Previous Events

A curated record of Speaking Out Events' past programme. Where members have consented, event summaries and thematic overviews are published below. Speaker identities and attendee affiliations remain confidential.

2026

18 March 2026

Roundtable

📍 London, UK

👥 18 Attendees

When Work Disappears: Automation, Identity and the Future of the Employment Contract

Future of Work Automation Labour Policy Organisational Design

Senior leaders from professional services, manufacturing, retail and the public sector met to confront a question most organisations are not yet willing to ask openly: what happens to the social contract of employment when automation displaces not just tasks, but entire categories of role? Discussion ranged from the psychological dimensions of work and identity, to the adequacy of retraining models, to the obligations employers carry beyond compliance.

The session produced no comfortable consensus — but participants described it as among the most honest conversations they had encountered on a subject often reduced to either optimism or alarm.

05 February 2026

Leadership Dinner

📍 Amsterdam, Netherlands

👥 13 Attendees

The New Geopolitics of Food: Supply Sovereignty and the Climate Variable

Food Security Agriculture Geopolitical Risk Climate Adaptation

Leaders from agribusiness, logistics, development finance and government advisory backgrounds gathered for a dinner examining food not as a commodity question but as a sovereignty question. Discussion addressed the fragility of concentration in global grain supply, the accelerating role of water scarcity in agricultural instability, and the political consequences of food price shocks in emerging economies.

Several participants noted that food security has moved from the margins of boardroom risk registers to its centre with remarkable speed — and that most organisations remain poorly equipped for what that shift demands.

22 January 2026

Expert Briefing

📍 Virtual

👥 25 Attendees

Truth at Scale: Synthetic Media, Institutional Credibility and the Information Environment

Media Disinformation Public Trust Communications

A researcher specialising in information ecosystems and synthetic media led members through the practical consequences of a world in which the cost of producing convincing false content has collapsed. The briefing covered the implications for crisis communications, legal evidence, electoral integrity and the declining utility of denial as an institutional response strategy.

Discussion turned sharply practical: what posture should organisations adopt before an incident, rather than after? Participants from media, legal, financial services and the public sector offered markedly different assessments of their own preparedness.

2025

13 November 2025

International Forum

📍 Singapore

👥 52 Attendees

The New Economic Geography: Where Growth Will Come From in the Next Decade

Emerging Markets Macroeconomics Trade Investment Strategy

Our largest event of 2025 convened senior investment, policy and business leaders in Singapore to examine the reorientation of global economic gravity. Sessions covered the divergent growth trajectories of South and South-East Asia, the structural consequences of US-China decoupling for third-country economies, and the practical implications of a world in which no single bloc sets the rules of trade.

A working session on capital deployment in high-growth, high-uncertainty markets generated a shared framework for thinking about risk-adjusted opportunity that participants described as the most practically useful output of the forum.

09 September 2025

Roundtable

📍 Edinburgh, UK

👥 16 Attendees

The Longevity Dividend: Healthcare Systems, Wealth Transfer and What an Ageing World Demands

Demographic Change Healthcare Pensions Intergenerational Equity

Healthcare executives, pension trustees, insurers and social policy advisors met in Edinburgh to examine the compound pressures of population ageing — not as a distant demographic trend but as a set of decisions arriving now. Discussion addressed the fiscal limits of public health systems, the intergenerational tensions embedded in pension design, and whether the concept of retirement as currently constructed remains viable.

The session was notable for the degree to which participants from different sectors identified the same structural problem through entirely different lenses, arriving at conclusions that complemented rather than contradicted one another.

17 June 2025

Leadership Dinner

📍 Frankfurt, Germany

👥 14 Attendees

The End of Cheap Capital: Investment Strategy in a Permanently Higher Rate Environment

Capital Markets Investment Strategy Real Assets Risk

Senior figures from asset management, corporate treasury, infrastructure investment and private credit gathered to examine the strategic consequences of a structural shift in the cost of capital. Discussion moved beyond market commentary to consider how business models, valuation assumptions and portfolio construction must adapt when the decade-long conditions underpinning them no longer hold.

Participants described a widespread gap between boards that have intellectually accepted the new environment and organisations that have operationally adjusted to it — a gap with material consequences that many are not yet prepared to name publicly.

04 March 2025

Expert Briefing

📍 Virtual

👥 30 Attendees

Institutional Trust in Freefall: What Leaders Can — and Cannot — Do

Leadership Public Trust Communications Organisational Resilience

A social researcher whose work spans public sector, corporate and media institutions briefed members on the structural — rather than merely reputational — dimensions of declining institutional trust. The session examined what the data actually shows, which interventions have moved the needle and which have backfired, and why the communications strategies most organisations default to tend to accelerate the problem they were designed to solve.

The briefing provoked sustained discussion on the difference between trust that is earned through action and trust that is claimed through narrative — and on what leaders in the room were prepared to do differently as a result.

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