Scenario Planning & Strategic Foresight

Why organisations work with David Roberts His Exponential Leadership framework draws a hard diagnostic line between revolutionary and truly disruptive technology – giving senior teams a structured method for a decision most organisations currently make by instinct. He holds an MIT degree in Artificial Intelligence alongside a Harvard MBA, and built ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, and In-Q-Tel – his understanding of technology disruption is operational, not theoretical. As Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, he has stress-tested these frameworks with senior leaders across sectors and geographies at scale. His background spans classified U.S. government programs – satellite systems, drone development, intelligence fusion centers – giving him credibility on high-stakes technological complexity that most innovation speakers cannot claim. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have written and taught case studies on his leadership and decision-making – a level of academic scrutiny that validates the substance of the framework, not just its presentation. Biography highlights MIT B.S. Computer Science and Engineering, Distinguished Graduate, majored in Artificial Intelligence and Bio-Computer Engineering Harvard MBA Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program; Distinguished Faculty member Coined the term Exponential Leadership in 2010; founder of Exponential Leadership organisation Co-founder and President of FireDrop and Zaplet, acquired by MetricStream; ventures backed by Kleiner Perkins, Vinod Khosla, Cisco, Oracle, Accenture, and In-Q-Tel Chairman of 1QBit, one of the world’s first quantum computing software companies Career U.S. government officer: Air Force officer, decorated Special Agent; led development of satellite programs and the U.S. Drone Program; received personal citation from the Director of the FBI Media coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, USA Today, The New York Times, and CNN Biography Roberts studied AI at MIT before the term had reached the boardroom – under the guidance of Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of ELIZA and one of the discipline’s founding figures. That technical grounding was followed by a Goldman Sachs M&A posting and then a career in the U.S. government, where he led the development of satellite systems and the U.S. Drone Program across multiple national agencies. By the time he entered Silicon Valley, he had spent years building the technologies that other people were still learning to name. His venture career – FireDrop and Zaplet, backed by Kleiner Perkins and In-Q-Tel and ultimately acquired by MetricStream – gave him a second operational lens: what it takes to build and fund companies around genuinely disruptive technology, not merely competitive ones. That distinction became the foundation of his intellectual contribution. In 2010, working in a government context, he coined the term Exponential Leadership – a framework built on a single, testable claim: that the leadership models most organisations rely on were engineered for incremental change, and that they structurally fail when technologies start compressing competitive timelines from decades to years. Roberts went on to serve as Vice President and two-time Director of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program, reaching senior leaders across sectors with that framework. His talks do not stop at diagnosing the gap between technology speed and leadership capability – they give organisations a structured method for distinguishing truly disruptive technologies from merely revolutionary ones, and a leadership model calibrated to act on that distinction. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley Business Schools have used his leadership and decision-making as the basis for case studies. His technology ventures have been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and CNN. Key speaking topics Exponential Leadership Technology disruption and disruptive innovation theory Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies Quantum computing and advanced technology platforms Entrepreneurship and high-growth venture strategy Strategic decision-making in exponential environments Leadership development for technology-driven organisations Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating technology-driven transformation Strategy and innovation leaders in sectors facing accelerating competitive disruption Corporate leadership development programmes seeking a framework for exponential change Boards and executive committees assessing long-term technology risk and strategic positioning Audience outcomes A working distinction between revolutionary and genuinely disruptive technology, with a framework for applying it to current strategic decisions Understanding of why traditional leadership models underperform in exponentially changing environments, and what a more effective model looks like in practice Clearer organisational language for discussing exponential change – moving beyond general awareness to specific, actionable diagnostic categories Exposure to emerging technologies – including AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology, and autonomous systems – framed through their leadership and strategic implications A practical foundation for aligning leadership behaviour and decision-making with the actual pace of technology change

Why organisations work with David McWilliams He publicly forecast the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, and the rise of US trade nationalism – while the institutional consensus pointed elsewhere. That track record changes how boards receive his analysis. Money: A Story of Humanity was named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times and Book of the Year by The Economist in the same year. That combination of endorsements is rare and signals intellectual authority, not just popular appeal. He frames monetary and economic forces as historical and civilisational patterns rather than cyclical fluctuations, giving leadership teams a much longer analytical lens than conventional macro forecasting provides. His podcast has passed 40 million downloads across 130 countries – which means his frameworks have already been tested against non-economist audiences, and translate directly into board conversations without requiring prior economic knowledge. His festival Kilkenomics was described by the Financial Times as “simply, the best economics conference in the world” – a peer endorsement that signals the quality of dialogue he convenes and the seriousness with which other economists take his work. Biography highlights Adjunct Professor of Global Economics, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin; Masters in Economics, College of Europe, Bruges Former economist at the Central Bank of Ireland; subsequently Senior European Economist at UBS and Head of Emerging Markets Research at Banque Nationale de Paris Author of six books, including Money: A Story of Humanity – named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times, Book of the Year by The Economist and The Observer, Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and an international No.1 bestseller (2024) Weekly columnist, The Irish Times; regular contributor, Financial Times; contributor to TIME magazine TED2023 main stage speaker; “The Power of Unconventional Thinking” has exceeded one million views Founder of Kilkenomics; co-founder of the Dalkey Book Festival; World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Biography When organisations need economic foresight, they typically turn to the same institutions – banks, consultancies, research houses – whose consensus forecasts missed the 2008 crash, Brexit, and the rise of trade nationalism. David McWilliams, Adjunct Professor of Global Economics at Trinity College Dublin, was among the very small group who called all three in advance. He trained at Trinity College Dublin and the College of Europe in Bruges, and worked as an economist at the Central Bank of Ireland before moving to UBS and Banque Nationale de Paris, where he held senior roles in European and emerging markets research. His most recent book, Money: A Story of Humanity, argues that money is not a financial instrument but a civilisational technology – the primary force shaping power, politics, and social structure across five millennia of human history. Named Economics Book of the Year by the Financial Times and Book of the Year by The Economist in 2024, it became an international No.1 bestseller translated into 21 languages. Its central argument – that the stability of today’s monetary system is largely illusory, built on mechanisms most decision-makers do not understand – speaks directly to organisations navigating interest rate risk, currency exposure, or fiscal stress. A weekly columnist in The Irish Times and regular contributor to the Financial Times, McWilliams has built one of the broadest non-specialist economics audiences of any working economist. His podcast has passed 40 million downloads across 130 countries. His TED2023 main stage talk has exceeded one million views. The reach matters in leadership settings: his frameworks have been tested against audiences who are not economists, which means they translate directly into board conversations. He founded Kilkenomics on the premise that the best economic thinking happens when it is challenged from outside the discipline – a view the Financial Times endorsed by calling it “simply, the best economics conference in the world.” The same argument runs through his TED talk, “The Power of Unconventional Thinking”: that institutions which reward consensus produce the overconfidence that precedes every major economic failure. For leadership teams navigating the current period of monetary, geopolitical, and structural instability, that is not an abstract point. Key speaking topics Monetary systems and the history of money Global macroeconomic trends and forecasting Geopolitics and the political economy of trade Financial market dynamics and systemic risk The future of currencies and digital money Economic nationalism and the fracturing of global trade Unconventional thinking and institutional groupthink Ideal for Board-level and C-suite leadership conferences focused on strategic risk, long-range planning, or capital allocation in conditions of macro uncertainty Financial services and banking audiences navigating monetary policy, interest rate cycles, and regulatory change Corporate strategy and scenario planning forums requiring grounded macroeconomic and geopolitical context Economic policy and public affairs conferences where eurozone dynamics, EU-UK relations, or global trade architecture are on the agenda Audience outcomes A structured understanding of how monetary systems and debt cycles create predictable patterns of economic stress – and what indicators to watch for A longer historical lens for interpreting current macro conditions, including inflation, currency risk, and fiscal instability Practical context for the geopolitical and structural forces driving trade nationalism, eurozone tensions, and dollar dependency Confidence in interrogating economic consensus rather than deferring to it uncritically A framework for communicating economic complexity to non-specialist boards, investors, or stakeholders

Why organisations work with David Mattin Trend-Driven Innovation (Wiley) gives the organisations Mattin works with a named, repeatable method for identifying which emerging trends will reshape customer expectations – built on the counter-intuitive argument that the best signal is not in what customers say they want but in what leading businesses are already doing. His central argument – that human needs are fundamentally stable across decades even as technology accelerates – transforms trend analysis from a speculative exercise into a discipline with clear criteria, and gives leaders a reliable filter for deciding which AI-driven changes will actually matter. As Technology Lead at Global Macro Investor, his analysis of emerging technology is read and acted on by institutional investors including hedge funds, pension funds, and family offices – which subjects his commercial judgements about which technology shifts matter to a level of scrutiny that most trend and foresight work never encounters. The 30,000-subscriber New World Same Humans community – spanning business leaders, academics, and policymakers – means his frameworks are continuously tested against the exact professionals organisations are trying to anticipate and influence. Biography highlights Co-author, Trend-Driven Innovation: Beat Accelerating Customer Expectations (Wiley) – a structured framework for turning emerging trends into innovation strategy Former Global Head of Trends and Insights, TrendWatching Member, World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Consumption Technology Lead, Global Macro Investor; co-founder of The Exponentialist research service with macro investor Raoul Pal Founder, New World Same Humans – weekly newsletter on trends and technology with 30,000+ subscribers across business, academia, and policy Opening keynote at the NEXT Conference (Accenture Song) on multiple occasions; over 150 keynotes across five continents and 40+ countries Writing published in The Times, Quartz, Wired, Fast Company, the Guardian, and Google Think Quarterly; documentary work for BBC Radio 4 Graduate, University of Cambridge; began career at the features desk of The Times Biography Most organisations study their own customers closely. David Mattin’s core argument, developed during a decade leading trends intelligence at TrendWatching, is that the more useful signal lies elsewhere – in the moves leading businesses and disruptive startups are making to redefine what those customers consider normal. That argument found its fullest expression in Trend-Driven Innovation (Wiley), which made a counter-intuitive case: to anticipate what customers will want next, stop looking at customers and start tracking the businesses already reshaping their expectations. The underlying framework rests on a philosophical claim that runs through all of his work: human needs are fundamentally stable across decades, even as technology accelerates. New trends emerge when a technology or business innovation unlocks a new way to serve a need that was always there. Track those needs, observe which innovations are serving them, and the expectation gaps that matter become visible before competitors act. His current work extends that discipline into the era of AI. At Global Macro Investor, one of the world’s leading independent research services for institutional allocators, he serves as Technology Lead; he co-founded The Exponentialist alongside macro investor Raoul Pal. That institutional context means his analysis of emerging technology is regularly tested against the demands of hedge funds, pension funds, and family offices – not just conference audiences. The NEXT Conference (Accenture Song) has invited him to open the event on multiple occasions; he has delivered over 150 keynotes across five continents for clients including Meta, McKinsey, Google, Mastercard, Unilever, and Audi. His writing has appeared in The Times, Quartz, Wired, and Google Think Quarterly, and he has produced documentary work for BBC Radio 4. He read at Cambridge and began his career at the features desk of The Times. Key speaking topics AI and emerging technology strategy Consumer trends and expectation gap analysis Innovation strategy in a technology-driven market Scenario planning and strategic foresight Brand strategy and organisational culture in a transparent world The future of business and society in an era of exponential technology change Ideal for Strategy and innovation leadership teams evaluating medium-to-long-term technology bets CMOs and heads of customer experience navigating AI-driven shifts in consumer behaviour Boards and senior executive teams requiring a disciplined framework for separating technology signal from noise Investment professionals and corporate allocators seeking technology intelligence with commercial rigour Audience outcomes A named, replicable framework for identifying which emerging trends are likely to reshape customer expectations before competitors recognise them Clearer criteria for distinguishing technology-driven shifts that will prove durable from those that will not Industry-specific examples of how leading businesses have used expectation gap analysis to create competitive advantage A working understanding of how AI is changing the landscape of customer expectations – and which human needs remain stable enough to anchor innovation decisions A conceptual map of the technology convergences most likely to generate new commercial opportunities over the next five to ten years

Why organisations work with David Daokui Li His 2023 research found China’s local government debt to be 50% higher than IMF and World Bank estimates – using a new measurement methodology – making him one of the few analysts whose China numbers organisations have reason to trust over consensus figures He has attended high-level meetings with figures including Xi Jinping, giving him direct, first-person insight into how China’s senior leadership frames decisions – not inference from official statements His book «China’s World View» (W. W. Norton, 2024) frames Western misunderstanding of China as a systemic risk in itself – shifting the question from «what will China do?» to «why do we keep misreading it?» As a Harvard-trained economist who returned to lead China’s most prominent economic research centre, he can translate between two fundamentally different frameworks for economic reasoning – not just describe one to an audience fluent in the other His co-presidency of the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics alongside Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin signals that his analytical framework for understanding state-driven economies is taken seriously at the highest level of the discipline Biography highlights Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor of Economics and Director of ACCEPT, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management PhD in Economics, Harvard University; BS from Tsinghua University, 1985, as a member of the first graduating cohort of the School of Economics and Management Member, Monetary Policy Committee, People’s Bank of China (2016-2018); former external adviser to the International Monetary Fund; member, CPPCC (2008-2023) Founding Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University Co-President, Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics (SAGE), alongside Eric Maskin, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics Author, «China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict» (W. W. Norton, 2024), endorsed by Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Niall Ferguson, and Mark Leonard Regular contributor to Project Syndicate; cited in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, and New York Times; appears on CNBC and Bloomberg TV Named one of China’s 10 most influential economists by Wall Street Wire (2006) Biography China’s economy confounds Western observers not because it is opaque, but because it operates on a different logic – one shaped by two thousand years of Confucian governance philosophy, decades of directed industrial policy, and a political system with incentives that bear little resemblance to liberal democratic models. David Daokui Li is the Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor of Economics at Tsinghua University and Director of the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking (ACCEPT). He holds a PhD from Harvard and was a member of the first graduating cohort from Tsinghua’s School of Economics and Management in 1985. Li’s career has been built at the intersection of academic economics and active policy. He served on the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China from 2016 to 2018, was a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference for fifteen years, and was an external adviser to the IMF. He has attended high-level government meetings with figures including Xi Jinping. The founding dean of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua, he also co-presides over the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics alongside Nobel Laureate Eric Maskin – a pairing that reflects where his intellectual ambition sits: building a rigorous framework for understanding economies in which the state is a primary actor. His 2023 research, conducted at ACCEPT with co-author Zhang He, concluded that China’s local government debt stood 50% higher than IMF and World Bank estimates – a finding that challenged the methodologies on which most international assessments of China’s fiscal position rely. His 2024 book, «China’s World View: Demystifying China to Prevent Global Conflict,» published by W. W. Norton, makes the case that Western strategic miscalculation on China stems not from a lack of information but from a failure to understand how China’s leadership thinks. The book was endorsed by Lawrence Summers, Jeffrey Sachs, Niall Ferguson, and Mark Leonard. For organisations navigating decisions about China – whether on investment exposure, supply chain design, or geopolitical positioning – Li offers something genuinely rare: the analytical rigour of a Harvard-trained economist, direct access to China’s senior policy deliberations, and the ability to articulate what China’s government actually believes about its own economic model and its place in the world. Key speaking topics China’s economic strategy and the logic of state-directed capitalism US-China economic competition and the risks of strategic misreading China’s local government debt and systemic financial risk The internationalisation of the RMB and China’s role in global finance Geopolitical risk and its economic consequences for multinationals China’s governance model – history, incentives, and decision-making Global economic rebalancing and the future of multilateral institutions Ideal for Boards and C-suites of multinationals with significant China exposure or supply chain dependencies Chief Risk Officers and Chief Strategy Officers navigating US-China decoupling scenarios Investment committees and asset managers with emerging market or Asia-Pacific mandates Senior government and policy audiences working on trade, geopolitical risk, or international economic governance Audience outcomes A clearer model for how China’s senior leadership actually frames economic decisions – not derived from official statements alone A more accurate picture of China’s structural fiscal risks, including the scale and composition of local government debt A framework for distinguishing between China’s stated policy positions and the underlying strategic logic that drives them A calibrated view of where US-China economic tension is most likely to produce disruption, and where convergence remains possible Practical reference points for pressure-testing internal assumptions about China in investment, supply chain, and strategic planning contexts

Why organisations work with Daniel Burrus He offers a named, tested method for distinguishing Hard Trends (future certainties) from Soft Trends (future possibilities), giving executive teams a shared vocabulary for strategic bets. The Anticipatory Organization model has been implemented inside the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider, Deloitte, Lockheed Martin and IBM, so the framework has been stress-tested inside institutions where the cost of being wrong is high. He has tracked exponential technology shifts since the early 1980s, which means his AI commentary is grounded in four decades of pattern recognition rather than recent opinion. He sits inside the NSA CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, a credential held by fewer than 300 speakers worldwide, which is a meaningful signal of platform craft alongside the intellectual content. Seven books with two New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers give buyers a body of work to pre-read and align their teams around before the engagement. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Burrus Research Associates, operating since 1983. Author of seven books including Flash Foresight (New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller) and The Anticipatory Organization. Inductee, National Speakers Association CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame. Founding member of the Department of Defense Joint Services Futures Group. Contributor to Harvard Business Review, Wired and Huffington Post; LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 1.2 million followers. Creator of the Hard Trend Methodology, adopted inside Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, IBM and the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider. Biography Strategy teams spend most of their planning time on things that might happen. The harder question is which parts of the future are already fixed. The Hard Trend Methodology, developed by Daniel Burrus over more than thirty years of research at Burrus Research Associates, is built to answer that question in a way executive teams can actually use. The method separates Hard Trends, which are projections grounded in measurable demographic, technological and regulatory change, from Soft Trends, which are projections that look solid but can be influenced. Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, IBM and the Pentagon’s Joint Service Provider have applied the framework to reshape how they forecast and plan. The Anticipatory Organization, his 2017 book, is the public statement of that model and was an Amazon number one new business release. Burrus started tracking exponential technology shifts in the early 1980s, long before AI became a boardroom topic. That long arc gives his current work on artificial intelligence, automation and digital transformation a pattern-recognition quality that newer commentators cannot match. Flash Foresight, his 2011 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, set out the underlying cognitive approach for senior leaders working without a futures team. His platform credentials match the intellectual ones. He is a CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame inductee, a LinkedIn Top Voice with more than 1.2 million followers, and a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Wired and Huffington Post. He is a founding member of the Department of Defense Joint Services Futures Group, which is how a serious foresight practitioner signals that the work has been tested in environments where the cost of strategic surprise is highest. Key speaking topics Hard Trend Methodology and Anticipatory Organization Artificial intelligence strategy for senior leaders Disruptive innovation and exponential technology Digital transformation Strategic foresight and long-horizon planning Future of business and technology-driven growth Competitive advantage through anticipation Ideal for CEOs, COOs and strategy leaders running multi-year planning cycles under accelerating technology change Board directors and executive committees assessing AI and technology bets Transformation and innovation leads inside regulated or capital-intensive industries Government and defence leadership teams building foresight capability Audience outcomes A working distinction between Hard Trends and Soft Trends they can apply to their own strategic bets A shared vocabulary for anticipating disruption before it lands, rather than reacting after it does A concrete read on the exponential technologies most likely to reshape their industry in the next planning cycle A clearer view of where AI investment produces durable competitive advantage and where it produces noise Practical moves for shifting an organisation from reactive to anticipatory posture

Why organisations work with Christian Kromme He reads AI through the lens of biological evolution, not technology alone. His “seven wave patterns” framework maps how disruptive technologies develop along the same sequences nature follows. Leadership teams leave with a predictive tool for what is coming next. His institutional position does real work. As Senior AI Research Fellow at The Conference Board, he briefs Fortune 100 and 500 executives on AI’s societal and organisational impact on a continuous basis. The material he brings to a keynote is the same material he tests weekly on senior audiences. Two books form the spine of the argument: Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human (a #1 Amazon bestseller in its category) and The Human Spark – Beyond AI, both published by Choir Press. A buyer gets a specific intellectual position they can interrogate before committing. He approaches AI without the usual binary. Most AI keynotes either sell the hype or sound the alarm. Kromme’s proposition is that technology becomes more human as it matures, and that an organisation’s commercial job is to get ahead of that curve. Operator credibility behind the analysis. He founded and ran the innovation agency Artificial Industry for over a decade before selling it to a multinational in 2014, and continues to build and advise tech companies. The result is a speaker who understands how change actually lands inside a commercial organisation. Biography highlights Author of the international bestseller Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human (Choir Press), a #1 Amazon bestseller in the Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership category. Author of The Human Spark – Beyond AI (Choir Press, 2026), launched at a sold-out event at Singer Theater in the Netherlands in January 2026. Senior AI Research Fellow at The Conference Board, with a dedicated AI content channel (“The Zone”) on the Conference Board platform. Founder of the innovation agency Artificial Industry (sold to a multinational in 2014) and founder of Symbiosys, an AI-powered organisation-as-a-service platform. Keynote speaker at Europol, Shell, BP, Cisco Systems, Philips, ManpowerGroup, Oracle, TEDx and TEDxINSEAD, among others. Recognised with the Shell LiveWIRE Young Business Award, the SAN Award, and the Broos van Erp Prize. Biography Every wave of disruptive technology rewires what an organisation needs from its people. The internet commoditised distribution. Mobile made attention the contested resource. AI is now absorbing the cognitive work most knowledge businesses are built on. The commercial question for leadership teams is what remains valuably human once the thinking layer is automated. That is the question Christian Kromme has spent a decade answering. His book Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human set out the thesis. The evolution of human-made technology follows the same patterns as biological evolution. The most successful technologies are those that amplify what is most human about their users, not what is most mechanical. The book became a #1 Amazon bestseller in the Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Leadership category. His follow-up, The Human Spark – Beyond AI (Choir Press, 2026), sharpens the argument for the current moment. Drawing on evolution, neuroscience and real-world case work, Kromme maps a transition he calls Human 3.0 to Human 4.0. Human 3.0 was optimised for intellect and industrial output. Human 4.0 treats intuition, creativity, awareness and connection as the strategically decisive capabilities. He positions this as a commercial consequence of where machine intelligence is headed, not a cultural preference. The credibility behind the argument is institutional and operator-level at once. As Senior AI Research Fellow at The Conference Board, Kromme briefs Fortune 100 and 500 leadership teams on AI’s societal and organisational impact. He founded the innovation agency Artificial Industry in 2002 and sold it to a multinational in 2014. He now advises and builds tech companies, including Symbiosys, an AI-powered organisation-as-a-service platform he founded. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the future of business Human-centred AI strategy Disruptive innovation and exponential technology Biological patterns of technological change The future of work in the age of AI Organisational agility in AI-driven markets Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams setting AI strategy where the question is commercial positioning, not just deployment. CHROs and heads of organisation design rethinking how work is structured when cognitive tasks become machine-native. Chief transformation officers, CTOs and CIOs building the case for AI adoption with human capability at the centre. Leadership offsites, innovation summits and industry congresses where the audience is responsible for the next three-to-five year horizon. Audience outcomes A predictive model for what the next wave of technological disruption looks like before it arrives, based on how biological and technological evolution move in parallel. A clear position on what AI can and cannot replace, and where the organisation’s human capability is commercially under-invested. A reframe of AI adoption as a human capability question, with implications for how teams, roles and strategy are designed. Shared vocabulary (Humanification, Human 3.0 to Human 4.0, the seven wave patterns of innovation) that leadership teams can use to continue the conversation after the session.

Why organisations work with Chris Skinner His Intelligent Money thesis – that by 2030 AI will make money embedded, autonomous, and invisible within daily life – gives financial institutions a specific, time-bound structural challenge to test their strategy against, rather than a generic warning about disruption. Doing Digital draws on direct research inside transformation programmes at JP Morgan Chase, DBS, BBVA, ING, and China Merchants Bank – peer-level evidence on what structural change in banking actually requires, not what frameworks predict. The Finanser, updated daily for more than two decades, means organisations working with Skinner access a commentator whose knowledge base is built from continuous sector tracking rather than periodic research cycles. His advisory work spans the World Economic Forum, World Bank, United Nations, and White House – a perspective tested by global regulators and policymakers alongside market practitioners. The 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from The Payments Association, the largest payments professional community in the UK, represents recognition from peers within the sector rather than from the speaker circuit. Biography highlights Founder and Chair, the Financial Services Club – European financial industry network, founded 2004 Author of 18 books on digital banking and fintech, including Digital Bank, Doing Digital, Digital for Good, and Intelligent Money (Marshall Cavendish, 2024) 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award, The Payments Association Visiting lecturer, Cambridge University; TEDx speaker (TEDx Athens) Non-executive director, 11:FS (fintech consultancy firm) Former VP Marketing and Strategy, Unisys Global Financial Services; former Strategy Director, NCR Financial Services Fellow of the British Computer Society; Fellow of the Institute of Management Services; BSc Management Sciences, Loughborough University Regular commentator on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, and Bloomberg; contributor to American Banker Named among the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology, Wall Street Journal’s Financial News Biography The Finanser, Chris Skinner’s daily blog on financial markets and technology, has run for more than two decades. His 18 books – from Digital Bank to Intelligent Money (Marshall Cavendish, 2024) – form a sustained body of analysis on how digital technology is restructuring banking and what that means for institutions built around managing money on behalf of customers. Intelligent Money argues that by 2030 AI will make money embedded, autonomous, and invisible within daily life. This is a structural challenge asking institutions to account for what purpose they serve when AI handles financial decisions on the customer’s behalf. Doing Digital draws on direct research inside transformation programmes at JP Morgan Chase, DBS, BBVA, ING, and China Merchants Bank. It is one of the few comparative analyses of large-scale banking transformation built from institutional access rather than external observation. Before establishing The Finanser, Skinner was VP of Marketing and Strategy at Unisys Global Financial Services and Strategy Director at NCR Financial Services. He founded the Financial Services Club in 2004. He holds a BSc in Management Sciences from Loughborough University and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society. He has advised on financial system transformation at the World Economic Forum, World Bank, United Nations, and White House, and appears regularly on BBC News, Sky News, CNBC, and Bloomberg. In 2023, The Payments Association awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University. Key speaking topics Digital transformation in banking and financial services AI and generative finance: the future of money Fintech, payments, and the restructuring of banking models Central bank digital currencies and the digital payments landscape Future banking strategy in a platform-driven economy Technology and ESG in financial services Ideal for Chief executives, strategy directors, and transformation leads in banking and financial services Boards and executive committees of financial institutions navigating digital restructuring Fintech leaders and payments executives Financial regulators and policy teams examining digital money and AI in finance Audience outcomes A specific framework for understanding what AI-driven financial systems mean for existing banking models – not just what technology is changing, but what institutions need to become Case study evidence from major banks including JP Morgan Chase, DBS, and BBVA on what large-scale digital transformation actually requires at an institutional level Clarity on the distinction between digitising banking processes and restructuring banking as a business model A grounded view of where central bank digital currencies, decentralised finance, and AI-managed money systems fit within existing regulatory and institutional frameworks A time-bound analytical perspective on the future of financial services, grounded in two decades of continuous sector tracking

Why organisations work with Carl Frey The 2013 paper Frey co-authored with Michael Osborne – estimating 47% of US jobs at risk from automation – is one of the most cited works in social science of the past two decades, with its methodology adopted by Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, the World Bank, and the Bank of England. No comparable speaker in this space brings this level of intellectual provenance to the conversation. His concept of the “technology trap” gives boards a precisely named mechanism for diagnosing their own institutional response to AI: the pattern by which efforts to resist short-term disruption deny organisations the long-term gains that technology makes possible. How Progress Ends (Princeton, 2025) addresses the question now at the top of most board agendas – why do some organisations and nations sustain the capacity to benefit from new technology while others stagnate – and gives senior leaders a durable, historically grounded answer rather than a forecast. His analysis is built on 1,000 years of economic history, not current trend extrapolation. That means the framework he offers survives the next wave of AI announcements rather than becoming obsolete with each new model release. Advisory roles with the G20, OECD, European Commission, and OECD Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence mean he brings regulatory and policy intelligence that most academic speakers lack – organisations understand not just the technology but the governance environment forming around it. Biography highlights Dieter Schwarz Associate Professor of AI & Work, Oxford Internet Institute; Fellow of Mansfield College; Director, Future of Work Programme, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Co-author of “The Future of Employment” (2013, with Michael Osborne) – one of the most cited social science papers of the past two decades; 20,000+ citations on Google Scholar; methodology adopted by Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, the World Bank, and the Bank of England Author of The Technology Trap (Princeton University Press, 2019) – Financial Times Best Books of the Year; winner of the Richard A. Lester Prize for Outstanding Book in Industrial Relations and Labour Economics (Princeton University) Author of How Progress Ends (Princeton University Press, 2025) – shortlisted for the FT/Schroders Business Book of the Year Award; finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize Advisor to the G20, OECD, European Commission, and United Nations; former member of the OECD Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda Ranked in the top 0.5% of economists worldwide by IDEAS/RePEC; contributor to the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American, and The Economist (By Invitation) Biography The paper that put 47% of US jobs at risk of automation – co-authored at Oxford by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne in 2013 – reshaped the global policy debate and became one of the most cited works in social science that decade. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors used its methodology. So did the World Bank and the Bank of England. The Economist later described Frey as an “accidental doom-monger”: his own reading of the evidence was considerably more nuanced than the headlines. That nuance became the subject of his first book. The Technology Trap (Princeton, 2019) – Financial Times Best Book of the Year and winner of Princeton’s Richard A. Lester Prize – argued that the real risk of automation is not that work disappears, but that organisations and governments mismanage the transition. Drawing on the Industrial Revolution and the Computer Revolution, Frey named the failure mode precisely: resistance to short-term disruption, he showed, tends to deny access to the long-term gains. His 2025 book How Progress Ends – shortlisted for the FT/Schroders Business Book of the Year Award – extends the framework to the question now central to board strategy: why do some organisations and nations sustain the capacity to benefit from new technology while others stagnate? Frey’s answer, built from 1,000 years of economic history spanning Song China to the present, identifies the balance between decentralised innovation and the institutional capacity to scale as the deciding factor. As Dieter Schwarz Associate Professor of AI & Work at Oxford’s Internet Institute and Director of the Future of Work Programme at the Oxford Martin School, Frey advises the G20, OECD, European Commission, and United Nations. His analysis appears in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and Scientific American. IDEAS/RePEC ranks him in the top 0.5% of economists worldwide. Key speaking topics Automation, AI, and labour market transformation The technology trap: historical lessons for the age of AI Why progress stalls – and what organisations and nations can do about it Workforce strategy in an era of technological disruption AI, inequality, and the distribution of economic gains Industrial policy and the geopolitics of technological leadership The economics of innovation: decentralisation, scaling, and competitive advantage Ideal for Boards and C-suite leadership teams navigating AI investment decisions and long-term workforce strategy CHROs and transformation leads developing evidence-based frameworks for workforce planning under conditions of technological disruption Policy and public affairs functions in sectors facing direct automation exposure – financial services, professional services, manufacturing Strategy and scenario planning teams in organisations with significant AI or digital transformation programmes Audience outcomes A historically grounded framework for distinguishing automation that displaces workers from technology that expands what workers can do – and why the difference matters for investment decisions A working understanding of the “technology trap” mechanism: how to identify institutional resistance before it becomes strategically costly Concrete criteria for evaluating workforce and AI investment decisions against historical patterns of disruption, transition, and recovery Insight into the macro-economic and geopolitical conditions shaping AI adoption – including what the US-China competition for technological leadership means for business strategy Sharper language and stronger evidence for board-level conversations about AI, workforce, and long-term competitive positioning

Why organisations work with Carl Bildt He negotiated the Dayton Peace Accords as EU Special Envoy and went on to serve as the first High Representative in Bosnia. Few speakers have personally built a post-war political settlement from the inside. He has run a European country, then run its foreign policy through the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Arab Spring and the launch of the EU’s Eastern Partnership. The view from a head of government and a foreign minister, in the same career, is rare on the geopolitics circuit. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, the largest pan-European foreign policy network. Briefings are informed by a continent-wide research operation, not one capital’s perspective. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post and is widely cited on Ukraine, Russia, China and transatlantic strategy. Audiences get the published thinker, not a generic former politician. He sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation and was its first non-US trustee, giving him a working relationship with the US strategic research establishment that most European speakers do not have. Biography highlights Prime Minister of Sweden, 1991 to 1994. Foreign Minister of Sweden, 2006 to 2014. EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia and co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference, 1995. First High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995 to 1997. UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans, 1999 to 2001. Co-Chair, European Council on Foreign Relations. Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation. Senior Adviser to the Wallenberg Foundations. Author, “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Columnist for Project Syndicate, contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Biography The European security order that boards have priced into their strategy for thirty years is being rewritten in real time. Ukraine, sanctions regimes, US policy swings and renewed Chinese pressure are no longer foreign-affairs reading. They feed directly into capital allocation, country risk and supply chain decisions in Berlin, Paris, London and Stockholm. Carl Bildt has watched this shift from inside the rooms where it has been argued out. As Prime Minister of Sweden in the early 1990s, he led the negotiation of Sweden’s accession to the European Union. As EU Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia, he co-chaired the Dayton Peace Conference and then served as the first High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, building a peace settlement on the ground. Returning to office as Foreign Minister of Sweden from 2006 to 2014, he was one of the architects of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and a vocal European voice through Russia’s war in Georgia and the early years of the Ukraine crisis. He co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, sits on the Board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation, and writes regularly for Project Syndicate and The Washington Post. His “Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia” remains one of the few first-person accounts of building a post-war political order in Europe. Audiences book him for what that experience yields now: a direct, unsentimental read on Russia, the transatlantic relationship and the trajectory of the European project under pressure. Key speaking topics European geopolitics and the future of the EU The transatlantic relationship and US foreign policy Russia, Ukraine and the post-1989 security order China and the global rules-based system Sanctions, political risk and country exposure Post-conflict diplomacy and peace negotiation Northern European and Nordic political economy Ideal for Board and executive team off-sites where geopolitical risk has become a strategic variable International banks, asset managers and insurers reviewing country and sanctions exposure Industrial and energy groups with material exposure to Europe, Russia, Ukraine or China Public affairs, policy and government relations leadership in multinationals Audience outcomes A current, named read on Russia, Ukraine and the trajectory of European security from someone who has been in the room. A clearer view of how transatlantic policy shifts under successive US administrations translate into European corporate exposure. A working framework for thinking about sanctions, energy and supply chain risk through a geopolitical, not just regulatory, lens. A sense of where the EU is going as a foreign and security actor, from a head of government who negotiated his country into it.

Why organisations work with Brian Cox His work on the ATLAS experiment at CERN places him inside the research that underlies quantum computing, particle detection, and the most advanced engineering challenges of our time – not adjacent to it. The Quantum Universe, Why Does E=mc2?, and Universal have collectively sold over a million copies: evidence that he can make abstract, rigorous science genuinely comprehensible to non-specialist audiences at scale. His Horizons tour set two Guinness World Records for science communication, reaching over 400,000 people across three continents – a proof of audience engagement no management consultant or futurist can match. As UN Champion for Space (appointed October 2025), he connects scientific frontier thinking directly to global governance, sustainability, and long-term civilisational risk – giving boards a frame that goes well beyond conventional technology briefings. He has presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos and in China, and headlined Infosecurity Europe 2025, demonstrating that his material holds up to scrutiny from the most demanding professional audiences. Biography highlights Professor of Particle Physics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester; Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science Member, ATLAS collaboration, CERN Large Hadron Collider; formerly co-spokesperson, FP420 R&D project at CERN (2004–2009) Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS); CBE for services to the promotion of science Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize (2012); Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and Prize (2010); Royal Television Society Best Presenter (2011) Author of six popular science books with collective sales exceeding one million copies, including The Quantum Universe and Why Does E=mc2? Guinness World Records holder for live science touring; Horizons: A 21st Century Space Odyssey reached over 400,000 people across three continents Appointed UN Champion for Space by UNOOSA, October 2025 Presenter of multiple Peabody and BAFTA-recognised BBC series including Wonders of the Solar System, Wonders of the Universe, and The Planets Biography Brian Cox holds a chair in particle physics at the University of Manchester and works on the ATLAS experiment at CERN – the collaboration responsible for some of the most significant experimental results in the history of physics. That grounding in active research is what separates him from science communicators who translate the work of others. He is doing the work himself. His books – Why Does E=mc2?, The Quantum Universe, Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos – have collectively sold over a million copies. Each one takes a genuine problem in physics, works through it without condescension, and arrives at implications that reward careful attention. The Royal Society awarded him the Michael Faraday Prize for exactly this quality: rigorous science made genuinely accessible. Live, Cox operates at a scale no other scientist in the world matches. His Horizons tour set two Guinness World Records, reaching over 400,000 people across the UK, North America, Australia, and Europe. These are not public lectures; they are full arena productions using state-of-the-art visual technology, exploring quantum theory, black holes, the origin of life, and the nature of time. In October 2025, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs designated him UN Champion for Space – recognising his ability to connect frontier physics to the practical challenges of global governance and sustainability. For boards and senior leadership teams, Cox offers something specific: a working physicist’s account of where the science actually is, what it makes possible, and what it rules out. At the World Economic Forum, at Infosecurity Europe, at TED – the audiences are demanding, and the material holds. The value is not inspiration in the abstract; it is the kind of rigorous, first-principles framing that improves the quality of strategic decisions. Key speaking topics Particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider Quantum mechanics and its practical implications Space technology and global infrastructure The origin and structure of the universe Scientific reasoning and evidence-based decision-making The future of space exploration and governance Science communication and public understanding of technology Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams seeking first-principles scientific context for technology strategy CTOs, CIOs, and transformation leads navigating quantum computing and advanced physics-derived technologies Global leadership summits and flagship corporate conferences requiring authoritative, high-profile keynote presence Organisations in aerospace, defence, energy, financial services, or cybersecurity where physical science is directly relevant to competitive strategy Audience outcomes A clearer mental model of what quantum mechanics, particle physics, and space science actually mean for the technologies being built now Confidence in reasoning about scientific uncertainty and frontier research – rather than deferring entirely to technical specialists A broader frame for long-term strategic thinking, grounded in the timescales and constraints of physical reality rather than market cycles Greater appreciation of evidence-based reasoning as a decision-making discipline, not just a scientific one Understanding of how space-based infrastructure and emerging physics-derived technologies intersect with sustainability, governance, and geopolitical risk

Why organisations work with Bob Woodward First-hand reporting across ten U.S. presidents, from Nixon to the present, grounded in on-the-record transcripts with sitting presidents, cabinet officials, intelligence chiefs and military commanders. Author of more than twenty bestselling books on American power, including Fear, Rage, Peril and War, each built on contemporaneous interviews and primary documents rather than secondary commentary. A non-partisan frame for reading U.S. political risk: what the decision was, who made it, what information they had, and what it means for everyone downstream. The journalist who, with Carl Bernstein, broke the Watergate story for The Washington Post, earning the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and a second Pulitzer in 2002 for national reporting on September 11. A reading of the U.S. presidency as an institution under stress, valuable to any organisation whose strategy depends on the stability and direction of American policy. Biography highlights Associate Editor of The Washington Post since 1971. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner: 1973 Public Service (Watergate, with Carl Bernstein) and 2002 National Reporting (September 11 coverage). Author of All the President’s Men, The Final Days, Veil, Bush at War, Plan of Attack, Obama’s Wars, Fear, Rage, Peril and War. Fear: Trump in the White House holds Simon and Schuster’s first-week sales record at approximately 1.1 million copies. Recipient of the Heywood Broun Award, George Polk Award, Worth Bingham Prize, William Allen White Medal and the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on the Presidency. Yale University graduate and former U.S. Navy communications officer before joining journalism. Biography The Watergate break-in was dismissed as a third-rate burglary before Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein traced it, through months of reporting in The Washington Post, to the re-election committee of a sitting American president. That reporting won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and forced a presidential resignation. Five decades on, Woodward is still doing the same work on the same beat. Since 1971 he has been a reporter and then Associate Editor at The Washington Post. His books, published by Simon and Schuster, have covered the Reagan-era CIA in Veil, the Clinton White House in The Agenda, the post-September 11 Bush administration in Bush at War and Plan of Attack, the Obama war cabinet in Obama’s Wars, and the Trump presidencies in Fear, Rage and Peril. War, published in 2024 with Robert Costa’s earlier collaboration extended, reports the decisions behind U.S. policy on Ukraine and the Middle East. The method is consistent and unusual in American journalism. Long on-the-record and background interviews with named principals, documented by notes, memos and contemporaneous records, assembled into a narrative of what was said in which room on which date. Fear sold approximately 1.1 million copies in its opening week, the largest first-week total in Simon and Schuster’s history at the time of publication. For boards and executive committees, the value of that method is specific. It replaces cable-news framing with a documentary account of how the American presidency has been making foreign policy, economic policy and national security decisions across a generation. A second Pulitzer, for national reporting on September 11, confirmed that the Watergate work was a method, not a moment. Key speaking topics American presidential decision-making U.S. foreign policy and national security The Washington policy process Political risk and the U.S. institutional landscape Investigative journalism and source-based reporting Watergate and the evolution of the presidency The state of American democracy Ideal for Boards and executive committees exposed to U.S. political and regulatory direction CEOs, CFOs and CSOs with strategic dependencies on American policy Public affairs, government relations and corporate communications leaders Financial services, defence, energy and technology firms reading Washington risk Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how recent U.S. presidents have actually made consequential decisions A non-partisan framework for reading Washington as a system rather than a news cycle Concrete examples of how intelligence, military and White House staff shape presidential choices Historical perspective on the U.S. presidency as an institution across five decades Questions to ask about the reliability and sourcing of political information

Why organisations work with Bill Emmott His 13 years editing The Economist – during which global circulation roughly doubled – produced a practitioner’s discipline in making geopolitical complexity legible to business audiences without simplifying it away. His 2024 IISS Adelphi book on Taiwan develops a specific deterrence framework for US-China conflict risk, giving boards a tested analytical vocabulary for the most consequential near-term geopolitical scenario they face. His argument in The Fate of the West (2017) – that the democratic world’s greatest threat is institutional self-erosion, not external aggression – anticipated a political dynamic that organisations are now managing in real time. Three decades of specialist focus on Japan, Asia, Italy, and European political economy means he does not speak generically about geopolitics; he speaks about specific countries, specific pressures, and specific trajectories. As Senior Adviser, Geopolitics at Montrose Associates, he works at the intersection of intelligence and executive decision-making – his analysis is applied, not academic. Biography highlights Editor-in-Chief, The Economist, 1993–2006; under his editorship global circulation approximately doubled to over one million Chairman of the Trustees, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), 2010–2025 Author of 15 books on Japan, Asia, Italy, and the 20th century; latest published by IISS/Routledge (2024) Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in business journalism, 2009 (UCLA Anderson School) Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, awarded by the Japanese government, 2016 Regular columnist: La Stampa, Nikkei Business, Mainichi Shimbun, Project Syndicate; contributor to the Financial Times First-class honours, Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Magdalen College, Oxford; Honorary Fellow, Magdalen College Ushioda Fellow, Tokyo College, University of Tokyo; visiting fellow at All Souls College and Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford Biography Geopolitics became a boardroom word long before most boards knew how to use it. Bill Emmott spent 13 years at the helm of The Economist – the period in which it doubled its global circulation – developing the discipline of making the world’s structural shifts legible to decision-makers under deadline. That combination of editorial rigour and strategic directness is what he now brings to executive and board audiences. His most recent book, Deterrence, Diplomacy and the Risk of Conflict over Taiwan (IISS/Routledge, 2024), builds a specific analytical framework for the US-China scenario that organisations cite most often as an unquantified risk. His earlier work, The Fate of the West (2017), argued that liberal democracies are more threatened by institutional decay from within than by external pressure – a thesis that has moved from provocative to plainly descriptive in the years since. Emmott’s specialist geography sets him apart from generalist geopolitics commentators. Three decades of work on Japan, Asia, and European political economy – including a Japanese government honour for contributions to UK-Japan relations – gives him granular fluency in precisely the regions where organisations most need specific, rather than broad-brush, risk analysis. Outside writing and speaking, he served as Chairman of IISS Trustees for 15 years, advised Swiss Re’s senior panel for 13 years, and currently acts as Senior Adviser, Geopolitics at Montrose Associates. The accumulated perspective is that of someone who has analysed geopolitical risk not only for public audiences, but for the institutions charged with managing it. Key speaking topics Great-power competition and the US-China relationship Indo-Pacific security and the Taiwan risk scenario The fragility of the liberal international order Geopolitical risk and corporate strategy Japan, Asia, and the shifting balance of economic power European political economy and the future of the EU Business decision-making under geopolitical uncertainty Ideal for Boards and C-suites assessing geopolitical exposure in investment, supply chain, or market strategy decisions Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Risk Officers navigating great-power competition Financial services and insurance sector leadership (experience advising Swiss Re; expertise in macro and political risk) Government affairs, policy, and public affairs leadership teams requiring analysis of Western institutional trends Audience outcomes A clearer analytical framework for distinguishing genuine geopolitical risk from background noise, applicable to specific business decisions A grounded understanding of the US-China-Taiwan scenario and the deterrence logic that shapes it – beyond media headlines A historically informed perspective on why Western institutional resilience matters to business, and where it is most under pressure Specific insight into Japan and Asia’s economic and political trajectories, relevant to market-entry, partnership, and investment decisions The vocabulary to communicate geopolitical risk credibly inside an organisation – to boards, investors, and regulators