4 million copies sold in more than twelve languages; publisher record via ram-charan.com Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Time, and Chief Executive; listed on Thinkers50 Long-term advisor to GE, DuPont, Bank of America, KLM, Verizon, Novartis, 3M, and the Tata and Aditya Birla Groups Biography Most organizations can articulate their strategy clearly. Fewer can explain why it consistently fails to arrive at the front line. Ram Charan has spent four decades working inside that gap – as an advisor to CEOs and boards at GE, DuPont, Bank of America, and some forty other major corporations across multiple continents. His 2002 book Execution, co-authored with former Honeywell CEO Larry Bossidy, made an argument that is still unsettling to senior teams: the problem is not the strategy, it is the absence of named disciplines for making it real. The book identified three of those disciplines – talent selection, operating reviews, and decision accountability at the CEO level – and spent 150 consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. The Leadership Pipeline, developed with Stephen Drotter and James Noel, pressed the argument further. It defined six discrete passages through which leaders must develop, with distinct skills, time allocation, and values required at each stage. The model is now used as a standard succession architecture at major corporations worldwide. Charan trained at Harvard Business School, graduating Baker Scholar with high distinction before joining its faculty. He later taught at Northwestern’s Kellogg School, at Wharton, and at GE’s Crotonville Leadership Institute. He left full-time academia in 1978 to consult – a decision shaped by a conviction, present from the start, that the real problems of business are not solved in classrooms but inside the operating decisions that organizations make every day. His body of work – more than thirty books, including What the CEO Wants You to Know, Boards That Lead, and Global Tilt – is structured around a single question: what does it actually take to build an organization that delivers? Directors, CHROs, and CEO teams use his frameworks not because they are theoretically elegant but because they name things that were previously unnameable – and give senior leaders something concrete to do on Monday morning. Key speaking topics Execution as organizational discipline Leadership Pipeline and succession architecture Business acumen as a teachable capability Corporate governance and board-CEO relationship Growth strategy and profitability fundamentals Global competition and emerging market strategy Talent development and leadership readiness Ideal for CEOs and board directors working on succession planning, governance accountability, or the gap between strategic intent and operational performance CHROs and talent leaders designing or overhauling leadership development and succession frameworks Senior executive teams where strategy is consistently better-articulated than delivered Leadership development programmes at global corporations seeking an established, research-backed architecture Audience outcomes A diagnostic framework for identifying where the leadership pipeline is blocked and what specific actions unblock it A clear distinction between strategy and execution, and the named disciplines – talent, decision-making, and operating process – that close the gap Practical tools for assessing leadership readiness at each stage of the organizational hierarchy A framework for structuring the board-CEO relationship and understanding when governance becomes leadership An understanding of business acumen as a measurable, developable skill applicable across organizational levels – not just at the top