Scenario Planning & Strategic Foresight speakers

Why organisations work with Tim Bouverie A prize-winning historian whose two books, Appeasing Hitler and the Duff Cooper Prize-winning Allies at War, sit on exactly the questions boards now face: when to confront, when to compromise, and how to hold a fragile coalition together. Trained as a political journalist at Channel 4 News under Michael Crick, so the material is delivered as argument and narrative, not lecture. Brings a specific, named angle on negotiation: the Big Three at Tehran and Yalta as a working case study for M&A, joint ventures and competitive collaboration. Comfortable in serious rooms. Has interviewed George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson on stage at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and lectures regularly across the UK and US, including at the Hoover Institution. An Oxford-trained historian (Christ Church, Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony’s) whose readership includes Max Hastings, Antony Beevor and Margaret MacMillan, all of whom have publicly endorsed the work. Biography highlights Author of Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War (Bodley Head, 2019), Sunday Times bestseller, Orwell Prize shortlist. Author of Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler (Bodley Head), winner of the 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize. Christ Church, Oxford. 2020-21 Alistair Horne Visiting Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford. Political journalist at Channel 4 News, 2013-2017, working with Michael Crick on Dispatches and covering two general elections, the Scottish referendum and the EU referendum. Regular contributor of book reviews on history and politics to the Spectator, the Observer and the Daily Telegraph. Speaker and interviewer at the Chalke Valley History Festival and at the Hoover Institution, with public sessions alongside George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson. Biography The diplomatic record of the 1930s is one of the best-documented examples of senior decision-makers misreading a hostile counterparty. It is also one of the most relevant to today’s boardroom. Tim Bouverie’s first book, Appeasing Hitler, took that record apart in detail, working from cabinet papers, private diaries and Foreign Office files to show how a generation of competent, well-informed leaders talked themselves into a strategic disaster. The book became a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. His second, Allies at War: The Politics of Defeating Hitler, drew on more than a hundred archives to reconstruct the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin coalition as the brittle, mistrustful negotiation it actually was. It won the 2026 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, one of the most credited awards in narrative non-fiction. The training behind the work matters to a corporate audience. Bouverie read history at Christ Church, Oxford, and held the 2020-21 Alistair Horne Visiting Fellowship at St Antony’s College. Before the books, he spent four and a half years as a political journalist at Channel 4 News, working with Michael Crick across two general elections and the Scottish and EU referendums. The combination shows up in the keynotes: archival depth, delivered with a working journalist’s instinct for argument. On stage he is a fluent interviewer as well as a lecturer, having questioned George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and Alan Johnson at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and presented at the Hoover Institution and at festivals across the United States. The signature talks pull directly from the books: appeasement as a study in strategic miscalculation, and the Big Three as a working manual on how to negotiate inside an alliance you cannot afford to walk away from. Key speaking topics Lessons from appeasement and strategic miscalculation Alliance management and coalition negotiation Leadership decisions under geopolitical pressure Diplomatic history of the Second World War The fragility of the rules-based order Negotiation in M&A, joint ventures and competitive collaboration Narrative history and archival research Ideal for Board and ExCo offsites focused on geopolitical risk and long-horizon strategy CEO and senior leadership audiences negotiating major partnerships, alliances or M&A Heads of strategy, government affairs and corporate affairs working on sanctions, China exposure and political risk After-dinner audiences at industry conferences where intellectual seriousness is part of the brief Audience outcomes A sharper read on how senior leaders misjudge hostile counterparties, with named historical examples that stick. Specific lessons from the Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin alliance applicable to coalition negotiations today. A historical frame for current debates on the rules-based order, sanctions and Western unity that goes beyond the news cycle. A model for how to use evidence and narrative together when communicating high-stakes decisions internally.

Why organisations work with Tim Hames He has run the trade body for British private equity and venture capital, so he speaks to investors, allocators and operators in their own language, not as an outside commentator. His China analysis is built on close study of the Chinese Communist Party’s internal operations, which is the level boards need when sanctions, supply chain and market access decisions are on the table. He spent a decade as chief leader writer and assistant editor at The Times, which means he can frame a complex political argument tightly enough for a board paper or an investor letter. He served as the first Special Adviser to the Speaker of the House of Commons, giving him direct experience of how Westminster machinery actually moves. He co-wrote The Long Shot with Dame Kate Bingham, the definitive insider account of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, and a Financial Times science book of the year. Biography highlights Director General of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), 2013 to 2019. Co-founder of Acuti Associates, a UK, US and China political and geopolitical risk advisory. Co-author with Dame Kate Bingham of The Long Shot: The Inside Story of the Race to Vaccinate Britain (Oneworld, 2022); Sunday Times business bestseller, FT science book of the year, Money Week politics book of the year. Former Assistant Editor, chief leader writer and weekly political columnist at The Times. First Special Adviser to the Speaker of the House of Commons, with a brief on parliamentary reform. Former Lecturer in Politics at Oxford University, 1989 to 1996, specialising in American and British government. Biography Most political risk advice on offer to boards is written by people who have only ever observed politics from outside. Hames has worked inside three of the systems that matter, Westminster, the British press, and the City, and the value comes from how he connects them. His BVCA years gave him an investor’s reflex for capital flows; his Times years taught him to write a sharp, defensible argument; his Speaker’s Office year showed him how Parliament actually decides. That combination shapes the way he reads the UK, US and China triangle through Acuti Associates, the advisory firm he co-founded. The focus is practical: what does a Trump second term mean for trans-Atlantic deal flow, how should a board think about China exposure when the signals from Beijing are deliberately opaque, what does the UK regulatory direction look like after a change of government. The answers are not generic. His co-authored book with Dame Kate Bingham, The Long Shot, is the inside record of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, the rare British state-led project of the last decade that actually worked. It was a Financial Times science book of the year and a Sunday Times business bestseller, and it doubles as a study in how political and commercial decision-making interact under pressure. He continues to advise financial institutions, professional services firms and technology companies, and serves as a Senior Adviser to FTI Consulting’s strategic communications practice. The work he is asked to do is consistent: translate political signal into commercial decision, before the headlines force the issue. Key speaking topics UK, US and China political risk Geopolitical risk for boards and investors US politics and the Trump factor Chinese Communist Party decision-making UK government, regulation and the post-election landscape Private equity and venture capital policy environment Lessons from the UK Vaccine Taskforce Ideal for Boards and investment committees with material China, US or UK regulatory exposure Private equity and venture capital firms briefing LPs on political risk Financial services and professional services leadership teams CEO and CFO offsites where geopolitics is a standing agenda item Audience outcomes A clearer read on what to take seriously and what to discount in current US, UK and China political coverage. Sharper questions to put to in-house government affairs, public policy and risk teams. A practical sense of how Westminster, Washington and Beijing actually decide, not how they are reported. A more disciplined frame for board discussions on China exposure, sanctions risk and regulatory direction.

Why organisations work with Timandra Harkness A working statistician on the Council of Trustees of the Royal Statistical Society who can speak fluently to technical and non-technical audiences in the same room. Author of two books that bracket the AI conversation: Big Data: Does Size Matter? on what data actually does and does not tell us, and Technology Is Not the Problem on why our cultural anxieties about tech are misdirected. A mainstream BBC Radio 4 presenter on FutureProofing, How To Disagree and Steelmanning, which means she handles complex, contested material on air for general audiences and brings that craft to a corporate room. Speaks regularly at institutions that take rigour seriously, including the Royal Society, the Alan Turing Institute, and the Royal Academy of Engineering, so the substance survives scrutiny from technical buyers. Comfortable as keynote speaker, panel moderator, or event host, which makes her useful across the full shape of a leadership offsite or technology summit. Biography highlights Author, Big Data: Does Size Matter? (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2016) and Technology Is Not the Problem (HarperCollins, 2024). Council of Trustees, Royal Statistical Society; chair of the editorial board, Significance journal. Writer and presenter, BBC Radio 4 series including FutureProofing, How To Disagree, Steelmanning, and Political School. Resident reporter across eight series of BBC Radio 4’s The Human Zoo. Speaker and lecturer at the Royal Society, Alan Turing Institute, Royal Academy of Engineering, RSA, Cheltenham Science Festival, and the Abel Prize for Mathematics. Contributor to the Telegraph, Guardian, Sunday Times, WIRED, New Statesman, UnHerd and BBC Focus. Biography Most arguments about technology in the boardroom are arguments about something else. Trust. Identity. What kind of company we want to be. Timandra Harkness, a statistician and broadcaster whose work spans both BBC Radio 4 and the Royal Statistical Society, is unusually well placed to name what is actually being discussed. Her first book, Big Data: Does Size Matter?, published by Bloomsbury Sigma in 2016, took the data revolution seriously without inflating it. Her second, Technology Is Not the Problem, published by HarperCollins in 2024, makes the harder case: that our anxieties about AI and social media are anxieties about ourselves, and that locating the problem in the technology is what stops us from acting on it. She presents BBC Radio 4’s FutureProofing, How To Disagree, and Steelmanning, programmes that work because they take competing arguments seriously rather than flattening them. That habit transfers. In a leadership room, she is the speaker who can hold a senior team’s attention on the awkward middle of an AI question, where the technical position and the cultural position have to be reconciled. She sits on the Royal Statistical Society’s Council of Trustees and chairs the editorial board of Significance, the Society’s journal. She has spoken at the Royal Society, the Alan Turing Institute, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. The technical rigour is real, and it is what stops the cultural argument from drifting into commentary. Key speaking topics Big data and what it does and does not reveal The cultural and ethical questions raised by AI Statistics, evidence and decision-making Human agency in an automated environment Identity, recognition and the social media question Technology and trust Disagreement and constructive argument inside organisations Ideal for Boards and executive teams making AI, data, and digital infrastructure decisions Technology and innovation summits seeking a credible non-vendor voice Leadership offsites where the AI conversation has to bridge technical and cultural ground CDO, CTO, and CHRO audiences working through the human consequences of new systems Audience outcomes A sharper sense of what data and AI systems can and cannot do, written by someone who works with statisticians A clearer language for the cultural and ethical questions executive teams keep deferring A defensible way to think about agency, recognition and trust as the technology landscape shifts Better-quality internal disagreement on contested technology decisions

Why organisations work with Tom Cheesewright The Intersections methodology maps incoming macro trends against the specific stress points inside an organisation or sector; producing prioritised decision-points with the analysis behind them, not a generic forecast that leadership teams have to interpret themselves. The framework is teachable and licensable. Organisations leave with a repeatable process they can run internally, not a dependency on a single advisor. His published credentials – Future-Proof Your Business (Penguin; FT business book of the month) and High Frequency Change (Business Book Awards shortlist, 2020) – mean audiences arrive already oriented to his thinking. He does not need to spend the first third of a session building the intellectual case. A decade-plus of broadcast experience across BBC, Channel 4, and national press makes him unusually effective at translating complex AI and technology change for non-technical board audiences without losing analytical precision. Named clients across sectors – Google, Barclays, NASA, HMRC, BMW, Virgin Media, Visa – give procurement teams confidence in sector-agnostic credibility. This is not a speaker whose framework only works in one industry. Biography highlights Creator of the Intersections foresight methodology, now licensed and delivered to third-party organisations Author of High Frequency Change (LID Publishing, 2019) shortlisted, Business Book Awards 2020, ‘Leadership for the Future’ category Author of Future-Proof Your Business (Penguin Business Experts, 2020), Financial Times business book of the month Clients include Google, Barclays, NASA, HMRC, BMW, Visa, HSBC, Accenture, and Virgin Media and more than 30 Global 500 companies Regular contributor and broadcaster: BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4, Channel 4 Sunday Brunch, The Guardian, The Times, Evening Standard, The Daily Telegraph BEng in Mechatronics, Lancaster University; established as a full-time applied futurist in 2012 Biography Most organisations know they need to anticipate change. Very few have a structured way to do it. The annual strategic planning cycle and the technology roadmap were not designed to connect incoming macro trends to the specific decisions a leadership team faces this quarter. Tom Cheesewright built the Intersections methodology to close that gap. It maps macro trends, from AI capability shifts to demographic and regulatory change, against the existing pressures inside an organisation or sector, identifying the points where disruption will hit hardest and where meaningful opportunity sits. More than 30 Global 500 companies and government bodies, including NASA, HMRC, Google, and Barclays, have put the framework to work. His two business books establish the intellectual foundation. High Frequency Change (LID Publishing, 2019; shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2020) sets out why organisations feel overwhelmed by the pace of change and what structural responses actually work. Future-Proof Your Business (Penguin Business Experts, 2020; Financial Times business book of the month) translates the methodology into practical tools for strategy teams. His sustained media presence – BBC Breakfast, Radio 4, Channel 4, The Guardian, The Times – means he is not an unknown quantity when he walks on stage. A mechatronics engineer by training, Cheesewright spent years in technology marketing and digital business before establishing himself as a futurist in 2012. That background – engineering logic, commercial experience, years of public communication about technology – is what keeps the Intersections work grounded. The output is not prediction. It is a structured process for stress-testing an organisation’s assumptions against what is actually coming. Key speaking topics AI and automation in strategic decision-making Scenario planning and applied foresight methodology Organisational agility and adaptive strategy Technology-driven disruption and competitive positioning The future of consumer behaviour and business models Change management in high-frequency environments Long-range strategic planning under uncertainty Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards preparing long-range or scenario-based strategy Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Technology Officers navigating AI investment decisions Industry associations and sector bodies facing structural disruption from technology or regulation Conference audiences drawn from finance, technology, retail, government, or professional services sectors Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Intersections methodology and how to apply it to their own organisation’s planning process Clarity on which AI and technology developments are commercially significant in their sector, and which can be deprioritised A revised set of strategic questions, not just better answers to the existing ones Stronger language and frameworks for briefing boards and senior stakeholders on emerging technology risk and opportunity A clearer view of where their organisation is most exposed to macro-level disruption over the next three to five years

Why organisations work with Tom Solomon He has run the UK research response to Ebola, Zika and COVID-19 through the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit he founded in 2014, giving boards a direct line into how national systems actually react under pressure. He translates frontier infectious-disease science into the language of operational risk, capital allocation and continuity planning, which is rare among clinicians at his level. His role as Director of The Pandemic Institute means he sees the next wave of biosecurity, antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic threats before they reach the public-policy conversation. He carries the institutional weight of CBE, FMedSci, the Academy of Medical Sciences vice presidency and the Royal College of Physicians academic vice presidency, which earns him a hearing in rooms that would discount commentators. He communicates with the clarity of a science journalist and the authority of a clinician, a combination senior audiences pick up on within the first ten minutes. Biography highlights Professor of Neurology, University of Liverpool, and Director of The Pandemic Institute Founding Director, NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), 2021 Birthday Honours Vice President (International), Academy of Medical Sciences; Academic Vice President, Royal College of Physicians Author, Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine (Liverpool University Press, 2016) Royal College of Physicians Moxon Medal for outstanding observation and research in clinical medicine Biography Pandemic and emerging-infection risk has stopped behaving like a tail event. Ebola, Zika, COVID-19 and a steady stream of zoonotic threats have made it a recurring exposure for organisations whose operations depend on movement, contact and supply. Tom Solomon has been inside the national response to each of these. He founded the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections in 2014 and now directs The Pandemic Institute at the University of Liverpool, a coordinated hub bringing infectious-disease science, public health and policy into one operational picture. He chaired government research funding committees during COVID-19 and advised the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on vaccine safety. The brief was practical, not theoretical. The scientific work runs in parallel. His Liverpool Brain Infections Group has secured more than £25 million in research funding from the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and NIHR for work on Japanese encephalitis, enterovirus 71 and meningitis, with field programmes across Asia, Africa and Latin America. He has held the Vincenzo Marcolongo Memorial Lectureship and the RCP Moxon Medal, and was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2021. What makes Solomon useful to leadership audiences is that he speaks the language of risk and decision-making, not the language of the clinic. He writes regularly for The Guardian, The Independent and The Conversation, and his book Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Medicine, based on his time treating Dahl as a junior doctor at the John Radcliffe in Oxford, demonstrated early that he could translate clinical material for a general reader. Boards looking for an authoritative voice on biosecurity find a clinician who is fluent in both registers. Key speaking topics Pandemic preparedness and biosecurity risk Emerging and zoonotic infectious disease Antimicrobial resistance Brain infections and neurological disease Lessons from the COVID-19, Ebola and Zika responses Science communication and public trust in expertise Global health and one-health systems Ideal for Boards and risk committees adding pandemic and biosecurity exposure to the standing risk register Chief Risk Officers, Chief Medical Officers and continuity leads in pharma, insurance, logistics and global manufacturing Government, regulatory and policy audiences shaping pandemic preparedness frameworks Senior teams in life sciences, public health and global development Audience outcomes A clearer view of which emerging-infection threats matter most over the next five to ten years and why A working vocabulary for treating pandemic risk as a board-level exposure, not a medical externality Insight into how the UK national response was organised, what worked, and what did not A frame for evaluating biosecurity, AMR and zoonotic risk against other forms of systemic exposure

Why organisations work with Udo Lielischkies First-hand interpretation of Putin’s regime from a journalist who reported on it continuously from 1999 to 2018, including six years running ARD’s Moscow studio. A reading of Russia grounded in the provinces, not Moscow press briefings, drawn from years travelling beyond the capital and documented in “Im Schatten des Kreml”, reprinted four times since 2019. Editorial credibility recognised by the Deutscher Fernsehpreis, with a win for Best Reportage in 2004 and a Monte Carlo nomination in 2015 for reporting from eastern Ukraine. A senior journalist’s instinct for separating Kremlin signal from Kremlin noise, useful when boards are deciding what a Putin statement, sanction round, or escalation actually means for exposure and planning. Biography highlights Head of ARD studio Moscow, 2014 to 2018, for Germany’s largest public broadcaster. ARD correspondent in Moscow (1999 to 2006), Washington D.C. (2006 to 2012) and Moscow again (2012 to 2018), with an earlier Brussels and NATO posting from 1994. Author of “Im Schatten des Kreml: Unterwegs in Putins Russland”, Droemer Knaur, 2019, English rights title “In the Shadow of the Kremlin”. Winner of the German Television Award (Deutscher Fernsehpreis) 2004 for Best Reportage, “Kremlin, Prison and Corruption” (ARD/WDR). Further recognitions include the Golden Gong (1999), the Ernst Schneider Prize (1989), a Moscow festival special prize (2005) and a Monte Carlo Television Festival nomination (2015) for reporting on the war in Ukraine. Regular guest on German political programming (NDR, phoenix, ARD talk shows) on Russia, Ukraine and the Kremlin’s foreign policy. Biography The Kremlin is now a fixed entry on most board risk registers, alongside China, energy and supply chains. What boards struggle to source is interpretation of the regime that goes beyond headlines and beyond Western analyst convention. That is the gap Udo Lielischkies fills. For nearly 25 years he reported for ARD, Germany’s largest public broadcaster, across the three capitals that have defined the post-Cold War order: Brussels and NATO from 1994, Moscow from 1999, Washington D.C. from 2006, and Moscow again from 2012, where he ran ARD’s studio from 2014 until his retirement in 2018. He watched Putin’s arrival as an unknown FSB veteran and reported continuously through every phase that followed. His book “Im Schatten des Kreml: Unterwegs in Putins Russland” (Droemer Knaur, 2019) is the durable record of that work. It is now in its fourth edition and is widely read as having anticipated the trajectory that led to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The English-language edition, “In the Shadow of the Kremlin”, is offered through Droemer Knaur’s rights catalogue. The reporting that underpins the book also produced his 2004 German Television Award for Best Reportage and a 2015 Monte Carlo Television Festival nomination for “The Murderous War in Ukraine – Escape From Ilovajsk”. What this gives a serious audience is rare. Not a geopolitical taxonomy delivered in the abstract, but the texture of a system explained by someone who lived inside it: how Kremlin power actually moves, how Russian provinces read the war, where the regime is brittle and where it is not. For organisations exposed to Russia, Ukraine, sanctions regimes, or the wider authoritarian bloc, that texture matters more than another forecast. Key speaking topics Putin’s Russia and the architecture of the regime The war in Ukraine and Kremlin strategy Geopolitical risk for Western boards Authoritarian regimes and the rules-based order Russia, Europe and the United States: shifting alliances Inside the Kremlin: power, succession, propaganda Ideal for Boards and executive committees with direct or indirect exposure to Russia, Ukraine, the CIS or sanctions regimes CROs, heads of geopolitical risk, and corporate affairs leads briefing senior leadership on Kremlin scenarios Industry conferences in energy, defence, financial services and logistics where Russia exposure remains material Public-sector and policy audiences working on European security, transatlantic relations and the war in Ukraine Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how Kremlin decision-making actually works, beyond Western media framing A grounded sense of where the regime is fragile, where it is not, and what that means for the next phase of the war Sharper questions to put to internal Russia and CIS exposure analysis A view of the Russian provinces, not only Moscow, and why that distinction shapes outcomes Context for reading future Kremlin statements, sanction rounds and escalation signals with less noise

Why organisations work with Václav Klaus He is the primary architect of the Czech Republic’s post-communist economic transition, not as an external adviser, but as the Finance Minister who designed it, the Prime Minister who implemented it, and the President who observed its long-run consequences. No other figure on the international speaking circuit holds that complete a first-person record of a major market transformation. His sustained, published intellectual case, developed across books including Europe: The Shattering of Illusions and a decade of presidential addresses that EU supranational governance creates structural democratic deficits offers boards a coherent counter-framework to mainstream European institutional narratives. His analysis of the relationship between regulatory ideology and economic freedom, framed from the position of a practising economist who held executive power, gives risk and strategy teams a perspective that is distinct from both academic economics and professional political commentary. As a founding member of the Mont Pelerin Society tradition and a consistent critic of consensus-driven policy, he surfaces the assumptions embedded in mainstream geopolitical and economic risk frameworks, which is precisely what senior decision-makers need when those frameworks are under stress. Biography highlights Second President of the Czech Republic, serving two full terms (2003–2013) First Prime Minister of the independent Czech Republic (1993–1998); previously Prime Minister under the Czechoslovak federation (1992–1993) First non-communist Finance Minister of Czechoslovakia following the Velvet Revolution (1989–1992) Principal co-founder and chairman (1991–2002) of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the Czech Republic’s primary centre-right party PhD in Economics, Czech Academy of Sciences; Professor of Finance, University of Economics, Prague Author of more than 30 books, including Blue Planet in Green Shackles (Competitive Enterprise Institute) and Europe: The Shattering of Illusions (Bloomsbury) Contributor to the Financial Times; keynote speaker at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the National Press Club, Washington D.C. Founder of the Václav Klaus Institute; member of the Mont Pelerin Society Biography The question of how a country transitions from a centrally planned economy to a functioning market, and what that process reveals about the relationship between political institutions, economic policy, and individual freedom, has preoccupied Václav Klaus for his entire career. It is not an abstract question for him. As Czechoslovakia’s first non-communist Finance Minister from 1989, as the Prime Minister who managed the peaceful dissolution of the federation and guided the Czech Republic through its founding years, and as a two-term President, he lived the consequences of every decision he and his colleagues made. His contribution to post-communist economic theory was substantive and contested. The voucher privatisation programme he championed as Prime Minister transferred shares in over 1,800 state enterprises to more than six million Czech citizens in three years: the most radical monetarist reform programme undertaken by any former Comecon state, according to Oxford Reference. The programme’s outcomes – both its achievements and its limitations – remain a core reference point in debates about transition economics and the sequencing of institutional and market reform. Beyond the Czech experience, Klaus has developed a consistent and systematic critique of supranational governance that distinguishes him from most former heads of state on the international circuit. His book Europe: The Shattering of Illusions and his decade of presidential statements argue that the EU’s integration model generates a structural democratic deficit: that decisions affecting citizens are progressively removed from accountable national institutions and transferred to bodies that cannot be held to account through normal democratic mechanisms. This is not a position he arrived at recently; it was central to his resistance to the Lisbon Treaty and to his public intellectual work throughout his presidency. His analytical frame, rooted in the free-market tradition of Hayek and Friedman, positions him as a consistent critic of consensus-driven policy thinking – on European integration, on climate regulation, and on the trade-offs between regulatory ambition and economic freedom. For boards and senior strategy teams working to understand the structural forces behind today’s geopolitical fragmentation, his perspective offers something genuinely scarce: a first-person account of what happens when political institutions, economic doctrine, and sovereign interests collide. Key speaking topics Post-communist economic transformation and market transition National sovereignty and the limits of supranational governance European political and institutional fragmentation Fiscal and monetary policy in practice The political economy of climate and environmental regulation Geopolitical risk and the return of economic nationalism The relationship between political institutions and economic freedom Ideal for Boards and C-suite teams in financial services, energy, and industrial sectors with significant European or Central and Eastern European exposure Government relations, public affairs, and policy teams navigating regulatory and geopolitical risk Senior strategy and scenario planning functions working on European institutional risk Organisations convening executive or leadership audiences on geopolitics, sovereign risk, or the future of the multilateral economic order Audience outcomes A first-hand, practitioner-level account of how post-communist economic transformation was designed and executed – including what worked, what did not, and what the trade-offs reveal about sequencing institutional and market reform A developed analytical framework for understanding the structural tensions between national sovereignty and supranational governance, grounded in lived political experience rather than theoretical modelling A counter-perspective to mainstream consensus on European institutional development – useful for stress-testing assumptions embedded in geopolitical risk and scenario planning work Greater clarity on the political and ideological drivers behind regulatory trends in climate, energy, and fiscal policy, framed through the lens of economic freedom and democratic accountability Historical and structural context for the fragmentation currently visible in European and global governance, from a figure who anticipated and publicly argued for its likelihood

Why organisations work with Vijay Govindarajan The Three-Box Solution gives leadership teams a concrete operating model for the hardest resource allocation decision in strategy: how much of the organisation’s attention, talent, and capital belongs to managing the present, letting go of outdated practices, and building the future – simultaneously, with different disciplines for each. His 2009 HBR article «How GE Is Disrupting Itself,» co-authored with GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt, introduced reverse innovation to the management canon; Harvard Business Review later named it one of the Great Moments in Management in the Last Century – a designation that marks a genuinely new idea rather than a refinement of an existing one. Fusion Strategy (HBR Press, 2024) gives leaders of industrial and asset-heavy companies a specific strategic answer to the AI competitive threat – not a general AI primer, but a framework for how manufacturers, infrastructure operators, and physical-product businesses can fuse operational excellence with real-time data intelligence. He developed these frameworks inside a Fortune 10 company: as GE’s first-ever Professor in Residence and Chief Innovation Consultant (2008–2010), he applied the ideas under operational conditions alongside a sitting CEO – a form of proof that most strategy academics cannot point to. Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2019, and the only thinker to win Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards in two separate categories, VG’s standing in the field is independently credentialed – not a function of self-promotion. Biography highlights Coxe Distinguished Professor, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College – a Dartmouth-wide chair and the highest distinction awarded to Dartmouth faculty Inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame (2019); recipient of the Thinkers50 Distinguished Innovation Award (2019) and Breakthrough Idea Award (2011) – the only management thinker to win Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards in two categories Two-time McKinsey Award winner for best article in Harvard Business Review: «Engineering Reverse Innovations» (2015) and «Stop the Innovation Wars» (2010) Author of 15 books, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Reverse Innovation, The Three-Box Solution, and Fusion Strategy (HBR Press, 2024) First Professor in Residence and Chief Innovation Consultant at General Electric; former Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School Prior faculty at Harvard Business School, INSEAD (Fontainebleau), and the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Inducted into the Academy of Management Journals’ Hall of Fame; HBR contributor with multiple all-time top-50 best-selling articles Biography Vijay Govindarajan has one central argument: that managing today’s performance and inventing tomorrow’s business require fundamentally different logic, and that running both inside one organisation is the hardest problem in strategy. His Three-Box Solution – now four decades in development at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business – gives executives a structural answer. Box 1 is the discipline of running the present core at peak efficiency. Box 2 is the harder discipline of letting go of practices, assumptions, and investments that made the organisation successful but will impede what comes next. Box 3 is the work of creating the future from genuinely non-linear ideas. The concept of reverse innovation, which VG introduced in his 2009 HBR article co-authored with GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt, extended this thinking to global strategy. Rather than adapting developed-world solutions for emerging markets, VG argued that innovation should begin in the developing world – where constraints force ingenuity – and then move upward. Harvard Business Review later named reverse innovation one of the Great Moments in Management in the Last Century. His most recent book, Fusion Strategy (HBR Press, 2024), addresses the AI disruption challenge directly – not in the abstract, but for a specific set of organisations. The three-quarters of global GDP produced by industrial and asset-heavy companies has yet to be transformed by digital technology. VG’s argument is that these companies must fuse their physical product strength with AI-powered, real-time data intelligence – or be eclipsed by digital-native rivals who will. It is the most commercially urgent application of his frameworks to date. VG served as GE’s first-ever Professor in Residence and Chief Innovation Consultant from 2008 to 2010, developing these ideas under operational conditions inside one of the world’s most complex industrial organisations. He is a two-time McKinsey Award winner in Harvard Business Review, a former Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School, and was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2019 – the only management thinker to receive Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Awards in two separate categories. Key speaking topics The Three-Box Solution: managing present, past, and future simultaneously Reverse innovation and emerging-market growth strategy Fusion Strategy: AI, real-time data, and the industrial competitive frontier Business model reinvention in established organisations Innovation execution inside large corporations Global strategy and cross-border competitive advantage Scenario planning and strategic foresight Ideal for CEOs and executive teams of established or asset-heavy industrial companies facing digital disruption Chief Strategy Officers and heads of corporate innovation managing tension between core business performance and growth investments Boards and senior leadership teams evaluating long-term portfolio strategy against near-term performance pressure Global organisations with significant emerging-market presence or expansion ambitions Audience outcomes A working understanding of the Three-Box Solution and how to apply its logic to their organisation’s specific resource allocation, governance, and portfolio decisions A clear framework for identifying which current practices are protecting value versus those quietly preventing the next phase of growth A strategic lens for evaluating how AI and real-time data can be fused with their company’s physical product or service base to generate competitive advantage Recognition of the specific organisational tensions – in staffing, structure, incentives, and culture – that prevent innovation from scaling inside established businesses Practical language for taking the strategy-versus-innovation conversation to board level with greater precision and less abstraction

Why organisations work with Vito Di Bari He has run the discipline at scale. As Innovation Designer for Milan’s Expo 2015 candidacy he turned futures thinking into a 25-project urban programme, the kind of translation work most futurist speakers never attempt. He carries genuine institutional weight: former Executive Director of UNESCO’s International Multimedia Institute, contract professor at Politecnico di Milano and Bocconi, founder of the Next Media Lab. He authored “The Neofuturistic City Manifesto” and is the named thought leader of the Neo-Futurism art and architecture movement, giving leadership teams a vocabulary for what comes after the current digital cycle. He is one of a small number of European voices the Financial Times has labelled a “guru of innovation,” which travels well in front of European boards and ministries. He works in English, Italian and across global stages, with TEDx and corporate keynotes spanning five continents, useful for groups planning multi-region leadership offsites. Biography highlights Innovation Designer for Milan’s Expo 2015 candidacy Former Executive Director, UNESCO International Multimedia Institute (IMI), Paris Former contract professor of Design and Management of Innovation, Politecnico di Milano; and of Cross Media Communication, Bocconi University Founder and Scientific Director, Next Media Lab; founder of Di Bari & Associates innovation design studio Author of more than ten books on innovation, including “The Neofuturistic City Manifesto” Described by the Financial Times as “the new European guru of innovation” Biography The hardest job inside a board agenda on AI is not deciding which tools to buy. It is deciding which technological trajectory the organisation is betting on. That is the territory Di Bari has worked in for two decades, first inside UNESCO’s IMI in Paris, then as Innovation Designer for Milan’s Expo 2015 candidacy, where his job was to translate a futures vision into a 25-project urban programme. His academic base is Italian and serious. He held contract chairs at Politecnico di Milano in design and management of innovation, and at Bocconi in cross-media communication. Around that he built Next Media Lab as an international research laboratory and Di Bari & Associates as a design studio, so the ideas he speaks about have been carried into installations, products and city projects, not only into print. The intellectual signature is Neo-Futurism. His 2007 “Neofuturistic City Manifesto” set out a vision of arts, architecture and urbanism after the digital turn, and he is widely credited as the thought leader of the movement. The Financial Times called him “the new European guru of innovation,” and bureau profiles routinely place him in the company of John Naisbitt and Alvin Toffler. For an executive audience, the value is concrete. He has authored more than ten books on innovation, contributed to outlets including Wired, and now anchors his keynote work in AI transformation, with talks such as “Welcome to the AI Transformation” and “A Day in the Future.” A board leaves the room with a structured view of how AI, IoT and emerging technologies will reshape its sector, and a sharper sense of which bets to place now. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and generative AI in business Innovation strategy and design Internet of Things and emerging technologies Future of work and organisational AI adoption Neo-Futurism, urbanism and the design of the future Long-range scenario thinking for leadership teams Ideal for Boards and executive committees stress-testing their AI and digital strategy CEOs, CIOs and chief innovation officers planning multi-year technology roadmaps Industry events in retail, manufacturing, financial services and the public sector commissioning a serious futures keynote Leadership offsites in Europe and globally that need a credible practitioner voice on innovation, not abstract trend commentary Audience outcomes A structured forward view of how AI, IoT and emerging technologies will reshape the audience’s sector A clearer language for talking about innovation as a design discipline, not a marketing label Specific examples of how futures thinking has been translated into urban-scale projects, including Expo 2015 Milan Concrete prompts for which AI and digital bets to prioritise inside the next planning cycle

Why organisations work with Vítor Constâncio He offers direct insider perspective on ECB monetary policy design and execution across an eight-year term as Vice-President: a vantage point that cannot be replicated by academic analysis or market commentary alone. His active role in building the ECB’s macroprudential governance framework, including the development of its systemic risk indicators (FSRI and CSRI), gives audiences a conceptual map for understanding financial stability risk that goes beyond standard risk management frameworks. His unusual combination of central bank leadership, national finance ministry experience, and private-sector board roles provides a rare triangulation of how monetary, fiscal, and regulatory decisions interact; directly relevant to boards navigating rate cycles, sovereign risk, and banking regulation. Through his Bruegel contributions and MacroViews Substack, he remains an active, citable analyst on current ECB and Fed policy, eurozone fiscal governance, and international financial risk: making his perspective current, not merely historical. For European and internationally exposed organisations, his forensic understanding of euro area crisis mechanics, including Portugal’s €78bn bailout programme, Banking Union design, and Capital Markets Union architecture, offers a level of granularity that generic economic speakers cannot match. Biography highlights Vice-President of the European Central Bank and member of its Executive Board, 2010-2018, selected by Eurozone finance ministers for an eight-year mandate Governor of the Banco de Portugal in two separate terms (1985-86 and 2000-2010); member of the ECB Governing Council throughout the second term Finance Minister of Portugal (1977-78) and Secretary of State for Planning and Budget (1974-76) Secretary-General of Portugal’s Socialist Party (1986-89) and member of the Portuguese Council of State (1995-99) Co-architect of the ECB’s macroprudential governance framework; named author of ECB Occasional Paper on macroprudential policy at the ECB; developer of the ECB’s Financial Stability Risk Index and Cyclical Systemic Risk Indicator Professor at the School of Economics & Business Administration, University of Navarra; President of the School Board, ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management, University of Lisbon Active contributor to Bruegel policy debates; extensive BIS-published speech record; author of MacroViews (Substack), a widely-read publication on monetary policy and European economic governance Biography Central banks rarely advertise the tensions behind their decisions. The trade-offs between price stability and financial stability, the institutional pressures on monetary union governance, the limits of macroprudential tools when the financial cycle turns: these are not visible in official communiqués. They are visible only to those who have sat inside the institution at the moments when those decisions were made. Vítor Constâncio served as Vice-President of the European Central Bank for eight years, from 2010 to 2018, a period that encompassed the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, the design and early operation of the Banking Union, and the gradual construction of a macroprudential policy architecture for the euro area. As a member of the ECB’s Executive Board, he was among the principal architects of the framework that now governs systemic risk oversight across European financial markets; including the ECB’s own Financial Stability Risk Index and Cyclical Systemic Risk Indicator, developed under his leadership. His authority on these questions is grounded in institutional breadth as much as seniority. He served as Governor of the Banco de Portugal across two separate terms, representing Portugal on the ECB Governing Council throughout the second; held senior government roles as Finance Minister and Secretary of State; and served as Executive Director at Banco Português de Investimento with non-executive board exposure to major Portuguese corporates. This layered experience – from national treasury to private board to European monetary authority – gives him a perspective on how macroeconomic policy, financial regulation, and institutional design interact that few practitioners can claim. Since leaving the ECB, Constâncio has remained an analytically active voice. He publishes regularly on monetary policy and eurozone governance through his MacroViews commentary platform and continues to contribute to Bruegel, the leading European economic policy research institution. He teaches banking and financial regulation at the University of Navarra and chairs the school board at ISEG. For organisations seeking clarity on the forces shaping credit conditions, regulatory direction, and European financial architecture, he brings the rarest combination available: the institutional memory of someone at the centre of the decisions, and the continued intellectual engagement of someone who has not stopped thinking about them. Key speaking topics Monetary policy design and the limits of central banking Macroprudential policy and systemic risk frameworks European financial governance and Banking Union architecture Sovereign risk and euro area crisis management Banking regulation and the post-Basel III landscape Capital Markets Union and European financial integration Global macro conditions and the outlook for interest rates Ideal for CFOs, CROs, and board risk committees at banks, insurers, and asset managers navigating rate cycles and regulatory change Investment and treasury leaders requiring granular perspective on ECB and eurozone monetary dynamics Government and supranational policy forums focused on European financial architecture and sovereign risk Executive leadership conferences in financial services where strategic macro context is central to the agenda Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how macroprudential policy frameworks function and where their limits lie – grounded in the experience of building them Practical perspective on how central bank decisions are actually made: the trade-offs, institutional constraints, and dissenting pressures that official statements do not capture An informed view of the structural risks in European and global financial systems, and the regulatory tools available to address them Greater ability to distinguish signal from noise in central bank communication and monetary policy signalling Context for assessing how eurozone governance, Banking Union architecture, and Capital Markets Union development affect corporate and institutional financial strategy

Why organisations work with Wesley K. Clark Operational command at the highest level of NATO, including the Kosovo air campaign, gives him a direct read on how modern conflict, escalation, and alliance decision-making actually work. Two decades of advisory work across oil, gas, power, batteries, and finance through Wesley K. Clark and Associates and Energy Security Partners, so the geopolitics connects to capital and supply. A book-length argument, Don’t Wait for the Next War, on linking U.S. energy strength, fiscal capacity, and security strategy, which gives boards a coherent framework rather than a news commentary. Standing as a Senior Fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center and a director of the Atlantic Council, both of which signal a serious institutional reading of foreign policy rather than punditry. Track record in front of senior audiences as a CNN military analyst and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, so the room treats him as a principal, not a presenter. Biography highlights Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO, 1997 to 2000; commanded Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. Valedictorian of the West Point class of 1966; Rhodes Scholar in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Author of four books, including Waging Modern War, Winning Modern War, A Time to Lead, and Don’t Wait for the Next War. Presidential Medal of Freedom; Defense Distinguished Service Medal (five awards); Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart; Commander of the French Legion of Honor. Senior Fellow at UCLA’s Burkle Center for International Relations; director, Atlantic Council. Chairman of Wesley K. Clark and Associates and Energy Security Partners; advisor or board member to more than 90 companies across energy, finance, and security. Biography The Kosovo air campaign in 1999 was the first sustained combat operation NATO had ever fought as an alliance. The commander running it was Wesley Clark, then the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and the experience of holding nineteen governments together through 78 days of war became the spine of his subsequent thinking on conflict, alliance management, and political risk. His training was not narrowly military. Clark graduated as valedictorian of the West Point class of 1966, took a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford for Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and went on to a 38-year career that included Vietnam combat, U.S. Southern Command, and authorship of the U.S. National Military Strategy. He retired as a four-star general with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and honorary knighthoods from Britain and the Netherlands. The work since uniform has been almost entirely about how strategy, capital, and security fit together. Through Wesley K. Clark and Associates and Energy Security Partners, he has advised more than 90 companies across oil, gas, power, batteries, and finance. His book Don’t Wait for the Next War argues that American energy capacity, fiscal discipline, and global posture have to be planned as a single system, not three separate debates. That is the perspective he brings into a boardroom. Not running commentary on the day’s headlines, but a coherent reading of how energy supply, alliance behaviour, and great-power competition translate into decisions a senior leadership team has to make about exposure, capital, and timing. Key speaking topics Geopolitical risk and great-power competition NATO, alliance dynamics, and the rules-based order Energy security and the strategic role of energy supply U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy Leadership and decision-making under operational pressure Conflict, escalation, and modern warfare Ideal for Boards and executive committees pricing geopolitical and sanctions exposure CSOs, heads of strategy, and corporate development teams reassessing global footprint Energy, defence, financial services, and infrastructure leadership audiences Government affairs and risk leaders briefing boards on alliance and policy shifts Audience outcomes A clearer view of how NATO, U.S., and allied decision-making actually moves in a crisis A working read on how energy supply and capital allocation interact with security policy A sharper sense of which geopolitical risks are durable and which are noise Direct exposure to what command-level decision-making under pressure looks like

Why organisations work with Yasin Kasirga He has built the assets he talks about. With his teams he brought more than 11 GW of gas and renewable capacity and more than 25 wind plants to life across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His account of what a transition costs, and how long it takes, comes from having delivered it. He translates carbon and climate risk into the language a CFO and board already use, framing decarbonisation as a capital allocation decision with commercial risk attached. He advised the COP28 Presidency and coordinated and compiled the report behind the global pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030, giving audiences a first-hand account of how energy policy at that level is actually negotiated. On the energy cost of AI he argues from the generation side. His book “Megawatts, Not Tokens: AI, Energy and Sustainability” sets out what it takes to power AI, written by someone who has spent two decades building that capacity. He briefs finance, strategy and operations leaders in one room, so the cost of a transition plan and the question of who owns it get settled in the same conversation. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Qasirga Advisory, Dubai, advising across the Middle East, Africa, Türkiye and Europe. Previously built the Carbon Solutions business for the Middle East and Africa at GE Vernova. Senior Energy Advisor to the COP28 Presidency, in the Office of the UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change, where he coordinated and compiled “Tripling Renewable Power and Doubling Energy Efficiency by 2030,” issued with IRENA and the Global Renewables Alliance. Developed and built over 5 GW of gas-fired power and 6 GW of renewables, including more than 25 wind plants, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Speaker at ADIPEC and bylined author at GE Vernova on carbon capture, hydrogen and decarbonisation in the Middle East and Africa. Executive MBA and undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and business from Middle East Technical University and Anadolu University. Doctorate of Management in progress at UCAM Universidad Católica San Antonio de Murcia, on sustainability and net-zero stakeholder impact. Author of “Megawatts, Not Tokens: AI, Energy and Sustainability” (2026), published in Kindle, paperback and hardcover. Biography In 2023, the COP28 Presidency set out to make the case for tripling the world’s renewable energy capacity by 2030. Yasin Kasirga helped deliver it. Working inside the Office of the UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change, he coordinated and compiled the report the pledge was built on, issued with IRENA and the Global Renewables Alliance. That advisory role sits on two decades of building what the transition depends on: more than 5 GW of gas-fired power and 6 GW of renewables across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, including over 25 wind plants. He built the Carbon Solutions business for the Middle East and Africa at GE Vernova, working on carbon capture, hydrogen and low-carbon fuels. Today he runs Qasirga Advisory from Dubai. Kasirga works in two registers. He can take a board through the politics of a COP negotiation and, in the same session, through the economics of the wind plants he has delivered. On most decarbonisation programmes the technology and the capital are already there; what blocks progress is getting people to commit to one plan. That is the problem he was asked to help solve at COP28, and the one he works on now through Qasirga Advisory across the Middle East, Africa, Türkiye and Europe. His book “Megawatts, Not Tokens: AI, Energy and Sustainability” argues that responsible AI starts with responsible build. It sets out how AI works and what it costs to power. He wrote it from the generation side, after two decades building the plants that put power on the grid AI now draws from. Key speaking topics Energy transition and decarbonisation Net zero strategy and the business case for climate action Carbon capture, hydrogen and low-carbon fuels The energy cost of AI and responsible build The energy transition in the Middle East, Africa, Türkiye and Europe Climate risk as capital allocation and board risk AI in energy operations Leadership and culture in decarbonisation programmes Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting or defending a net zero commitment CFOs, CSOs and heads of strategy who must fund and sequence decarbonisation Energy, utilities and heavy-industry leadership teams across the Middle East, Africa, Türkiye and Europe Government and policy teams working on national energy transition plans and COP commitments Audience outcomes A way to describe carbon exposure in the financial terms a CFO and board already use A ranked view of which decarbonisation investments to make first, by commercial impact An honest read on what is real and what is hype in the energy transition Why the Middle East and Africa may be better placed for the transition than Western commentary assumes What powering AI actually costs, and where in energy operations it is already cutting emissions instead of budget