Ben Rawlence Keynote Speaker

Author of Think Like a Forest – a book exploring love, fear and responsibility in raising children in a climate emergency.
Founder and CEO of Black Mountains College - preparing people for an adapted world, the impact on the environment and what it means for all of us.
Former speech writer for Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell.

Ben Rawlence's Biography

Ben Rawlence is an award winning writer, activist and founder/CEO of Black Mountains College in the UK. He has spoken to a wide range of organisations including Google, MiT, Schroders Bank, Impax Asset Management, NYU, Cardiff Law School, Kings College London and Columbia University.

He has published four books. In his most recent book Think Like a Forest: Letters to My Children From a Changing Planet (2026), he grapples with how to talk to children and how to prepare them for a world in transition. The lessons he learns from parenting though apply far more widely to how we build justice and culture across the generations in compassionate and urgent ways.

In The Treeline: The last forest and the future of life on earth (2022), he lays out how climate change is transforming the northern hemisphere and what that means for our societies and economies. The Treeline was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize and has won a National Academies Prize for Science Writing. Previous books include Radio Congo: Signals of Hope From Africa’s Deadliest War (2012) – a book about conflict in Africa and City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp (2016) – this work explores the big global issues about the refugee crisis and its links to climate change

From 2006 to 2013, Ben Rawlence was a researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Africa division. Earlier in his career, he worked as a speechwriter for Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy. In addition to his research and policy work, Rawlence has written widely for leading publications, including The Guardian, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and many others

He lives in Wales where he is the founding director and CEO of Black Mountains College, an innovative educational facility devoted to creative and adaptive thinking in the face of the climate and ecological emergency. Called the first ever Climate Change university, this college offers a range of courses and programmes aimed to support both young people and experienced staff with the ways and means to live in this changing world. In Autumn 2023, they began a BA in Sustainable Futures.

Ben has a BA in Swahili and History from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago.

The coming storm: lessons in adaptation where climate change is already history.

We know that the world is changing but what to do in the face of disruption is less clear. Drawing on his knowledge of the latest science and up close personal view of the massive earth system changes underway, Ben speaks with clarity and passion on what this new era means for individuals, communities, businesses and institutions. He has a provocation for how to rebuild our broken relationship with the forests, and the world, that sustains us.

Leading in a time of Climate Crisis

Leading a group of staff today is not just about the work. Employees are increasingly selective about where they work and will be influenced by the efforts firms make to strive for net zero and to create a work culture and environment that respects sustainability. Ben does not have all the answers but as the founder of a new experimental liberal arts college devoted to climate change, he has wrestled with this question and can share his insights about what firms can do to make themselves more aligned to the expectations of the changing labour market.

He brings award-winning authority on climate change, conflict and displacement, connecting frontline reporting and research to the strategic questions leaders face about resilience, risk and responsibility.
He translates the science and lived reality of a warming world into clear implications for economies and societies, drawing on The Treeline and its recognition by major science and nature-writing prizes.
He helps organisations understand how climate stress reshapes migration, security and supply chains, informed by years investigating human rights in Africa for Human Rights Watch.
He equips audiences to think and act with creativity under pressure, leading Black Mountains College as a living laboratory for adaptive thinking in the climate and ecological emergency.