USA

USA

“The only global speaker bureau.” 

The International New York Times

The London Speaker Bureau has the greatest 

collection in the world of speaking talent 

based outside the United States, making it the 

only bureau to specialize geographically. Over 

the past twenty years, we’ve traveled across 

Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa to 

curate an unrivaled collection of recognized 

speakers and opinion leaders. 

What they know will help you grow. 

Tom Kenyon-Slaney 

Founder and President 

THE LONDON SPEAKER BUREAU 

1

SELECTED SPEAKERS 

CELEBRITY 

Basmah Bint Saud (HRH) 7 

Richard Branson (Sir) 8 

Jimmy Choo 9 

Pierluigi Collina 9 

Bob Geldof (Sir) 12 

Bianca Jagger 15 

Piers Morgan 26 

Youssou N’Dour 26 

Elif Shafak 32 

Nicholas Soames (Sir) 33 

Charles Spencer (Lord) 34 

Nadja Swarovski 35 

FINANCE 

Lionel Barber 6 

Francois Baroin 6 

Jose Manuel Barroso 7 

Jonty Hurwitz 15 

Bimal Jalan 15 

Michael Jordaan 16 

Mervyn King (Lord) 18 

Horst Kohler 18 

Alexei Kudrin 19 

Pascal Lamy 20 

Augusto Lopez Claros 21 

Gerard Lyons 22 

Pippa Malmgren 23 

Thomas Mayer 24 

Zanny Minton-Beddoes 25 

Jim O’Neill 28 

Supachai Panitchpakdi 28 

Christopher Pissarides (Sir) 28 

Eisuke Sakaibara 31 

Xavier Sala-i-Martin 31 

Yashwant Sinha 33 

Peer Steinbrueck 34 

Jean-Claude Trichet 36 

Adair Turner (Lord) 37 

Linda Yueh 39 

GOVERNMENT 

Martti Ahtisaari 4 

Mohamed Al Thani (Sheikh) 4 

Michele Alliot-Marie 5 

Rafidah Aziz 5 

John Bruton 8 

Francois Fillon 12 

Joschka Fischer 12 

Yukio Hatoyama 14 

Jean-Claude Juncker 16 

APJ Abdul Kalam 16 

Vaclav Klaus 18 

Bernard Kouchner 19 

John Kufuor 19 

Ken Livingstone 21 

Peter Mandelson (Lord) 24 

David Miliband 24 

Frédéric Mitterand 25 

Romano Prodi 29 

Jorge Quiroga 29 

George Robertson (Lord) 30 

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

Han Seung-Soo 31 

Arun Shourie 33 

Jack Straw 35 

Heizo Takenaka 35 

Alejandro Toledo 36 

Yulia Tymoshenko 37 

Christian Wulff 39 

Li Zhaoxing 40 

MANAGEMENT 

John Armitt (Sir) 5 

Jonathan Evans (Sir) 11 

Tony Fernandes 11 

R Gopalakrishnan (Gopal) 13 

Gordon Hewitt 14 

Mishal Kanoo 17 

Martin McCourt 23 

Padraig McManus 23 

Narayana Murthy 26 

Vineet Nayar 27 

Jim Noble 27 

David Reid (Sir) 30 

Joanna Shields (Baroness) 32 

Richard Shirreff (Sir) 32 

Jeroen van der Veer 38 

Annette Winkler 38 

Xiang Bing 39 

MOTIVATION 

Nayla Al Khaja 4 

Felix Baumgartner 7 

Boris Becker 8 

Linford Christie 10 

Liz Earle 10 

Andy Green 13 

Gerard Houllier 14 

James Kerr 17 

Beau Lotto 22 

Sugata Mitra 25 

Martina Navratilova 27 

Tenzin Priyadarshi (Venerable) 29 

Laura Tenison 36 

Mark Webber 38 

SOCIETY 

Kinvara Balfour 6 

George Carey (Lord) 9 

FW de Klerk 10 

Mohamed ElBaradei 11 

Ben Hammersley 13 

Andrew Keen 17 

Ken Kutaragi 20 

Charles Leadbeater 20 

Jeremy Leggett 21 

Yury Luzhkov 22 

Hans Rosling 30 

Mark Stevenson 34 

Nontumbi Tutu 37 

Muhammad Yunus 40 

3

GOVERNMENT MOTIVATION GOVERNMENT 

Martti Ahtisaari 

Nayla Al Khaja 

Sheikh Mohamed Al Thani 

As President of Finland, Martti 

Ahtisaari led his country’s 

accession in 1995 to the European 

Union. After leaving office 

in 2000, he led inspections 

of IRA arms dumps in Ireland; 

chaired an independent panel 

on the security and safety of 

UN personnel in Iraq; served as 

UN Special Envoy for the Horn 

of Africa; facilitated the peace 

process between the government 

of Indonesia and the Free 

Aceh Movement, and acted as 

Special Envoy of the Secretary- 

General of the United Nations 

in Kosovo. For these activities, 

Martti Ahtisaari was awarded the 

Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. 

Nayla began her career as the 

host of a travel show on the 

Arabian Radio Network, then 

went to Canada to take a degree 

in film-making at Ryerson 

University. On graduation she 

returned to her native United 

Arab Emirates, where she 

overcame resistance to 

working women and produced 

her first documentary film, 

Unveiling Dubai (2004). In 2010 

her screenplay for Malal won 

the Best Script Award at the Gulf 

International Film Festival; the 

movie was shot in Kerala later 

the same year. Her latest film, 

Three, was released to critical 

acclaim in 2013. 

As Minister of Economy and 

Commerce (2003–2006), His 

Excellency Sheikh Mohamed 

Ahmed Jassim Al Thani liberalized 

Qatar’s trade within the 

World Trade Organization and 

negotiated free trade agreements 

with several nations. Prior 

to that, he held several senior 

posts with Qatar Petroleum, 

RasGas and QatarGas. He was 

the lead negotiator for longterm 

liquefied natural gas (LNG) 

sales contracts with Japan, 

Korea, Taiwan, India, Italy and 

Spain. Sheikh Mohamed is still 

an active international consultant 

who brings his insights to oil 

and gas conferences worldwide. 

4 To book a speaker please contact our New York office on 212-836-4874

GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT 

Michèle Alliot-Marie 

John Armitt 

Rafidah Aziz 

Michèle Alliot-Marie – known 

in the media as ‘MAM’ – is a 

French politician of the Union 

for a Popular Movement (UMP). 

A member of all but one of the 

right-wing governments of the 

1980s, she was successively 

Minister of Defense, Minister 

of the Interior and Minister of 

Foreign Affairs – the first woman 

in France to hold any of those 

positions. She has also been 

Minister for Youth and Sports, 

and Minister for Justice. Michèle 

is currently parliamentary 

deputy for Pyrénées-Atlantiques 

and deputy mayor of Saint-Jeande-Luz, 

as well as vice-president 

of the UMP. 

John is best known as chairman 

of the Olympic Delivery Authority 

for the London 2012 games. 

He was previously chairman of 

Laing’s international and civil 

engineering divisions and chief 

executive of Network Rail and 

Railtrack. He was later chief 

executive of Union Railways, 

the company that developed 

the high-speed Channel Tunnel 

rail link. Knighted in 2012, Sir 

John currently chairs National 

Express, the intercity coach 

operator. He is also deputy 

chairman of the Berkeley Group 

and a member of the Board of 

Transport for London and the 

Airports Commission. 

Rafidah was Malaysia’s longestserving 

minister of international 

trade and industry, having been 

in the position for 21 years 

from 1987 to 2008. During her 

time in office she helped many 

multinational corporations, 

including Intel, Western Digital, 

Panasonic and Samsung to set 

up manufacturing and research 

and development facilities in 

Malaysia. She also created the 

Small and Medium Industries 

Development Corporation 

(SMIDEC) to encourage domestic 

producers. Rafidah is currently 

patron of the Malaysia-Europe 

Forum and chair of AirAsia X, the 

low-cost regional airline. 

5

SOCIETY 

FINANCE 

FINANCE 

Kinvara Balfour 

Lionel Barber 

François Baroin 

Kinvara Balfour is one of 

Europe’s leading fashion, culture 

and style experts. As a ’consultant 

of cool’, she advises major 

corporations around the world 

on what is happening in the 

world of fashion, beauty and 

popular culture. Currently developing 

a fashion-based docuseries 

for TV in the USA and UK, 

Kinvara also presents ‘Fashion In 

Conversation at the Apple Store’, 

a series of live interviews for 

Apple in London and New York 

with fashion superstars including 

Anna Wintour, Zac Posen, Anya 

Hindmarch, Natalie Massenet, 

Manolo Blahnik, Marchesa, Sandy 

Powell and Tom Ford. 

Lionel Barber began his career 

in journalism on The Scotsman 

daily newspaper. In 1981 he 

moved to The Sunday Times 

in London as a business 

correspondent. Four years later 

he joined the Financial Times 

and became its editor in 2005. 

Under his leadership, the FT 

pioneered the concept of the 

integrated newsroom in which 

reporters and editors work in 

both print and digital formats – 

a lead that all other papers soon 

followed. Lionel has interviewed 

numerous world leaders, including 

Barack Obama, Wen Jiabao, 

Dimitri Medvedev, Angela 

Merkel and Manmohan Singh. 

A member of the French parliament 

since 1993 and mayor 

of Troyes since 1995, François 

Baroin was senior political 

advisor to Jacques Chirac in 

2004 and later served in four 

great French offices of state: 

Minister of Overseas Territories 

(2005–2007); Minister of the 

Interior (2007); Minister of 

Budget, Public Accounts and 

State Reform (2010–2011), and 

Minister of Economy, Finance 

and Industry (2011–2012). He 

is now greatly in demand as a 

speaker on all aspects of finance 

and economics, the euro, 

stability and regulation, growth, 

investment and infrastructure. 


GOVERNMENT 

CELEBRITY 

MOTIVATION 

Jose Manuel Barroso 

Basmah bint Saud 

Felix Baumgartner 

José Manuel Durão Barroso was 

President of the European Commission 

from 2004-14. He was 

re-elected for a second five-year 

term in 2009. Barroso was a 

visiting professor at Georgetown 

University in the US from 

1996-98. First elected to the 

Portuguese Parliament in 1985. 

he served as State Secretary for 

Home Affairs, State Secretary for 

Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, 

and Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

In 1999, he was elected President 

of the Social Democratic 

Party (PSD) and became the 

Leader of the Opposition. 

Barroso served as Prime Minister 

of Portugal from 2002-04. 

Princess Basmah bint Saud bin 

Abdulaziz is the granddaughter 

of King Abdulaziz, founder of 

modern Saudi Arabia, and the 

youngest child of his son, King 

Saud (reigned 1953–1964). 

Since 2007 Her Royal Highness 

has pursued parallel careers as 

a journalist and an entrepreneur. 

She has written for numerous 

newspapers and periodicals 

including Sayidaty, a monthly 

style magazine in Arabic and 

English. She also established 

Inseed, an umbrella company 

for catering brands, and Ecco, a 

media organization. Her Global 

United Lanterns project promotes 

the education of women. 

As a motivational speaker, 

Austrian Felix Baumgartner 

draws on experience that is 

literally out of this world: on 

October 14, 2012, he became 

the first human to parachute to 

Earth from outer space when 

he launched himself from a 

helium balloon 24 miles (39 

km) above the New Mexico 

desert. During his nine-minute 

descent, he reached a maximum 

velocity of 843.6 mph (1,357.6 

kmh) – Mach 1.25 – and thus 

also became the first human to 

break the sound barrier without 

the assistance of a vehicle. On 

terra firma, he is a member of 

the Audi Motorsport team. 

7

MOTIVATION 

CELEBRITY 

GOVERNMENT 

Boris Becker 

Richard Branson 

John Bruton 

Few people are better qualified 

to speak about leadership, 

teamwork and motivation than 

Boris, who shot to fame in 1985 

as the youngest and the first 

unseeded player ever to win the 

Wimbledon men’s singles tennis 

championship. He went on to 

win a total of 49 career titles, 

including five further Grand 

Slam events. He also led West 

Germany to Davis Cup victories 

in 1988 and 1989, and won gold 

in the doubles (with Michael 

Stich) at the 1992 Olympics. 

Since retiring in 1999, Boris has 

divided his time between media 

work and running a tennis clothing 

and equipment business. 

Richard founded Student magazine 

while he was still at school. 

He then set up a mail order 

record retailer, which he named 

Virgin because of his lack of 

business experience. Next he 

opened a shop in London’s 

Oxford Street and a recording 

studio in Oxfordshire: the first 

album recorded there was Mike 

Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. Further 

expansion followed with the 

foundation of Virgin Atlantic, 

which is now Britain’s second 

largest long-haul airline. He 

was knighted in 2000. Sir 

Richard’s Virgin Group now 

comprises around 400 

companies worldwide. 

After winning election to the 

Dáil Éireann in 1969 at the age 

of 22, John Bruton held several 

cabinet appointments, including 

Minister for Finance, before 

becoming Taoiseach in 1994. 

Over the next three years the 

Irish economy grew economy 

grew at an annual average rate 

of 8.7%. He remained a member 

of the Irish parliament until 

2004, when he was appointed 

EU Commission Head of Delegation 

in the United States for a 

five-year term. He is currently 

chairman of IFSC Ireland, a 

private sector body set up to 

develop the nation’s financial 

services industry. 


SOCIETY CELEBRITY CELEBRITY 

George Carey Jimmy Choo Pierluigi Collina 

George Carey was Archbishop of 

Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, 

when he retired as spiritual 

leader of the world’s 80 million 

Anglicans and was appointed 

a life peer. He then joined the 

Foundation Board of the World 

Economic Forum and served 

as co-chair of the Council of 

100, which seeks to bridge the 

gulf between the West and the 

Islamic world. Lord Carey is 

currently president of the 

United Church Schools Trust 

and United Learning, and 

chair and co-founder with Jim 

Wolfensohn, former President 

of the World Bank, of the World 

Faiths Development Dialogue. 

Born in 1961, Jimmy Choo 

began making shoes at the age 

of 11 in his father’s shop in 

Penang, Malaysia. He studied 

at Cordwainers College (now 

part of the London College of 

Fashion) and in 1986 set up his 

first factory in the British capital. 

His business struggled to begin 

with, and even an eight-page 

feature in Vogue magazine did 

little to improve his fortunes, 

but as soon as Diana, Princess 

of Wales, was seen in a pair of 

Jimmy Choos, sales took off and 

propelled him to wealth and 

stardom. His shoes featured 

prominently in the movie The 

Devil Wears Prada. 

Pierluigi Collina is the former 

soccer referee who took charge 

of the 2002 World Cup Final in 

Yokohama, Japan, between 

Brazil and Germany. Since 

retiring from the game in 2006, 

he has combined his academic 

training as an economist with 

his experience of football to 

advise companies. His simple 

and effective creed may be 

summarized thus: analyze each 

team’s tactics to ensure you’re 

in the right place at the right 

time; defuse tension quickly 

and fairly; and learn from your 

mistakes, but resist the temptation 

to make matters worse by 

compensating for them. 

9

MOTIVATION 

MOTIVATION 

SOCIETY 

Linford Christie 

Liz Earle 

F.W. de Klerk 

Europe’s greatest-ever 100m 

sprinter, Linford Christie won 

gold for Great Britain in the 

1992 Barcelona Olympics. Since 

retirement from the track he has 

worked on TV, notably as CNN’s 

lead athletics commentator, 

and coached a host of emerging 

athletes, including five Britons 

in the 2012 London Olympics. 

He has also nurtured grass-roots 

talent through initiatives such 

as Street Athletics, which started 

in 2004 in Manchester and has 

since spread to 22 venues. 

He speaks compellingly 

about motivation, maximizing 

performance, goal-setting and 

human development. 

A co-founder of the Food 

Labeling Agenda (FLAG), 

Liz Earle set up the beauty 

company that bears her name 

in 1995 and grew it into Britain’s 

largest skincare line, with more 

than 600 employees, most of 

them women. After selling the 

business to Avon in 2010, Liz 

created a range of ethicallysourced 

jewelry and an online 

lifestyle website. She is an 

active supporter of dermatology 

projects at institutions including 

Great Ormond Street Hospital 

for Sick Children and patron 

of ACE Africa. Her latest book, 

Juice!, is scheduled for 

publication in early 2015. 

Succeeding P.W. Botha as President 

of South Africa in 1989, 

Frederik Willem de Klerk led the 

dismantling of apartheid and 

the nation’s transition to majority 

rule under its first democratically 

elected black leader, 

Nelson Mandela, with whom he 

shared the 1993 Nobel Peace 

Prize. Since retiring from politics 

in 1997, he has run the F.W. 

de Klerk Foundation, which 

is dedicated to the promotion 

of peace in multi-ethnic 

societies. He makes numerous 

speeches around the world 

and speaks at international 

conferences on the promotion 

of inter-racial harmony. 


SOCIETY 

MANAGEMENT 

MANAGEMENT 

Mohamed El Baredei 

Jonathan Evans 

Tony Fernandes 

Mohamed El Baredei was Director 

General of the International 

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 

from 1997 to 2009. In 2005 

he and the organization shared 

the Nobel Peace Prize for their 

diplomacy. After leaving the 

IAEA, Mohamed returned to his 

native Egypt where he founded 

the National Association for 

Change, a non-partisan group 

that works for democratic 

reform of the nation’s electoral 

system. He was interim vicepresident 

in July 2013 after the 

toppling of President Mohamed 

Morsi, but resigned a month 

later in protest at the violent 

crackdown by security forces. 

As Director General of MI5, 

the British security service 

from 2007 to 2013, Jonathan 

Evans ensured the safety of the 

London Olympic and Paralympic 

Games. Previously he worked 

as both an investigator and an 

operational officer on a variety 

of threats to national security. 

He became the director responsible 

for MI5’s international 

counter-terrorism network just 

ten days before 9/11 in 2001. 

Knighted in 2013, Sir Jonathan 

is now a non-executive director 

of HSBC. He lectures widely 

and writes an occasional series 

on classic cars for the London 

weekly The Sunday Times. 

The founder in 2001 of Tune 

Air, Tony Fernandes later joined 

forces with three partners to 

buy AirAsia. They remodeled 

the Malaysian operator into a 

low-cost, no-frills airline that 

now operates more than 100 

domestic and international 

flights daily and has entered 

successful joint ventures in 

Indonesia and Thailand. Away 

from aviation, Tony is President 

of the Asian Basketball League 

and revived the Lotus Formula 

One team before renaming it 

Caterham in 2012. In 2011, 

he took a majority shareholding 

in English soccer club Queens 

Park Rangers. 

11

GOVERNMENT 

GOVERNMENT 

CELEBRITY 

François Fillon 

Joschka Fischer 

Bob Geldof 

François Fillon is a member of 

the French center-right Union 

for a Popular Movement (UMP). 

As Minister of Labor in 2002 he 

undertook controversial reforms 

of the 35-hour working week 

law and the retirement system. 

In 2004, as Minister of National 

Education, he controversially 

proposed excluding arts subjects 

from the core school curriculum. 

After he had helped Nicolas 

Sarkozy to victory in 2007, the 

new president appointed him 

prime minister. Resigning in 

2012 after Sarkozy’s defeat to 

François Hollande he is co-Chairman 

of the UMP and possible 

next President of France. 

As Vice Chancellor and Foreign 

Minister of Germany 

(1998–2005), Joschka brought 

his Green Party to the center of 

the national political stage. After 

leaving government, he became 

a senior fellow at the Liechtenstein 

Institute on Self-Determination, 

and a visiting professor 

at the Woodrow Wilson School 

of Public and International 

Affairs, Princeton University. 

Since 2008 he has been a 

Senior Strategic Counsel of the 

Albright Group. He is a member 

of the Spinelli Group and the 

International Crisis Group and 

co-chair of the European 

Council on Foreign Relations. 

Bob was lead singer of The 

Boomtown Rats, the Dublin 

punk/new wave band that had 

two UK No 1 singles in the late 

1970s. He then joined forces 

with Midge Ure of Ultravox to 

organize Live Aid, an unprecedentedly 

ambitious benefit 

concert held simultaneously 

in London and Philadelphia 

in 1985 that raised millions 

of dollars for famine relief 

in Ethiopia. By 1992 he had 

established himself as a highly 

astute businessman with his 

co-ownership of the television 

production house Planet 24. He 

is now a top-ranked corporate 

and after-dinner speaker. 


MANAGEMENT 

MOTIVATION 

SOCIETY 

R. Gopalakrishnan Andy Green 

Ben Hammersley 

After more than 30 years with 

Hindustan Unilever and then 

as Executive Director of Tata, 

Gopal, as he is generally known, 

has become one of India’s most 

experienced business leaders. 

Today, while retaining a seat on 

the Tata board, he also serves 

as an independent director 

of the Indian subsidiaries of 

Akzo Nobel and BP Castrol. 

He lectures all over the world 

and writes regularly in management 

journals and financial 

news-papers. He is the author 

of three books, including the 

celebrated The Case of the 

Bonsai Manager: Lessons from 

Nature on Growing. 

Driving Richard Noble’s Thrust 

SSC (SuperSonic Car) in 1997, 

Andy Green set the world’s first 

and only supersonic land speed 

record of 763 mph, driving 

literally faster than a speeding 

bullet. Andy talks about the 

huge technological, practical 

and personal challenges that he 

and the team had to overcome 

in pursuit of the record. Andy is 

the chosen driver for the new 

BLOODHOUND SSC, which aims 

to exceed the incredible target 

of 1000 mph! With a highly 

developed education program 

this project is inspiring the next 

generation of young engineers 

and scientists. 

Ben is a journalist, futurist 

and technologist who advises 

governments and businesses on 

the effects of the Internet and 

explains complex technological 

and sociological topics to 

lay audiences. He is currently 

Innovator in Residence at the 

Centre for Creative and Social 

Technologies at Goldsmiths 

at the University of London; a 

faculty member of the School 

of Life; an academic fellow at 

the European Policy Centre; 

a non-executive director of 

Digital Jersey Ltd and principal 

of Onwards, Friend – a program 

to launch platforms for highaltitude 

and low-earth orbits. 

13

GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT MOTIVATION 

Yukio Hatoyama 

Gordon Hewitt 

Gérard Houllier 

Yukio Hatoyama was prime 

minister of Japan for less than 

a year, but in that short time 

he achieved more than many 

national premiers manage in 

several full terms. He moved 

his country toward a more 

Asia-centered foreign policy 

and worked to deepen regional 

economic integration, pushing 

for a free trade zone by 2020 

and proposing Tokyo’s Haneda 

Airport as a 24-hour hub for 

international flights. He also 

pledged to reduce Japan’s 

greenhouse gas emissions by 

one-quarter by 2020, a more 

ambitious target than that of 

any other industrialized nation. 

Gordon is Professor of Business 

Administration at the Ross 

School of Business, University of 

Michigan. His main interests are 

in global competition, corporate 

strategy, transformation and 

innovation. A leading authority 

on the challenges facing 

business leaders striving to 

create value in dynamic, 

complex markets, he has worked 

as a consultant on corporate 

strategy and top leadership 

development programs for Intel, 

Philips, RasGas, Ericsson, Pfizer, 

Time Warner, Pricewaterhouse- 

Coopers, IBM, Sony, Honeywell, 

Shell, Verizon, Adobe, Diageo, 

Bosch and Credit Suisse. 

Gérard is a football coach 

who has managed Paris Saint- 

Germain (leading them to the 

league title in his first season in 

charge), Liverpool (who, under 

his guidance in 2001 won a 

unique treble of the UEFA Cup, 

the FA Cup and the League 

Cup), Olympique Lyonnais and 

Aston Villa, as well as the French 

National Team. Since 2012 he 

has overseen Red Bull’s soccer 

clubs in New York, Salzburg, 

Leipzig and Brazil in his role as 

the company’s head of global 

football. A holder of the French 

Légion d’Honneur and a British 

OBE, Gérard lectures on strategy, 

teamwork and training. 


FINANCE CELEBRITY FINANCE 

Jonty Hurwitz 

Bianca Jagger 

Bimal Jalan 

Jonty is a leading financial and 

technological innovator, and a 

highly successful entrepreneur. 

In 2007 he co-founded Wonga. 

com, the multi-award-winning 

online, short-term money-lender 

that grew to a staggering value 

of £384 million ($647 million) 

in just five years. Previously he 

was the lead designer of Statpro 

Revolution, one of the world’s 

leading cloud-based analytics 

platforms for fund managers. 

He also worked at Global Asset 

Management for Gilbert de 

Botton, designing reporting 

systems to allow complex 

financial instruments to be 

analyzed visually. 

Bianca Jagger is founder and 

chair of the Bianca Jagger 

Human Rights Foundation. She 

is also a goodwill ambassador 

for the Council of Europe and 

a member of Amnesty International 

USA’s Leadership Council. 

In 2004 she received the 

Right Livelihood Award for her 

‘dedicated campaigning over a 

wide range of issues of human 

rights, social justice and environmental 

protection, including 

the abolition of the death 

penalty, the prevention of child 

abuse, the rights of indigenous 

peoples to the environment and 

the prevention and healing of 

armed conflicts’. 

Renowned for his successful 

reforms, commitment to public 

service and pragmatism, Dr 

Bimal Jalan is one of India’s 

most distinguished economists. 

He was governor of the Reserve 

Bank of India (1997–2003), 

and later a nominated member 

of the Raiya Sahba, the upper 

house of India’s parliament. 

In 2013 he was nominated to 

lead a three-member committee 

to scrutinize applications 

for new bank licenses. An 

impressive speaker on a wide 

range of topics, he is frequently 

invited to chair and address 

conferences and events all 

over the world. 

15

FINANCE GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT 

Michael Jordaan 

Jean-Claude Juncker 

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam 

After his appointment, aged 36, 

as CEO of First National Bank 

(FNB), Michael oversaw the 

South African company’s move 

away from traditional banking 

toward ecosystem-centric 

solutions for customers. In 

2009 he won the Association 

of Business Communicators’ 

regional Excel Award for ‘On 

MJ’s Mind’, his employee 

communication program. He 

left FNB in 2013 to pursue his 

passion for entrepreneurship, 

and now heads Montegray 

Capital, a start-up private investment 

company, and is actively 

involved in Mxit, the mobile 

messaging company. 

Jean-Claude Juncker’s election 

in 2014 as president of the 

European Commission was the 

crowning achievement of a 

distinguished career that began 

in 1984 when he became a 

deputy in the parliament of 

his native Luxembourg. As the 

country’s minister for finance, 

he was a key architect of the 

1992 Maastricht Treaty, and 

was largely responsible for 

its clauses on economic and 

monetary union. While prime 

minister of Luxembourg 

(1995–2013), he served terms 

as governor of the World Bank, 

head of the IMF and president 

of the European Council. 

Dr Kalam is renowned as 

the aerospace engineer who 

became president of India. 

As project director of the Indian 

Space Research Organization 

(ISRO) in the 1970s, he 

developed the nation’s first 

Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-3). 

He then advised his government 

on its missile and nuclear 

weapons program. In 2002 he 

ran for president as the National 

Democratic Alliance candidate 

and won the ensuing election 

by a big majority. Since leaving 

office in 2007, Dr Kalam has 

written several books 

and gained distinction as 

a motivational speaker. 


MANAGEMENT 

SOCIETY 

MOTIVATION 

Mishal Kanoo 

Andrew Keen 

James Kerr 

Mishal Kanoo is deputy 

chairman of the Kanoo Group, 

one of the largest family-owned 

companies in the Middle East, 

with interests in financial 

services, shipping, travel, 

machinery, logistics, oil and gas, 

ports, power, and chemicals. 

He is a futurist and a strategist 

with an impressive track record 

that includes predicting that 

gold was overpriced long before 

Warren Buffet mentioned it and 

perceiving early that the Arab 

Spring in Egypt was not a 

revolution, ‘just a change of 

face’. As an advisor, his recent 

clients have included Shell, 

Nestlé and Proctor & Gamble. 

Andrew Keen is the pioneering 

Silicon Valley-based Internet 

entrepreneur who founded 

Audiocafe.com and built it into a 

popular first-generation Internet 

music company. He has also 

co-founded a number of other 

Silicon Valley start-up ventures 

including afterTV and now.tv. 

He is currently the host of Keen 

On, the Techcrunch chat show, 

where he interviews global 

business luminaries. He has 

been featured in hundreds of 

magazines and newspapers 

around the world and regularly 

writes for The New York Times, 

The Wall Street Journal, The Daily 

Telegraph and The Guardian. 

James Kerr is a bestselling 

author, speaker and business 

consultant who specializes 

in defining, designing and 

delivering change for leaders 

of organizations of all types. 

In his acclaimed book Legacy 

(2013), he reveals 15 leadership 

lessons to be learned from the 

All Blacks, the New Zealand 

national rugby side and the 

world’s most successful sporting 

team. His corporate clients 

include HSBC, Boeing, Raffles, 

UBS and Shell. In sport, he 

has worked with UEFA, Team 

Origin, the Rugby Football 

Union, Adidas and the 

Australian Kangaroos. 

17

FINANCE 

GOVERNMENT 

FINANCE 

Mervyn King 

Václav Klaus 

Horst Köhler 

Mervyn King was Governor of 

the Bank of England from 2003 

to 2013 and also a member 

of the General Council of the 

European Central Bank. Many 

aspects of the Bank of England’s 

work that we today take for 

granted were his invention, 

including inflation targeting, 

which is now practiced across 

the world. Former Chancellor of 

the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke 

described him as the ‘intellectual 

rock’ on which this policy 

was built. Awarded a life peerage 

on retirement, Lord King is 

now a Distinguished Visiting 

Professor of Business and Law at 

New York University. 

Václav worked as an economist 

with the Czechoslovak State 

Bank and the Czech Academy 

until 1989, when he was lured 

into politics by the unfolding 

Velvet Revolution that brought 

about the fall of communism. 

He became minister of finance 

in the new democratic government 

and then in 1992 prime 

minister of Czechoslovakia. 

After the Velvet Divorce, in 

which Slovakia became an independent 

nation, Václav became 

prime minister of the new Czech 

Republic and led its conversion 

to the free market. In 2003 

he was elected president and 

remained in office until 2013. 

After four years as head of 

the International Monetary 

Fund, Horst Köhler became 

President of Germany in 2004 

and remained in office until 

2010. Previously, he had been 

closely involved in the process 

of German reunification in 1990 

and was deputy governor for 

Germany at the World Bank. 

As deputy minister of finance 

in 1991, he led negotiations 

on behalf of the German government 

on the agreement that in 

the following year became the 

Maastricht Treaty on European 

economic and monetary union, 

the foundation of the modern 

euro currency. 


GOVERNMENT FINANCE GOVERNMENT 

Bernard Kouchner 

Alexei Kudrin 

John Kufuor 

A doctor by training, Bernard 

held many government posts 

in France and was ultimately 

minister of foreign and European 

affairs. A co-founder and 

former president of Médecins 

Sans Frontières, he was the first 

person to challenge the Red 

Cross’s stance of neutrality and 

silence in wars and massacres. 

He convinced the UN to accept 

‘the right to interfere’, and after 

the wars in the Balkans served 

as special representative to UN 

Secretary General Kofi Annan 

in Kosovo. Bernard continues 

to promote universal access to 

medical care and takes part in 

the fight against AIDS. 

As Russian minister of finance 

(2000–2011), Alexei Kudrin 

championed the free market 

and introduced prudent fiscal 

management and commitment 

to tax and budget reform, 

innovations that enabled Russia 

to repay most of its substantial 

foreign debt. Much of the 

revenue from exports was 

accumulated at the Stabilization 

Fund, which helped Russia to 

come out of the 2008–2009 

global financial crisis in much 

better shape than experts had 

predicted. After leaving office, 

Alexei took up senior supervisory 

roles at Sberbank and the 

Russian Central Bank. 

As President of Ghana (2001– 

2009), John Kufuor restored 

democracy to his country after 

a period of military dictatorship. 

He implemented major changes 

in education and healthcare 

and led infrastructure development. 

He was also influential 

elsewhere in Africa, helping to 

end the civil war in Sierra Leone, 

accelerating the fall of Charles 

Taylor in Liberia, and heading 

the commission that created a 

new constitution in Kenya. 

President Kufuor is now 

chair of the Interpeace Governing 

Council and co-chair of the 

Global Panel on Agriculture and 

Food Systems for Nutrition. 

19

SOCIETY 

FINANCE 

SOCIETY 

Ken Kutaragi 

Pascal Lamy 

Charlie Leadbeater 

In 1990 the former chairman 

and group CEO of Sony 

Computer Entertainment 

created the SPC700 sound 

chip that displaced Nintendo 

and Sega as market leaders and 

elevated video games from a 

passing fad into an almost 

universal must-have. Ken 

Kutaragi is known in the 

industry as ‘the father of the 

PlayStation’. He remains an 

advisor to Sony, but is now 

principally occupied as 

president and CEO of Internet 

services company Cyber 

AI Entertainment Inc and as 

an external director at 

Marvelous AQL. 

Pascal Lamy rose through the 

French civil service to become 

advisor to Jacques Delors, who 

was then minister of economy 

and finance. When Delors 

became president of the European 

Commission (EC) in 1984, 

he took Pascal with him as his 

head of cabinet. After 10 years 

in Brussels, Pascal helped to 

rescue Crédit Lyonnais from its 

financial crisis and became the 

bank’s CEO up to its privatization 

in 1999. He then returned 

to the EC as commissioner for 

trade. Between 2005 and 2013, 

Pascal served two terms as 

director general of the World 

Trade Organization. 

Former labor editor of the 

Financial Times and assistant 

editor of The Independent, Charlie 

became British Prime Minister 

Tony Blair’s favourite corporate 

thinker, for whom he drafted Our 

Competitive Future: Building the 

Knowledge Driven Economy, one 

of the world’s first policy papers 

to contend that advanced economies 

would become increasingly 

dependent on innovation for 

growth. He has since helped other 

governments to spot new ideas 

ahead of time. Charlie is a longstanding 

senior research associate 

with London think tank Demos, 

and his TED talks on innovation 

have been watched by millions. 


SOCIETY 

GOVERNMENT 

FINANCE 

Jeremy Leggett 

Ken Livingstone 

Augusto Lopez-Claros 

Jeremy trained as a geologist 

and worked for Shell and BP 

before becoming a green energy 

entrepreneur with an unmatched 

ability to combine social awareness 

and profit-making. He is 

founder and chairman of Solarcentury, 

one of Europe’s fastestgrowing 

renewable energy 

companies, and founder of 

SolarAid, a charity that teaches 

young Africans how to make, 

sell, and use solar lanterns. He 

is also chairman of the Carbon 

Tracker Initiative think tank and 

the founding director of New 

Energies Invest AG, the world’s 

first private equity investment 

fund for renewables. 

As the first elected mayor of 

London (2000–2008), former 

Labour MP Ken Livingstone was 

praised for upgrading the city’s 

aging bus and tube network, 

levying a congestion charge on 

motor vehicles in the central 

area, and introducing chipoperated 

city-wide travel tickets 

(‘Oyster cards’) and bus and 

cycle lanes. In 2005 he became 

the first chair of the C40 group, 

which brought the leaders of the 

world’s greatest cities together 

to determine methods of reducing 

greenhouse gas emissions. 

He now speaks widely about the 

environment, investment, public 

transport and sustainability. 

Augusto was professor of 

economics at the University of 

Chile, Santiago, before moving 

to the International Monetary 

Fund, where he was responsible 

for the implementation of a 

multi-billion dollar program of 

assistance to Russia. For many 

years he was editor of the World 

Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness 

Report. He is the 

founder of EFD Global Consulting 

Network, which specializes 

in economic, financial and 

development issues. Currently 

director of Global Indicators 

and Analysis at the World Bank, 

Augusto is greatly in demand as 

a media commentator. 

21

MOTIVATION 

SOCIETY 

FINANCE 

Beau Lotto 

Yuri Luzhkov 

Gerard Lyons 

Beau Lotto is a neuroscientist 

whose projects and programs 

help people to ‘see differently’ 

and thus become more 

adaptable in the ever-changing 

educational and business 

environments. In addition to his 

role as director of the Change 

Lab at University College, 

London, Beau is co-director of 

Beautiful Mind, an innovation 

consultancy, and CEO of Ripples 

Inc, a Silicon Valley start-up that 

unites neuroscience, behavioral 

research and digital technology. 

He created the first public 

perception lab at the London 

Science Museum and has exhibited 

at the Hayward Gallery. 

Yury Luzhkov is best known 

internationally as the former 

mayor of Moscow. During his 

18 years in office (1992–2010), 

he transformed the Russian 

capital through a dramatic 

increase in the amount of 

construction of residential and 

commercial buildings as well as 

major improvements to 

the urban infrastructure. 

He modernized the inner city 

streets and ordered the creation 

of a new orbital road (the third) 

around the city. He also oversaw 

the long hoped-for reconstruction 

of Christ the Savior Cathedral, 

which was destroyed by 

Stalin’s regime in 1931. 

Over the last quarter of a 

century Dr Gerard Lyons has 

been ahead of the game in 

predicting major economic 

trends: the financial crisis, 

challenges in the euro zone, 

Japan’s lost decade, low 

interest rates and the shift in 

the balance of power toward 

China and other emergent 

countries. In 2010 and 2011 

Bloomberg ranked him No 1 

global forecaster (out of more 

than 360). Formerly chief 

economist and group head of 

global research at Standard 

Chartered, Gerard is currently 

chief economic advisor to Boris 

Johnson, Mayor of London. 


MANAGEMENT 

MANAGEMENT 

FINANCE 

Martin McCourt 

Padraig McManus 

Pippa Malmgren 

Martin is best known as the CEO 

who transformed Dyson from a 

single-market producer of 

vacuum cleaners into a company 

that gathers 80% of its 

business from 52 markets 

around the world. He was 

named Orange Business Leader 

of the Year in 2010 and in 2011 

Dyson achieved £1 billion ($1.7 

billion) in revenue. He was later 

a director of the private equity 

firm Montagu and is currently 

chairman of three companies: 

CAP, automotive intelligencegatherer, 

CliniSys, pan-European 

supplier of IT to clinical laboratories, 

and the Dutch Ophthalmic 

Research Center. 

During his 10 years as chief 

executive of Ireland’s Electricity 

Supply Board (ESB), Padraig 

directed the company’s first 

private placement fundraising 

package in the United States. 

He also led the sale of a tranche 

of ESB’s power generation 

portfolio to Endesa of Spain in a 

ground-breaking deal with trade 

unions and the regulator. Finally 

he masterminded the acquisition 

of NIE Networks from the 

Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank. 

Since retirement in 2012, 

Padraig has been the nonexecutive 

chairman of Eircom 

and has led volunteer groups to 

rebuild schools in Ghana. 

Pippa was financial market 

advisor to George W. Bush in 

the run-up to the 2000 U.S. 

presidential election and after 

the Republican victory became 

his special assistant on the 

National Economic Council. 

She then ran strategy for several 

investment banks and currently 

advises the world’s largest 

institutional investors on risk. 

As a speaker she reveals her 

knowledge of what she calls ‘the 

inside baseball’ on policy issues. 

One of her key themes is that 

there are only two forces in the 

world economy: the power to 

generate a profit and the power 

to tax it. 

23

GOVERNMENT 

FINANCE 

GOVERNMENT 

Peter Mandelson 

Thomas Mayer 

David Miliband 

Peter’s political career has been 

full of landmark achievements. 

As UK Secretary of Trade and 

Industry he introduced the 

national minimum wage. Later, 

as Secretary of State for Northern 

Ireland, he negotiated the 

creation of a new power-sharing 

government and overhauled 

the province’s police service. In 

2004 he was appointed Britain’s 

EU Commissioner for Trade. At 

the end of his term in Brussels 

he entered the House of Lords 

as Baron Mandelson of Foy. He 

is currently chairman of Lazard 

investment bank and president 

of Policy Network, an international 

think tank. 

Thomas held positions at the 

International Monetary Fund 

and the Kiel Institute for the 

World Economy before entering 

the private sector. He worked for 

Salomon Brothers and Goldman 

Sachs in London before joining 

Deutsche Bank in 2002, where 

he was chief economist until 

2012 and is now senior economics 

advisor to the bank’s top 

management and elite clients. 

He is also a senior fellow at the 

Center for Financial Studies in 

Frankfurt. During the financial 

crisis that began in 2008, his 

accurate predictions made him 

greatly in demand as a media 

commentator. 

After graduating from Oxford 

with a first in PPE, David took 

a master’s degree at MIT. He 

became an MP in 2001, and 

went on to hold several ministerial 

roles, including Foreign Secretary. 

Since leaving parliament 

in 2010, he has been president 

and chief executive of the 

International Rescue Committee, 

a New York-based non-profit 

humanitarian organization. 

David recently set up Movement 

for Change, which is training 

10,000 community organizers in 

the UK. He regularly lectures at 

MIT, and participates in seminars 

with Condoleezza Rice at 

Stanford University. 


FINANCE 

MOTIVATION 

GOVERNMENT 

Zanny Minton Beddoes 

Sugata Mitra 

Frédéric Mitterrand 

Zanny Minton Beddoes was 

an advisor to the minister of 

finance in Poland and then 

spent two years at the International 

Monetary Fund, where 

she worked on macroeconomic 

adjustment programs in Africa 

and the transition economies 

of Eastern Europe. In 1994 she 

joined The Economist, of which 

she is currently economics 

editor, and in 1998 testified 

before the US Congress on the 

introduction of the euro. She is a 

trustee of the Carnegie Endowment 

for International Peace 

and a member of the Research 

Advisory Board of the Committee 

for Economic Development. 

Formerly a visiting professor 

at MIT and currently professor 

of educational technology 

at Newcastle University, Sugata 

Mitra is at the forefront of a new 

approach to teaching that challenges 

traditional methods. He 

was the winner of the 2013 TED 

Prize. He is best known for his 

‘hole in the wall’ (ATM) experiment, 

in which an Internet-connected 

PC was left, apparently 

unobserved, in an urban slum in 

Delhi. Almost immediately, children 

began playing with the computer 

and in the process taught 

each other how to use it and get 

online. This was the inspiration 

for Slumdog Millionaire. 

Frédéric Mitterrand spent three 

years as professor of economics, 

history and geography at the 

Instituts d’Études politiques 

in France before deciding to 

follow his dream and start a new 

career as a theatrical manager 

and entrepreneur. He has since 

branched out further in several 

directions to become the 

successful author of several 

books, including a controversial 

and compelling memoir, The 

Bad Life, and written, directed 

and produced a host of films 

and television programs. From 

2009 to 2012, he was the 

French minister of culture 

and communications. 

25

CELEBRITY 

MANAGEMENT 

CELEBRITY 

Piers Morgan 

Narayana Murthy 

Youssou N’Dour 

Piers Morgan first found fame in 

1994 when he was appointed 

editor of the British Sunday 

newspaper The News of the 

World at the age of 28 – the 

youngest Fleet Street editor for 

more than half a century. A year 

later he became editor of the 

Daily Mirror, where he remained 

in charge for nine years. He then 

worked mainly in the United 

States, most notably as host 

of Piers Morgan Tonight, a chat 

show that ran on CNN from 

2011 to 2014. He still appears 

regularly on television on 

both sides of the Atlantic and 

has written four best-selling 

volumes of memoirs. 

Hailed by Fortune magazine in 

2012 as one of the 12 greatest 

entrepreneurs of our time, 

Narayana Murthy is the Indian 

industrialist and software 

engineer who founded Infosys 

Limited, a global software consulting 

company headquartered 

in Bangalore, and took it from 

start-up in 1981 to NASDAQ 

listing in 1999. He now sits on 

the boards of HSBC, the Ford 

Foundation, the Rhodes Trust, 

the Indian School of Business 

and the UN Foundation. He 

was the 2012 recipient of the 

Hoover Medal, awarded for ‘outstanding 

extra-career services 

by engineers to humanity’. 

Youssou is a singer, percussionist, 

songwriter and composer 

who in 2012 mobilized his vast 

fanbase against Abdoulaye 

Wade, the incumbent President 

of Senegal who was planning to 

change the constitution in order 

to reinstall himself for a third 

seven-year term. After Wade 

was defeated in the subsequent 

election, incoming president 

Macky Sall rewarded Youssou 

for his support by appointing 

him minister of tourism and culture. 

In addition to his cabinet 

post, Youssou is an ambassador 

for the UN Food and Agriculture 

Organization and owns an 

influential media group. 


MOTIVATION 

MANAGEMENT 

MANAGEMENT 

Martina Navratilova 

Vineet Nayar 

Jim Noble 

Widely acknowledged as the 

greatest woman tennis player 

of all time, Martina Navratilova 

– Czech-born, but a U.S. citizen 

since 1981 – won a record 168 

pro singles titles, including 18 

Grand Slam events and 165 

doubles titles between 1975 

and 2006. Since her retirement 

she written three mystery 

novels and been an articulate 

and energetic supporter of 

non-profit environmental 

organizations and charities 

that support underprivileged 

children and promote gay rights. 

She is also active on behalf of 

People for the Ethical Treatment 

of Animals (PETA). 

As CEO of HCL Technologies, 

Vineet expanded the company 

to a level where it employed 

more than 85,000 people in 

32 countries and had a global 

turnover of $4.7 billion (£2.8 

billion). He featured in Fortune 

magazine’s first ‘Executive 

Dream Team’, and his management 

practices are case studies 

at Harvard Business School and 

the London Business School. He 

also established the Sampark 

Foundation for education. 

Vineet is currently a senior advisor 

to the McKinsey Leadership 

Institute, and is on the advisory 

panel of INSEAD’s Global Talent 

Competitiveness Index. 

Jim Noble is one of the world’s 

foremost IT thought leaders. He 

started with GE on the design of 

aircraft systems and then went 

to General Motors, where he 

was chief technology strategy 

officer in Detroit. In 2012 he 

was winner of CIO magazine’s 

2012 annual award for technology 

innovation and in 2013 he 

was voted #7 Most Influential 

Technology Executive by Forbes 

magazine. He was global head 

of IT for BP, managing director 

of IT for Merrill Lynch, group 

vice president and CIO of Altria 

Group (Philip Morris and Kraft), 

and senior vice president and 

CIO at AOL Time Warner. 

27

FINANCE FINANCE FINANCE 

Jim O’Neill 

Supachai Panitchpakdi 

Christopher Pissarides 

Formerly with Bank of America, 

International Treasury Management 

(a division of Marine Midland 

Bank) and the Swiss Bank 

Corporation, where he was head 

of global research, Jim O’Neill is 

currently chairman of Goldman 

Sachs Asset Management. He 

has been a member of the board 

of Bruegel since the Brusselsbased 

policy research think tank 

was founded in 2005, and is 

involved in numerous voluntary 

organizations, especially those 

such as Teach for All which 

specialize in education. He is 

also chairman and a founding 

trustee of SHINE, the Londonbased 

spina bifida charity. 

Supachai completed his doctoral 

dissertation on human 

resource planning and development 

under the supervision 

of Jan Tinbergen, the first 

Nobel laureate in economics. 

As deputy prime minister of 

Thailand (1992–1995), Supachai 

shaped several regional agreements, 

including the Asia Pacific 

Economic Cooperation (APEC), 

the Association of Southeast 

Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the 

Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM). He 

then served as Director-General 

of the World Trade Organization 

and Secretary-General of the 

United Nations Conference on 

Trade and Development. 

Sir Christopher Pissarides 

specializes in the economics of 

labor markets, macroeconomic 

policy, economic growth and 

structural change. For his work 

on the economics of markets 

with frictions, he was joint 

winner, with Dale Mortensen of 

Northwestern University and 

Peter Diamond of MIT, of the 

2010 Nobel Prize in economics. 

He is Regius Professor of 

Economics at the London School 

of Economics, Professor of European 

Studies at the University of 

Cyprus, Chairman of the Council 

of National Economy of the 

Republic of Cyprus and a fellow 

of the British Academy. 


MOTIVATION GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT 

Tenzin Priyadarshi 

Romano Prodi 

Jorge Quiroga 

Tenzin is a Buddhist monk 

renowned for his humanitarian 

aid and conflict resolution work, 

and for his expertise in the 

leadership, ethics, philosophy 

and cultural understanding. He 

is founder and director of the 

Dalai Lama Center for Ethics 

and Transformative Values at 

MIT, and the founding director 

and president of the Prajnopaya 

Institute and Foundation, a 

worldwide humanitarian organization. 

He has been actively 

involved in inter-religious 

dialogue with popes John Paul 

II and Benedict XVI, Archbishop 

Desmond Tutu and Tibetan Buddhist 

leader Gyalwang Karmapa. 

Romano was twice prime 

minister of Italy (1996–1998 

and 2006–2008) and president 

of the European Commission 

(EC; 1999–2004). Originally 

professor of economics at 

the University of Bologna, he 

entered government as minister 

for industry in 1978. Having 

won the premiership at the head 

of a center-left coalition, he 

privatized telecommunications 

and reformed employment and 

pension policies. After a fiveyear 

term at the EC he returned 

to Italy and won another election, 

but resigned again after 

only 20 months. He is currently 

UN special envoy for the Sahel. 

Jorge Fernando ‘Tuto’ Quiroga 

Ramírez graduated in 1981 

from Texas A&M University 

with a degree in engineering. 

He then entered politics in 

his native Bolivia, of which he 

was President from August 7, 

2001 to August 6, 2002. Since 

leaving office, he has worked as 

a consultant for the World Bank 

and the International Monetary 

Fund. He is a member of the 

Club de Madrid, a group of more 

than 80 former presidents and 

prime ministers of democratic 

countries, which works to 

promote leadership and governance 

in emerging countries all 

over the world. 

29

MANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT SOCIETY 

David Reid 

George Robertson 

Hans Rosling 

David Reid qualified as an 

accountant and then worked for 

Philips and International Stores 

before becoming first finance 

director and later chairman of 

supermarket chain Tesco. He 

retired from the latter role in 

2011 and was knighted in the 

following year for services to 

charity. Sir David is now chairman 

of Whizz-Kidz, a charity 

that provides mobility equipment 

for disabled children, and 

the Intertek Group plc, a global 

quality and safety services 

provider. He is also a member of 

the advisory board of Jefferies 

International, a securities and 

investment banking group. 

British Labour politician George 

Robertson was UK defense 

secretary under Prime Minister 

Tony Blair from 1997 to 1999, 

when he was elevated to the 

peerage as Lord Robertson of 

Port Ellen and became Secretary 

General of NATO. Since 2004 he 

has been a special advisor to 

several companies, including 

BP and the Cohen Group (USA), 

and was deputy chairman of 

Cable and Wireless. He is also 

a member of the Council of 

the International Institute 

for Strategic Studies, the Centre 

for European Reform and 

the European Council on 

Foreign Relations. 

Professor of global health at 

Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, 

Hans Rosling is founder of the 

Gapminder Foundation, which 

makes statistical data freely 

available and easily understandable 

online. Hans created 

Trendalyzer, a software product 

that unveils the beauty of statistics 

by turning boring numbers 

into animations and interactive 

graphics. His presentations 

transform development statistics 

into moving bubbles and 

flowing curves that make global 

trends clear and even playful. As 

a sideline, he is also an accomplished 

sword-swallower, a skill 

he demonstrated at TED 2007. 


FINANCE FINANCE GOVERNMENT 

Eisuke Sakakibara 

Xavier Sala-i-Martin 

Han Seung-Soo 

Professor Eisuke Sakakibara is 

an economist who has worked 

for both the International 

Monetary Fund and the 

ministry of finance in his 

native Japan. He is often known 

by the sobriquet ‘Mr Yen’ 

because of his influence over 

the currency markets. He is the 

recipient of numerous honors, 

including the Taylor’s Award 

from the University of Michigan, 

where he took his undergraduate 

degree, and the Bintang 

Mahaputra Utama from the 

government of Indonesia. He 

appears frequently on Japanese 

television and is quoted widely 

in the Western press. 

Xavier is professor of economics 

at Columbia University and chief 

economic advisor to the World 

Economic Forum. He was a consultant 

to the International Monetary 

Fund and the World Bank 

(1993–2004) and a researcher 

at the Centre for European 

Policy Research (1992–2004). 

He was also a board member 

and treasurer of Barcelona FC 

between 2004 and 2010, and 

president of the club during the 

three-month electoral process 

in 2006. He is the founder of 

two non-profit organizations: 

Umbele, which promotes 

economic development in Africa, 

and CEOs Without Borders. 

Prime minister of South Korea 

(2008–2009), Dr Seung-Soo 

entered politics after a 

distinguished career as 

professor of economics at Seoul 

National University and Korean 

ambassador to the United 

States. He is the founding chair 

of the United Nations Secretary 

General’s Advisory Board on 

Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) 

and the Secretary-General’s 

special envoy on Disaster Risk 

Reduction and Water. He also 

chairs the advisory board of the 

International Forum of China 

and is an independent nonexecutive 

director of Standard 

Chartered plc. 

31

CELEBRITY MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT 

Elif Shafak 

Joanna Shields 

Richard Shirreff 

Elif is an award-winning novelist 

and Turkey’s most popular 

woman author. She writes in 

both English and Turkish, and 

her work has been translated 

into more than 40 languages. 

She is also a political commentator 

who has written for The 

Guardian, The New York Times, 

Die Zeit, La Repubblica, The 

Independent, the Financial 

Times and Time magazine. 

She is a Chevalier des Arts et 

Lettres, a TED global speaker 

and a founding member of the 

European Council on Foreign 

Relations. In addition, she has 

more than one and a half million 

followers on Twitter. 

A joint US/British citizen, Joanna 

spent more than 25 years in Silicon 

Valley building some of the 

world’s best-known technology 

companies, including Electronics 

for Imaging, RealNetworks, 

Google, AOL and Facebook, and 

led several companies, including 

Bebo, Decru and Veon, from 

start-up to successful acquisition. 

She is currently British 

Prime Minister David Cameron’s 

advisor on the digital economy, 

chair of Tech City UK and 

director of the London Stock 

Exchange Group. She heads an 

Anglo-American government 

task force to combat online 

sexual exploitation of children. 

General Sir Richard Shirreff 

was Deputy Supreme Commander 

NATO Europe from 2010 

to 2014. Born in Kenya and 

educated at Oundle School and 

Oxford University, he fought 

in the First Gulf War as a tank 

squadron leader and in Iraq 

as a divisional commander. 

He also served in Northern 

Ireland, Kosovo, Bosnia and 

Afghanistan, working at strategic 

level with coalition partners. 

Now retired from the British 

army, Sir Richard lectures on 

strategy at the London Business 

School and gives talks to companies 

and institutions about 

leadership from the front. 


FINANCE GOVERNMENT CELEBRITY 

Yashwant Sinha 

Arun Shourie 

Nicholas Soames 

As India’s finance minister 

(1990–1991 and 1998–2002), 

Yashwant Sinha transformed the 

nation’s economy by lowering 

interest rates, introducing tax 

deduction for mortgage interest, 

and deregulating the telecommunications 

and petroleum 

industries. These measures are 

believed to have done more 

than any others to kick-start 

India’s emergence as a world 

economic power. Yashwant 

was later minister of external 

affairs (2002–2004). At the end 

of his time in office he wrote a 

celebrated volume of memoirs, 

Confessions of a Swadeshi 

Reformer (2007). 

Arun Shourie started out as an 

economist with the World Bank 

and later became an awardwinning 

investigative journalist. 

As editor of The Indian Express 

he was acclaimed as one of 50 

World Press Freedom Heroes by 

the International Press Institute. 

He subsequently pioneered 

privatization while serving as 

his country’s minister of disinvestment, 

communications and 

information technology. Since 

leaving parliament, Arun has 

been a political columnist and 

written books on constitutional 

law, modern Indian history, religious 

fundamentalism, governance 

and national security. 

A grandson of Winston Churchill, 

Nicholas Soames went to school 

at Eton and then served in the 

British army before becoming a 

stockbroker, working for a time 

for US Senator Mark Hatfield. 

In 1983 he was elected to 

parliament and later served 

as a Defense minister under 

Conservative prime minister 

John Major. He was knighted in 

the Queen’s 2014 birthday 

honors. Away from Westminster, 

Sir Nicholas is chairman of 

Aegis, a private security 

contractor, and a director of 

the Lloyd’s brokers Bland Welch. 

He is a lifelong friend and 

confidante of Prince Charles. 

33

CELEBRITY FINANCE SOCIETY 

Earl Spencer 

Peer Steinbrück 

Mark Stevenson 

Charles Spencer was the only 

brother of Diana, Princess of 

Wales. Educated at Eton and 

Oxford, he worked as a reporter 

on NBC from 1986 until 1991 

and from 1993 to 1995. An 

accomplished author, his published 

books include Blenheim: 

Battle for Europe (2004), which 

was shortlisted for History Book 

of the Year at the 2005 National 

Book Awards. He also writes 

features and book reviews for a 

wide range of publications. His 

numerous worldwide speaking 

engagements have included 

addresses to top employees of 

the British Tourist Authority and 

Equitable Life. 

Peer Steinbrück is an economist 

and a German social democrat 

(SPD) politician who was finance 

minister from 2005 to 2009 in 

the coalition government of the 

conservative (CDU) Chancellor 

Angela Merkel. One of Peer’s 

major achievements in office 

was the introduction of tax 

identification numbers, which 

had been mooted for many 

years. He was also a sharp 

critic of banking secrecy, 

thereby causing tension in 

2009 between his country and 

Switzerland. Since leaving office, 

Peer has remained a prominent 

speaker for the SPD in the 

German Bundestag. 

Mark shows institutions, governments, 

corporations and 

schools all over the world how 

the future will impact on them. 

He makes complex or abstract 

concepts and trends understandable 

by non-specialists. He 

is a fellow of the Royal Society 

for the Encouragement of Arts, 

Manufactures and Commerce, 

Nibmaster General at the 

Ministry of Stories and founder 

of The League of Pragmatic 

Optimists, an organization that 

creates places ‘where people 

who want to make the world 

better can meet, generate ideas 

and projects, get inspiration and 

find collaborators’. 


GOVERNMENT CELEBRITY GOVERNMENT 

Jack Straw 

Nadja Swarovski 

Heizo Takenaka 

Jack Straw trained as a lawyer 

before becoming a member of 

parliament. He was successively 

British Foreign Secretary, Home 

Secretary and Leader of the 

House of Commons under Prime 

Minister Tony Blair and then 

Lord Chancellor and 

Justice Secretary under Blair’s 

successor, Gordon Brown. 

Having decided to stand down 

at the 2015 general election 

after 36 years as an MP, Jack 

will in future devote more time 

to consultancy work with global 

commodity broker ED&F Man 

and to giving lectures on post- 

9/11 terrorism and relations 

with India and Pakistan. 

Nadia Swarovski – a Germanborn 

Austrian who was educated 

in the United States – sits on the 

board of the crystal manufacturing 

company founded in 1895 

by her great-great-grandfather, 

Daniel. In 2007 she launched 

Atelier Swarovski, which 

produces high-end jewelry in 

collaboration with top designers 

including Zaha Hadid and Karl 

Lagerfeld. Since 2012 Nadia has 

supervised Swarovski’s global 

corporate responsibility, particularly 

the work of the Swarovski 

Foundation. She is also chair of 

Swarovski Entertainment Ltd, 

the company’s movie production 

division. 

As Japan’s minister for economic 

and fiscal policy, Professor 

Takenaka restructured public 

finance and privatized Yucho, 

the savings division of the 

national Post Bank, which was 

at the time the largest financial 

organization in the world. The 

effects of his austerity measures 

could only otherwise have been 

achieved by a 9% increase in 

tax. He returned to academia in 

2006 and is now director of the 

Global Security Research Institute 

and a member of the board 

of the World Economic Forum. 

He is also a regular newspaper 

columnist and broadcast media 

commentator. 

35

MOTIVATION GOVERNMENT FINANCE 

Laura Tenison 

Alejandro Toledo 

Jean-Claude Trichet 

As founder and managing 

director of JoJo Maman Bébé, 

Laura Tenison has grown the 

company organically from its 

start-up in 1993 into the UK’s 

foremost niche multi-channel 

specialist in the pregnancy and 

baby market with 60 stores in 

Britain and sales to more than 

60 countries worldwide. In line 

with her ethical approach to 

commerce, which ensures that 

the welfare of people and the 

planet is ranked above profit, 

Laura is also a trustee of Nema, 

the company charity that works 

to reduce infant mortality in 

Mozambique, one of the poorest 

countries in Africa. 

Born into extreme poverty, 

Alejandro Toledo rose via a 

degree at Stanford University 

and jobs at the World Bank, 

the Inter-American Development 

Bank and the United 

Nations to become in 2001 

the first democratically elected 

indigenous head of state in his 

native Peru. During his presidency, 

he turned the country 

into one of the fastest-growing 

economies in Latin America and 

invested heavily in healthcare 

and education. At the end of 

his five-year term he founded 

the Global Center for Development 

and Democracy, of which 

he is president. 

Jean-Claude Trichet was 

president of both the Bank of 

France (1993–2003) and the 

European Central Bank (2003– 

2011). He is currently 

a director of the Bank for 

International Settlements and 

chairman of both the Group of 

Thirty (the consultative body 

on international economic and 

monetary affairs) and Bruegel 

(the Brussels-based policy 

research think tank). Widely 

acclaimed for his policy-making, 

Jean-Claude was named ‘Person 

of the Year’ by the Financial 

Times (2007) and ranked by 

Newsweek in 2008 as the fifth 

most powerful man in the world. 


FINANCE SOCIETY GOVERNMENT 

Adair Turner 

Nontombi Naomi Tutu 

Yulia Tymoschenko 

As a director of McKinsey, Adair 

Turner built the global management 

consultancy’s practice in 

Eastern Europe and Russia after 

the fall of communism. He 

was later vice-chairman of 

Merrill Lynch Europe and 

director general of the 

Confederation of British 

Industry. In 2008 he became 

chair of the UK Financial Services 

Authority and guided Britain’s 

banks through the global 

crisis. Lord Turner is currently 

a senior fellow of the Institute 

for New Economic Thinking, and 

a visiting professor at both the 

London School of Economics 

and Cass Business School. 

It is unsurprising that a woman 

who grew up under apartheid 

and is the daughter of Nobel 

Prize Winning Desmond Tutu, 

should have turned out to be 

an activist for human rights. 

Naomi has been a development 

consultant in West Africa and a 

coordinator for programs at the 

University of Cape Town on race 

and gender and gender-based 

violence. She is also a consultant 

to the Spiritual Alliance 

to Stop Intimate Violence 

(SAIV) and the Foundation for 

Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa 

(FHSSA). Her ‘Building Bridges’ 

workshop deals with race and 

racism. 

Yulia is an engineer and 

economist who in 1995 became 

president of gas supplier United 

Energy Systems of Ukraine. In 

1996 she entered politics and 

rose to minister for fuel and 

energy but was dismissed in 

2001 and briefly imprisoned 

on corruption charges that 

were later dropped. In 2005 

she became her country’s first 

woman prime minister. In 2010 

her government fell; she was 

subsequently charged with 

abuse of power and sentenced 

to seven years’ imprisonment. 

The trial was denounced as 

politically motivated, and Yulia 

was released in 2014. 

37

MANAGEMENT MOTIVATION MANAGEMENT 

Jeroen van der Veer 

Mark Webber 

Annette Winkler 

Having led Royal Dutch Shell 

through a major restructuring 

period, Jeroen van der Veer 

retired as the company’s chief 

executive in 2009 and currently 

fulfils numerous roles, 

including chairman of the 

supervisory board of Philips 

and vice-chairman of Unilever. 

He is a leading authority 

on energy, leadership and 

management whose advice 

is widely sought by a range 

of businesses including the 

ING global finance group and 

organizations such as the World 

Economic Forum, for which he 

chairs the New Energy Architecture 

initiative. 

Australian Formula One racing 

driver Mark Webber won 

nine Grands Prix for Red Bull 

before retiring in 2013 to 

concentrate on charity work. 

The Mark Webber Pure Tasmania 

Challenge, first held in 2003, 

requires celebrities to complete 

a 624-mile (1,000 km) course 

around the southwest of the 

island by cycling, kayaking and 

trekking through wild terrain, 

and then attend a black-tie 

fund-raising dinner. Mark also 

works as a commentator for 

Network 10 television and 

gives motivational speeches to 

organizations and businesses 

about his drive to succeed. 

After completing a PhD in business 

administration, Annette 

took over her father’s construction 

company. Her achievements 

in modernizing it and making it 

profitable were recognized in 

1992 when she won the Veuve 

Clicquot award for German 

Entrepreneur of the Year. She 

then joined Mercedes-Benz as 

head of PR and communications. 

In 2010 she became CEO of the 

company’s Smart car division, 

an appointment that signified 

a major shift in the male-dominated 

auto industry. Under her 

leadership, Smart models have 

been upgraded, and the e-bike 

has been created. 


GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT FINANCE 

Christian Wulff 

Bing Xiang 

Linda Yueh 

Christian Wulff practiced as 

a lawyer until 1986, when he 

joined the CDU, the German 

conservatives. In 1998 he 

became the party’s deputy 

federal chairman, and in 2010 

he was elected as the 10th 

President of Germany in succession 

to Jens Böhrnsen. In 2011 

he was presented with the Leo 

Baeck Award by the Central 

Council of Jews in Germany. 

In the same year he received 

the Medal of Honor from the 

German Olympic Sports Confederation. 

In 2012 Christian 

Wulff resigned as President. He 

returned to the law and now has 

his own chancery in Hamburg. 

Dr Xiang is founding dean, 

professor, and head of the 

Cheung Kong Graduate School 

of Business, the largest establishment 

of its type in China. He 

is a non-executive director of 

the China Dongxiang Company, 

Dan Form Holdings, Enerchina 

Holdings, HC International, the 

Little Sheep Group and Sinolink 

Worldwide Holdings, a trustee 

of The United Way Worldwide 

(US) and Asia House (UK), and 

a member of the International 

Advisory Council of FDC Business 

School in Brazil. He is also 

a distinguished and widely 

sought-after management 

consultant. 

After taking an undergraduate 

degree in economics at Yale 

and a DPhil at Oxford, Linda 

Yeuh began her working life as a 

corporate lawyer at Paul, Weiss, 

Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. 

She was later economics editor 

at Bloomberg TV before becoming 

chief business correspondent 

of the BBC in 2013. Linda 

also currently serves on the 

advisory board of the Official 

Monetary and Financial Institutions 

Forum, and has advised 

numerous institutions, including 

the World Bank, the European 

Commission, the Asian Development 

Bank and the World 

Economic Forum. 

39

SOCIETY 

GOVERNMENT 

Muhammad Yunus 

Li Zhaoxing 

In 1983, Muhammad Yunus, 

a professor of economics at 

Chittagong University, Bangladesh, 

founded Grameen Bank, 

which specializes in providing 

loans to people who have been 

adjudged by conventional banks 

as too poor to borrow. In 2006, 

Yunus and the bank were joint 

recipients of the Nobel Peace 

Prize ‘for their efforts through 

microcredit to create economic 

and social development from 

below’. Grameen Bank now 

operates in several countries, 

including the United States; 

Professor Yunus is currently a 

director of the United Nations 

Foundation. 

After a distinguished diplomatic 

career in which he was consecutively 

China’s ambassador 

to the United States and its 

permanent representative at 

the United Nations, Li became 

foreign minister and chaired the 

foreign affairs committee of the 

National People’s Congress. He 

is now president of the Research 

Center for National Soft Power 

at the China Foreign Affairs University, 

chairman of the China 

Public Diplomacy Association, 

and president of the Chinese 

People’s Institution of Foreign 

Affairs. He is in huge demand by 

all who want a better understanding 

of modern China. 


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