Dan Davies Keynote Speaker

Attended Bank of England crisis meetings: Barings, Mexico, LTCM
Key researcher: CS & Exane BNP Paribas teams (3× Institutional Investor wins)
Author of Lying for Money; published The Unaccountability Machine (early 2024)

Dan Davies's Biography

Dan  Davies distils the chaotic inner workings of financial systems with clarity, wit, and sharp insight. His early 2024 book, The Unaccountability Machine—subtitled Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions and How the World Lost Its Mind—revisits cybernetics to reveal how sprawling institutions evade responsibility and become decision-averse.

As an economist at the Bank of England, he witnessed pivotal crises—Barings’ collapse, the Mexico bailout and the LTCM rescue—and later entered Credit Suisse in 2007 to watch the global banking meltdown from the front row. He then helped steer research teams at Credit Suisse and Exane BNP Paribas to win Institutional Investor All‑Europe Research polls three times, earning a reputation for making financial regulation compelling and readable.

An accomplished author and commentator, Davies now serves as Head of Research at Frontline Analysts and edits the Predicto newsletter forecasting geopolitics and financial risk. He also leads the Mediobanca Regulatory Observatory with in-depth weekly analysis on European banking. His writing appears in the Financial Times and The New Yorker, and he is a familiar presence among top finance voices on Twitter.

Why complex systems fail: the rise of the accountability sink

Corporate fraud unraveled (Lying for Money)

Crisis economics: lessons from Barings to the banking collapse

How to make modern institutions sane again through cybernetic insight

Financial regulation decoded: from obscure language to real-world clarity

He brings front-row authority on systemic risk from attending Bank of England crisis meetings during Barings, Mexico and LTCM, and later witnessing the 2007–08 banking meltdown from inside Credit Suisse.
He translates complex financial regulation, institutional failure and decision-making pathology into clear, sharp insights, shaped by his cybernetics-driven analysis in The Unaccountability Machine.
He pairs economic credibility with market impact, having led research teams at Credit Suisse and Exane BNP Paribas to three Institutional Investor All-Europe wins for decision-grade analysis.
He equips leaders to spot where big systems lose accountability and make bad calls, offering practical ways to improve incentives, governance and judgement under uncertainty.
He delivers provocatively readable keynotes that challenge orthodoxy with wit and precision, helping audiences think more clearly about finance, regulation and organisational power.