Chartwell Speakers have been featuring in the news this week. See our ‘Top Five’ picks below. If you are interested in booking any of these speakers please contact us here.

1) TOOMAS ILVES

• Toomas Hendrik Ilves served as President of Estonia from 2006 to 2016. In this post, he was key in driving the initiatives in e-government and cyber security for which the country has been acknowledged as a world-leader.
• On Tuesday, Toomas delivered a keynote address at the ‘‘Future of Oman 2040” Seminar in Muscat. Toomas pointed out the world is rapidly evolving in our digital era. “Yes, industry, industrial production and sales are all undergoing a radical revolution from 3D printing to drone deliveries of retail goods, but that is but a small part of it.”According to him, the digital era is upending power relationships, security thinking, indeed much of what we have thought of as ‘geography’. He argued, the size of a country, its population and landmass, its natural resources matter far less than they did a decade ago. 

2) JIM O’NEILL

• Jim O’Neill stepped down from Government, having been Commercial Secretary to the Treasury from May 2015 until September 2016. During that time, and since Spring 2014, Lord O’Neill had chaired a formal Review into AMR (antimicrobial resistance) reporting its final recommendations in May 2016, and contributed to high level agreement at the UN in September.
• In an article for Project Syndicate, Jim predicted a ‘Better British Story’ this week. Jim wrote that despite all of the doom and gloom over the United Kingdom’s impending withdrawal from the European Union, key manufacturing indicators are at their highest levels in four years, and the mood for investment may be improving. While parts of the UK are certainly weakening economically, others may finally be overcoming longstanding challenges.

3) ANNE MCELVOY

• Anne McElvoy is Senior Editor and former Public Policy Editor at The Economist. She has been a Political Columnist for the Evening Standard since 2001. She is also the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Shows the Moral Maze and Free Thinking.

• Writing for The Evening Standard this week, Anne warned that Angela Merkel’s failure to build a coalition will matter to Britain. Anne wrote, ”for all the bravado talk in Germany about Brexit being a regrettable irrelevance, the Europe that emerges during Merkel’s final stint in power will need better ways to deal with a Britain on the fringes of institutional Europe. The current stance of leaving the talks to Brussels can’t be sustained for much longer. One reason May should hope that a coalition in Berlin happens before the end of the year is that she is more likely to engage Merkel’s attention to conclude early negotiations faster once the German leader is back to her day job.”

  

  

  

  

  

   

4) DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN

• Dominique de Villepin was Prime Minister of the French Republic from 2005 to 2007 under the Presidency of Jacques Chirac. He is one of the foremost advocates of a new global governance based on multilateralism, and a reformist leader in French, European and global policy.

•  Dominique gave an address at the 4th World Internet Conference held in Wuzhen, this week. In it, he emphasised that he welcomed China’s active moves to create the digital Silk Road. He said it was important that more countries had good digital access, otherwise it would become a source of greater inequality in the world, contrasting that while in the West and in parts of Asia, digital penetration was around 80 percent, this was not the case everywhere.

5) ROBIN NIBLETT 

• Robin Niblett CMG became the Director of Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) in January 2007. Before joining Chatham House, from 2001 to 2006, Dr. Niblett was the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Washington based Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS). During his last two years at CSIS, he also served as Director of the CSIS Europe Program and its Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership.
• Robin was quoted in the Financial Times, in an article warning that Britain’s voice in global affairs is under threat. Robin stated that he believes Britain’s strong capability in cyber security, counter-terrorism and special operations should allow it to deepen bilateral relations across the globe. Adding: “Britain cannot be a global and systemic player on its own. Its starting point must be to remain a key security player in its European neighbourhood, giving support in defence operations, sharing data and staffing up its European embassies accordingly.”