1) ANTHONY GARDNER

• Anthony Gardner was sworn in as the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union on February 18, 2014 and held this position until January 2017. He presented his credentials to European Council President Van Rompuy and European Commission President Barroso on March 18. Prior to assuming his role as Ambassador to the EU, Ambassador Gardner was Managing Director for six years at Palamon Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in London, that focuses on providing growth capital to fast growing businesses in a wide variety of service sectors throughout Western Europe. In that capacity he managed financing, legal and tax structuring issues related to the firm’s acquisitions and divestitures.
• Anthony was featured on Bloomberg Surveillance this week, to discuss President Donald Trump’s planned visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Anthony said Trump’s speech at Davos will be exactly a year since Chinese President, Xi Jinping, spoke that nations should not blindly follow their self-interest. Anthony predicts Trump will be going with a very different view of the world; saying America’s back, it’s still a leader,and self-protection has made America great again.

2) KATHRYN PARSONS

• Kathryn Parsons is co-founder and CEO of Decoded, a technology education company founded in East London in 2011, which launched with the promise to teach anyone Code in a Day.
•  The Evening Standard called for the introduction of a French-style “tech visa” to help attract and keep talent in the face of Brexit and safeguard London’s status as the technology capital of Europe. She told the Standard: “Many tech executives have left the capital, unwilling to wait and see how Brexit pans out in two years’ time.”Current rules stipulate that immigrants from outside the European Union with an “exceptional talent” can apply for a visa and stay in the UK for five years.

3) ROHAN SILVA

• Rohan Silva is a global thought leader on the relationship between public policy and innovation. He has an unrivalled perspective on technology’s potential to transform public services and drive economic growth and job creation. From 2010 to 2013, Rohan served as Senior Policy Adviser to UK Prime Minister David Cameron. He previously served as Senior Policy Adviser for the 2010 General Election and Economic Adviser to the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne (2007-10).
• Rohan is the co-founder of Second Home, a 25,000 sq ft shared workspace for today’s innovators. This week, it was revealed that Rohan is hoping to reinvigorate west London’s creative community by opening his next space in Holland Park. Rohan says, ”It’s really unhelpful when a city becomes too imbalanced. For a long time it was the east that was neglected [in terms of creative investment], and now it’s the west. I think that will change.’’

4) IAN BREMMER

• Professor Ian Bremmer is an American political scientist and expert speaker specialising in US foreign policy, states in transition, and global political risk. Ian is President of Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy he founded with just $25,000 in 1998. The company now has offices in New York, Washington and London and is one of the most successful political risk consultancies in the world, advising financial services companies, multinationals and governments on how political developments can move markets.
• More than 90% of experts surveyed by the World Economic Forum expect political or economic confrontations between major global powers to worsen in 2018. Nearly 80% say the risk of war is rising. The group’s survey, published ahead of its annual meeting in Davos, highlights the dangers posed by rising political tensions, protectionism, environmental degradation and cyberattacks. It’s a cocktail of risks that could produce a wild year. Ian commented “Let’s be honest: 2018 doesn’t feel good … yes, markets are soaring and the economy isn’t bad, but citizens are divided, governments aren’t doing much governing, and the global order is unraveling.” 

5) JENNIFER ZHU SCOTT

• Jennifer Zhu Scott is the co-founder and principal of Radian Blockchain Ventures and Radian Partners, a private investment firm for family offices and UHNWIs focusing on Artificial Intelligence, the Blockchain, and renewable energy. Prior, she was head of business development and strategy in APAC for Thomson Reuters and led the firm’s speech-to-text, deep search, video-indexing projects. She co-founded one of the first education companies in China and exited before moving to UK as a senior adviser to the education subsidiary of Daily Mail & General Trust.
• This week, Jennifer launched ‘Radian Carbon’, which aims to support unique environmentally progressive projects, balancing a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions while creating sustainable communities. Radian Carbon is powered by Ethereum blockchain and will eliminate the barriers to efficient, low cost financing, helping to accelerate the development and expansion of meaningful projects across the globe.