the london speaker bureau directory usa 2014

“The only global speaker bureau.” The International New York Times

1

The London Speaker Bureau has the greatest

collection in the world of speaking talent

based outside the United States, making it the

only bureau to specialize geographically. Over

the past twenty years, we’ve traveled across

Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa to

curate an unrivaled collection of recognized

speakers and opinion leaders.

What they know will help you grow.

Tom Kenyon-Slaney

Founder and PresidentTHE LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU

2 The London Speaker Bureau, the world’s leading speaker agency network

CELEBRITY Basmah Bint Saud (HRH) 7Richard Branson (Sir) 8Jimmy Choo 9Pierluigi Collina 9Bob Geldof (Sir) 12Bianca Jagger 15Piers Morgan 26Youssou N’Dour 26Elif Shafak 32Nicholas Soames (Sir) 33Charles Spencer (Lord) 34Nadja Swarovski 35

FINANCELionel Barber 6Francois Baroin 6Jose Manuel Barroso 7Jonty Hurwitz 15 Bimal Jalan 15Michael Jordaan 16Mervyn King (Lord) 18Horst Kohler 18Alexei Kudrin 19Pascal Lamy 20Augusto Lopez Claros 21Gerard Lyons 22Pippa Malmgren 23Thomas Mayer 24Zanny Minton-Beddoes 25Jim O’Neill 28

Supachai Panitchpakdi 28Christopher Pissarides (Sir) 28Eisuke Sakaibara 31Xavier Sala-i-Martin 31Yashwant Sinha 33Peer Steinbrueck 34Jean-Claude Trichet 36Adair Turner (Lord) 37Linda Yueh 39

GOVERNMENTMartti Ahtisaari 4Mohamed Al Thani (Sheikh) 4 Michele Alliot-Marie 5Rafidah Aziz 5John Bruton 8Francois Fillon 12Joschka Fischer 12Yukio Hatoyama 14Jean-Claude Juncker 16APJ Abdul Kalam 16Vaclav Klaus 18Bernard Kouchner 19John Kufuor 19Ken Livingstone 21Peter Mandelson (Lord) 24David Miliband 24 Frédéric Mitterand 25Romano Prodi 29Jorge Quiroga 29George Robertson (Lord) 30

SELECTED SPEAKERS

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Han Seung-Soo 31Arun Shourie 33Jack Straw 35Heizo Takenaka 35Alejandro Toledo 36Yulia Tymoshenko 37Christian Wulff 39Li Zhaoxing 40

MANAGEMENT John Armitt (Sir) 5Jonathan Evans (Sir) 11Tony Fernandes 11R Gopalakrishnan (Gopal) 13Gordon Hewitt 14Mishal Kanoo 17Martin McCourt 23Padraig McManus 23Narayana Murthy 26Vineet Nayar 27Jim Noble 27David Reid (Sir) 30Joanna Shields (Baroness) 32Richard Shirreff (Sir) 32Jeroen van der Veer 38Annette Winkler 38Xiang Bing 39

MOTIVATION Nayla Al Khaja 4Felix Baumgartner 7

Boris Becker 8Linford Christie 10Liz Earle 10Andy Green 13Gerard Houllier 14James Kerr 17Beau Lotto 22Sugata Mitra 25Martina Navratilova 27Tenzin Priyadarshi (Venerable) 29Laura Tenison 36Mark Webber 38

SOCIETY Kinvara Balfour 6George Carey (Lord) 9FW de Klerk 10Mohamed ElBaradei 11Ben Hammersley 13Andrew Keen 17Ken Kutaragi 20Charles Leadbeater 20Jeremy Leggett 21Yury Luzhkov 22Hans Rosling 30Mark Stevenson 34Nontumbi Tutu 37Muhammad Yunus 40

SELECTED SPEAKERS

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As President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari led his country’s accession in 1995 to the Euro-pean Union. After leaving office in 2000, he led inspections of IRA arms dumps in Ireland; chaired an independent panel on the security and safety of UN personnel in Iraq; served as UN Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa; facilitated the peace process between the govern-ment of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement, and acted as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Kosovo. For these activities, Martti Ahtisaari was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008.

Nayla began her career as the host of a travel show on the Arabian Radio Network, then went to Canada to take a degree in film-making at Ryerson University. On graduation she returned to her native United Arab Emirates, where she overcame resistance to working women and produced her first documentary film, Unveiling Dubai (2004). In 2010 her screenplay for Malal won the Best Script Award at the Gulf International Film Festival; the movie was shot in Kerala later the same year. Her latest film, Three, was released to critical acclaim in 2013.

As Minister of Economy and Commerce (2003–2006), His Excellency Sheikh Mohamed Ahmed Jassim Al Thani liberal-ized Qatar’s trade within the World Trade Organization and negotiated free trade agree-ments with several nations. Prior to that, he held several senior posts with Qatar Petroleum, RasGas and QatarGas. He was the lead negotiator for long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) sales contracts with Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, Italy and Spain. Sheikh Mohamed is still an active international consult-ant who brings his insights to oil and gas conferences worldwide.

Martti Ahtisaari

GOVERNMENT MOTIVATION GOVERNMENT

Nayla Al Khaja Sheikh Mohamed Al Thani

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Michèle Alliot-Marie – known in the media as ‘MAM’ – is a French politician of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). A member of all but one of the right-wing governments of the 1980s, she was successively Minister of Defense, Minister of the Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs – the first woman in France to hold any of those positions. She has also been Minister for Youth and Sports, and Minister for Justice. Michèle is currently parliamentary deputy for Pyrénées-Atlantiques and deputy mayor of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, as well as vice-president of the UMP.

John is best known as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Author-ity for the London 2012 games. He was previously chairman of Laing’s international and civil engineering divisions and chief executive of Network Rail and Railtrack. He was later chief executive of Union Railways, the company that developed the high-speed Channel Tunnel rail link. Knighted in 2012, Sir John currently chairs National Express, the intercity coach operator. He is also deputy chairman of the Berkeley Group and a member of the Board of Transport for London and the Airports Commission.

Rafidah was Malaysia’s longest-serving minister of international trade and industry, having been in the position for 21 years from 1987 to 2008. During her time in office she helped many multinational corporations, including Intel, Western Digital, Panasonic and Samsung to set up manufacturing and research and development facilities in Malaysia. She also created the Small and Medium Industries Development Corporation (SMIDEC) to encourage domestic producers. Rafidah is currently patron of the Malaysia-Europe Forum and chair of AirAsia X, the low-cost regional airline.

Michèle Alliot-Marie

GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT

John Armitt Rafidah Aziz


Kinvara Balfour is one of Europe’s leading fashion, culture and style experts. As a ’consult-ant of cool’, she advises major corporations around the world on what is happening in the world of fashion, beauty and popular culture. Currently devel-oping a fashion-based docu-series for TV in the USA and UK, Kinvara also presents ‘Fashion In Conversation at the Apple Store’, a series of live interviews for Apple in London and New York with fashion superstars including Anna Wintour, Zac Posen, Anya Hindmarch, Natalie Massenet, Manolo Blahnik, Marchesa, Sandy Powell and Tom Ford.

Kinvara Balfour

SOCIETY

Lionel Barber began his career in journalism on The Scotsman daily newspaper. In 1981 he moved to The Sunday Times in London as a business correspondent. Four years later he joined the Financial Times and became its editor in 2005. Under his leadership, the FT pioneered the concept of the integrated newsroom in which reporters and editors work in both print and digital formats – a lead that all other papers soon followed. Lionel has interviewed numerous world leaders, includ-ing Barack Obama, Wen Jiabao, Dimitri Medvedev, Angela Merkel and Manmohan Singh.

A member of the French parlia-ment since 1993 and mayor of Troyes since 1995, François Baroin was senior political advisor to Jacques Chirac in 2004 and later served in four great French offices of state: Minister of Overseas Territories (2005–2007); Minister of the Interior (2007); Minister of Budget, Public Accounts and State Reform (2010–2011), and Minister of Economy, Finance and Industry (2011–2012). He is now greatly in demand as a speaker on all aspects of finance and economics, the euro, stability and regulation, growth, investment and infrastructure.

Lionel Barber

FINANCE FINANCE

François Baroin

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As a motivational speaker, Austrian Felix Baumgartner draws on experience that is literally out of this world: on October 14, 2012, he became the first human to parachute to Earth from outer space when he launched himself from a helium balloon 24 miles (39 km) above the New Mexico desert. During his nine-minute descent, he reached a maximum velocity of 843.6 mph (1,357.6 kmh) – Mach 1.25 – and thus also became the first human to break the sound barrier without the assistance of a vehicle. On terra firma, he is a member of the Audi Motorsport team.

Felix Baumgartner

MOTIVATION

José Manuel Durão Barroso was President of the European Com-mission from 2004-14. He was re-elected for a second five-year term in 2009. Barroso was a visiting professor at George-town University in the US from 1996-98. First elected to the Portuguese Parliament in 1985. he served as State Secretary for Home Affairs, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and Minister for Foreign Affairs. In 1999, he was elected Presi-dent of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and became the Leader of the Opposition. Barroso served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 2002-04.

Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz is the granddaughter of King Abdulaziz, founder of modern Saudi Arabia, and the youngest child of his son, King Saud (reigned 1953–1964). Since 2007 Her Royal Highness has pursued parallel careers as a journalist and an entrepreneur. She has written for numerous newspapers and periodicals including Sayidaty, a monthly style magazine in Arabic and English. She also established Inseed, an umbrella company for catering brands, and Ecco, a media organization. Her Global United Lanterns project pro-motes the education of women.

GOVERNMENT CELEBRITY

Jose Manuel Barroso Basmah bint Saud


After winning election to the Dáil Éireann in 1969 at the age of 22, John Bruton held several cabinet appointments, includ-ing Minister for Finance, before becoming Taoiseach in 1994. Over the next three years the Irish economy grew economy grew at an annual average rate of 8.7%. He remained a member of the Irish parliament until 2004, when he was appointed EU Commission Head of Delega-tion in the United States for a five-year term. He is currently chairman of IFSC Ireland, a private sector body set up to develop the nation’s financial services industry.

John Bruton

GOVERNMENT

Few people are better quali-fied to speak about leadership, teamwork and motivation than Boris, who shot to fame in 1985 as the youngest and the first unseeded player ever to win the Wimbledon men’s singles tennis championship. He went on to win a total of 49 career titles, including five further Grand Slam events. He also led West Germany to Davis Cup victories in 1988 and 1989, and won gold in the doubles (with Michael Stich) at the 1992 Olympics. Since retiring in 1999, Boris has divided his time between media work and running a tennis cloth-ing and equipment business.

Richard founded Student maga-zine while he was still at school. He then set up a mail order record retailer, which he named Virgin because of his lack of business experience. Next he opened a shop in London’s Oxford Street and a recording studio in Oxfordshire: the first album recorded there was Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Further expansion followed with the foundation of Virgin Atlantic, which is now Britain’s second largest long-haul airline. He was knighted in 2000. Sir Richard’s Virgin Group now comprises around 400 companies worldwide.

MOTIVATION CELEBRITY

Boris Becker Richard Branson

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George Carey was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, when he retired as spiritual leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans and was appointed a life peer. He then joined the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum and served as co-chair of the Council of 100, which seeks to bridge the gulf between the West and the Islamic world. Lord Carey is currently president of the United Church Schools Trust and United Learning, and chair and co-founder with Jim Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank, of the World Faiths Development Dialogue.

Born in 1961, Jimmy Choo began making shoes at the age of 11 in his father’s shop in Penang, Malaysia. He studied at Cordwainers College (now part of the London College of Fashion) and in 1986 set up his first factory in the British capital. His business struggled to begin with, and even an eight-page feature in Vogue magazine did little to improve his fortunes, but as soon as Diana, Princess of Wales, was seen in a pair of Jimmy Choos, sales took off and propelled him to wealth and stardom. His shoes featured prominently in the movie The Devil Wears Prada.

Pierluigi Collina is the former soccer referee who took charge of the 2002 World Cup Final in Yokohama, Japan, between Brazil and Germany. Since retiring from the game in 2006, he has combined his academic training as an economist with his experience of football to advise companies. His simple and effective creed may be summarized thus: analyze each team’s tactics to ensure you’re in the right place at the right time; defuse tension quickly and fairly; and learn from your mistakes, but resist the tempta-tion to make matters worse by compensating for them.

SOCIETY CELEBRITY CELEBRITY

George Carey Jimmy Choo Pierluigi Collina


A co-founder of the Food Labeling Agenda (FLAG), Liz Earle set up the beauty company that bears her name in 1995 and grew it into Britain’s largest skincare line, with more than 600 employees, most of them women. After selling the business to Avon in 2010, Liz created a range of ethically-sourced jewelry and an online lifestyle website. She is an active supporter of dermatology projects at institutions including Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and patron of ACE Africa. Her latest book, Juice!, is scheduled for publication in early 2015.

Europe’s greatest-ever 100m sprinter, Linford Christie won gold for Great Britain in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Since retirement from the track he has worked on TV, notably as CNN’s lead athletics commentator, and coached a host of emerging athletes, including five Britons in the 2012 London Olympics. He has also nurtured grass-roots talent through initiatives such as Street Athletics, which started in 2004 in Manchester and has since spread to 22 venues. He speaks compellingly about motivation, maximizing performance, goal-setting and human development.

MOTIVATIONMOTIVATION

Liz EarleLinford Christie

Succeeding P.W. Botha as Presi-dent of South Africa in 1989, Frederik Willem de Klerk led the dismantling of apartheid and the nation’s transition to major-ity rule under its first demo-cratically elected black leader, Nelson Mandela, with whom he shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize. Since retiring from politics in 1997, he has run the F.W. de Klerk Foundation, which is dedicated to the promotion of peace in multi-ethnic societies. He makes numerous speeches around the world and speaks at international conferences on the promotion of inter-racial harmony.

F.W. de Klerk

SOCIETY

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The founder in 2001 of Tune Air, Tony Fernandes later joined forces with three partners to buy AirAsia. They remodeled the Malaysian operator into a low-cost, no-frills airline that now operates more than 100 domestic and international flights daily and has entered successful joint ventures in Indonesia and Thailand. Away from aviation, Tony is President of the Asian Basketball League and revived the Lotus Formula One team before renaming it Caterham in 2012. In 2011, he took a majority shareholding in English soccer club Queens Park Rangers.

Tony Fernandes

MANAGEMENT

As Director General of MI5, the British security service from 2007 to 2013, Jonathan Evans ensured the safety of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. Previously he worked as both an investigator and an operational officer on a variety of threats to national security. He became the director respon-sible for MI5’s international counter-terrorism network just ten days before 9/11 in 2001. Knighted in 2013, Sir Jonathan is now a non-executive director of HSBC. He lectures widely and writes an occasional series on classic cars for the London weekly The Sunday Times.

MANAGEMENT

Jonathan Evans

Mohamed El Baredei was Direc-tor General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009. In 2005 he and the organization shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their diplomacy. After leaving the IAEA, Mohamed returned to his native Egypt where he founded the National Association for Change, a non-partisan group that works for democratic reform of the nation’s electoral system. He was interim vice-president in July 2013 after the toppling of President Mohamed Morsi, but resigned a month later in protest at the violent crackdown by security forces.

SOCIETY

Mohamed El Baredei


Bob was lead singer of The Boomtown Rats, the Dublin punk/new wave band that had two UK No 1 singles in the late 1970s. He then joined forces with Midge Ure of Ultravox to organize Live Aid, an unprec-edentedly ambitious benefit concert held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia in 1985 that raised millions of dollars for famine relief in Ethiopia. By 1992 he had established himself as a highly astute businessman with his co-ownership of the television production house Planet 24. He is now a top-ranked corporate and after-dinner speaker.

Bob Geldof

CELEBRITY

François Fillon is a member of the French center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). As Minister of Labor in 2002 he undertook controversial reforms of the 35-hour working week law and the retirement system. In 2004, as Minister of National Education, he controversially proposed excluding arts subjects from the core school curriculum. After he had helped Nicolas Sarkozy to victory in 2007, the new president appointed him prime minister. Resigning in 2012 after Sarkozy’s defeat to François Hollande he is co-Chair-man of the UMP and possible next President of France.

As Vice Chancellor and For-eign Minister of Germany (1998–2005), Joschka brought his Green Party to the center of the national political stage. After leaving government, he became a senior fellow at the Liechten-stein Institute on Self-Determi-nation, and a visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Since 2008 he has been a Senior Strategic Counsel of the Albright Group. He is a member of the Spinelli Group and the International Crisis Group and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT

François Fillon Joschka Fischer

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Ben is a journalist, futurist and technologist who advises governments and businesses on the effects of the Internet and explains complex technologi-cal and sociological topics to lay audiences. He is currently Innovator in Residence at the Centre for Creative and Social Technologies at Goldsmiths at the University of London; a faculty member of the School of Life; an academic fellow at the European Policy Centre; a non-executive director of Digital Jersey Ltd and principal of Onwards, Friend – a program to launch platforms for high-altitude and low-earth orbits.

SOCIETY

Ben Hammersley

After more than 30 years with Hindustan Unilever and then as Executive Director of Tata, Gopal, as he is generally known, has become one of India’s most experienced business leaders. Today, while retaining a seat on the Tata board, he also serves as an independent director of the Indian subsidiaries of Akzo Nobel and BP Castrol. He lectures all over the world and writes regularly in manage-ment journals and financial news-papers. He is the author of three books, including the celebrated The Case of the Bonsai Manager: Lessons from Nature on Growing.

Driving Richard Noble’s Thrust SSC (SuperSonic Car) in 1997, Andy Green set the world’s first and only supersonic land speed record of 763 mph, driving literally faster than a speeding bullet. Andy talks about the huge technological, practical and personal challenges that he and the team had to overcome in pursuit of the record. Andy is the chosen driver for the new BLOODHOUND SSC, which aims to exceed the incredible target of 1000 mph! With a highly developed education program this project is inspiring the next generation of young engineers and scientists.

MANAGEMENT MOTIVATION

R. Gopalakrishnan Andy Green


Yukio Hatoyama was prime minister of Japan for less than a year, but in that short time he achieved more than many national premiers manage in several full terms. He moved his country toward a more Asia-centered foreign policy and worked to deepen regional economic integration, pushing for a free trade zone by 2020 and proposing Tokyo’s Haneda Airport as a 24-hour hub for international flights. He also pledged to reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions by one-quarter by 2020, a more ambitious target than that of any other industrialized nation.

Gordon is Professor of Busi-ness Administration at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. His main interests are in global competition, corporate strategy, transformation and innovation. A leading authority on the challenges facing business leaders striving to create value in dynamic, complex markets, he has worked as a consultant on corporate strategy and top leadership development programs for Intel, Philips, RasGas, Ericsson, Pfizer, Time Warner, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, IBM, Sony, Honeywell, Shell, Verizon, Adobe, Diageo, Bosch and Credit Suisse.

Gérard is a football coach who has managed Paris Saint-Germain (leading them to the league title in his first season in charge), Liverpool (who, under his guidance in 2001 won a unique treble of the UEFA Cup, the FA Cup and the League Cup), Olympique Lyonnais and Aston Villa, as well as the French National Team. Since 2012 he has overseen Red Bull’s soccer clubs in New York, Salzburg, Leipzig and Brazil in his role as the company’s head of global football. A holder of the French Légion d’Honneur and a British OBE, Gérard lectures on strategy, teamwork and training.

Yukio Hatoyama

GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT MOTIVATION

Gordon Hewitt Gérard Houllier

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Jonty is a leading financial and technological innovator, and a highly successful entrepreneur. In 2007 he co-founded Wonga.com, the multi-award-winning online, short-term money-lender that grew to a staggering value of £384 million ($647 million) in just five years. Previously he was the lead designer of Statpro Revolution, one of the world’s leading cloud-based analytics platforms for fund managers. He also worked at Global Asset Management for Gilbert de Botton, designing reporting systems to allow complex financial instruments to be analyzed visually.

Bianca Jagger is founder and chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation. She is also a goodwill ambassador for the Council of Europe and a member of Amnesty Interna-tional USA’s Leadership Council. In 2004 she received the Right Livelihood Award for her ‘dedicated campaigning over a wide range of issues of human rights, social justice and envi-ronmental protection, including the abolition of the death penalty, the prevention of child abuse, the rights of indigenous peoples to the environment and the prevention and healing of armed conflicts’.

Renowned for his successful reforms, commitment to public service and pragmatism, Dr Bimal Jalan is one of India’s most distinguished economists. He was governor of the Reserve Bank of India (1997–2003), and later a nominated member of the Raiya Sahba, the upper house of India’s parliament. In 2013 he was nominated to lead a three-member committee to scrutinize applications for new bank licenses. An impressive speaker on a wide range of topics, he is frequently invited to chair and address conferences and events all over the world.

Jonty Hurwitz

FINANCE CELEBRITY FINANCE

Bianca Jagger Bimal Jalan


After his appointment, aged 36, as CEO of First National Bank (FNB), Michael oversaw the South African company’s move away from traditional banking toward ecosystem-centric solutions for customers. In 2009 he won the Association of Business Communicators’ regional Excel Award for ‘On MJ’s Mind’, his employee communication program. He left FNB in 2013 to pursue his passion for entrepreneurship, and now heads Montegray Capital, a start-up private invest-ment company, and is actively involved in Mxit, the mobile messaging company.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s election in 2014 as president of the European Commission was the crowning achievement of a distinguished career that began in 1984 when he became a deputy in the parliament of his native Luxembourg. As the country’s minister for finance, he was a key architect of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, and was largely responsible for its clauses on economic and monetary union. While prime minister of Luxembourg (1995–2013), he served terms as governor of the World Bank, head of the IMF and president of the European Council.

Dr Kalam is renowned as the aerospace engineer who became president of India. As project director of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in the 1970s, he developed the nation’s first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-3). He then advised his govern-ment on its missile and nuclear weapons program. In 2002 he ran for president as the National Democratic Alliance candidate and won the ensuing election by a big majority. Since leaving office in 2007, Dr Kalam has written several books and gained distinction as a motivational speaker.

Michael Jordaan

FINANCE GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT

Jean-Claude Juncker A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

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James Kerr is a bestselling author, speaker and business consultant who specializes in defining, designing and delivering change for leaders of organizations of all types. In his acclaimed book Legacy (2013), he reveals 15 leadership lessons to be learned from the All Blacks, the New Zealand national rugby side and the world’s most successful sport-ing team. His corporate clients include HSBC, Boeing, Raffles, UBS and Shell. In sport, he has worked with UEFA, Team Origin, the Rugby Football Union, Adidas and the Australian Kangaroos.

Andrew Keen is the pioneering Silicon Valley-based Internet entrepreneur who founded Audiocafe.com and built it into a popular first-generation Internet music company. He has also co-founded a number of other Silicon Valley start-up ventures including afterTV and now.tv. He is currently the host of Keen On, the Techcrunch chat show, where he interviews global business luminaries. He has been featured in hundreds of magazines and newspapers around the world and regularly writes for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian.

Mishal Kanoo is deputy chairman of the Kanoo Group, one of the largest family-owned companies in the Middle East, with interests in financial services, shipping, travel, machinery, logistics, oil and gas, ports, power, and chemicals. He is a futurist and a strategist with an impressive track record that includes predicting that gold was overpriced long before Warren Buffet mentioned it and perceiving early that the Arab Spring in Egypt was not a revolution, ‘just a change of face’. As an advisor, his recent clients have included Shell, Nestlé and Proctor & Gamble.

James KerrAndrew KeenMishal Kanoo

MOTIVATIONSOCIETYMANAGEMENT


Václav worked as an economist with the Czechoslovak State Bank and the Czech Academy until 1989, when he was lured into politics by the unfolding Velvet Revolution that brought about the fall of communism. He became minister of finance in the new democratic govern-ment and then in 1992 prime minister of Czechoslovakia. After the Velvet Divorce, in which Slovakia became an inde-pendent nation, Václav became prime minister of the new Czech Republic and led its conversion to the free market. In 2003 he was elected president and remained in office until 2013.

After four years as head of the International Monetary Fund, Horst Köhler became President of Germany in 2004 and remained in office until 2010. Previously, he had been closely involved in the process of German reunification in 1990 and was deputy governor for Germany at the World Bank. As deputy minister of finance in 1991, he led negotiations on behalf of the German govern-ment on the agreement that in the following year became the Maastricht Treaty on European economic and monetary union, the foundation of the modern euro currency.

GOVERNMENT FINANCE

Václav Klaus Horst Köhler

Mervyn King was Governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to 2013 and also a member of the General Council of the European Central Bank. Many aspects of the Bank of England’s work that we today take for granted were his invention, including inflation targeting, which is now practiced across the world. Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke described him as the ‘intellec-tual rock’ on which this policy was built. Awarded a life peer-age on retirement, Lord King is now a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Business and Law at New York University.

FINANCE

Mervyn King

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A doctor by training, Bernard held many government posts in France and was ultimately minister of foreign and Euro-pean affairs. A co-founder and former president of Médecins Sans Frontières, he was the first person to challenge the Red Cross’s stance of neutrality and silence in wars and massacres. He convinced the UN to accept ‘the right to interfere’, and after the wars in the Balkans served as special representative to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Kosovo. Bernard continues to promote universal access to medical care and takes part in the fight against AIDS.

As Russian minister of finance (2000–2011), Alexei Kudrin championed the free market and introduced prudent fiscal management and commitment to tax and budget reform, innovations that enabled Russia to repay most of its substantial foreign debt. Much of the revenue from exports was accumulated at the Stabilization Fund, which helped Russia to come out of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis in much better shape than experts had predicted. After leaving office, Alexei took up senior supervi-sory roles at Sberbank and the Russian Central Bank.

As President of Ghana (2001–2009), John Kufuor restored democracy to his country after a period of military dictatorship. He implemented major changes in education and healthcare and led infrastructure develop-ment. He was also influential elsewhere in Africa, helping to end the civil war in Sierra Leone, accelerating the fall of Charles Taylor in Liberia, and heading the commission that created a new constitution in Kenya. President Kufuor is now chair of the Interpeace Govern-ing Council and co-chair of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition.

Bernard Kouchner

GOVERNMENT FINANCE GOVERNMENT

Alexei Kudrin John Kufuor


Former labor editor of the Financial Times and assistant editor of The Independent, Charlie became British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s favourite corporate thinker, for whom he drafted Our Competitive Future: Building the Knowledge Driven Economy, one of the world’s first policy papers to contend that advanced econo-mies would become increasingly dependent on innovation for growth. He has since helped other governments to spot new ideas ahead of time. Charlie is a long-standing senior research associate with London think tank Demos, and his TED talks on innovation have been watched by millions.

Charlie Leadbeater

SOCIETY

Pascal Lamy rose through the French civil service to become advisor to Jacques Delors, who was then minister of economy and finance. When Delors became president of the Euro-pean Commission (EC) in 1984, he took Pascal with him as his head of cabinet. After 10 years in Brussels, Pascal helped to rescue Crédit Lyonnais from its financial crisis and became the bank’s CEO up to its privatiza-tion in 1999. He then returned to the EC as commissioner for trade. Between 2005 and 2013, Pascal served two terms as director general of the World Trade Organization.

FINANCE

Pascal Lamy

In 1990 the former chairman and group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment created the SPC700 sound chip that displaced Nintendo and Sega as market leaders and elevated video games from a passing fad into an almost universal must-have. Ken Kutaragi is known in the industry as ‘the father of the PlayStation’. He remains an advisor to Sony, but is now principally occupied as president and CEO of Internet services company Cyber AI Entertainment Inc and as an external director at Marvelous AQL.

SOCIETY

Ken Kutaragi

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Augusto was professor of economics at the University of Chile, Santiago, before moving to the International Monetary Fund, where he was responsible for the implementation of a multi-billion dollar program of assistance to Russia. For many years he was editor of the World Economic Forum’s Global Com-petitiveness Report. He is the founder of EFD Global Consult-ing Network, which specializes in economic, financial and development issues. Currently director of Global Indicators and Analysis at the World Bank, Augusto is greatly in demand as a media commentator.

Augusto Lopez-Claros

FINANCE

Jeremy trained as a geologist and worked for Shell and BP before becoming a green energy entrepreneur with an unmatched ability to combine social aware-ness and profit-making. He is founder and chairman of Solar-century, one of Europe’s fastest-growing renewable energy companies, and founder of SolarAid, a charity that teaches young Africans how to make, sell, and use solar lanterns. He is also chairman of the Carbon Tracker Initiative think tank and the founding director of New Energies Invest AG, the world’s first private equity investment fund for renewables.

As the first elected mayor of London (2000–2008), former Labour MP Ken Livingstone was praised for upgrading the city’s aging bus and tube network, levying a congestion charge on motor vehicles in the central area, and introducing chip-operated city-wide travel tickets (‘Oyster cards’) and bus and cycle lanes. In 2005 he became the first chair of the C40 group, which brought the leaders of the world’s greatest cities together to determine methods of reduc-ing greenhouse gas emissions. He now speaks widely about the environment, investment, public transport and sustainability.

SOCIETY GOVERNMENT

Jeremy Leggett Ken Livingstone


Over the last quarter of a century Dr Gerard Lyons has been ahead of the game in predicting major economic trends: the financial crisis, challenges in the euro zone, Japan’s lost decade, low interest rates and the shift in the balance of power toward China and other emergent countries. In 2010 and 2011 Bloomberg ranked him No 1 global forecaster (out of more than 360). Formerly chief economist and group head of global research at Standard Chartered, Gerard is currently chief economic advisor to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London.

Gerard Lyons

FINANCE

Beau Lotto is a neuroscientist whose projects and programs help people to ‘see differ-ently’ and thus become more adaptable in the ever-changing educational and business environments. In addition to his role as director of the Change Lab at University College, London, Beau is co-director of Beautiful Mind, an innovation consultancy, and CEO of Ripples Inc, a Silicon Valley start-up that unites neuroscience, behavioral research and digital technol-ogy. He created the first public perception lab at the London Science Museum and has exhib-ited at the Hayward Gallery.

Yury Luzhkov is best known internationally as the former mayor of Moscow. During his 18 years in office (1992–2010), he transformed the Russian capital through a dramatic increase in the amount of construction of residential and commercial buildings as well as major improvements to the urban infrastructure. He modernized the inner city streets and ordered the creation of a new orbital road (the third) around the city. He also oversaw the long hoped-for reconstruc-tion of Christ the Savior Cathe-dral, which was destroyed by Stalin’s regime in 1931.

MOTIVATION SOCIETY

Beau Lotto Yuri Luzhkov

23

Pippa was financial market advisor to George W. Bush in the run-up to the 2000 U.S. presidential election and after the Republican victory became his special assistant on the National Economic Council. She then ran strategy for several investment banks and currently advises the world’s largest institutional investors on risk. As a speaker she reveals her knowledge of what she calls ‘the inside baseball’ on policy issues. One of her key themes is that there are only two forces in the world economy: the power to generate a profit and the power to tax it.

Pippa Malmgren

FINANCE

Martin is best known as the CEO who transformed Dyson from a single-market producer ofvacuum cleaners into a com-pany that gathers 80% of its business from 52 markets around the world. He was named Orange Business Leader of the Year in 2010 and in 2011 Dyson achieved £1 billion ($1.7 billion) in revenue. He was later a director of the private equity firm Montagu and is currently chairman of three companies: CAP, automotive intelligence-gatherer, CliniSys, pan-European supplier of IT to clinical labora-tories, and the Dutch Ophthal-mic Research Center.

During his 10 years as chief executive of Ireland’s Electric-ity Supply Board (ESB), Padraig directed the company’s first private placement fundraising package in the United States. He also led the sale of a tranche of ESB’s power generation portfolio to Endesa of Spain in a ground-breaking deal with trade unions and the regulator. Finally he masterminded the acquisi-tion of NIE Networks from the Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank. Since retirement in 2012, Padraig has been the non-executive chairman of Eircom and has led volunteer groups to rebuild schools in Ghana.

MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT

Martin McCourt Padraig McManus


After graduating from Oxford with a first in PPE, David took a master’s degree at MIT. He became an MP in 2001, and went on to hold several ministe-rial roles, including Foreign Sec-retary. Since leaving parliament in 2010, he has been president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, a New York-based non-profit humanitarian organization. David recently set up Movement for Change, which is training 10,000 community organizers in the UK. He regularly lectures at MIT, and participates in semi-nars with Condoleezza Rice at Stanford University.

David Miliband

GOVERNMENT

Peter’s political career has been full of landmark achievements. As UK Secretary of Trade and Industry he introduced the national minimum wage. Later, as Secretary of State for North-ern Ireland, he negotiated the creation of a new power-sharing government and overhauled the province’s police service. In 2004 he was appointed Britain’s EU Commissioner for Trade. At the end of his term in Brussels he entered the House of Lords as Baron Mandelson of Foy. He is currently chairman of Lazard investment bank and president of Policy Network, an interna-tional think tank.

Thomas held positions at the International Monetary Fund and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy before entering the private sector. He worked for Salomon Brothers and Goldman Sachs in London before joining Deutsche Bank in 2002, where he was chief economist until 2012 and is now senior eco-nomics advisor to the bank’s top management and elite clients. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for Financial Studies in Frankfurt. During the financial crisis that began in 2008, his accurate predictions made him greatly in demand as a media commentator.

GOVERNMENT FINANCE

Peter Mandelson Thomas Mayer

25

Frédéric Mitterrand spent three years as professor of economics, history and geography at the Instituts d’Études politiques in France before deciding to follow his dream and start a new career as a theatrical manager and entrepreneur. He has since branched out further in several directions to become the successful author of several books, including a controversial and compelling memoir, The Bad Life, and written, directed and produced a host of films and television programs. From 2009 to 2012, he was the French minister of culture and communications.

Frédéric Mitterrand

GOVERNMENT

Zanny Minton Beddoes was an advisor to the minister of finance in Poland and then spent two years at the Interna-tional Monetary Fund, where she worked on macroeconomic adjustment programs in Africa and the transition economies of Eastern Europe. In 1994 she joined The Economist, of which she is currently economics editor, and in 1998 testified before the US Congress on the introduction of the euro. She is a trustee of the Carnegie Endow-ment for International Peace and a member of the Research Advisory Board of the Commit-tee for Economic Development.

Formerly a visiting professor at MIT and currently profes-sor of educational technology at Newcastle University, Sugata Mitra is at the forefront of a new approach to teaching that chal-lenges traditional methods. He was the winner of the 2013 TED Prize. He is best known for his ‘hole in the wall’ (ATM) experi-ment, in which an Internet-con-nected PC was left, apparently unobserved, in an urban slum in Delhi. Almost immediately, chil-dren began playing with the com-puter and in the process taught each other how to use it and get online. This was the inspiration for Slumdog Millionaire.

FINANCE MOTIVATION

Zanny Minton Beddoes Sugata Mitra


Youssou is a singer, percussion-ist, songwriter and composer who in 2012 mobilized his vast fanbase against Abdoulaye Wade, the incumbent President of Senegal who was planning to change the constitution in order to reinstall himself for a third seven-year term. After Wade was defeated in the subsequent election, incoming president Macky Sall rewarded Youssou for his support by appointing him minister of tourism and cul-ture. In addition to his cabinet post, Youssou is an ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and owns an influential media group.

Youssou N’Dour

CELEBRITY

Piers Morgan first found fame in 1994 when he was appointed editor of the British Sunday newspaper The News of the World at the age of 28 – the youngest Fleet Street editor for more than half a century. A year later he became editor of the Daily Mirror, where he remained in charge for nine years. He then worked mainly in the United States, most notably as host of Piers Morgan Tonight, a chat show that ran on CNN from 2011 to 2014. He still appears regularly on television on both sides of the Atlantic and has written four best-selling volumes of memoirs.

Hailed by Fortune magazine in 2012 as one of the 12 great-est entrepreneurs of our time, Narayana Murthy is the Indian industrialist and software engineer who founded Infosys Limited, a global software con-sulting company headquartered in Bangalore, and took it from start-up in 1981 to NASDAQ listing in 1999. He now sits on the boards of HSBC, the Ford Foundation, the Rhodes Trust, the Indian School of Business and the UN Foundation. He was the 2012 recipient of the Hoover Medal, awarded for ‘out-standing extra-career services by engineers to humanity’.

CELEBRITY MANAGEMENT

Piers Morgan Narayana Murthy

27

Jim Noble is one of the world’s foremost IT thought leaders. He started with GE on the design of aircraft systems and then went to General Motors, where he was chief technology strategy officer in Detroit. In 2012 he was winner of CIO magazine’s 2012 annual award for technol-ogy innovation and in 2013 he was voted #7 Most Influential Technology Executive by Forbes magazine. He was global head of IT for BP, managing director of IT for Merrill Lynch, group vice president and CIO of Altria Group (Philip Morris and Kraft), and senior vice president and CIO at AOL Time Warner.

MANAGEMENT

Jim Noble

Widely acknowledged as the greatest woman tennis player of all time, Martina Navratilova – Czech-born, but a U.S. citizen since 1981 – won a record 168 pro singles titles, including 18 Grand Slam events and 165 doubles titles between 1975 and 2006. Since her retirement she written three mystery novels and been an articulate and energetic supporter of non-profit environmental organizations and charities that support underprivileged children and promote gay rights. She is also active on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

As CEO of HCL Technologies, Vineet expanded the company to a level where it employed more than 85,000 people in 32 countries and had a global turnover of $4.7 billion (£2.8 billion). He featured in Fortune magazine’s first ‘Executive Dream Team’, and his manage-ment practices are case studies at Harvard Business School and the London Business School. He also established the Sampark Foundation for education. Vineet is currently a senior advi-sor to the McKinsey Leadership Institute, and is on the advisory panel of INSEAD’s Global Talent Competitiveness Index.

MOTIVATION MANAGEMENT

Martina Navratilova Vineet Nayar


Formerly with Bank of America, International Treasury Manage-ment (a division of Marine Mid-land Bank) and the Swiss Bank Corporation, where he was head of global research, Jim O’Neill is currently chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He has been a member of the board of Bruegel since the Brussels-based policy research think tank was founded in 2005, and is involved in numerous voluntary organizations, especially those such as Teach for All which specialize in education. He is also chairman and a founding trustee of SHINE, the London-based spina bifida charity.

Supachai completed his doc-toral dissertation on human resource planning and develop-ment under the supervision of Jan Tinbergen, the first Nobel laureate in economics. As deputy prime minister of Thailand (1992–1995), Supachai shaped several regional agree-ments, including the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM). He then served as Director-General of the World Trade Organization and Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Sir Christopher Pissarides specializes in the economics of labor markets, macroeconomic policy, economic growth and structural change. For his work on the economics of markets with frictions, he was joint winner, with Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University and Peter Diamond of MIT, of the 2010 Nobel Prize in econom-ics. He is Regius Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, Professor of Euro-pean Studies at the University of Cyprus, Chairman of the Council of National Economy of the Republic of Cyprus and a fellow of the British Academy.

Jim O’Neill

FINANCE FINANCE FINANCE

Supachai Panitchpakdi Christopher Pissarides

29

Tenzin is a Buddhist monk renowned for his humanitarian aid and conflict resolution work, and for his expertise in the leadership, ethics, philosophy and cultural understanding. He is founder and director of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, and the founding director and president of the Prajnopaya Institute and Foundation, a worldwide humanitarian organi-zation. He has been actively involved in inter-religious dialogue with popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Tibetan Bud-dhist leader Gyalwang Karmapa.

Romano was twice prime minister of Italy (1996–1998 and 2006–2008) and president of the European Commission (EC; 1999–2004). Originally professor of economics at the University of Bologna, he entered government as minister for industry in 1978. Having won the premiership at the head of a center-left coalition, he privatized telecommunications and reformed employment and pension policies. After a five-year term at the EC he returned to Italy and won another elec-tion, but resigned again after only 20 months. He is currently UN special envoy for the Sahel.

Jorge Fernando ‘Tuto’ Quiroga Ramírez graduated in 1981 from Texas A&M University with a degree in engineering. He then entered politics in his native Bolivia, of which he was President from August 7, 2001 to August 6, 2002. Since leaving office, he has worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He is a member of the Club de Madrid, a group of more than 80 former presidents and prime ministers of democratic countries, which works to promote leadership and govern-ance in emerging countries all over the world.

Tenzin Priyadarshi

MOTIVATION GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT

Romano Prodi Jorge Quiroga


David Reid qualified as an accountant and then worked for Philips and International Stores before becoming first finance director and later chairman of supermarket chain Tesco. He retired from the latter role in 2011 and was knighted in the following year for services to charity. Sir David is now chair-man of Whizz-Kidz, a charity that provides mobility equip-ment for disabled children, and the Intertek Group plc, a global quality and safety services provider. He is also a member of the advisory board of Jefferies International, a securities and investment banking group.

British Labour politician George Robertson was UK defense secretary under Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1997 to 1999, when he was elevated to the peerage as Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and became Secretary General of NATO. Since 2004 he has been a special advisor to several companies, including BP and the Cohen Group (USA), and was deputy chairman of Cable and Wireless. He is also a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Centre for European Reform and the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, Hans Rosling is founder of the Gapminder Foundation, which makes statistical data freely available and easily under-standable online. Hans created Trendalyzer, a software product that unveils the beauty of statis-tics by turning boring numbers into animations and interactive graphics. His presentations transform development statis-tics into moving bubbles and flowing curves that make global trends clear and even playful. As a sideline, he is also an accom-plished sword-swallower, a skill he demonstrated at TED 2007.

David Reid

MANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT SOCIETY

George Robertson Hans Rosling

31

Professor Eisuke Sakakibara is an economist who has worked for both the International Monetary Fund and the ministry of finance in his native Japan. He is often known by the sobriquet ‘Mr Yen’ because of his influence over the currency markets. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Taylor’s Award from the University of Michigan, where he took his undergradu-ate degree, and the Bintang Mahaputra Utama from the government of Indonesia. He appears frequently on Japanese television and is quoted widely in the Western press.

Xavier is professor of economics at Columbia University and chief economic advisor to the World Economic Forum. He was a con-sultant to the International Mon-etary Fund and the World Bank (1993–2004) and a researcher at the Centre for European Policy Research (1992–2004). He was also a board member and treasurer of Barcelona FC between 2004 and 2010, and president of the club during the three-month electoral process in 2006. He is the founder of two non-profit organizations: Umbele, which promotes economic development in Africa, and CEOs Without Borders.

Prime minister of South Korea (2008–2009), Dr Seung-Soo entered politics after a distinguished career as professor of economics at Seoul National University and Korean ambassador to the United States. He is the founding chair of the United Nations Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) and the Secretary-General’s special envoy on Disaster Risk Reduction and Water. He also chairs the advisory board of the International Forum of China and is an independent non-executive director of Standard Chartered plc.

Eisuke Sakakibara

FINANCE FINANCE GOVERNMENT

Xavier Sala-i-Martin Han Seung-Soo


Elif is an award-winning novel-ist and Turkey’s most popular woman author. She writes in both English and Turkish, and her work has been translated into more than 40 languages. She is also a political commen-tator who has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, Die Zeit, La Repubblica, The Independent, the Financial Times and Time magazine. She is a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, a TED global speaker and a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. In addition, she has more than one and a half million followers on Twitter.

A joint US/British citizen, Joanna spent more than 25 years in Sili-con Valley building some of the world’s best-known technology companies, including Electron-ics for Imaging, RealNetworks, Google, AOL and Facebook, and led several companies, includ-ing Bebo, Decru and Veon, from start-up to successful acquisi-tion. She is currently British Prime Minister David Cameron’s advisor on the digital economy, chair of Tech City UK and director of the London Stock Exchange Group. She heads an Anglo-American government task force to combat online sexual exploitation of children.

General Sir Richard Shirreff was Deputy Supreme Com-mander NATO Europe from 2010 to 2014. Born in Kenya and educated at Oundle School and Oxford University, he fought in the First Gulf War as a tank squadron leader and in Iraq as a divisional commander. He also served in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan, working at strategic level with coalition partners. Now retired from the British army, Sir Richard lectures on strategy at the London Business School and gives talks to com-panies and institutions about leadership from the front.

Elif Shafak

CELEBRITY MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT

Joanna Shields Richard Shirreff

33

As India’s finance minister (1990–1991 and 1998–2002), Yashwant Sinha transformed the nation’s economy by lowering interest rates, introducing tax deduction for mortgage interest, and deregulating the telecom-munications and petroleum industries. These measures are believed to have done more than any others to kick-start India’s emergence as a world economic power. Yashwant was later minister of external affairs (2002–2004). At the end of his time in office he wrote a celebrated volume of memoirs, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer (2007).

Arun Shourie started out as an economist with the World Bank and later became an award-winning investigative journalist. As editor of The Indian Express he was acclaimed as one of 50 World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute. He subsequently pioneered privatization while serving as his country’s minister of disin-vestment, communications and information technology. Since leaving parliament, Arun has been a political columnist and written books on constitutional law, modern Indian history, reli-gious fundamentalism, govern-ance and national security.

A grandson of Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames went to school at Eton and then served in the British army before becoming a stockbroker, working for a time for US Senator Mark Hatfield. In 1983 he was elected to parliament and later served as a Defense minister under Conservative prime minister John Major. He was knighted in the Queen’s 2014 birthday honors. Away from Westminster, Sir Nicholas is chairman of Aegis, a private security contractor, and a director of the Lloyd’s brokers Bland Welch. He is a lifelong friend and confidante of Prince Charles.

Yashwant Sinha

FINANCE GOVERNMENT CELEBRITY

Arun Shourie Nicholas Soames


Charles Spencer was the only brother of Diana, Princess of Wales. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he worked as a reporter on NBC from 1986 until 1991 and from 1993 to 1995. An accomplished author, his pub-lished books include Blenheim: Battle for Europe (2004), which was shortlisted for History Book of the Year at the 2005 National Book Awards. He also writes features and book reviews for a wide range of publications. His numerous worldwide speaking engagements have included addresses to top employees of the British Tourist Authority and Equitable Life.

Peer Steinbrück is an economist and a German social democrat (SPD) politician who was finance minister from 2005 to 2009 in the coalition government of the conservative (CDU) Chancellor Angela Merkel. One of Peer’s major achievements in office was the introduction of tax identification numbers, which had been mooted for many years. He was also a sharp critic of banking secrecy, thereby causing tension in 2009 between his country and Switzerland. Since leaving office, Peer has remained a prominent speaker for the SPD in the German Bundestag.

Mark shows institutions, gov-ernments, corporations and schools all over the world how the future will impact on them. He makes complex or abstract concepts and trends under-standable by non-specialists. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Nibmaster General at the Ministry of Stories and founder of The League of Pragmatic Optimists, an organization that creates places ‘where people who want to make the world better can meet, generate ideas and projects, get inspiration and find collaborators’.

Earl Spencer

CELEBRITY FINANCE SOCIETY

Peer Steinbrück Mark Stevenson

35

Jack Straw trained as a lawyer before becoming a member of parliament. He was successively British Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons under Prime Minister Tony Blair and then Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown. Having decided to stand down at the 2015 general election after 36 years as an MP, Jack will in future devote more time to consultancy work with global commodity broker ED&F Man and to giving lectures on post-9/11 terrorism and relations with India and Pakistan.

Nadia Swarovski – a German-born Austrian who was educated in the United States – sits on the board of the crystal manufactur-ing company founded in 1895 by her great-great-grandfather, Daniel. In 2007 she launched Atelier Swarovski, which produces high-end jewelry in collaboration with top designers including Zaha Hadid and Karl Lagerfeld. Since 2012 Nadia has supervised Swarovski’s global corporate responsibility, particu-larly the work of the Swarovski Foundation. She is also chair of Swarovski Entertainment Ltd, the company’s movie produc-tion division.

As Japan’s minister for economic and fiscal policy, Professor Takenaka restructured public finance and privatized Yucho, the savings division of the national Post Bank, which was at the time the largest financial organization in the world. The effects of his austerity measures could only otherwise have been achieved by a 9% increase in tax. He returned to academia in 2006 and is now director of the Global Security Research Insti-tute and a member of the board of the World Economic Forum. He is also a regular newspaper columnist and broadcast media commentator.

Jack Straw

GOVERNMENT CELEBRITY GOVERNMENT

Nadja Swarovski Heizo Takenaka


As founder and managing director of JoJo Maman Bébé, Laura Tenison has grown the company organically from its start-up in 1993 into the UK’s foremost niche multi-channel specialist in the pregnancy and baby market with 60 stores in Britain and sales to more than 60 countries worldwide. In line with her ethical approach to commerce, which ensures that the welfare of people and the planet is ranked above profit, Laura is also a trustee of Nema, the company charity that works to reduce infant mortality in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in Africa.

Born into extreme poverty, Alejandro Toledo rose via a degree at Stanford University and jobs at the World Bank, the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank and the United Nations to become in 2001 the first democratically elected indigenous head of state in his native Peru. During his presi-dency, he turned the country into one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America and invested heavily in healthcare and education. At the end of his five-year term he founded the Global Center for Develop-ment and Democracy, of which he is president.

Jean-Claude Trichet was president of both the Bank of France (1993–2003) and the European Central Bank (2003–2011). He is currently a director of the Bank for International Settlements and chairman of both the Group of Thirty (the consultative body on international economic and monetary affairs) and Bruegel (the Brussels-based policy research think tank). Widely acclaimed for his policy-making, Jean-Claude was named ‘Person of the Year’ by the Financial Times (2007) and ranked by Newsweek in 2008 as the fifth most powerful man in the world.

Laura Tenison

MOTIVATION GOVERNMENT FINANCE

Alejandro Toledo Jean-Claude Trichet

37

As a director of McKinsey, Adair Turner built the global manage-ment consultancy’s practice in Eastern Europe and Russia after the fall of communism. He was later vice-chairman of Merrill Lynch Europe and director general of the Confederation of British Industry. In 2008 he became chair of the UK Financial Ser-vices Authority and guided Brit-ain’s banks through the global crisis. Lord Turner is currently a senior fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and a visiting professor at both the London School of Economics and Cass Business School.

It is unsurprising that a woman who grew up under apartheid and is the daughter of Nobel Prize Winning Desmond Tutu, should have turned out to be an activist for human rights. Naomi has been a development consultant in West Africa and a coordinator for programs at the University of Cape Town on race and gender and gender-based violence. She is also a consult-ant to the Spiritual Alliance to Stop Intimate Violence (SAIV) and the Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa (FHSSA). Her ‘Building Bridges’ workshop deals with race and racism.

Yulia is an engineer and economist who in 1995 became president of gas supplier United Energy Systems of Ukraine. In 1996 she entered politics and rose to minister for fuel and energy but was dismissed in 2001 and briefly imprisoned on corruption charges that were later dropped. In 2005 she became her country’s first woman prime minister. In 2010 her government fell; she was subsequently charged with abuse of power and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. The trial was denounced as politically motivated, and Yulia was released in 2014.

Adair Turner

FINANCE SOCIETY GOVERNMENT

Nontombi Naomi Tutu Yulia Tymoschenko


Having led Royal Dutch Shell through a major restructuring period, Jeroen van der Veer retired as the company’s chief executive in 2009 and currently fulfils numerous roles, including chairman of the supervisory board of Philips and vice-chairman of Unilever. He is a leading authority on energy, leadership and management whose advice is widely sought by a range of businesses including the ING global finance group and organizations such as the World Economic Forum, for which he chairs the New Energy Architec-ture initiative.

Australian Formula One racing driver Mark Webber won nine Grands Prix for Red Bull before retiring in 2013 to concentrate on charity work. The Mark Webber Pure Tasmania Challenge, first held in 2003, requires celebrities to complete a 624-mile (1,000 km) course around the southwest of the island by cycling, kayaking and trekking through wild terrain, and then attend a black-tie fund-raising dinner. Mark also works as a commentator for Network 10 television and gives motivational speeches to organizations and businesses about his drive to succeed.

After completing a PhD in busi-ness administration, Annette took over her father’s construc-tion company. Her achievements in modernizing it and making it profitable were recognized in 1992 when she won the Veuve Clicquot award for German Entrepreneur of the Year. She then joined Mercedes-Benz as head of PR and communications. In 2010 she became CEO of the company’s Smart car division, an appointment that signified a major shift in the male-domi-nated auto industry. Under her leadership, Smart models have been upgraded, and the e-bike has been created.

Jeroen van der Veer

MANAGEMENT MOTIVATION MANAGEMENT

Mark Webber Annette Winkler

39

Christian Wulff practiced as a lawyer until 1986, when he joined the CDU, the German conservatives. In 1998 he became the party’s deputy federal chairman, and in 2010 he was elected as the 10th President of Germany in succes-sion to Jens Böhrnsen. In 2011 he was presented with the Leo Baeck Award by the Central Council of Jews in Germany. In the same year he received the Medal of Honor from the German Olympic Sports Con-federation. In 2012 Christian Wulff resigned as President. He returned to the law and now has his own chancery in Hamburg.

Dr Xiang is founding dean, professor, and head of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, the largest estab-lishment of its type in China. He is a non-executive director of the China Dongxiang Company, Dan Form Holdings, Enerchina Holdings, HC International, the Little Sheep Group and Sinolink Worldwide Holdings, a trustee of The United Way Worldwide (US) and Asia House (UK), and a member of the International Advisory Council of FDC Busi-ness School in Brazil. He is also a distinguished and widely sought-after management consultant.

After taking an undergraduate degree in economics at Yale and a DPhil at Oxford, Linda Yeuh began her working life as a corporate lawyer at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. She was later economics editor at Bloomberg TV before becom-ing chief business correspond-ent of the BBC in 2013. Linda also currently serves on the advisory board of the Official Monetary and Financial Institu-tions Forum, and has advised numerous institutions, including the World Bank, the European Commission, the Asian Devel-opment Bank and the World Economic Forum.

Christian Wulff

GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT FINANCE

Bing Xiang Linda Yueh


In 1983, Muhammad Yunus, a professor of economics at Chittagong University, Bangla-desh, founded Grameen Bank, which specializes in providing loans to people who have been adjudged by conventional banks as too poor to borrow. In 2006, Yunus and the bank were joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize ‘for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below’. Grameen Bank now operates in several countries, including the United States; Professor Yunus is currently a director of the United Nations Foundation.

After a distinguished diplomatic career in which he was con-secutively China’s ambassador to the United States and its permanent representative at the United Nations, Li became foreign minister and chaired the foreign affairs committee of the National People’s Congress. He is now president of the Research Center for National Soft Power at the China Foreign Affairs Uni-versity, chairman of the China Public Diplomacy Association, and president of the Chinese People’s Institution of Foreign Affairs. He is in huge demand by all who want a better under-standing of modern China.

Muhammad Yunus

SOCIETY GOVERNMENT

Li Zhaoxing

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