Scenario Planning & Strategic Foresight

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 Neil Martin He built the probabilistic strategy modelling systems now used by more than half the current Formula One grid – not a commentator on F1 decision-making, but the person who changed how the sport models decisions under uncertainty. Two specific, named race outcomes are directly attributed to his calls: Red Bull Racing’s first Formula One win at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, and Räikkönen’s win at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix – both the product of real-time probabilistic reasoning under extreme competitive pressure. He translates a specific, working methodology – Monte Carlo simulation and game theory applied to real-time competitive decisions – into frameworks organisations can use when multiple futures must be weighed against each other with no time to wait for certainty. His experience spans the full decision chain: building the analytical models, leading the strategy team live in the race, and managing the operational culture of teams working against non-negotiable deadlines with global coordination demands. As Co-Founder of PACETEQ GmbH, he continues to build and deploy competitive analytics tools across motorsport, which means his perspective is operational and current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights BSc in Mathematics with Computer Science and MSc in Operational Research, University of Southampton; MSc project on optimal pit-stop and refuelling strategies secured a full-time role at McLaren Racing Pioneered the application of Game Theory and Monte Carlo simulation to F1 race strategy at McLaren from 1998, replacing deterministic planning with stochastic models that could account for uncertain events in real time Team Leader of Operational Research at McLaren Racing; Chief Strategist at Red Bull Racing; Head of Operations Research and Strategy at Scuderia Ferrari (2011-2015) Strategic calls directly credited with Red Bull Racing’s first-ever Formula One win at the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix and Räikkönen’s victory at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix Co-Founder of PACETEQ GmbH, an AI-powered motorsport analytics business; software originating from his work in active use across more than half the Formula One grid Covered in the Financial Times; featured speaker at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit Biography Neil Martin joined McLaren Racing in 1996 to solve a specific problem: race strategy was being built on deterministic models that assumed a single most-likely future. He replaced those models with stochastic ones, applying Game Theory and Monte Carlo simulation to uncertain events. Traffic patterns, overtake probabilities, safety car timing – these could now be modelled, and strategy built around a range of probable outcomes rather than one. That shift produced verifiable results at the highest level. At the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix, Martin sent an email from McLaren’s Woking base instructing Räikkönen to stay out under a safety car; the call won the race. At the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix, as Red Bull Racing’s Chief Strategist, he kept both cars out in wet conditions when almost every competitor pitted. It was the team’s first-ever Formula One win – a 1-2 finish built on asymmetric risk reasoning under pressure. Martin joined Scuderia Ferrari in 2011 as Head of the newly created Operations Research department, brought in alongside Pat Fry to rebuild the team’s race operations. He left in 2015. Since then, he has founded Random Logic and co-founded PACETEQ GmbH, an AI-powered analytics business whose tools now run on more than half the current Formula One grid. For senior leaders, the argument is direct. Performance under pressure is not determined by the quantity of data available. It is determined by the quality of the frameworks used to act on it. Martin’s career is a proof of concept for what that discipline looks like when competitive stakes are at their highest. Key speaking topics Decision-making under uncertainty Probabilistic risk modelling Data-driven competitive strategy High-performance operations Risk management in live environments Marginal gains and continuous improvement Analytics-led performance optimisation Ideal for C-suite and senior strategy leaders making high-stakes decisions with incomplete data and competitive time pressure Risk, analytics, and data science functions seeking to operationalise probabilistic thinking across the organisation Boards and executive teams benchmarking their decision culture against elite performance environments Corporate conferences in financial services, technology, and professional services where data-driven decision-making is a strategic priority Audience outcomes A named conceptual shift: from deterministic “most likely scenario” planning to probabilistic mapping of multiple futures and their associated likelihoods Clarity on the conditions under which data produces better decisions, and the organisational habits that close the gap between having information and acting on it with confidence Specific, race-derived examples of asymmetric risk reasoning applicable to resource allocation, market entry, and competitive response decisions Practical understanding of how high-performance teams coordinate under non-negotiable deadlines without sacrificing analytical discipline A benchmark for what genuinely data-driven operational culture looks like when competitive stakes leave no margin for deterministic thinking

Why organisations work with Helen Czerski She is an active research physicist inside the climate system, not a commentator on it. Her UCL work on bubbles at the ocean surface sits at the heart of how the atmosphere and ocean exchange heat and carbon, which gives her climate framing a physical basis that reads differently to a board than general sustainability narrative. Blue Machine gives her a defensible thesis audiences can hold onto: the ocean as a single connected engine that drives weather, food, trade and energy. That framing turns abstract climate discussion into something leaders can map to their own exposure. The Institute of Physics awarded her the 2018 Kelvin Medal specifically for translating physics to a mass audience. Few speakers pair that level of academic recognition with a track record on primetime BBC science. She has reached general business and policy audiences as the Wall Street Journal’s “Everyday Physics” columnist and as co-host of BBC Radio 4’s Rare Earth, which means she is used to explaining physics to readers and listeners who did not choose the subject. She treats curiosity as a leadership input. Her Storm in a Teacup thesis, that the rules governing the universe are visible in ordinary objects, lands as a practical argument for how technical organisations should see, question and investigate. Biography highlights Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, leading research on oceanic bubble physics, air-sea gas transfer and bubble acoustics. Natural Sciences (Physics) at Churchill College, Cambridge, followed by a PhD in experimental explosives physics; postdoctoral work at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Author of Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life and Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World (Penguin / W.W. Norton). 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation for Blue Machine. 2018 William Thomson, Lord Kelvin Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for public communication of physics. BBC science presenter across Orbit, Operation Iceberg, Super Senses, Colour: The Spectrum of Science and Sound Waves; co-host of Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4; former “Everyday Physics” columnist at The Wall Street Journal. Biography The ocean is a physical engine that routes most of the planet’s heat, carbon and weather, and it is almost entirely absent from the way boards discuss climate. Helen Czerski’s work at University College London, where she leads research on breaking waves and bubbles at the ocean surface, sits precisely at the interface where that engine does its work. The research is technical. The implications are strategic. Blue Machine, her 2024 Wainwright Prize-winning book, is the public form of that argument. It treats the ocean as one connected system that moves nutrients, ships, storms and carbon, and explains why every industry with a coastline, a fleet or a climate commitment is already inside it. For leaders wrestling with transition plans, physical risk disclosures or supply chain exposure, Czerski offers a vocabulary that is physical rather than political. Her earlier book, Storm in a Teacup, established the method: start with something visible, coffee stains, popcorn, a magnet on a fridge, and work outward to the physics that governs how the world operates. That method earned her the 2018 Kelvin Medal from the Institute of Physics for public communication, and it carried through ten years of primetime BBC science including Orbit, Operation Iceberg and Super Senses, alongside her “Everyday Physics” column at The Wall Street Journal and co-hosting Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4. What she brings into a room is the rare combination of a working research scientist and a public explainer who has spent a decade translating physics for audiences that did not sign up to hear it. For an organisation trying to move from sustainability language to physical reality, that translation is the point. Key speaking topics Ocean physics and the climate system The ocean economy and physical risk Science of the energy transition Everyday physics for decision-makers Curiosity and scientific thinking in organisations Communicating technical complexity to non-technical audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, sustainability or transition strategy Energy, shipping, insurance and infrastructure leaders exposed to ocean and weather systems CTOs, heads of R&D and engineering leaders investing in technical capability Conferences where a serious science keynote needs to land with a mixed commercial audience Audience outcomes A working mental model of the ocean as a single physical system that connects weather, carbon, food and trade A sharper read on where climate and transition narratives rest on solid physics and where they do not Language for talking about physical risk and scientific uncertainty without defaulting to jargon or slogans A renewed case for curiosity as a disciplined practice inside technical and commercial teams

Why organisations work with Hannah Fry Hello World (2018) advances a specific governance argument: that AI fails not because the technology is wrong, but because accountability was poorly designed. That gives boards a working framework for AI governance, not just a sharper awareness of risk. Her UCL research was applied directly – she worked with governments, police forces, health analysts, and supermarkets, translating mathematical models of human behaviour into operational decisions. That applied track record is what separates her algorithmic analysis from academic commentary. The accuracy-versus-fairness trade-off in predictive systems is a mathematical problem before it is an ethical one. She can explain it precisely enough for legal, compliance, and strategy leaders to translate it into governance decisions – not just for data teams. She holds Cambridge’s inaugural Professorship in the Public Understanding of Mathematics – a chair that formalises the argument that making quantitative thinking accessible to non-specialists is itself a research discipline. As President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, her institutional credibility extends well beyond media profile. Biography highlights First Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge (from January 2025), joining the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Previously Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis; research applied to urban crime, transport, health analysis, and terrorism, with direct advisory roles across government and industry Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (elected 2022) and Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications Author of Hello World: How to Be Human in the Age of the Machine (2018) – winner of the 2020 Asimov Prize; shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Royal Society Science Book Prize Christopher Zeeman Medal (2018) and Royal Society David Attenborough Award (2024) for contributions to science communication Delivered the 2019 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures – only the fourth mathematician to do so since Michael Faraday established the series in 1825 BBC presenter across AI Confidential with Hannah Fry (2026), The Secret Genius of Modern Life (BBC Two), and Bloomberg Originals’ The Future with Hannah Fry (2023); regular contributor to The New Yorker; TED Talk «The Mathematics of Love» has exceeded five million views Biography Hannah Fry spent over a decade at UCL studying the mathematics of cities – how people move through urban space, where crime clusters, how disease propagates through populations. Her research was applied: she worked directly with governments, police forces, health analysts, and supermarkets. The question she returned to consistently was what happens when those decisions are automated, and whether the automation can be trusted. Her book Hello World (2018) answered that question with precision. Algorithms are not objective – they encode the biases embedded in the data they were trained on, often before anyone noticed. The response, she argued, is not to distrust AI but to design governance that keeps humans genuinely in the loop. She called this the «cyborg future» – a practical framework for accountability, not a metaphor. The book won the 2020 Asimov Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Royal Society Science Book Prize. In January 2025, she became Cambridge’s first Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics, following in the footsteps of David Spiegelhalter and Stephen Hawking as a public interpreter of the discipline. She also serves as President of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and holds a Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Her media work extends the argument across audiences that no academic publication reaches. BBC Two’s AI Confidential with Hannah Fry (2026) investigated how AI is reshaping human relationships and institutional decisions. The Secret Genius of Modern Life ran over two BBC Two series. She delivered the 2019 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures – only the fourth mathematician in the lectures’ 200-year history to do so – and writes regularly for The New Yorker. For leadership teams moving from AI adoption to AI accountability, that combination of mathematical rigour and public clarity is not a communications asset. It is the substance of what she brings. Key speaking topics AI and algorithmic decision-making Data bias and algorithmic fairness Human-machine governance Risk and probability in complex systems The mathematics of human behaviour Urban data and city systems Science communication and mathematical literacy Ideal for Executive and board-level audiences setting AI governance and risk policy Chief Data Officers, Chief Technology Officers, and senior technology strategy teams Leadership conferences addressing responsible AI adoption in regulated industries – healthcare, financial services, criminal justice Public sector audiences navigating the use of predictive and automated systems Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how algorithmic bias is produced and why it is mathematically difficult to eliminate without deliberate trade-offs A practical mental model – drawn from the Hello World framework – for when to trust algorithmic output and when to retain human judgment Confidence to engage substantively with AI governance questions without requiring deep technical knowledge Greater ability to interrogate the assumptions behind data-driven outputs, rather than treating them as authoritative A vocabulary for discussing AI risk that is precise and usable in board-level and policy conversations

Why organisations work with Haiyan Wang A research-grounded view on the China and India axis from a co-founder of the China India Institute, built on three decades of work on global strategy with Anil K. Gupta. Authority drawn from a 200-corporation study underpinning The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition) and the Axiom Award-winning Getting China and India Right. A serious counter-position to the standard “deglobalisation” narrative: the argument that trade is shifting toward data, IP and services rather than retreating, sharpened in her 2024 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame work. Translates emerging-market signals into board-level capital, supply chain and market-entry choices, not country-trend commentary. Recognised by named bodies that buyers trust: Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee (2024), Thinkers50-ranked thinker, Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize. Biography highlights Managing Partner and co-founder, China India Institute, Washington DC Adjunct Professor of Strategy, INSEAD 2024 Thinkers50 Hall of Fame inductee (with Anil K. Gupta) Co-author of The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition), Getting China and India Right (Axiom Awards Silver Prize, 2009) and The Silk Road Rediscovered Regular columnist for Bloomberg Businessweek, blogger for Harvard Business Review, with bylined pieces in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Wired, China Daily, Times of India and South China Morning Post Holds graduate degrees from the University of International Business and Economics (China) and the University of Maryland at College Park Biography The cheap-globalisation era is over, but globalisation itself is not. That is the working thesis behind the China India Institute, the Washington DC research and advisory firm Haiyan Wang co-founded and runs as Managing Partner. Her argument, developed across three decades with Anil K. Gupta, is that the flow of physical goods is plateauing while the flow of data, intellectual property and services is accelerating. Boards that read the first signal without the second are making the wrong calls on capital allocation and footprint. The argument is anchored in a long-running research programme on global strategy, including a study of more than 200 corporations that underpins The Quest for Global Dominance (2nd Edition), co-authored with Gupta and Vijay Govindarajan. Getting China and India Right took the Axiom Book Awards Silver Prize for globalisation and international business in 2009. The Silk Road Rediscovered, written with Gupta and Girija Pande, examines how Indian and Chinese companies are using each other’s markets, a question most Western firms still treat as separate problems. Wang’s standing is recognised by the bodies senior buyers actually weigh. She and Gupta were inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2024, after appearing in the Thinkers50 ranking (most recently cited at #25 in 2021) and being shortlisted for Thinkers50 awards. She has held an Adjunct Professor of Strategy role at INSEAD and writes regularly for Bloomberg Businessweek and Harvard Business Review, with bylined commentary in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Times of India and the South China Morning Post. For a senior team trying to set a five-year stance on China, India and the next layer of emerging markets, the value is concrete: a credible read on which parts of globalisation are stalling, which are intensifying, and where that leaves a specific company’s growth and risk decisions. Key speaking topics Globalisation in a phase change China and India as strategic markets Emerging-market diverging futures Multinational strategy and global presence Global mindset for senior leadership Geopolitics and the rules-based economy Long-range scenario thinking on global trade Ideal for CEOs, CSOs and board directors setting multi-year China and India exposure Heads of strategy, corporate development and M&A in multinationals Risk committees and supply chain leaders reassessing globalisation assumptions Investor and asset-management forums on emerging markets and capital allocation Audience outcomes A clear read on which parts of globalisation are retreating and which are intensifying A defensible frame for board-level decisions on China, India and other emerging markets A working view of where data, IP and services flows are creating new commercial ground A sharper test for capital allocation and footprint choices under geopolitical pressure Reference points from the long China India Institute research programme that buyers can use in their own strategy reviews

Why organisations work with Emily Maitlis She holds power to account live, on the record. The 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, winner of RTS Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year, is the reference point clients book against when they want a real interviewer in the room rather than a host. She reads Westminster and Washington in the same conversation. Fifteen-plus years on Newsnight and the daily discipline of The News Agents give her a working map of the political operators, donors and advisors shaping policy on both sides of the Atlantic. She is an operator on stage, not a presence. Moderating panels, running fireside interviews with CEOs and ministers, chairing leadership offsites: the craft is the product, and it is the craft that sold out the 2022 MacTaggart Lecture and her speaking diary. She brings a named argument about media and democracy. Her MacTaggart Lecture, “Boiling Frog: Why We Have To Stop Normalising The Absurd,” sets out a specific thesis on populism and impartiality that leadership audiences can engage with rather than nod along to. Biography highlights Lead anchor of BBC Newsnight, 2018 to 2021; a Newsnight presenter from 2006. Co-host of The News Agents, the daily Global podcast launched in August 2022 with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall; Gold winner for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast at the British Podcast Awards. Delivered the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, 2022. Author of Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News (Penguin, 2019). RTS Network Presenter of the Year, 2019 and 2020; RTS Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year, 2020, for the Prince Andrew interview; London Press Club Broadcast Journalist of the Year, 2017. Queens’ College, Cambridge; earlier career with NBC Asia in Hong Kong and Sky News as a business correspondent. Biography The Prince Andrew interview was broadcast on Newsnight in November 2019. Emily Maitlis asked the questions that became the public record of that story, and it remains the case study most often cited when organisations talk about what a real interview looks like. The RTS named it Interview of the Year and Scoop of the Year. That night sits inside a longer body of work. Maitlis spent roughly fifteen years on Newsnight, becoming lead anchor in 2018, after building the craft at NBC Asia, Sky News as a business correspondent, and earlier BBC roles. The output is a consistent habit of pressing political and financial power for specifics rather than positioning. Since leaving the BBC in 2022 she has co-hosted The News Agents with Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall, a Global podcast that took a Gold British Podcast Award for Best News and Current Affairs. Her 2022 MacTaggart Lecture, “Boiling Frog: Why We Have To Stop Normalising The Absurd,” laid out a specific argument about how mainstream media coverage normalises populist politics, and how that reshapes the job of a public broadcaster. For leadership audiences, the value is practical. She reads political risk and media dynamics for a living, she moderates and interviews on stage the way she does on screen, and she has a thesis about the information environment that serious rooms engage with. Her 2019 book Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News is the written version of that working method. Key speaking topics UK politics and Westminster analysis US elections and transatlantic political risk Geopolitical flashpoints and their business implications Media, populism and the information environment Interviewing power: the craft of holding leaders to account Conference moderation, fireside interviews and awards hosting Ideal for Leadership offsites, CEO summits and partner conferences needing a host or on-stage interviewer with real political and business range. Annual client conferences and investor events where a keynote on geopolitics, elections or the media environment sets the agenda. Boards and executive committees using an off-the-record session to pressure-test political and regulatory scenarios. Audience outcomes A working read on the political and geopolitical stories most likely to affect the business over the next twelve months. A sharper view of how media narratives form, harden and reach decision-makers, and where that process is being gamed. Specific reference points from two decades of interviewing politicians, regulators and CEOs, used to illustrate rather than decorate the argument. A different quality of on-stage conversation when Maitlis is moderating: leaders pushed past talking points to the substance.

Why organisations work with Dr Elsa Sotiriadis She speaks about digital biology from inside the field, with a working PhD in synthetic biology from Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong, not as a commentator translating other people’s research. Her early-stage VC years at SOSV, where she helped build 25 deep tech and biotech start-ups, give her a founder-level view of which frontier-science claims hold up when money and product cycles are attached. She frames biotech alongside AI, computation and materials, which matches how corporate strategy teams actually have to evaluate these shifts rather than through isolated technology silos. Her science-fiction work, including the Writers of the Future honourable-mention novella Replicon, gives her a distinct capability for painting concrete, specific future scenarios rather than generic trend talks. She is comfortable with board-level audiences and Fortune 500 innovation teams, and has advised on innovation strategy across sustainability, energy and digital biology. Biography highlights International PhD in synthetic biology, Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong. Master of Research in Synthetic and Systems Biology, Imperial College London. Former early-stage venture capitalist at SOSV, where she helped build 25 deep tech start-ups. PhD research on programmable DNA aptamers as anti-cancer agents, recognised with awards including from MIT and the Swiss Academy of Sciences. Contributor to Singularity Hub; featured by Silicon Republic among 15 women to follow in biotech. Science-fiction author (pen name Elsa Solaris / EA Solaris); debut novella Replicon received an honourable mention at the Writers of the Future competition. TEDx speaker on digital biology at TEDx University of Nicosia. Biography Digital biology is quietly turning life itself into a design space. DNA can now be read, written and programmed; cells can be engineered to produce materials, medicines and food; and computation is folding biology into a development stack that looks increasingly like software. For most boards, this is still an unfamiliar language. Dr Elsa Sotiriadis works at the centre of that language. Her international PhD in synthetic biology, taken jointly at Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong, focused on programmable DNA aptamers as anti-cancer agents, a line of research recognised by MIT and the Swiss Academy of Sciences. She then moved from the lab into venture capital at SOSV, one of the most active early-stage deep tech investors, where she helped build 25 start-ups across biotech and frontier science. That combination shapes how she speaks. She is not a generalist trend-spotter. She can read a scientific claim, weigh it against a business model, and tell a corporate audience what is worth taking seriously in the next five to ten years. She has advised governments and Fortune 500 companies on innovation strategy across sustainability, energy and digital biology, and reaches wider audiences through Singularity Hub, TEDx and her science fiction, written under the pen name Elsa Solaris. Her debut novella Replicon received an honourable mention at the Writers of the Future competition. Senior teams bring her in when the questions get specific. Where is synthetic biology likely to hit our supply chain. What does it mean for our R and D portfolio when biology starts to behave like software. Which parts of the convergence story between AI, biotech and materials should our strategy actually plan for. Key speaking topics Digital biology and synthetic biology Frontier and deep technology convergence Biotech and healthcare innovation Climate, materials and industrial biotech Strategic foresight and long-range scenario thinking Deep tech venture building and start-up ecosystems Ideal for Board and executive strategy sessions evaluating exposure to biotech and frontier-science shifts. R and D, innovation and venture leaders in pharma, materials, food, chemicals and energy. Chief Strategy Officers and Chief Scientific Officers shaping long-range technology bets. Corporate foresight and futures teams working on scenarios beyond the next planning cycle. Audience outcomes A working mental model of what “digital biology” actually means and where it is already commercial. A clearer view of which biotech, AI and deep tech claims are credible versus speculative on current evidence. Specific examples of deep tech start-ups reshaping health, materials, food and energy. Concrete scenarios of how biology-as-technology could reshape their own sector in the next decade. A sharper question set to take back into their own strategy and R and D conversations.

Why organisations work with Diana Renner Her book Not Knowing (CMI Management Book of the Year, translated into 15+ languages) makes a specific, counterintuitive argument: that the pressure to project expertise and have answers actively impairs leadership in genuinely complex situations. This is a diagnosis most leadership development programmes avoid, and a conversation senior leadership teams rarely have with rigour. She works at the intersection of three distinct bodies of knowledge – adaptive leadership, adult development theory, and process oriented psychology – a combination that addresses not only what organisations need to do differently, but how leaders must develop as people. This is not available from single-discipline practitioners. Her guest faculty roles at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the University of Texas LBJ School of Government confirm that her frameworks hold up in rigorous, peer-reviewed executive education settings alongside practitioner application. Through the Uncharted Leadership Institute and programme partnerships with Melbourne Business School, Monash Business School, the University of Adelaide, and the Australian Institute of Police Management, she has built and tested leadership development approaches across commercial, government, and community contexts at scale. Her personal biography – leaving Romania in 1987, professional reinvention across law, refugee advocacy, and leadership development – gives the Not Knowing framework lived authority that purely academic treatments of the same topic cannot match. Biography highlights Co-author of Not Knowing: The Art of Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity (LID Publishing) – CMI Management Book of the Year 2015; translated into 15+ languages Co-author of Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action (LID Publishing, 2018) Director and co-founder, Uncharted Leadership Institute (est. 2016); creator, Not Knowing Lab Senior Lecturer, Monash University; adjunct lecturer, University of Adelaide; associate, Melbourne Business School Guest faculty, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and University of Texas LBJ School of Government 2017 Monash University Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award (Global Challenges Honours Program teaching team) Biography Diana Renner’s book Not Knowing: The Art of Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity, co-written with Steven D’Souza, won the Chartered Management Institute’s Management Book of the Year in 2015. Its thesis is direct: the pressure to project expertise and certainty is often what makes complex adaptive challenges harder to navigate, not easier. Translated into more than fifteen languages, it has become a reference for leadership development practitioners and senior teams working with genuine strategic uncertainty. The book draws on a distinction most leadership frameworks collapse: technical problems can be solved with existing expertise, while adaptive challenges require new thinking and development. Renner’s work through the Uncharted Leadership Institute, which she co-founded in 2016, is built around helping senior leaders recognise which they are facing – and develop the capacity to engage productively with the latter. Her practice draws on three distinct disciplines: adaptive leadership, adult development theory, and process oriented psychology. Together, these address not only what organisations need to do differently, but how leaders need to develop as people to lead well in conditions of genuine uncertainty. Programme partnerships with Melbourne Business School, Monash Business School, the University of Adelaide, and the Australian Institute of Police Management have tested these frameworks across commercial, government, and community contexts. Renner holds a Senior Lectureship at Monash University and has served as guest faculty at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the University of Texas LBJ School of Government. Her second book, Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action (2018), extends the Not Knowing argument into the territory of executive effectiveness – examining how excessive busyness and compulsive doing undermine the quality of leadership in complex environments. Key speaking topics Adaptive leadership in uncertainty and complexity Not Knowing – leading beyond expertise Not Doing – effortless action and the limits of busyness Distinguishing adaptive from technical challenges Adult development theory and leadership growth Deliberately developmental organisational cultures Complexity theory and strategic resilience Ideal for CEOs and C-suite executives leading organisations through complex change or strategic inflection points CHROs and heads of leadership development designing senior leadership programmes Senior executives and leadership teams in government and public sector organisations Board-level strategy and scenario planning forums Audience outcomes A clear distinction between technical problems and adaptive challenges, with practical language for applying it in real organisational conversations Greater self-awareness about how the pressure to have answers shapes individual leadership behaviour and team dynamics Practical frameworks from Not Knowing and Not Doing for leading through uncertainty without forcing premature resolution A more explicit understanding of how adult development theory applies to the daily practice of leadership Approaches to building team and organisational cultures that can hold complexity and sustain productive engagement over time

Why organisations work with Dalia Marin Her peer-reviewed research links automation, trade-policy uncertainty, and reshoring in a single empirical model, giving leadership teams a defensible basis for supply-chain decisions rather than a narrative. She translates between the Brussels and Berlin policy worlds and the corporate boardroom, drawing on advisory work with the European Commission, the EBRD, and the IMF. Her Project Syndicate column is a running public reference point on deglobalisation, German deindustrialisation, and the labour-market consequences of AI, read by policy and business readers across Europe. She is one of the few senior economists who has tracked the German industrial model, and the Eastern European production network around it, continuously since the 1990s. That long view matters when companies are re-assessing the same geographies. Biography highlights Chair in International Economics, TUM School of Management, Technical University of Munich. Non-resident Fellow at Bruegel and Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Former Professor of International Economics at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (1998 to 2017). Co-editor of “The Organization of Firms in a Global Economy” (Harvard University Press, 2008) with Elhanan Helpman and Thierry Verdier. Co-author of “Global Value Chains in a World of Uncertainty and Automation”, Journal of International Economics, 2025. Visiting appointments at Harvard, Stanford, NYU Stern, the IMF, the NBER, and the European University Institute. Project Syndicate columnist on deglobalisation, industrial policy, and the future of the German economic model. Biography The reshoring debate has moved past the slogan stage. Firms are actually pulling production back to high-income economies, and the economic literature is starting to explain why. Trade-policy uncertainty and cheaper industrial robots, working together, are restructuring global supply chains in ways that a decade of offshoring logic did not anticipate. That is the core argument of Marin’s recent work, co-authored in the Journal of International Economics in 2025. Her research shows that exposure to uncertainty in developing-country suppliers pushes production back to high-income countries, but only where robots have made it economically feasible. For a senior operations or strategy audience, this is a usable frame: reshoring is not a political mood, it is a measurable response to two forces that can be modelled. The wider body of work runs through Bruegel, CEPR, and a sustained Project Syndicate column. She has written continuously on the German economic model, the Eastern European production network built around it, and the inflationary and labour-market consequences of a partial retreat from globalisation. Her advisory work with the European Commission, the EBRD, and the IMF sits alongside the academic record rather than replacing it. She was Chair in International Economics at Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich for almost two decades before moving to TUM. Visiting appointments at Harvard, Stanford, NYU Stern, the IMF, and the NBER place her inside the network of economists who set the terms of the trade-policy debate. The value for a corporate audience is that she can connect that technical conversation to the question actually on the table: what does the next decade of supply-chain strategy look like when the old globalisation assumptions no longer hold. Key speaking topics Deglobalisation and the restructuring of global supply chains Automation, robots, and reshoring The German economic model and European competitiveness International trade policy and geopolitical risk Multinational firms and the organisation of global production Industrial policy in Europe and the United States Inflation, labour markets, and the economics of deglobalisation Ideal for Boards and executive committees reassessing supply-chain footprint in light of tariffs, geopolitical risk, and automation CSOs, Heads of Strategy, and COOs responsible for manufacturing and sourcing decisions in industrial and export-led businesses Policy forums, investor conferences, and economic summits focused on Europe, Germany, and the future of global trade Senior leadership in financial institutions and multinational corporates with significant exposure to Eastern Europe and the German industrial base Audience outcomes A clear read of the empirical evidence on reshoring, automation, and trade-policy uncertainty, rather than the headline narrative A sharper view of where the German economic model is strong and where it is exposed, with implications for anyone doing business across the European industrial network A working framework for assessing which parts of a supply chain are candidates for reshoring and which are not A grounded perspective on the macro-economic consequences of deglobalisation, including effects on inflation and labour markets Language and evidence that senior leaders can use in their own board conversations on geopolitical and trade exposure

Why organisations work with Christiana Figueres She ran the Paris Agreement negotiation directly – not as a consultant or commentator, but as the UN official accountable for the outcome. The political dynamics, the pressure points, and the coalition mechanics she describes are firsthand. Her “Stubborn Optimism” framework, introduced in The Future We Choose (Penguin Random House, 2020), gives leadership teams a named, deployable posture for climate action – one that moves beyond paralysis without slipping into greenwashing. She holds board positions at ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía, placing her at the intersection of executive decision-making and large-scale energy transition – not just policy theory. The Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation awarded her the Great Negotiator Award in 2022 – the same honour previously given to figures who shaped international law and treaty architecture. For leadership teams navigating multi-stakeholder climate commitments, that credential is directly relevant. Her network spans 195 national governments, financial institutions, and private sector actors – the precise ecosystem any organisation must understand when building a serious climate governance position. Biography highlights Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2010-2016 Principal architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement – unanimous adoption by 195 sovereign nations 2022 Great Negotiator Award, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School Co-author, The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimists’ Guide to the Climate Crisis (Penguin Random House, 2020) Honorary DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire), 2022; Legion of Honor of France, 2015 Fortune #7, World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, 2016; Time Top 100 Most Influential Leaders, 2016; Nature Journal Top 10, 2015 (ranked first) Chair, The Earthshot Prize Foundation, 2021-2026; Board member, ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía Graduate of Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics; honorary doctorates from Yale, Georgetown, University of Edinburgh, and University of Massachusetts; named to BBC 100 Women list, 2023 Biography In December 2015, 195 nations unanimously adopted the Paris Agreement on climate change. The UN official responsible for making that outcome possible was Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC from 2010 to 2016 – appointed six months after the catastrophic collapse of the Copenhagen summit, when the prospect of a global accord looked remote. The process she built over those six years is now documented in a Harvard Law School case study. What distinguished it was a systematic approach to coalition-building: drawing together governments, financial institutions, faith communities, scientists, and private sector actors through a model of collaborative diplomacy that broke the political deadlock that had stalled climate negotiations for a decade. The Harvard Program on Negotiation recognised this with the Great Negotiator Award in 2022 – placing her alongside figures who have shaped international law and treaty architecture. Her published work extends the argument beyond diplomacy. The Future We Choose (Penguin Random House, 2020), co-authored with Tom Rivett-Carnac, introduces “Stubborn Optimism” as a named framework for climate leadership – a gritty, reality-grounded mindset that allows executives and institutions to act decisively without being paralysed by the scale of the problem. Her TED talk on the concept has reached a wide professional audience, and the three-part structure of the book – mindsets, choices, actions – has become a practical reference point for organisations setting net-zero strategy. Figueres co-founded Global Optimism, co-hosts the Outrage + Optimism podcast, and serves on the boards of ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía. She holds honorary doctorates from Yale, Georgetown, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Massachusetts, and was named an Honorary DBE in 2022. Key speaking topics Global climate governance and the Paris Agreement Corporate net-zero strategy and climate risk Collaborative diplomacy and multi-stakeholder negotiation ESG strategy and climate-related regulatory exposure Energy transition policy and renewable energy investment Stubborn Optimism as a leadership framework Climate science communication and public persuasion Ideal for Boards and C-suite executives setting or stress-testing net-zero commitments Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leadership teams navigating disclosure requirements Government affairs and public policy functions tracking international climate regulation Financial institutions building climate-aligned investment frameworks Audience outcomes A working model of how global climate policy is made – and where corporate strategy intersects with it Direct insight into the negotiation architecture behind the Paris Agreement and its implications for current climate commitments A named, practical framework – Stubborn Optimism – for sustaining organisational climate action without paralysis or performance Clearer understanding of where international climate governance is heading and what that means for regulation, capital allocation, and competitive positioning Greater confidence in engaging regulators, investors, and international institutions on climate strategy

Why organisations work with Cate Trotter A working method, not a trend report. Trotter pairs structured signal analysis with a disciplined experimentation approach that gets innovation off the slide deck and into the P&L. Direct access to live retail signal infrastructure: Insider Trends runs on-the-ground retail safaris in London, New York, Paris and Seoul, used by senior teams at Chanel, Lego, Nike, Hugo Boss and Carrefour. A retail futures lens recognised by the industry’s own gatekeepers: Rethink Retail Top 100 Global Retail Influencer in 2021 and 2022, LinkedIn Top Voice, TechNation 200 Thought Leader. GINI Certified Chief Innovation Officer credentials applied to commercial problems, not abstract innovation theory. Useful for boards that have tired of innovation programmes that do not pay for themselves. Builds the bridge between AI hype and AI deployment that actually saves money, in language operators and finance teams can act on. Biography highlights Founder and Head of Trends, Insider Trends, a London-based retail futures agency operating retail safaris in London, New York, Paris and Seoul. Rethink Retail Top 100 Global Retail Influencer, 2021 and 2022. LinkedIn Top Voice and TechNation 200 Thought Leader. Future 100 Entrepreneur (Striding Out) and StartUp 100 Entrepreneur (Startups). GINI Certified Chief Innovation Officer. Client roster includes Chanel, Lego, Nike, Mercedes, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, Hugo Boss, Galeries Lafayette, Marks & Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover, Carrefour, L’Oreal, Unilever, Google and Meta. Biography Retail leaders rarely lack trend material. The Carrefour COO, the Hugo Boss board, and the senior teams at Chanel and Lego all have access to the same headline reports as everyone else. What they buy from Insider Trends is the layer underneath: the structured reading of signals that have not yet become headlines, and a method for acting on them before competitors do. Cate Trotter founded Insider Trends to close that gap. The firm runs in-person retail safaris in London, New York, Paris and Seoul, used by senior operators to ground strategic decisions in what is actually working on the shop floor and on the screen. Clients include Nike, Mercedes, Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, Marks & Spencer and Galeries Lafayette. Her method joins two disciplines that usually sit apart. A structured PESTLE-style reading of non-obvious signals on the front end, and a disciplined experimentation practice on the back end, drawn from her work as a GINI Certified Chief Innovation Officer. The result is innovation that earns its budget, rather than innovation as performance. Recent work focuses on AI deployments that operators can defend on commercial grounds, not on novelty. The industry has noticed. Rethink Retail named her a Top 100 Global Retail Influencer in 2021 and 2022. LinkedIn ranks her as a Top Voice. TechNation listed her among its 200 Thought Leaders. She speaks to audiences of up to 800 across Europe, the Americas and Asia, and frequently advises CEOs, COOs and boards directly, including the General Manager of L’Oreal France and the Chief Operations Officer of Carrefour. Key speaking topics Retail futures and customer experience Innovation as a managed commercial discipline AI deployment in retail and consumer-facing operations Trend signals and structured foresight Disciplined experimentation Digital transformation in retail Customer behaviour and consumer signals Ideal for Retail and consumer goods CEOs, COOs and boards setting innovation and customer experience priorities. Chief Innovation Officers and transformation leads under pressure to convert experiments into commercial returns. Chief Marketing and Customer Officers in consumer-facing categories. Leadership offsites at brands rethinking physical and digital retail formats. Audience outcomes A sharper read of the non-obvious signals shaping their category, separated from the noise of trend headlines. A repeatable method for converting trend insight into commercial experiments with measurable returns. Concrete examples of AI use cases in retail that have already paid for themselves. A clearer view of what the world’s best retail operators are actually doing differently. Confidence to retire innovation projects that exist for show and back the ones that move the P&L.

Why organisations work with Carmen Reinhart Her book This Time Is Different, built on 800 years of financial crisis data across 66 countries gives boards and investment committees a rigorous, empirically grounded framework for stress-testing assumptions about debt, inflation, and contagion that no shorter-horizon analysis can replicate. She has held decision-making authority inside each of the three institutions that matter most when crises hit: the IMF Research Department during the 1990s emerging-market crises, Bear Stearns during its formative years as a fixed-income house, and the World Bank during the COVID-19 sovereign debt emergency. Her peer-reviewed research on capital flow cycles, exchange rate regimes, and China’s overseas lending, published in the American Economic Review and Quarterly Journal of Economics provides organisations with evidence-based analysis rather than commentary. She translates systemic economic risk into the decisions boards and CFOs actually face: when elevated debt becomes a structural constraint on growth, how to read early-warning signals in capital markets, and why apparently unprecedented shocks tend to follow familiar historical scripts. Biography highlights Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System, Harvard Kennedy School Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, World Bank Group, 2020–2022 Senior Policy Advisor and Deputy Director, IMF Research Department Chief Economist and Vice President, Bear Stearns Co-author, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (with Kenneth Rogoff) – Paul A. Samuelson Award winner; CFR Arthur Ross Book Award, Gold Medal; translated into 20+ languages Elected member, Group of Thirty; Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics, Bank of Spain, 2018; NABE Adam Smith Award, 2018 Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of St Andrews, 2023 Ranked among the world’s top economists by Research Papers in Economics (RePec); listed among Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers and Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance Biography Financial crises follow patterns. That argument, demonstrated across 800 years of data and 66 countries in This Time Is Different, is the empirical foundation on which Carmen Reinhart built one of the most cited bodies of research in modern economics. The book, co-authored with Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, won the Paul A. Samuelson Award and the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award Gold Medal, and has been translated into more than 20 languages. Reinhart holds the Minos A. Zombanakis Professorship of the International Financial System at Harvard Kennedy School. She served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group from 2020 to 2022, leading the Development Economics Department at a moment of historically acute sovereign debt strain across developing economies. Earlier she was Senior Policy Advisor and Deputy Director in the IMF Research Department during the Asian and Latin American crisis cycles of the 1990s, and before that Chief Economist at Bear Stearns; a career that spans academic scholarship, active market practice, and multilateral policy responsibility in equal measure. Her research record covers capital flow cycles, exchange rate regimes, banking and sovereign debt crises, inflation, and contagion. A seminal paper with Graciela Kaminsky, published in the American Economic Review in 1999, identified the “twin crises” dynamic: the tendency for banking and currency crises to amplify one another, which became a standard reference in crisis analysis. More recent work on China’s overseas lending, co-authored with Sebastian Horn and Christoph Trebesch for the National Bureau of Economic Research, has directly shaped policy debates on developing-economy debt sustainability. Reinhart is an elected member of the Group of Thirty and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She received the King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics from the Bank of Spain and the NABE Adam Smith Award in 2018, and an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of St Andrews in 2023. Her analysis is published in Foreign Affairs, and her work is covered in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Key speaking topics Sovereign debt and financial crisis dynamics Global capital flows and exchange rate risk Post-crisis recovery and debt overhang Emerging-market and advanced-economy financial stability China’s overseas lending and developing-economy debt Historical patterns of boom, bust, and contagion International financial governance and multilateral institutions Ideal for CFOs, treasurers, and investment committees managing exposure to global economic risk Central banks, sovereign wealth funds, and multilateral institutions Board-level audiences in financial services and global corporates monitoring debt and capital market conditions Government and senior policy audiences focused on fiscal sustainability and financial system resilience Audience outcomes A historically grounded framework for recognising when current debt, inflation, or capital flow conditions mirror pre-crisis patterns Understanding of the structural mechanics that distinguish short-term economic disruption from prolonged sovereign debt impairment Sharper reading of emerging-market and advanced-economy risk through the lens of capital flow cycles and contagion effects Insight into how multilateral institutions – the IMF and World Bank – actually operate under pressure, and where their constraints lie A working model for applying long-run economic evidence to near-term organisational and investment decisions