Klaus Dodds Keynote Speaker

• Why is geopolitics the number one business risk?

Geopolitical risk is now a regular feature of business journalism but what exactly is geopolitics and why does it matter. In this talk, Klaus explains why and how geopolitics helps makes sense of current global social, economic and political headwinds. It identifies key challenges: using conflict to resolve disputes; disinformation; climate change; land and resource scrambles and cyber-conflict.

• How does geopolitics affect workplace culture, including employee safety?

Geopolitics is not just something that affects the world beyond our home and workplaces. It is integral to everyday life, including working environments. In this talk, Klaus considers how geopolitical risk carries with it implications for workplace culture, from everyday conversations between a diverse workforce to international travel safety and social media engagement. There is in short a blurring of personal and professional geopolitical identities and circumstances that needs to be better understood.

• The Arctic is everyone's business

The Arctic region is ground zero for both climate change and great power competition. Building on extensive fieldwork over many years and experience of advising governments and parliaments, Klaus introduces his audience to this poorly understood part of the world and shows why and where it matters. The war in Ukraine has spiralled into the Arctic and a warming Arctic has direct implications for UK climate and other parts of the world. What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic.

• Tariffs and Territory: The revenge of geopolitics 

Geopolitics is back with a bang. And great and smaller powers are weighing up their options. Klaus explains how concerns over supply side vulnerabilities, alliances and allies, territorial disputes, climate change, trading relationships are all contributing to a new era of geopolitical instability. Compounding matters is a growing sense that global frameworks and rules that once helped shaped our world order are no longer shared. This talk is informed by his work as an external expert for NATO Strategic Foresight Analysis.

• The Last Frontier

In this talk, Klaus will consider the environmental and geopolitical importance of Antarctica. Long admired for its stunning beauty and wildlife, the polar continent is now increasingly shaped by geopolitical competition and resource struggles. He will show how krill and fish have become caught up in rival understandings of what should happen at the bottom of the world and warn his audience that some countries have not given up on the idea of mining Antarctica in the future. Over 100,000 people visited Antarctica last year.