Matthew Campbell Keynote Speaker

Co-author of Financial Times Business Book of the Year finalist, "Dead in the Water" (2022)
Asia Editor of Bloomberg Businessweek
Winner of the Gerald Loeb and Overseas Press Club awards

Matthew Campbell's Biography

Matthew Campbell is an award-winning reporter and editor for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. He is the co-author of Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy, which was shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award. Reviewing Dead in the Water for The New York Times, Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden called it “a masterpiece of explanatory journalism,” while the Financial Times described it as “a triumphant example of what happens when editors give reporters the time to pull at [a] story’s threads until the deceptions unravel.” His next book, coming in 2026, is The Man Who Stole the Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession, and a Global Art Conspiracy.

Matthew has reported from more than 25 countries, writing investigative stories on topics including South Africa’s biggest-ever political scandal and the mysterious murder of pharmaceutical tycoon Barry Sherman. His work has been recognized with some of the most prestigious honors in journalism. He and co-author Kit Chellel won Gerald Loeb and Overseas Press Club awards for their coverage of Goldman Sachs’ business dealings with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, and Matthew Campbell has also received National Press Club, SOPA, and SABEW awards for feature writing. In 2022, he was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for public interest reporting for his work exposing planet-baking methane emissions in Central Asia.

Born and raised in Canada, Matthew Campbell was educated at Yale, where he graduated with a B.A. in political science, and at Oxford, where he received an M.Phil in politics. After a decade in Europe, he now lives in Singapore with his family.

Financial Fraud and AML

In "Dead in the Water", Matthew Campbell and co-author Kit Chellel uncovered one of the most brazen financial frauds in history. The book exposes the criminal inner-workings of international shipping and looks at how some of the world's biggest companies are complicit in these practices. Matthew talks about what lessons (both moral and practical) companies can learn from this incident to ensure the security of their compliance procedures.

Companies' ESG regulations tend to concern point of origin and destination but think little about what happens in between. The shipping industry is responsible for most of the everyday goods we take for granted. But the regulations on board these ships are minimal with vessels often registered in Liberia or Panama, two very light-touch jurisdictions in this regard. How can multi-national companies achieve better oversight of this industry and avoid becoming entangled in a potential ESG scandal?

Geopolitics

The effective policing of international shipping lanes is vital for the world's supply chains. However, in an environment of increasing geopolitical tensions, might we see more rogue actors and even state piracy? How will geopolitical relationships play out at sea?