SPEAKGLOBAL THE INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
ISSUE 6 | 2016 | £3.50
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
JOHN CLEESE INSPIRING CREATIVITY
HOW THE ALL BLACKS BEAT THE WORLD
David Miliband LESSONS OF THE 2015 RUGBY WORLD CUP
INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE
CONTENTS
In this issue... A modern twist to centuries of tradition.
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THE INFILTRATOR Robert Mazur was a US federal agent who worked undercover to bring some of the biggest drug barons and the world’s most corrupt bankers to justice.
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CREATIVE THINKING IN THE WORKPLACE John Cleese tells SpeakGlobal how the creative half of the mind is best combined with the scientific half.
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THE BIG INTERVIEW DAVID MILIBAND
SpeakGlobal interviews the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which oversees humanitarian relief operations in more than 30 war-affected countries.
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JAMES KERR Getting to the top and staying there: what the New Zealand All Blacks can teach us about the business of life.
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EURO ’16 Hans-Dieter Hermann, sports psychologist to Germany’s soccer team, gives some insights into his team’s dominance.
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G O O DWO O D H O U S E
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T HE G OODWOOD H OT E L
Telephone: 01243 928219
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London Speaker Bureau enquiries@londonspeakerbureau.com +44 (0)20 8748 9595
T H E K E NNE L S
BOLIVIA AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL SpeakGlobal talks to former President Jorge Quiroga about the opportunities and threats to the 21st century world.
Email: events@goodwood.com SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
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CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
In This Issue... 4
IN THE NEWS Highlights of London Speaker Bureau’s recent activities.
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SPEAKGLOBAL ISSUE 6 | 2016 | £3.50
THE INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
AROUND OUR GLOBAL NETWORK Latest developments and some forthcoming events worldwide.
From the Editor
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
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JOHN CLEESE
A SNACK WITH...
INSPIRING CREATIVITY
HOW THE ALL BLACKS BEAT THE WORLD
David Miliband
The first of a new series in which SpeakGlobal catches up with internationally acclaimed speakers at interesting watering holes.
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INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE
LINDA YUEH Celebrated journalist and academic gives her prognosis for the world economy.
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LESSONS OF THE 2015 RUGBY WORLD CUP
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SPEAKGLOBAL Issue 6 Spring 2016
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ARABIC LESSONS Dr Tommy Weir, head of the Emerging Markets Leadership Center, tells us what the world can learn from Dubai.
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GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCE
Editor Henry Russell
Tim Marshall says that we can learn more about world affairs from atlases than from politicians’ manifestos.
Editorial assistant Hannah Dar
DESTINATION FOCUS
Special correspondent Jenny Naylor
Istanbul: where East meets West, and commodities and ideas are still exchanged as they have been for millennia.
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Art direction/design Damian Jaques
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Advertising enquiries The PR&Marketing Agency Ltd +44 (0)7867 800024 jenny@londonspeakerbureau.com
INTERNET OF THINGS Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino on how she enables businesses to bridge the gap between the digital and the physical.
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Printed by CPI Colour, Croydon
NORA BERRA
Publisher London & Beijing Publishing
France’s former health minister on the future of medical protection in the developed world.
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YANIS VAROUFAKIS Former Greek finance minister says Europe faces a stark choice between federalisation and fragmentation.
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Copyright © 2016. SpeakGlobal is published by London Speaker Bureau Ltd, 1st Floor, 235 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SF. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. SUBSCRIPTIONS SpeakGlobal is available on subscription and circulates to professionals working in the meetings and events industry. Customer enquiries, change of address and orders payable to London Speaker Bureau, Subscriptions Department, 1st Floor, 235 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SF or email hannah@londonspeakerbureau. com. Subscription records are maintained by London Speaker Bureau Ltd at the address above. POST NOTE All editorial enquiries and submissions to SpeakGlobal that require replies must be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope.
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SAVING CAPITALISM FROM THE CAPITALISTS Charles Leadbeater asks why has capitalism fallen into disrepute and where might this lead us?
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LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU • Top Speakers on Cyber Security • Focus on Costas Markides’ Leadership Academy Masterclass • Social Philanthropy: Graham BrownMartin • LSB in the Community
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For this edition of SpeakGlobal, we have canvassed the views of some of the world’s leading thinkers and decision-makers on the opportunities and challenges facing us all in a decade in which one of the few constants is uncertainty. In our centrepiece interview, David Miliband provides a unique insight into the work of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). The unprecedented refugee crisis that is the IRC’s main current concern is focused on Syria and its neighbours, but, as our interview with Jorge Quiroga, former President of Bolivia, makes clear, the mass migration of displaced people causes tremors all over the world. Among the other major topics covered in the following pages are the possible consequences of the Chinese economic slowdown; the future of healthcare; global warming; drug trafficking; and restoring the image of capitalism, which has been damaged by the rise to prominence of fringe political candidates who would once have been regarded as peripheral irrelevances. As we go to press almost half way between the Rugby World Cup and the Euro ’16 soccer championship finals, we have in-depth examinations of the achievements of the New Zealand All Blacks and the potential of Joachim Löw’s Germany. There are also interviews with a US federal agent who’s inspired a major forthcoming movie, and with John Cleese, who demolishes the notion that business and creativity are somehow antithetical. Henry Russell www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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NEWS
NEWS
In The News...
Around Our Global Network... FROM HOLE IN THE WALL TO SOLE LAB
TOP TEN HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PARIS CLIMATE SUMMIT DECEMBER 2015
Sugata Mitra opened the first SOLE lab in the United States in November 2015. SOLE NYC in Harlem, New York, is dedicated to exploring self-organised learning environments. Mitra developed the concept of self-taught learning following his “Hole in the Wall” experiments, in which he placed a computer in a wall of an Indian slum and observed as children taught each other
Key policymakers are now serious about climate risk Civil society has awoken in critical mass Regulators are beginning to regulate climate risk
MEENAL NATH, LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU INDIA
Disruption is moving faster than most people think Utilities are racing to escape a death spiral The shale boom is going bust The oil and gas industry faces the prospect of a death spiral too Divestment from the energy incumbency threatens to snowball Investor engagement with the incumbency, in concert with unfavourable economics, will soon threaten most capital expenditure on fossil-fuel expansion The legal system is fast becoming a driver for the global energy transition As told by Jeremy Leggett, Author Carbon Wars and Chairman, Solar International
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Meenal Nath of London Speaker Bureau India, with Monica Lewinsky.
THE THREE MS: MCKENNA, MOSCOW AND MONEY Paul McKenna flew to Moscow to give the Russians his acclaimed tips on how to make a fortune. With his celebrated and greatly sought-after “I can make you rich” presentation, McKenna topped the bill at a two-day international conference on Global Practices in Currency Markets (18–19 November 2015), an annual event at which the organisers review the twelve months just gone and assess prospects for the year to come.
THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER Andrew Keen’s new book The Internet Is Not The Answer featured on several people’s “best of the year” list for 2015, including that of Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote that it was “the most compelling, persuasive and passionately negative thing I’ve yet read on this topic”. Keen has also launched his new Techcrunch show, INNOVATE2016, which focuses on the intersection between tech and the upcoming US Presidential election. Read more from Keen in his new column on technology site thenextweb.com.
subjects from English to programming. As the 2013 recipient of the US$1 million TED Prize, Mitra used the award and the community’s resources to expand this work and create a structure in which children are guided to teach each other. He has since created seven School in the Cloud learning labs in India, testing the extent to which children – in small groups, with access to a computer, and when prompted by the right questions – can essentially learn on their own.
Highlights of 2015 India has seen rapid growth in the number of companies booking prominent international speakers to address their conferences. Speakers including Tony Hsieh and Monica Lewinsky both made appearances last year, as did well-known names from the world of cricket: Rahul Dravid, Ravi Shastri and VVS Laxman. The Bureau’s most booked speaker was Varun Agarwal, India’s first-generation entrepreneur, film-maker and author of How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company, having been booked 13 times for a global management consultancy. Looking ahead to 2016 With the trend for international speakers continuing, the Bureau is introducing a selection of its exclusive speakers, including more females, to its top clients for conferences, one-to-one mentoring and academy masterclasses. It predicts that 2016 will be a strong year as Indian businesses increase global market share.
JEROEN VAN DER VEER Jeroen van der Veer was appointed Global Chairman of London Speaker Bureau on 1 October 2015. He is also currently Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of ING and Philips, and was previously Group CEO of Royal Dutch Shell from 2004-09. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Harrienath Pillay and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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HARRIENATH PILLAY, LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND HONG KONG Highlights of 2015 Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, and his wife, kicked off the year with an engagement for a large investment bank in Singapore. He is 91 years old, a joy to work with, and one of the most compelling speakers of 2015. In April, London Speaker Bureau Asia held its flagship annual event, Business of Innovation, which hosted Sir Bob Geldof, Richard Quest of CNN, Malaysian artistarchitect Red Hong Yi and many more. Five hundred people attended a one-day action-packed event. View the photos here: www. bizofinnovation.com. my/Gallery.aspx After six months of negotiations, the Bureau secured Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, former President of Indonesia, on an exclusive basis. In October, the Bureau hosted Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lord (Sebastian) Coe, Carl
Lewis, Pierluigi Collina and many more for a twoday conference in Kuala Lumpur. The same week, we had fifteen speakers in three different locations with logistics including police escorts and private jets – an action-packed week for the team. The year closed with the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, and Chris Gardner, author of the bestseller The Pursuit of Happyness, in Kuala Lumpur. Both were well received by the audience. Two new staff joined the South-East Asia office bringing the team to eight. Overall, 2015 was a very successful year. Looking ahead to 2016 Our biggest hope is that the South-East Asian currencies will strengthen over the US dollar, which will make international speakers more affordable to our local markets. We are also growing our strong base of regional speakers.
JEFFREY MENG, LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU CHINA
Ben Hammersley and Jeffrey Meng at an event for CITIC in Langfang City.
Highlights of 2015 2015 saw six speaking engagements for Jim Rogers, the renowned investor, financial commentator and founder of the Quantum Fund. We also listened to the wise words of Supachai Panitchpakdi, the former WTO Director General and Secretary General of UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). The year ended sitting on a aeroplane next to José Manuel Barroso, former EU President.
Looking ahead to 2016 There is a vast reservoir of potential in China for international speakers on almost every topic. Issues such as global finance and economics are of particular interest to people throughout the country, and few world organisations can rival London Speaker Bureau’s speakers in these subject areas. 2016 is an important year for building greater brand awareness and getting real traction and penetration in the marketplace.
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A SNACK WITH...
WORLD ECONOMY
A Snack With...
NONTOMBI NAOMI TUTU The first of a new interview series in which SpeakGlobal catches up with internationally acclaimed speakers at interesting watering holes.
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he challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa have been the foundation of Nontombi Naomi Tutu’s life as an activist for human rights. Naomi is the third child of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. We were lucky to be able to link up with her; she just happened to be taking a couple of days out of her hectic schedule to see some old friends in London en route between the United States and South Africa. We were even luckier (given that we were struggling to think of somewhere suitable close to where she needed to be, Charing Cross railway station) that she had a venue in mind – the beautifully appointed and ideally located Strand Dining Rooms, in the elegant colonnade on the south side of the Strand, right by the entrance to Trafalgar Square. These days, Naomi is based mainly in Nashville, Tennessee. She first went there in 1999 as Programme Coordinator at the Fisk University Race Relations Institute. Four years later came a financial crisis and the course was axed, but by then she and her family had fallen in love with the United States, so they stayed on. ROOTS AND BRANCHES She hasn’t abandoned South Africa, though: she returns to her homeland three or four times a year, leading tours, mainly of high school students, religious groups and women’s associations, that help to build cooperation and understanding between her native and adopted countries. One thing she is keen to make clear from the off is that these excursions are not about shining the light of the West into a corner of the Dark Continent. First of all, “I abhor mission trips”, she says roundly. Although the United States has been a democracy for much longer than South Africa, there’s still much that each nation can learn from the other. And both countries “still have a way to go”. Crime is lower and prosperity greater in North America than in South Africa, but “the United States needs to be embarrassed that it still has so few women in Congress; in South Africa it’s 50%”, she says. But she goes on to point out that, in South Africa, nearly all the economic power remains in the hands of white men.
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SELECTIVE CONCERN She is also concerned about the tendency for liberal Americans to engage either with race or with gender; in her experience, the only organisation that takes on both is the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). Naomi is deeply worried about current attitudes to humanitarian relief efforts. Although she knows plenty of benevolent private individuals, she is appalled that current public rhetoric on the topic is almost all vilification. “[Republican Presidential candidate] Donald Trump speaks of refugees as threats”, she says. “I find that heartbreaking.” HAPPY HOMESICKNESS When Naomi isn’t helping international understanding and studying for a masters degree in divinity (she’s currently contemplating ordination in the Episcopal Church), she speaks eloquently on a wide range of topics. She majors in race and gender issues, human rights, reconciliation and the future of Africa. As brunch came to an end, SpeakGlobal asked Naomi where she felt most at home. She admitted to a truly cosmopolitan Heimweh of the healthiest sort: when she’s in Tennessee, she thinks nostalgically of the Limpopo; when she’s in Gauteng, she yearns for the Cumberland River. In a perfect world, she’d be in both places, simultaneously. At the end of our meeting, Naomi wouldn’t let SpeakGlobal pick up the bill; that wasn’t part of the plan at all, but we thank her for it.
SpeakGlobal and Naomi Tutu met at The Strand Dining Rooms, Grand Buildings, 1–3 Strand, London WC2N 5EJ. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Linda Yueh, former Chief Global Business Correspondent of the BBC, is now Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School. SpeakGlobal caught her between a tutorial and a seminar.
LINDA YUEH SpeakGlobal: What are you focusing on currently? Linda Yueh: I’m juggling a number of stimulating commitments from my various roles (academic, broadcaster, board director, author/editor, speaker), and enjoying seeing the publication of a new edition of my China’s Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower. I’m also writing my next book on solving economic problems closer to home here in the UK and in Europe, and working on a BBC documentary on the build-up to the 2016 US presidential election. SpeakGlobal: Will the migration crisis have a global impact? Will unaffected nations be at an advantage or disadvantage as a result? Linda Yueh: The migration crisis is likely to be centred on Europe, though some aspects of it will have an impact further afield, especially in the United States. No nation is likely to be unaffected, though undoubtedly some nations in Europe will bear the brunt of the crisis. It’s an immediate social and economic challenge, but it can also offer a longerterm opportunity, as migration can yield benefits for a host nation, which is what most economic studies conclude. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
SpeakGlobal: Is the China slowdown as catastrophic as some suggest, or is it just a balance after years of unusually high growth? Linda Yueh: China’s slowdown should be expected, as the nation approaches an upper middle income level of development. It’s not unusual for a poor nation to grow quickly as it catches up, and then for growth to slow. The challenge will be whether China can reform in order to achieve a more balanced set of growth drivers and manage the financial system, which is burdened by debt. SpeakGlobal: If Brazil, Russia, India and China – the so-called BRIC – have had their time, where’s the spotlight going to turn next? Linda Yueh: I’ve always thought it was the IC rather than the BR economies which were exciting, that is, India and China, along with the fast-growing nations of Southeast Asia. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other analysts forecast that by 2030 two-thirds of the global middle class will be in Asia, which is a dramatic shift from today, when more than half are in the West.
Many commentators have either been baffled by this phenomenon or found it difficult to explain in comprehensible terms. Linda Yueh has neither problem.
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LEARNING
LEARNING
ARABIC LESSONS
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What the world can learn from Dubai
Tim Marshall, former Diplomatic Editor of Sky News, says that we can learn more about world affairs from atlases than from politicians’ manifestos.
SpeakGlobal spent a short but highly informative and entertaining time with Dr Tommy Weir, head of the Emerging Markets Leadership Center.
CEOs turn to Dr Tommy Weir for advice on both leadership and how to grow their organisations. Dr Weir has helped many of the world’s leading company executives achieve better performance.
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r Weir’s latest book – Leadership Dubai Style: The Habits to Achieve Remarkable Success – is the result of his abiding curiosity about what makes the Gulf state, where he now lives, so successful, or indeed, successful at all, given that it has little oil (less than one-twentieth of neighbouring Abu Dhabi’s) and was until the 1960s a cholera-ridden backwater. The full answer is, of course, highly complex. It lies partly in the state’s adoption of a common currency, partly in Dubai’s status as a free-trade
port. But above all, it is a consequence of the contract between the rulers and the people. At first glance, such an agreement may seem easier to achieve in an absolute monarchy such as Dubai’s than in liberal democracies. But the principles are universal and globally applicable: the mechanisms that make this desert sheikhdom prosperous are equally useful in Western factories and boardrooms, and should be adopted more widely.
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics contains Tim’s reflections on 25 years as Diplomatic Editor of Sky News.
This is not a new theory, but it’s one that’s rarely explained in the detail it deserves. A current example is Syria. History tells us that President Assad’s minority Alawite tribe came from the hilly region above the Syrian coast. However, look at a map, and at the pattern of some of the fighting, and it becomes clear that Assad’s side secured the route from Damascus to the coast in case they had to retreat to their historical roots. The Ottomans divided what is currently the nation-state Iraq into three administrative areas, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. The British then made three into one, a logical impossibility which Christians can resolve through the Holy Trinity, but which in Iraq has resulted in an unholy mess as the Kurds, and Sunni and Shia Muslims fight for control of the regions. Russia provides two clear examples of the effect of topography. It has been invaded many times from the flat ground of the North European Plain, and so its rulers seek to dominate that space as a buffer zone against further incursions. Most Russian ports freeze in the winter. Therefore, Sebastopol on the Black Sea is of vital importance. When Ukraine “flipped” into the NATO sphere of influence, Putin felt geography had given him no choice but to invade. To properly understand “why” takes a reading of the politics, a glance at the statistics, and, a look at the map. Sometimes the obvious is not apparent. As George Orwell said: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle”.
CONSENT AND RECIPROCITY What we should remember is that even the most dictatorial regimes ultimately depend for their continuing existence on the consent of the people - think of Egypt and Libya, both of which looked impregnable until the populace finally said “Enough”; once that happened, not even their armed forces and secret police could sustain them. Dr Weir is clear about this: “Citizens have ways of voting though not necessarily in the polling booth”. Loyalty is a two-way street; government is reciprocal; Western executives have much to learn from feudal Arabs.
One of Dr Weir’s most celebrated notions: imagine that the only cheeseburger you’ve ever had is a McDonald’s; you naturally think it’s the best, but perhaps only because you’ve got nothing to compare it with. So when Dr Weir takes you out for a cheeseburger and he drives straight past the golden arches, you think he’s taking you for a ride in more than the expected sense of the term. But soon he brings you to a family-run joint (rather like Dubai), where you discover that there’s more to burgery than meets the eye. What goes for fast food goes a fortiori for business methods: in order to stay ahead of the game, we must always be on the lookout for new approaches; we must never allow ourselves or our colleagues to use “That’s the way we’ve always done it” as a reason for not trying something different. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCE
What the world can learn from maps
THE CHEESEBURGER THEORY
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im Marshall, former Diplomatic Editor of Sky News, firmly believes that we can learn more about world affairs from atlases than from politicians’ manifestos. His latest book backs up these claims. There are many factors determining why leaders of countries make their decisions. Of these the most often overlooked is geography. Making sense of conflicts without a map and an explanation of geography is almost impossible. That is why I wrote my most recent book, Prisoners of Geography. Words can tell you the “what”; the map helps you to understand the “why”. As the introduction states: “Rivers, mountains, deserts, islands, and the seas, are determining factors in history… Leaders, ideas, and economics are crucial, however, they are temporary, and the Hindu Kush will outlast them all”.
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FUTURE & TECHNOLOGY
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Diane Kruger and Bryan Cranston in the film of the life of Mazur. Sixteen suitcases seized in Detroit. What they contained. Each brick was usually $5,000 or $10,000 in total, wrapped with rubber bands.
How the contents were hidden. The Rolls-Royce that Mazur drove during one of the undercover operations: major villains don’t go around in budget rentals, so he had to look the part.
THE INFILTRATOR For more than a quarter of a century, Robert Mazur was a US federal agent who worked undercover to bring some of the biggest Medellín drug barons and the world’s most corrupt bankers to justice. He then ran his own investigative agency for 17 years. He is now a consultant who advises and lectures widely on risk management and anti-money laundering compliance.
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obert Mazur is the author of The Infiltrator. Superficially a memoir, this book is in reality a compelling page-turner. It makes even the most riveting spy thrillers seem contrived and banal because, unlike them, it’s based on in-depth first-hand knowledge, and the crooks aren’t pantomime villains like Ernst Stavro Blofeld, they’re real hoods, some of them household names in the late 20th century. In The Day of the Jackal – Frederick Forsyth’s novel and Fred Zinnemann’s film about a plot to kill General De Gaulle – the assassin creates a fake identity by finding the grave of someone approximately his own age who died in childhood, getting a copy of the deceased’s birth certificate (but not, of course, his death certificate) and then applying for a passport in that name.
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That dodge also features in The Infiltrator, but Mazur gives much more of the underworld lowdown than just that: he shows in fascinating detail how big-time crooks create vast, complex webs of deception and intrigue to launder their ill-gotten gains, and, enthrallingly, some of the methods he used to bust them. When SpeakGlobal caught up with Mazur at his home in Florida, he was welcoming and most forthcoming. He told us: “These dirty bankers and commodities brokers taught me every trick in the book they used to help clients of all types hide fortunes from governments. They didn’t only assist drug dealers. They used the same techniques to help major tax evaders, people dealing with prohibited nations, people pilfering SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
from the treasuries of nations, terrorists, illegal arms dealers, and so on. “The techniques they taught me are alive and well, and documented in many of the recent pleadings filed concerning more than 18 major financial institutions that have admitted to criminal offences in the past five years for moving tens of billions in illicit funds.” All the paraphernalia of espionage is here – fake IDs; tape recorders in briefcases; hidden cameras, the works. The Infiltrator is also the clearest account SpeakGlobal has ever seen of exactly how bad guys clean dirty money. And, breathtakingly, none of it is a product of the imagination – it’s all exactly what went down, vividly described and accurate in every detail other than some names that have been changed to prevent real people disappearing or turning up dead. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
1000
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the number of TV and radio broadcasts Mazur has made since retiring from active service on corruption in financial markets.
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$2 trillion
the estimated total of dirty money laundered globally every year.
The Infiltrator is an awesome achievement. No less amazing is the way it came about. It might never have been written had Mazur not been hired as a consultant on the 2006 movie Miami Vice. Producer/writer/director Michael Mann was fascinated by Mazur’s story and wanted to read all about it. When Mazur told him there was no book, Mann told him in no uncertain terms that there needed to be. Fast forward three years: The Infiltrator is published by Little, Brown and Company (it’s currently available in seven languages and on sale in 50 countries); the film rights are snapped up, and a big-budget, full-length movie is now in postproduction, featuring Brian Cranston of Breaking Bad. After premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival, it will go on general release in August. www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
I met with senior executives… and recorded hundreds of conversations with corrupt members of the financial markets. At BCCI, I won over the confidence of board members and senior management. Once they were convinced I was a ‘bad guy’ and not an agent, they opened up. Once we prosecuted the bankers and the court gave them lengthy prison sentences, I was part of a debriefing team that picked their brains for months and squeezed details about their corrupt activities worldwide.
Anybody who is anybody is here.
Mazur (right) and a commercial pilot standing in front of the private jet used during the undercover operation that is the focus of The Infiltrator.
Mazur has the warmth of a man for whom everything is now falling delightfully into place. A double life is a heavy burden, especially when one slip of the mask can cost you your life. But he’s over that now, chilled and reflective, content in the knowledge that all his old enemies are either safely behind bars or dead, some by natural causes but plenty of others through the actions of the vigilante group Los Pepes, who wiped out many of the Medellín cartel leaders. Above all, he’s really delighted with the way the movie has been going. He had no previous experience of Hollywood, but, like everyone else, he’d heard about the kind of stuff that goes on there, the megalomania, so he expected the worst. All his expectations have been confounded. He says that he’s been doubly blessed: blessed to have in 12 www.londonspeakerbureau.com
Brad (The Lincoln Lawyer) Furman a director who took a keen interest in the writer, and sought his advice throughout filming (exteriors in the Sunshine State; interiors in a summerless London), and blessed in having as intelligent an actor as Bryan (Breaking Bad) Cranston playing Robert Musella (Mazur’s undercover name).
Robert Mazur talks about his 40 years’ experience and gives sound practical advice on money laundering prevention – the crooks are ahead of the game, but Mazur’s right up there with them! SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Everyone is already talking about IMEX America 2016. Blaze your own path to the largest meetings industry event in the U.S. Enjoy a full roster of inspiring speakers and an eclectic global experience—all at this year’s foremost business opportunity. Join us! THE
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Creative thinking in the workplace INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
JOHN CLEESE
SpeakGlobal interviewed John Cleese in Mustique, where he retreats to get work done for the minimal interruptions it affords, and the warmer climate.
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INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
JOHN CLEESE: ACTOR, COMEDIAN, WRITER, FILM PRODUCER AND RIGHTBRAIN FREEDOM FIGHTER I start off saying ‘If you listen to me for 45 minutes, I guarantee you will be more creative’. And then I look at the audience and I know that the first person who folds his arms is an engineer.
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lthough nothing John Cleese does will ever fully eclipse the fame he acquired for Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers, his talks to businesses about creativity are legendary – treasured by those who’ve attended them, and in big demand with those who have yet to do so. He started delivering them rather earlier than many people now realise. It all began in the 1970s, when his company Video Arts was making that renowned string of motivational corporate training films, the likes of Meetings Bloody Meetings and The Balance Sheet Barrier. Cleese’s partner in that outfit, Antony Jay (future co-writer of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister) suggested that, to fill in the potentially embarrassing gaps at the start of the initial client screenings, while the equipment was being set up, Cleese should say a few words. Which he did, and kept on doing whenever required until 1996, when he sold the company, at which point he
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thought that would probably be the end of it. But people kept asking him back, so he kept on talking. And, rather to his surprise, he’s still doing it 20 years later, currently about eight times a year, between other engagements. SPECIAL EFFECTS Cleese stresses that his areas of expertise are business and psychology, not finance. Even bearing in mind the Caribbean heat, SpeakGlobal thinks it detects a shudder accompanying the reference to finance down the phone line. So does this conform to the stereotype that creatives are not much good with the money? Cleese doesn’t completely disagree with this. Neither, however, does he completely buy into the “left brain/ right brain” norm. But there again, he doesn’t dismiss it out of hand either: as with so many imperfect theories, people are much quicker to deride the bits that don’t work than to think about the bits that make sense. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Cleese explains that the left– right notion is a simplification of ideas contained in psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary, which he recommends enthusiastically to anyone inquisitive enough to tackle the hard science. At the heart of this book is a complex and subtle theory that unfortunately gets over-diluted by journalists who don’t fully understand it and then try to explain it to the general public who don’t understand it at all. Cleese describes the book as “heavy but worth it”. ARMS RACE Cleese is well aware that all generalisations are false (and indeed that this is a generalisation), but nevertheless he says that when he talks to businesses: “I start off saying ‘If you listen to me for 45 minutes, I guarantee you will be more creative’. And then I look at the audience and I know that the first person who folds his arms is an engineer”. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Not that he’s expressing any disrespect for engineers, far from it; it’s just that they, like most other people, have been schooled from day one in what can broadly be categorised as “left-brain” activities – maths and science. They’ve seldom if ever been encouraged to exercise the other half of their heads, the arty part; indeed, they may have been actively prevented from doing so by rules and conventions. But it’s never too late to get the right brain up to speed, and once it’s keeping pace with the more practiced half, it can start coming up with ideas to challenge the routines, the systems and the status quo in a constructive way.
something like that. But that’s well wide of the mark. Cleese unhesitatingly replies that it’s “Can you be creative in a group?” We all know what this is getting at: the abiding notion that artists are – have to be – solitary figures. Cleese can authoritatively reassure them that the answer is “Yes, you can be creative in a group” – the camel may have been designed by a committee, but groups have had much greater success with a host of other projects. He illustrates the point from his own experience of collaborative writing, and indeed of acting – even one-man shows need stage crew, so they too are group enterprises. TOWARDS GREATER DIVERSITY What there has to be, Cleese is convinced, is a certain level of creative conflict, and, in order to achieve that, businesses must ensure that their ideas meetings are not attended exclusively by “white, middle-aged men”. Even in this day and age, it still needs saying trenchantly and often: diversity is key.
BIGGEST QUESTION SpeakGlobal wants to know what question Cleese gets asked most often at the end of his sessions, and fears that it’ll be something that tries to lure him back down memory lane, to comedy triumphs of yesteryear – “Is Michael Palin really that nice?” –
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Published by Yale University Press; 2nd edition (15 June, 2012). ISBN: 978-0300188370. www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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DESTINATION
DESTINATION The edge of Europe seen from the Asian side of the Bosphorus. Row upon row of Turkish Delight in a Sultanahmet store.
DESTINATION FOCUS...
Turkish coffee, accompanied by sweetmeat and a glass of water – the strength of the first makes the last almost indispensable.
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
I
stanbul is the only city which straddles two continents: Asia and Europe. It was originally designed to govern one of the world’s most significant waterways, the Bosphorus, a narrow channel connecting the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In the fourth Century AD, this ancient city became Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Christian world, before falling to Mehmet the Conquerer and his Ottoman army in 1453. Today, its old quarter with its oriental skyline of domes and minarets contrasts starkly with the city’s vibrant business districts and glinting office towers. Walking around Istanbul, you can still sense something of the sights, smells and sounds of what old Constantinople might have been like. The covered bazaar built by Mehmet the Conqueror still stands at the heart of the Grand Bazaar – a bustling hub of silk, leather, carpet and jewellery traders. The area around it on all sides is a labyrinth of crooked lanes crammed with tiny spice shops and artisanal workshops, giving a hint of the cornucopia of goods which once streamed into the capital. Fortunately, most must-see historic sights are to be found in the compact Sultanahmet district. Wandering downhill from the Grand Bazaar, past stores overflowing with lokum (Turkish Delight), you soon come to the legendary Blue Mosque, with its tiled interiors and slender minarets soaring towards the sky. 18 www.londonspeakerbureau.com
FACTS
WHERE TO STAY
Istanbul: Latitude 42˚00’49”N Longitude 28˚57’18”E / Altitude 131 feet (40 metres) / Population 14.03 million (Dec 2015)
FOUR SEASONS, Sultanahmet fourseasons.com/istanbul A one-ofa-kind luxury hotel in Istanbul’s oldest district and a five-minute walk to St. Sophia, Topkapi Palace and the Blue Mosque.
WHEN TO GO April–May and September–October are the best times to visit as the weather is good. Summers can be hot and winters cold.
GETTING THERE ATATÜRK AIRPORT Most flights arrive at Atatürk Airport, 20 km west of the city centre. Transfer options include buses direct to Taxim Square, local or Uber taxi, or underground with connections to trams and the Marmaray trainline. Turkish Airlines has won numerous awards in the 2015 Skytrax World Airline Awards, including “The Best Airline in Europe” for the last 5 years.
WHERE TO MEET Another essential stop is at the ancient subterranean Basilica Cistern, which offers an insight into the complicated system that once brought drinking water into Istanbul from the south-east Balkans. A vaulted structure of 140m by 70m, supported by 335 stone columns, it was used as a set for the James Bond film From Russia With Love. For museum enthusiasts, recommended museums in neighbouring areas include the Museum of Chora in Fatih, the Istanbul Modern in Karakoy and the Pera Museum in Beyoğlu. Caught as it is between traditional and Western culture, divided as it has always been with its many ethnic groups, Istanbul is a city of contrasts. Across the Galata Bridge on the
European side is the new Soho House in the entertainment quarter of Beyoğlu – a highoctane hub of eating and drinking. It’s become hipster central, with bohemian bars, live-music venues, hip hotels and edgy boutiques. From sunset, the atmosphere is buzzing with that particular excitement people generate when they feel they’ve landed in the right place. Throughout Istanbul, the city offers a plethora of typical Turkish fish and kebab restaurants, as well as contemporary Western cuisine to suit all tastes. With a distant crackling microphone as a muezzin prepares to intone the last of the day’s prayers, the city really is a place where East truly does meet West. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
ISTANBUL CONGRESS CENTRE (ICC), Şişli, Istanbul iccistanbul.com The ICC is the biggest congress centre in Turkey including a 3,705seat auditorium, 9 main meeting halls, 115 meeting rooms and capacity for 850 parked cars. The centre caters for all types of events – from vehicle launches to high-level participation concerts – and is within easy walking distance of hotels and close to the Taksim cultural district. ISTANBUL LÜTFI KIRDAR CONVENTION & EXHIBITION CENTRE (ICEC), Şişli, Istanbul icec.org From science and technology exhibitions, book fairs to motor trade shows, the ICEC consists of two facilities – Main Building and Rumeli Fair and Exhibition Centre, with 45 multi-functional meeting rooms. Visit icvb.org.tr for more venue information.
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HILTON ISTANBUL BOSPHORUS, Şişli hilton.com/istanbul Hotel adjacent to The World Trade Centre with a range of rooms and suites with private balconies overlooking the Bosphorus and the Old Town. Two minutes’ walk to the largest congress centres in Istanbul – ICC and Lutfi Kirdar. CIRAGAN PALACE KEMPINSKI, Beşiktaş kempinski.com/en/istanbul Former Ottoman Palace built by Sultan Abdulaziz, now a luxury five-star hotel. Located on the European shores of the Bosphorus between Besiktas and Ortakoy. SOHOHOUSE, Beyoğlu sohohouseistanbul.com 87 bedrooms and a variety of public spaces across two existing and two new-build properties, one of which was previously the US Embassy and Consulate. Best of all, you don’t have to be a member of Soho House to stay here.
WHERE TO EAT Hamdi Köşebaşı Bebek Balikci Eleos Zuma Tom Aikens
Kebabs (Eminönü) Kebabs (Levent and Nişantaşı) Fish (by Bosphorus at Bebek) Fish (Beyoğlu) Japanese (Istinye Park Shopping Mall) Contemporary French (Zorlu Shopping Mall)
CONTACT Emre Pusat, London Speaker Bureau Turkey Kanyon Ofis Binası Kat 6, Buyukdere Caddesi No 185, 34394 Levent, Istanbul. Tel +90 212 319 77 70
www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
SpeakGlobal talks to David Miliband, President and CEO of International Rescue Committee (IRC), the US’s largest international humanitarian organisation.
A
re you in New York full time these days? We (Louise, myself and two boys) moved to New York in August 2013. I run an international humanitarian charity, the International Rescue Committee (www.rescue.org), which was founded in 1933 by Albert Einstein when he fled to New York from Germany. We continue to resettle refugees in the United States (about 10,000 per year), but the bulk of the work of our 11,000 staff and 6,000 volunteers is in 30 conflict-ridden states around the world. So yes, New York is home but in 2015 I got to see our work in Northern Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria and Lesbos (Greece). So I am not sure the family would agree I was there “full-time”!
David Miliband
What were IRC’s greatest successes in 2015? We helped more people than ever before – breaking our 2014 record of providing health, education, protection for women and kids and support for economic livelihoods for more than 18 million people. I am proud that we are gearing all our programmes towards a clear framework of measurable outcomes, and working towards our commitment that all our programmes be evidence-based or evidence-generating. It was also remarkable to see the way we geared up for emergencies – with a team of 400 now working in Greece, where the work is in the headlines, and around 1,100 in South Sudan, out of the headlines
THE BIG INTERVIEW
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SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
Thousands of Syrian refugees currently live in harsh conditions in tented encampments in Turkey. Sting and David Miliband honour humanitarian aid workers at the 2014 Annual Freedom Award Benefit Event hosted by International Rescue Committee in New York. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for IRC.)
but vital for some of the four million people in that country in need of humanitarian aid. The problem is that our successes sat side by side with growing misery for the 60 million refugees and internally displaced around the world. The gap between need and provision grew. That is motivating our work to improve our own operations, and help reform the humanitarian sector, which needs to catch up with the reality of growing numbers of people displaced in urban areas for long periods.
or 50-per cent funded, of course there are huge disappointments. I always say that the humanitarian NGOs can staunch the dying, but it takes politics to stop the killing. So my biggest disappointment is that the outstanding work of our staff, and others, can seem like a small eddy in a stream of misery.
I always say that the humanitarian NGOs can staunch the dying, but it takes politics to stop the killing
Any disappointments? With the Syrian war now engulfing five million refugees and seven million inside the country in humanitarian need; with the Syrian war spreading across the Middle East; with South Sudan joining Somalia and Democratic Republic of Congo as long-term African conflicts; with the prospects for Yemen’s civilians so miserable; with Afghanistan rocking; with UN aid appeals only 4022 www.londonspeakerbureau.com
What are your hope and fears for 2016? My hope is that the world wakes up to the cost of neglecting humanitarianism. It is not just morally wrong to neglect it; the neglect has political and economic effects. With all the talk of a global village, you would think people would remember the maxim that, in a village, if your neighbour’s SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
house is on fire, then your house is on fire. There are instrumental as well as moral reasons for tackling humanitarian need. There is a World Humanitarian Summit in May in Turkey, intended to bring together all the players from government and NGOs, to hammer out a common agenda for the changing needs that mark out the modern world – notably long-term displacement of record numbers of people from intra-state conflicts. It is not just a matter of more aid, though that would be welcome; it needs to be better aid, more economic as well as social, more evidence-based, more empowering of those in need (for example through cash distribution). My fear is the opposite – that the scale of need overwhelms the commitment to respond. I see “fragile states” – where the state lacks the capacity or the will to overcome serious obstacles to meeting popular needs – as an absolutely critical test this year. People have talked about failed states for some time – rightly. But fragile states become failed states if they do not get help. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Can the “floor targets” of your Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) do more than inform global public opinion: can they be used to pressurise governments; if so how? The SDGs have been adopted by the United Nations, not just by me! They are ambitious 15year targets for eliminating global poverty. My point is that the geography of poverty is changing, towards a focus on fragile or conflict states. As China and India help millions of people out of poverty, the concentration of poverty is focused on those places where economic growth is hampered or non-existent because of conflict and disaster (sometimes conflict and climate stress go together – often in fact). The idea of “floor targets” is that the civilians caught up in war need to be specifically identified in the plans to tackle poverty, or they will end up getting forgotten because changing their situation is so difficult. So the idea is that when it comes to education, or health, the world should adopt specific targets for helping those www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
caught up in war. The alternative is that in 15 years’ time we will see a new inequality – between stable states where citizens get decent chances, and conflict states where they are held back. So hopefully they are informative, but also a way of focusing attention and resources on those in greatest need.
People have talked about failed states for some time – rightly. But fragile states become failed states if they do not get help
How can a potential donor differentiate between IRC and other charities working in the same areas? One way IRC is unique is that we work across the arc of crises – from the war zones to the neighbouring states that bear the brunt of refugee flows, to the transit routes where people move to seek refuge, and to resettlement in the United States. We are proud of our top marks from charity watchdogs, but I do not seek to run down our sister charitable agencies. What is important to us is that people realise the seriousness with which we are pursuing our vision of an outcome-oriented, evidencebased, value-for-money humanitarian response. For example, we are boosting our economic programmes because refugees are now displaced for an average of 17 years; we are ramping up our commitment to research and evaluation; matching inputs to outcomes to determine value for money; and sponsoring our own research and development laboratory. These are all areas where the humanitarian sector needs to come together to 24 www.londonspeakerbureau.com
tackle problems that afflict the whole system, not just one organisation or another. How can a potential donor be sure that the money is reaching the intended recipients? Transparency is very important – about where the money is going, the measures to track it, and of course the risks involved. Our teams work in very dangerous places; it is important not to minimise the difficulties. But that does not mean it is impossible to keep records of what is done, gather evidence about what is achieved, do proper evaluations of the impact. In some ways it is even more important to make those investments, because of the life-and-death issues involved. Of every dollar, 92 or 93 cents go to programmes. We spend relatively little on communications or fundraising. But we should not confuse efficiency with effectiveness, and effectiveness demands that money be well spent on staff training, effective management and proper evaluation.
(Left-Right) TV personality Allison Hagendorf, Waterford Spokesperson Tom Brennan, IRC President and CEO David Miliband, and IRC Voice Nykhor Paul speak onstage at Times Square, New York at the end of 2014. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for IRC.)
SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
LEADERSHIP
LEADERSHIP
When you’re on top of your game, change your game
JAMES KERR
KEY CHAPTERS FROM LEGACY:
Getting to the top and staying there
CHARACTER Sweep the Sheds Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done.
Who better to talk to straight after the 2015 Rugby Union World Cup Final (New Zealand 34, Australia 17) than James Kerr, author of the bestselling Legacy: What the All Blacks can teach us about the business of life?
All Blacks captain Richie McCaw leads his team in a haka after their victory against Australia in the 2015 Rugby World Cup Final. (Photo by Richard Heathcote - World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images.)
W
here are you at the moment? I’m living with my family in Southwest London but I seem to spend most of my time travelling: I’ve worked with the Navy Seals this year, the FBI, UK Special Forces, Premiership football teams, Premiership rugby teams, a Formula One team, an America’s Cup team, a number of Olympic Performance Directors, as well as businesses in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Australasia and the United States, so I sometimes feel I live in a transit lounge. But it is a good problem to have and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work within and witness so many exceptional performance environments. That being said, it’s good to get home and take my six-year-old to play football in the park. What have you got planned for the near future? I’m currently researching a follow-up to Legacy, which is looking at a particular military cadre and
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ADAPT Go for the Gap When you’re on top of your game, change your game. RESPONSIBILITY Pass the Ball Leaders create leaders.
a mission that went wrong; how they adapted and overcame the conditions, responded to adversity, and relied on their values, ethos and training to get themselves, and a lot of other people, through a really sticky situation. I can’t say more than that at the moment, but I’m very excited about the project and it’s brought me into contact with some remarkable people. How did the All Blacks measure up to your expectations in the last World Cup? Sure, they won the tournament at a canter, but did the tactical minutiae surprise you in any way? I thought they were magnificent. They performed extraordinarily well; the quarter-final was an exceptional team performance, and the final showed just how far they have come in responding to – and embracing – pressure. I was also very impressed by their performance off the pitch – better people make better All Blacks, they say, SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
LEARN Create a Learning Environment Leaders are teachers. EXPECTATIONS Embrace Expectations Aim for the highest cloud. PREPARATION Train to Win Practice under pressure. PRESSURE Keep a Blue Head Control your attention. AUTHENTICITY Know Thyself Keep it real.
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and their humility and humanity shone through. The good guys won. In terms of tactical minutiae, the really interesting thing, I thought, was the way they treated the pool games. They called it “4 + 1” – that is, four pool games to prepare for one quarter-final. Traditionally, the All Blacks have racked up huge scores against the weaker teams in the pools, but arrived for the knockout stages undercooked. This time they limited their repertoire – a self-imposed handicap – so that they tested their systems, deliberately putting themselves under pressure. Then they unleashed the dogs for the quarter-final and put 60 points on a bewildered French team. It was a triumph of planning and preparation, and something anyone leading a team can learn from and emulate. Which is harder: getting to the top or staying there, and why? First, it’s obviously not easy to get to the top. It takes strategy, teamwork and commitment. But staying there brings its own problems. Maintaining that hunger, eliminating complacency and that old enemy of high performance, entitlement. The best teams find fresh ways of always taking their game to the next level – as I say, “When you’re on top of your game, change your game”. Leaders have traditionally seen the world in terms of an alpha curve – “Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, that’s just the way it is”. More ambitious leaders look for the Sigmoid Curve, a series of scalloped leaps upward. The trick is to know what to change and when. Is the link between sporting achievement and business acumen so strong that you’d be reluctant to hire someone who’d never played anything? I think that depends on the role. Certainly, team sports – especially Rugby Union – teach a very strong ethic; the value of hard work, collaboration, subsuming ego into something bigger than one’s own narrow self-interest. And that is invaluable in any organisation. Meanwhile, individual sports – say tennis or skiing – teach a lot about discipline, mental strength, focus and the relentless pursuit of excellence, so that is very valuable. I think the main thing in selecting any sort of team is compatibility,
over and above pure capability. Finding the right mix – the right chemistry – is critical in achieving sustainable success. Why is New Zealand’s record in Rugby Union so much better than in any other sport (perhaps especially cricket)? In a word: focus. A stadium of four million selectors, every one of whom is looking for the next All Black. The best thing you can hear in New Zealand as a child is, “One day son, you’ll be an All Black”. Other sports just can’t compete. That being said, the country punches well above its weight across a number of disciplines; rowing, netball, triathlon and sailing especially. I’d also argue that, given the player pool, New Zealand cricket puts on a very good show and has produced some fine teams and some pretty useful players over the years. I particularly like the latest crop of oneday internationals, who are bringing real spirit and attitude to the sport, and have changed their mindset for the better, backing themselves to play their natural, aggressive game. Again, it comes down to attitude and mindset and culture… and they have all three of them in spades. You quote the Maori adage “What is the food of a leader? It is knowledge. It is communication. It is story”. In any business or sport, there are people who give you good advice, and people who’ll lead you onto the rocks: how can we recognise an authentic narrative? Great question. And I guess the answer is, keep questioning. The only really authentic narrative is your own – what works for you. I’ve always loved the story of Michelangelo when he was asked how he creates his statues. His answer? “It’s easy. You just keep chipping away at the marble and there it is”. I think you have to just keep chipping away – as the San Antonio Spurs [basketball team] say, keep pounding the rock – and the truth will emerge, your core cultural principles will be exposed, the foundation will become visible. Then you build from there. Know yourself, know your values, and you’ll find what you’re looking for. And then, as [celebrated American football coach] Bill Walsh once said, “The score will take care of itself”. www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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PSYCHOLOGY
FUTURE & TECHNOLOGY
INTERNET OF THINGS
SpeakGlobal caught a few minutes with Dr HansDieter Hermann, who’s been chief psychologist to Germany’s national soccer team since 2004, and is currently busy, not only with the build-up to the European Championships in France, but also with preparations for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he’ll provide expert analysis for the German public broadcasting channel ZDF.
Germany players celebrate on their return to Berlin with the 2014 World Cup. Left to right: Bastian Schweinsteiger, Per Mertesacker, Manuel Neuer, Kevin Grosskreutz and Lukas Podolski (Photo by Alex Grimm/Bongarts/Getty Images).
EURO ’16:
The thinking man’s tips
time, they develop one important asset: perceived self-efficacy. They believe in their abilities to be successful. In high-performance sport, you cannot stop developing. If you do, others will outrun you.
A
re Germany favourites for Euro ‘16? If yes, why? If no, why not? Since our national team won the World Cup in 2014, and our athletes and coaches are always working very hard and preparing for Euro ’16, they are at least one of the favourites for this summer. Nevertheless, there is still some work left to do before June, but our team is definitely highly qualified and talented, so that if we can tap the full potential, we are certainly capable of winning the tournament. However, there are some other excellent teams with realistic chances. How did Germany become so dominant in world soccer and stay at the top for so long? Twelve years ago, the German team had hard times as well, but since then the key factor has been its approach to problems. Headed first by Jürgen Klinsmann, and since 2006 by Joachim Löw, they did not give in, they systematically tried to solve problems in different, new ways, even in some ways that have been criticised by others. In addition, they are always trying to develop and progress. Over
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Can we reliably avoid a repetition of the Robert Enke tragedy? (Enke was the German national goalkeeper who killed himself in 2006). This question is not easy to answer. Robert was mentally ill, he suffered from depression. Nevertheless, since his tragedy, many important steps have been made in German football, for one thing, to detect and treat affected athletes and give them adequate support, and for another, to promote mental strength and awareness of physiological and psychological stress right from the junior team. Will Pep Guardiola face severe cuture shock when he leaves Bayern Munich this summer and succeeds Manuel Pellegrini as manager of Manchester City? If he wasn’t shocked by the Bavarian lifestyle, he will not be shocked in Manchester [laughing]. What are the most transferable skills from the football field to the commercial boardroom? There are many similarities between these two fields. For example, you need good communication, and you have to perform to a high level. Your performance must peak at just the right time. Moreover, team spirit, mutual support, confidence and motivation are indispensable in both fields, as well as specific, clearly defined objectives – whether they be goals or targets. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Poetry in profitable motion
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, interaction designer, product designer and entrepreneur.
F
or this interview, SpeakGlobal was huddled against a London radiator on a sub-zero winter’s morning; at the other end of the line, Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino was just off to dinner in a balmy Hamilton, New Zealand: the difference between us was 11,500 miles and around 35°C. Her company is called Designswarm and was founded in 2007 to give clients insight into the development of next generation consumer products, help them understand the way the internet of things will change their business, and connect them with a community of practitioners around the world. Alexandra was in New Zealand advising a North Island research institute on recent developments in European agricultural technology. That’s just one of
the world. So the distant family members know when it’s okay to Skype without needing first to check the time difference, and also that they’ll get an answer when they call. A great idea, but when it first went on sale there were concerns about whether it was marketable, and if it was, whether it would catch on. The doubters needn’t have worried. Ten years later, the Good Night Lamp is selling in 180 countries – check out https://gnlamp.myshopify.com. This venture cast early light on what Alexandra was about, and what she was capable of. As any genius will tell you, it’s one thing to have a brilliant idea, quite another to get it known about, and something else again to get anyone else to buy it. One of Alexandra’s many talents is for bringing creatives into contact with mechanicals, attaching wild imagination to profitable infrastructure. Today, when Nominet, the UK Internet dominion registrar, wants to find out the latest market developments and possible future directions, who do they call? They call Alexandra.
...she enables businesses to bridge the gap between the digital and the physical the strings to her amazingly impressive and diverse bow. She works all over the world in numerous capacities which would take a whole magazine to cover adequately, but for brevity: if her main area of activity can be summarised in a few words, the précis would be that she brings people with smart software ideas together with hardware manufacturers (established concerns and start-ups), marketing mavens and, most importantly, customers. To put it another way, she enables businesses to bridge the gap between the digital and the physical. LIGHTING THE DARKNESS An early example of her capabilities was the Good Night Lamp, which works like this: imagine you’re a family of five; the parents are at home in (say) Austin, Texas, while the three grown-up children have jobs in (again, say) Adelaide, Archangelsk and Agra. Each person has four little desktop lamps that look like houses; these represent their own home and the homes of their close (but faraway) relatives. Whenever any of them is awake and available for contact, his or her light comes on in the miniature house that represents them wherever they are in SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
STEMMING THE TIDES Most topically, the recent British winter has been unusually wet as well as cold. Many parts of the country have been inundated. Ben Wood of the Oxford Flood Network sought Alexandra’s advice, and there are now sensors installed throughout that great but unconscionably damp city to give early warnings of dangerously rising water – you no longer have to wake up one morning to find the Isis or the Cherwell lapping around your cooker; you install a flood monitor that collects data on water levels in nearby streams and relays the information over the Internet. So you get good notice of the need to sandbag. And this is more than just an emergency service: the data is passed on to flood modellers and forecasters for future reference. Poetry is finding likeness in unlike things; Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino puts superficially unlike things together and makes them profitable. How many poets make a living for themselves, let alone for themselves and others? She really is poetry plus. www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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GOVERNMENT
GOVERNMENT
NORA BERRA ON HEALTHCARE
YANIS VAROUFAKIS
Greek Economist
A qualified physician, Nora Berra was France’s Health Minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy for three years (2009–11). She then sat as an MEP in Brussels for two years before returning to her native Lyon, where she is currently a member of the metropolitan assembly, working on economic strategy and advising on international development.
W Photo: Martin Kraft www.martinkraft.com
hat are the biggest current health challenges, both in France and globally? Globally, several hundred million people have literally no access to any kind of healthcare (doctors or medication). Addressing the issue of healthcare access leads to addressing issues of economic development, since well-being is one of the cornerstones for economic improvement. This is particularly crucial for underdeveloped countries, which have to face, in addition to epidemics and chronic diseases, the consequences of climate change. The developed countries have to endorse their responsibility for concrete action. In France, the biggest challenge is to save the healthcare system. Our health spending represents around 10% of GDP – €200 billion a year. France spends more than the OECD average on its health system – this is a very positive element, because it enables people to benefit from high-quality care, top-grade hospitals and universal public health insurance. However, France faces many challenges that require a renewed health system to improve the efficiency of this massive public spending. Some 31% of spending is dedicated to hospital care, while rural areas suffer from a lack of doctors. The challenge is to balance primary care, hospital care and clinics. Indeed, demographical ageing is becoming critical, since age-linked diseases – cancers, Alzheimer, dyslipidemia (excess cholesterol), oldage dependency, etc – will represent more than 80% of our total spending by 2025. Designed in 1945 to manage short-term health risks, our system will have to be deeply reformed to adapt to the lengthening and more expensive kinds of health risks mentioned above. Moreover, our system must develop more prevention programmes to avoid future disease burden. What, if anything, can the rest of the world (principally, but not exclusively, Britain and the United States) learn from France about healthcare finances and organisation? Or France from other countries? The French health system’s cornerstone is its
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Between January and September 2015, Varoufakis held the position of Minister of Finance. H e voted against the terms of the third bailout package for Greece. I n December 2015, he announced plans to launch a pan-European movement in 2016.
universal access to public health insurance, and to healthcare regardless of the patient’s income. This has been a major example to other countries, such as the United States, which is currently implementing the Obamacare reform that aims at allowing low-income citizens and Americans who were not previously covered, to benefit from health insurance. Social history shows that developed countries established different kinds of systems, but they all tend to the promotion of a relatively equal access to healthcare for all their citizens. As far as this issue is concerned, France has inspired many other countries in the implementation of health systems. However, my country has a lot to learn from the experiences of Britain and the United States. Indeed, these two countries have showed a capacity to reform their system to adapt it to their own challenges and weaknesses. Obamacare is a great example of what political leadership can do in terms of social reforms, despite major obstacles. The successful NHS reforms that Britain has implemented are another example. In this regard, France has many difficulties to overcome owing to a nostalgic attachment to an ideal but saturated system ahead of current and future challenges. What are you most hoping for in 2016 – internationally, domestically in France, and personally? Optimism is the key to collective success. 2015 was a very painful year for France for reasons that everyone knows – Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan concert hall. Collectively, as a nation, we showed our ability to get over tragic events – we now have to show to the world and to ourselves that optimism will always win over pessimism and hopelessness. The world is in constant mutation: I hope 2016 is going to be a year of success and of great innovations that allow the world to move forward and be a more free, inventive, and exciting place than it was in 2015. As I say this, it sounds like a tall order, but we must make every effort. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
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n the first six months of 2015, Yanis Varoufakis hit the global headlines as finance minister of Greece. During this brief but traumatic period, he and his Syriza party government, headed by prime minister Alexis Tsipras, attempted to renegotiate Greece’s debt to the EU. The outcome was less favourable to the Greeks than the ruling party had hoped. Varoufakis was particularly disappointed, and he immediately resigned from the government. He later explained his decision thus: “I’m not going to betray my own view, that I honed back in 2010, that this country must stop extending and pretending, we must stop taking on new loans pretending that we’ve solved the problem, when
… to shake Europe – gently, compassionately, but firmly we haven’t; when we have made our debt even less sustainable on condition of further austerity that even further shrinks the economy, and shifts the burden further onto the have-nots, creating a humanitarian crisis. It’s something I’m not going to accept, I’m not going to be party to.” PAST MASTERY Before these momentous events, Varoufakis had distinguished himself in several lower-profile areas. His parents, afraid of and oppressed by the Colonels in the 1970s, sent him to Britain to complete his education. He graduated in economics from the University of Essex, then did an MSc at Birmingham before completing his doctorate back in Colchester. He taught economics at the University of Sydney before returning to his native land in 2000 as professor of economics at Athens University. He is also a professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of The Global Minotaur: America, Europe and the Future of the Global Economy. After his meteoric parliamentary career, Varoufakis became one of the prime movers of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), a new internationalist alliance of left-wing parties. Its SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
principal aim, according to Varoufakis, is to “shake Europe – gently, compassionately, but firmly”. He believes that the continent faces a stark choice: it will either be fully democratised, or else it will disintegrate, and possibly not just into its pre-EU component parts, but into smaller, less stable, selfproclaimed independent units that are currently subsumed by functioning nation states. The former option – full-scale federalism – needs to be taken up by 2025; the alternative is too alarming to contemplate – the Balkanisation, not just of the Balkans, but of the greater part, if not the whole, of mainland Europe. Varoufakis and his allies want “a full-fledged European democracy, featuring a sovereign parliament that respects national self-determination and shares power with national parliaments, regional assemblies and municipal councils”. www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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WORLD LEADERS
WORLD LEADERS
LEADING THE WORLD WISE THOUGHTS FROM SOME OF LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU’S FAVOURITE POLITICIANS José Manuel Barroso President, European Commission 2004–14 There’s an intellectual glamour about pessimism in Europe. People want to show they are more brilliant at being more pessimistic than each other. But the reality is that Europe is recovering and is able once again to create jobs.
Enrico Letta Prime Minister of Italy, 2013–14 The crisis in Europe and the Middle East is neither a clash of civilisations, nor of religious wars. It is just – roughly – a question of power. Talking about religion (or ethnicity) is nothing more than an alibi, a very effective glue to mobilise masses of people and billions of dollars.
Fredrik Reinfeldt Prime Minister of Sweden, 2006–14 Number one, do not cover bank losses. Number two, don’t subsidise companies in trouble. Push resources to people employed in the company but not to the company itself. If you are right in your investments, even in the darkest hours of a tough economy, you have jobs created.
Han Seung-Soo Prime Minister of South Korea, 2008–09 While there is no silver bullet to dealing with the climate challenge, I am heartened to see a broad coalition from all sectors of society striving to achieve green growth within their own respective realms.
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François Fillon Prime Minister of France, 2007–12 There used to be consensus on ever-growing protection in every aspect of people’s lives. We used to favour social justice over liberty. No longer. I feel a real revolt, a desire for more freedom, less state intervention in either economic or private lives.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono President of Indonesia, 2004–14 Connectivity refers to both hard and soft infrastructure development. An effective roll-out of projects… will create synergies between growth centres and realise equitable access to services. This will be significant for business and development. Our motto is ‘locally integrated, globally connected’.
BOLIVIA: F AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL
A PAST PRESIDENT’S PROSPECTUS
Consider this and in our time As the hawk sees it or the helmeted airman – W.H. Auden
Jorge Quiroga addressing the people of Bolivia during his brief but eventful presidency (2001–02).
F.W. de Klerk President of South Africa, 1989–94 Six Steps of Leading Change 1. Deep introspection and acceptance of the need to change. 2. A clear and achievable vision of need to change. 3. Avoid temptations to pretend to change. 4. Communicate clearly what needs to change. 5. Meet people where they are. 6. Stay on course, even in stormy waters.
rom his home in La Paz, the world’s highest capital, more than 13,000 feet (4,000 m) above sea level, Jorge Quiroga has a bird’s-eye view of the world. The former President of Bolivia sees life steadily and sees it whole – as an exciting mixture of challenges and opportunities. There are serious problems, too, of course, but for people of good will perhaps nothing is intractable. We talk on the last day of November, during the Paris Climate Change Conference. The environment is one of Quiroga’s greatest concerns: 20 years ago, he says, the snowline in the High Andes visible from his window was at 21,000 feet (5,400 m); today, it’s no less than 600 feet (180 m) higher, year-round. One of the worst local consequences of this is an alarming reduction in the amount of meltwater for human consumption. Global warming is a chronic problem, and negotiations about the best way to arrest the process sometimes seem glacially slow, but progress is being made. And while consensus is needed soon, it’s not as urgent as the current refugee crisis. A cursory glance at the atlas may make it easy to understand how disasters in Africa and the Middle East
Vicente Fox President of Mexico 2000-06 One purpose is very clear among corporations and business leaders: make profits, deliver high return for stockholders, conquer markets, service consumers and create jobs. But in today’s world, demands from corporations and leaders are much more than that. We need to understand what people really want at the very end.
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SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
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WORLD LEADERS
WORLD LEADERS
Bridge over a chasm in the unspolit Moon Valley, Bolivia (Copyright: Dmitry Burlakov.) Ore processing facility at the silver, zinc and lead mine in Potosi, Bolivia (Copyright: Vladimir Melnik.)
The only place that Argentines and Brazilians cooperate is Barcelona
BOLIVIA IN NUMBERS
0.04%
Bolivia’s contribution to global emissions (China 28%; US 16%).
40%
reduction in amount of ice in the glaciers of the Cordillera Real, the main mountain range, between 1975 and 2006.
44%
of Bolivia’s workers are employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing. The major crops are quinoa, potato, coffee, maize and soybean.
have inevitable adverse consequences in Europe, but one might think that South America, through distance alone, was largely immune to their ill effects. Not a bit of it. Quiroga describes how fear of foreigners is a contagion that is spreading every bit as quickly across the New World as the Old – and its effects are debilitating. Less than a fortnight earlier (on 18 November 2015), six Syrians had been caught in Honduras trying to sneak into the United States on fake Greek passports. In a world where no-one is necessarily from where he or she claims to be from, few of us are above suspicion. First, barbed wire fences go up between countries that used to allow safe passage in both directions without let or hindrance – Hungary and Serbia; Slovenia and Croatia… Next thing you know, US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is telling potential voters: “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words”.
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THE LAST TRUMP? Quiroga has indeed marked these words, and notes with sadness that, in the present atmosphere, another of Trump’s stated aims – to deport all “illegals” (notwithstanding the impossibility of determining quite who they might be) – “starts looking like a way to go rather than knee-jerk xenophobia”. Trump’s a populist; populists attract popular support; that’s their métier. And if a Greek might be a Syrian, who knows what someone purporting to be Bolivian might really be? Quiroga says that his countrymen “love life too much to strap on suicide vests”, but do US ultra-conservatives realise that, or even reliably know the difference between an Aymara and an Angeleno? DISMANTLING WALLS It would be the most terrible shame if the reluctance of the United States to provide refuge for foreigners was translated into increased economic protectionism. Especially when in South America the signs are that trade barriers are starting to be dismantled. For many years, the continent’s biggest economies shared little or none of their wealth with neighbouring countries. As Quiroga put it: “The only place that Argentines and Brazilians cooperate is Barcelona”. Soccer stars SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Lionel Messi and Neymar da Silva Santos may weave rings around all-comers at the Camp Nou; but Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Dilma Roussef cocoon themselves in import/export tariffs and other protectionist defences. Meanwhile, the Bolivian economy has depended largely on Chinese demand for iron ore, copper and sugar. That 10-year cycle is now on the downturn, but as one door closes, another may be opening: the week before SpeakGlobal interviewed Quiroga, the Peronists lost their grip on Argentina; Kirchner was succeeded by Mauricio Macri, head of the centre-right Compromiso para el Cambio (Compromise for Change) party. A week later, on 6 December 2016, the people of oil-rich Venezuela voted out the socialists after 17 Chávezdominated years and replaced them at the congressional elections with the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD: the Democratic Unity Roundtable), a conservative alliance under Henrique Capriles Radonski. Quiroga believes that, with a return to right-thinking, right-leaning democratic SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
governments, South America is on the threshold of a new era of unprecedented cooperation. And that that cooperation will allow the whole continent to get a firmer grip than ever before on all its affairs, including the illicit narcotics trade. Drug running is Quiroga’s other great worry, and he points to the irony that its efficiency and economic success are in inverse proportion to the amount of legitimate trade throughout the Western Hemisphere. UNCERTAIN FUTURE The early 21st-century world is volatile and turbulent; unfortunately, we live in interesting times. So much for Francis Fukuyama’s famous (or possibly notorious) pronouncement from Stanford University that the fall of communism signalled “the end of history”. Today, some people believe that we’re more likely contemplating the end of the world. But perhaps we would do better to bear in mind the old Bolivian saying: “En rio revuelto, ganancia de pescadores” – “A thrashing river is a fisherman’s bounty” – or at least, it can be.
JORGE QUIROGA Born in 1960 in Cochabamba, Jorge Quiroga studied engineering at Texas A&M University, then did an MBA at St Edward’s, Austin, Texas, before entering politics in his native land. He was deputy to President Hugo Banzer from 19972001. When Banzer retired due to ill health, Quiroga took over from him for one day less than a year. Quiroga currently spends around two-thirds of every year in his native country, working for the main opposition party, the PDC. The rest of the time, he is with public policy foundations and a social project in Washington, D.C. He is also Vice President of the Club de Madrid, a group of more than 100 former world leaders who promote democracy. Quiroga is much in demand as a speaker and lecturer on leadership, governance, finance and global politics.
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ECONOMIC FUTURES
ECONOMIC FUTURES
Charles Leadbeater is the author of the best-selling Frugal Innovator and WeThink. The globally renowned management thinker was Tony Blair’s favourite corporate guru and rated Number 1 on Innovation in Europe by the Financial Times.
SAVING CAPITALISM FROM THE CAPITALISTS The free market economy that provided affluence for millions of working people in the second half of the 20th century… is now unloved. Charles Leadbeater
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apitalism is not a candidate in the race to become US President. Yet it is certainly central to a contest now driven by what were until recently the mad fringes of US politics. Donald Trump stokes the fears of those who feel marooned and exposed by globalisation. Bernie Sanders represents those who feel let down by capitalism, fearful that education, hard work and saving will not secure a decent family life in an economy run by the elite for themselves. The free-market economy that provided affluence for millions of working people in the second half of the 20th century, before then lifting many millions more out of poverty in the developing world, is now unloved. Why has capitalism fallen into such disrepute, and where might it be headed? The reasons are deep-seated. They go back long before the 2008 crash, and will stay with us despite the subsequent recovery. Growth is slowing; inequality rising; innovation quickening. Many people on median incomes find themselves in a whirlpool in which everything moves faster, nothing seems to last for long, people are working harder, and yet incomes remain stubbornly stuck. People were prepared to tolerate the inequalities of capitalism if they were moderate; the result of merit and risk-taking and the economy grew so everyone felt better off. Now many people feel inequality is extreme, the result of inherited and self-reinforcing advantage, and growth has slowed to a trickle. All of that is raising profound questions about what shape the economy should take, questions which will be unavoidable for leaders in politics and business. What is the future of jobs, incomes and taxes in a world in which intelligent machines will be better able to do most routine jobs better than most people? Every trip in a London black cab has become a journey into existential SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
angst: that will be true of many more professions. What is the future of the company if the narrow and relentless pursuit of shareholder value ends up being socially destructive and morally questionable? It is not just the banks: think Enron and Volkswagen. Should companies only be accountable to their shareholders, and if not then to what and to whom do they owe allegiance? Why have capitalists so conspicuously lost their faith in the future of capitalism, when so many large companies sit on vast piles of cash rather than investing it in the industries of the future? Most large companies now prefer to sit on their cash rather than take the risk of shaping the future. How will this cash be put to productive use in a world which desperately needs new approaches to energy, water, food, housing and mobility? What is the future of the free market economy when industries seem to be dominated by a handful of companies, with Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple leading the pack? Nor is this confined to tech companies. One result of the 2008 crash is that there are fewer, larger banks and they are even more interconnected. Will globalisation, which at the extreme leads to big companies choosing where to be taxed and how much to pay, eventually kill off the power of national governments? It was long assumed that capitalism and democracy would go hand in hand, extending the freedom of the individual. Now it seems that globalisation might render democracy largely impotent. The alternative is no more attractive: democracy might only be saved by a reassertion of ugly nationalism, which leads to more walls, barriers, compounds and humiliation for migrants, most of SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
them simply seeking a better life for their families. And we face all these challenges at the time when we need to remake our economies so they create wealth without scorching the planet. Who knows where all of this might be headed but a couple of things are clear. First, if these crises come
What will become of my job, my company, my country, even my planet? together – rising insecurity combined with a financial meltdown, a large migration of people towards the developed world and an environmental crisis – it could be calamitous, especially if we find our political apparatus in the hands of inexperienced populists who only know how to inflame opinion. Second, answering these questions will be the task of new generations of transformational leaders in business as much as in politics. Those leaders will need to be alert to how small changes could have a big impact; agile enough to be able to pivot in response and bold enough to take on these questions rather than hide from them. People are not inspired by Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, not because the answers they are giving are not right but because they are not prepared to ask the big questions that people see affecting their own lives: what will become of my job, my company, my country, even my planet? Effective, credible leaders must start by be being prepared to address the big doubts and fears that now animate peoples’ everyday lives. Unless they are prepared to do that, they will not be in the game. www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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BOOKS
BOOKS
The Long Read... London Speaker Bureau’s guide to books worth reading by some of our favourite speakers
Leadership Dubai Style: the habits to achieve remarkable success Dr Tommy Weir
Between Debt and The Devil: Money, Credit and Fixing Global Finance Lord (Adair) Turner When financial systems falter, the conventional wisdom is that governments need to shoulder the burden of private debt to keep banks from collapsing. What they should not do, the thinking goes, is to increase the flow of money in the economy to avoid hyperinflation. This book challenges economic orthodoxy, showing why sometimes it’s better to print your way out of financial crises, rather than shifting private debt onto the public. Banks, left to themselves, would issue as much debt as possible. Lord Turner shows that most credit is not needed for economic growth – but rather drives real estate booms and busts, and leads to financial crisis. Public policy needs to manage the growth and allocation of credit creation, and debt needs to be taxed. The long-term effects of governments taking on outsized private debt can be more harmful than the threat of hyperinflation resulting from printing money.
From Grit To Great: The Journey to Becoming Asia’s Apprentice Jonathan Yabut Written by a millennial for millennials, From Grit To Great is the best-selling motivational book of Jonathan Yabut, Season 1 Winner of the hit reality TV show, The Apprentice Asia. What started out as a series of posts on his Facebook Fanpage became a collection of stories on how Yabut won the show through leadership and grit. Yabut stresses that you don’t need to be an Einstein, a supermodel, or a Richie Rich to succeed. The ones who do are those who commit to a long-term goal and get it done despite failures and mistakes. They have grit.
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The Social Brand Huib van Bockel “The definitive guide to building powerful brands in today’s social era – written by a true industry expert.” Nader Tavassoli, Professor of Marketing, London Business School. The new marketing manifesto of today’s social era. A book that doesn’t paper over the cracks of your marketing strategy (by rushing to social media platforms), but tackles the root issue and challenges and guides you to become what you need to be to succeed in this era: social. “In order to be social, you have to give people something they truly value. Something they will seek out and share with others.”
Make Them Go! Hans-Dieter Hermann, Jan Mayer Written by sport psychologists Hans-Dieter Hermann and Jan Mayer, this is a book for every person in a leading position, responsible for making others perform to a high level. Due to their extensive experience in high-performance sport and their work with many leaders from sport and economics, Hermann and Mayer know the key for successful leadership and important principles in developing a high-performing team out of individuals. To make others shine, you have to create an appropriate environment. The book gives an overview of a few fundamental attitudes which should be taken into account by leaders, in order to make the difference between being successful and not successful.
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Only Planet – A Flightfree Adventure Around the World Ed Gillespie In an inspirational tale of global adventure, Ed Gillespie takes anything but a plane to circumnavigate the globe. From cargo ships to camels, from hitchhiking to hovercrafts, Gillespie proves that getting there really is half the fun. Follow his epic tale across shamanic lakes, Mongolian deserts and jungle volcanoes. Meet grizzled sea-dogs and drunken smugglers, billions of butterflies and peckish pythons. This modern world fable is about the exhilaration of taking it slowly, and about rediscovering hope for humanity and for the planet we all share. “Allow the world’s flaws and beauty to seep into your soul” Flemmich Webb, The Independent.
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Buyuk Resmi Gormek (Seeing the Big Picture) Deniz Ulke Aribogan
The Winning of The Carbon War Jeremy Leggett
A book aimed at understanding and explaining the political and social environment in which Turkey exists. The country is affected and infected by regional and global problems, reflecting the need for systemic change in the post-Cold War era. Turkey is located at a crossroads where Eastern and Western civilisations, modern and traditional societies, stable and unstable territories, failed and successful government systems intersect. Several social and political fault lines cut its body, hence it’s sometimes called a torn country. However, its historical and secular social and political architecture still protects it from political earthquakes. The book emphasises the country’s foundation principles and the global and regional trends that enforce the governing system for change and restructuring.
Humanity is in a race, a kind of civil war between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. On the light side, the believers in a sustainable future based on clean energy struggle ceaselessly to save us from climate change. The dark side defends the continuing use of fossil fuels. Jeremy Leggett fought on the light side for a quarter of a century as it lost battle after battle. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly in 2013, the tide began to turn. By 2015, it was clear that the the war could be won. Leggett’s front-line chronicle tells one person’s story of those turnaround years, culminating in dramatic scenes at the Paris climate summit, and what they can mean for the world.
Dubai—the fastest-growing economy in the world over four decades (1975–2008), growing at a factor of eleven—succeeded against all the odds. “But it’s oil-rich!” some people cry, but they’re wrong: Dubai is by far the poorest of its oil-producing neighbours. Less than two generations ago, Dubai homes didn’t have running water or electricity, the port was a desert backwater with only a handful of berths, there was no money, no airport or even paved roads; fewer than 60,000 called this town home, and not even 25 of them had a bachelor’s degree. In just 50 years, Dubai became a global power player, home to more than two million people and a destination for 13 million tourists a year. Its expansion features some of the most ambitious buildings and the world’s largest airport. How did this happen? Leadership! But not your typical government or corporate leadership – it was Dubai-style leadership. Through twelve leadership habits, you can achieve what others don’t dare. Leadership Dubai Style challenges traditional ideas – and so it should, because the results Dubai has achieved outpace all the indices. To achieve different results, you have to do what Dubai has done – lead differently.
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LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU
LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
A short word from London Speaker Bureau... London Speaker Bureau (LSB) is a group of 8 companies, 85 people and 15 offices located all over the world, which in total has provided speakers, trainers or advisers to over 25,000 events in 119 countries. Our recent move into providing senior advisers/CEOs to corporate boards has been particularly well received. I am proud that so many of my colleagues have devoted so much of their working career to LSB. Increasingly important is our work in the community which ranges from sponsoring annual lectures, to supporting a wide range of projects in the education, youth and conservation sectors. I find strength and inspiration in words attributed to Plato, “always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle”.
The only global speaker bureau The International New York Times
Tom Kenyon-Slaney, Founder
CYBER-SECURITY SPEAKERS Dr Jessica Barker
Sir Iain Lobban
Jakob Scharf
Cyber security consultant, advising on the steps institutions and individuals can take to keep their information safe in the Internet age. She works with a wide range of organisations in the public and private sectors helping them to use information more prudently. As a recognised expert on the human side of cyber, her particular specialisms include governance, strategy and policy, risk and resilience, and learning and development.
Director of Government Communications Headquarters in the UK from 2008-14, having previously served as its Director General for Operations from 2004. He is credited with repositioning GCHQ externally, a period of over ten years’ leadership of operational delivery in contexts as varied as counter-terrorism, cyber defence, and support to the military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Former Director General of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (DSIS) from 200713. Shortly after he joined the Service, they experienced the “Cartoon-Crisis” (cartoons of the prophet Muhammed which were published in a Danish newspaper), after which Denmark became a priority target for terrorism. Consequently, the DSIS has had a leading role in developing comprehensive, robust measures to prevent various terrorist activities.
Lord (Jonathan) Evans
Leo Martin worked for a German intelligence service, and liaised closely on its behalf with the law enforcement services pitted against organised crime. His principal responsibilities were the recruitment and leadership of informants. An expert in subconscious thought and behavioural patterns, he is the author of Ich krieg dich (I’ll get you! How to win over people), a book that focuses on building trust and the art of persuasion.
Leo Martin Jamie Woodruff
Director-General of the British Security Service (MI5) 2007-13. As Britain’s top domestic spy, his main focus was counter-terrorism, both international and domestic, including initiatives against cyber threats. An expert on security matters, he joined the board of HSBC in 2013 as a Non-Executive Director to help the bank combat financial and cyber-crime.
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Known as “The Ethical Hacker”, Jamie Woodruff is a Bangor University student studying Computer Information Systems while travelling the world teaching people the importance of System and Network Security. He has always had a talent for computer technology. He has exposed major vulnerabilities in leading security applications such as Facebook, whose system he hacked in a matter of minutes.
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LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU
London Speaker Bureau offers bespoke workshops across a range of topics which can be incorporated as part of your conference or event.
STRATEGIC INNOVATION MASTERCLASS PRESENTED BY COSTAS MARKIDES Focus on Costas Markides: Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and Robert P. Bauman Chair of Strategic Leadership at the London Business School.
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eneration Y employees are more mobile and more likely to change jobs than previous generations. For example, according to a study by the US Department of Labour, today’s 18-year-olds expect to have 10 to 14 jobs by the age of 38! This implies that one of the biggest challenges that organisations now face is not only how to attract the best talent, but how to retain it and keep it energised. There is abundant evidence to support the hypothesis that engaged and energised employees are not only more productive and more innovative, but also happier and healthier. Thus, keeping them engaged is a worthwhile objective. The question is: “How to do this?” One viable strategy is to give them more responsibility than they themselves expect – to maintain their interest by increasing their challenge. But how can you do so without losing control or imposing unnecessary risks on the organisation? Another possible strategy is to make them feel “special” – this is exactly what we do with our children at home. But once again, the question that arises is: “How do you do this within the organisation?” Yet another potential strategy is to motivate the most recent recruits with an inspiring vision or sense of purpose. But for this to work, you need to first “sell” your vision to them to win their emotional commitment. How do you do this without cajoling or over-hyping? There are several other strategies that one can use to motivate and engage Generation Y employees. But along with thinking how to energise the Generation Y employees, big organisations face another challenge: since they employ not only Generation Y employees but also products of Generation X, a key challenge is how to engage these two different types of people within the same organisation! Since they have different values, priorities and expectations, keeping both audiences happy is a unique challenge that the modern corporation faces. SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
Day 1: 09.00-10.00: The cake exercise: Three important principles of management that every senior executive must know. 10.00-10.15: The role that assumptions and unquestioned beliefs play in our decision-making and what to do about them: Questioning is not enough. 10.15-10.40: Group Work: What are the sacred cows in your organisation? 10.40-11.00: Group Debriefing 11.00-11.20: Coffee Break 11.20-12.00: Strategic Innovation: The three biggest sacred cows of any business—WHO-WHAT-HOW. 12.00-13.00: How else to innovate: Focusing on our business and looking outside for ideas. 13.00-14.00: Lunch Break 14.00-15.00: The importance of the Organisational Environment: Downtown Calcutta versus the Forest of Fontainebleau. 15.00-15.45: Group Work: What changes to your Organisational Environment would you like to see?
16.30-17.30: Beyond Creativity: How do you know if your idea is any good? The importance of experimentation and how to design “clever” experiments. Day 2: 09.00-09.30: Key ideas from yesterday. 09.30-10.40: Selling your ideas to win emotional commitment from your employees: What can we learn from the case of Steve Jobs? 10.40-11.00: Coffee Break 11.00-12.00: Automatic behaviours and the need to make the need for change emotional: Strategies to do this. 12.00-13.00: Who are the effective sellers of ideas?: The case of John Chambers. 13.00-14.00: Lunch 14.00-14.45: The Knowing-Doing Gap: Lack of clarity and the shoe shop exercise. 14.45-15.30: The Knowing-Doing Gap: Social Loafing. 15.30-15.45: Coffee Break 15.45-17.00: Key Challenges for the Future
15.45-16.00: Coffee Break 16.00-16.30: The Butterfly Principle: Small changes can have a big impact.
17.00-17.30: Group Work: Key takeaways for you – what will you do differently tomorrow at work?
SOCIAL PHILANTHROPY
A new movement of the people
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raham Brown-Martin was the founder of Learning Without Frontiers (LWF), a global think tank that brought together renowned educators, technologists and creatives to share provocative and challenging ideas about the future of learning. He works globally with senior leadership teams to help organisations adapt in the face of rapid change and innovation. By challenging entrenched thinking he liberates teams to think in new ways to solve complex challenges. Brown-Martin believes that in a connected society the future lies with the Internet. Financial micro-
deposits generated by everyday actions could be accumulated via a platform that provides participants with bonds. The holder of these bonds could then invest them in social ventures or causes connected to the same platform. Ventures and causes, as well as their supporters, could engage directly with bond holders in such a platform to establish sustainable communities of interest to improve social health and solve global challenges. This is what Brown-Martin calls “social philanthropy” and he thinks it’s worth exploring as part of the change that he would like to see.
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LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU
LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU
SAVE THE RHINO Working for wildlife
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ondon Speaker Bureau continues to work closely with Save the Rhino, sponsoring The Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture, held each year in honour of Save the Rhino founder patron Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and a lifelong dedicated conservationist. This year’s lecture was held on 10 March 2016 at the Royal Geographical Society, London, in aid of both Save the Rhino International and the Environmental Investigation Agency. The lecture “Survivors of the Ice Age” was delivered by author and broadcaster Alice Roberts, a clinical anatomist and Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham.
Four Short Lectures and Drinks 2015... London Speaker Bureau’s annual summer client event at the Royal Yacht Club in Knightsbridge, London, brought together a range of presenters talking about their areas of speciality. Moderated by Channel 5’s Emma Crosby, the event featured David Coulthard, the Formula 1 legend, as well as a live link-up from Channel 4’s Economics Editor Paul Mason in Athens, where he was covering the Greek-Euro financial crisis. Robert Phillips, author of Trust Me, PR is Dead and former CEO Edelman EMEA, and green energy entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett also joined the speaker line-up. 1
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AL DALHAMIEH SCHOOL, LEBANON
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1. Former Formula 1 racing driver, David Coulthard. 2. Channel 5’s Emma Crosby and performance coach Jamil Qureshi . 3. Founder of London Speaker Bureau, Tom Kenyon-Slaney. 4. Robert Phillips, recent CEO Edelman EMEA, speaking on his book Trust Me, PR is Dead 5. Jeremy Leggett, Author Carbon Wars and Chairman Solar Capital.
For innocent victims of war n association with the charity Nadja Now, London Speaker Bureau (LSB) is working to support Al Dalhamieh School in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Through ongoing donations to Nadja Now, LSB has supported the project throughout; from the initial stages of building, through to supporting the everyday running of the school and supplying learning materials for the pupils. After two years’ intensive work, Al Dalhamieh School opened on 2 November 2015. It teaches
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vulnerable children on premises less than 20 miles (30 km) from the Syrian border. Populated by 13 teachers and 500 Syrian refugee children aged between 5 and 12 years, the school is comprised of 12 classrooms, a playground, a library and a conference room. LSB continues to gather donations to aid in the school’s efforts to provide stability for its pupils, and looks forward enthusiastically to continuing its long-standing relationship with Nadja Now and Al Dalhamieh School.
THE NELSON TRUST
Passionate about recovery
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he Nelson Trust, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015, changes lives by dealing with addiction. At abstinence-based rehabilitation centres, its team brings healing after dark times and gets lives back on track with skills, qualifications and voluntary experience. The Trust’s award-winning centres in Gloucester and Swindon are for vulnerable women and their families affected by addiction, abuse, violence and mental health problems. 42 www.londonspeakerbureau.com
Each year, London Speaker Bureau sponsors the Trust’s annual lecture series which raises funds for their work. The most recent lecture was delivered by Antony Beevor, renowned historian and author. To find out more, visit nelsontrust.com. Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture 2015, A group of Save the Rhino volunteers.
SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
SPEAKGLOBAL | ISSUE 6
www.londonspeakerbureau.com
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GLOBAL BUSINESS NEWS
A selection of our speakers who recently spoke internationally
RAFIDAH AZIZ Minister of International Trade & Industry, Malaysia 1987-2008
JOSÉ MANUEL BARROSO President European Commission 2004-14
PATRICK BAUDRY French Astronaut
KIRAN BEDI India’s first and highest-ranking female police officer
INGRID BETANCOURT Colombian politician and former long-term hostage
LORENZO BINI SMAGHI Chairman, Société Générale bank
NICK BOSTROM Europe’s No 1 futurist & Future of Humanity Institute Director
SIR RICHARD BRANSON Founder, Virgin Group
ROBIN CHASE Co-founder and former CEO, Zipcar
LIZ EARLE Founder, Liz Earle Beauty
LORD (JONATHAN) EVANS Director General, MI5 2007-13
TONY FERNANDES Founder, Air Asia
JIAN GAO Former Vice Governor, China Development Bank
HANS-DIETER HERMANN Sports psychologist to the German national soccer team
KARINA HOLLEKIM Free-skier and B.A.S.E. jumper
KATTY KAY Anchor, BBC World News America
NAYLA AL KHAJA First female Emirati film producer
MONICA LEWINSKY Social activist campaigning against online bullying
DAME ELLEN MACARTHUR Yachtswoman turned sustainability guru
JO MALONE Founder, Jo Malone, British perfume and scented candle brand
DAVID MILIBAND President and CEO International Rescue Committee (IRC)
ZANNY MINTON BEDDOES Editor, The Economist
GEORGE MITCHELL Former Peace Envoy to the Middle East
LUCA DI MONTEZEMELO Chairman, Ferrari 1991-2014
NARAYANA MURTHY Co-founder, Infosys
SUPACHAI PANITCHPAKDI Former Secretary General UNCTAD
SIR CHRISTOPHER PISSARIDES Winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Economics
RICHARD QUEST Business Anchor, CNN
MARC RANDOLPH Co-founder, Netflix
FREDRIK REINFELDT Prime Minister Sweden 2006-14
TOM SARGENT Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Economics
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER Governor, California 2003-11
ELIF SHAFAK Turkey’s best-known contemporary author
ZEV SIEGL Co-founder, Starbucks
NADJA SWAROVSKI Member, Swarovski Executive Board
T H E
U LT I M A T E
M E D I T E R R A N E A N
R E T R E A T
Experience life on the crest of a wave with Anassa’s new-look rooms, suites and residences. JEAN-CLAUDE TRICHET Former Governor, European Central Bank
NONTOMBI TUTU Human rights activist
JEROEN VAN DER VEER Chairman, ING and Philips and former Group CEO, Shell
YANIS VAROUFAKIS Recent Greek Minister of Finance
BEATRICE WEDER DI MAURO Economic Advisor to German Government
SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO President Indonesia 2004-14
LINDA YUEH Recent BBC Global Chief Business Correspondent
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