For decades, businesses could make many of their most important decisions primarily through an economic lens: Where can we manufacture most efficiently? Which markets offer the greatest opportunity? Where should we invest? How do we build the most cost-effective supply chain? Today, those same decisions increasingly have to be made through a political and geopolitical lens. Tariffs, trade wars, economic nationalism, shifting alliances, regulation and competition between the world’s major powers are rewriting the rules of global business.  Former UK Minister of Trade and UK Trade & Investment Envoy to the U.S. Sir Conor Burns helps business leaders understand those new rules and, more importantly, what to do about them.

Conor Burns’ Speech Topics:

WHERE GEOPOLITICS MEETS GLOBAL BUSINESS:

How Political Decisions Are Rewriting the Rules of Investment, Trade and Growth

For decades, many of the most important business decisions could be made primarily through an economic lens: Where can we manufacture most efficiently? Which markets offer the greatest opportunity? Where should we invest? How do we build the most cost-effective supply chain?

Today, those same decisions increasingly have to be made through a geopolitical lens.

Tariffs, trade wars, economic nationalism, shifting alliances, regulation and strategic competition between the world’s major powers are changing where companies can operate, what they can rely on and where new opportunities may emerge.

Sir Conor Burns takes audiences beyond the headlines and inside the political thinking shaping those decisions. Drawing on his experience in government and international trade, he explains how policymakers think about tariffs, domestic industries, foreign investment, national security, market access and strategic alliances and translates that into practical implications for business.

The result is a conversation that is global without being academic, political without being partisan, and focused squarely on the decisions leaders now have to make.

AUDIENCES WILL LEARN HOW TO:

-Read political decisions through a business lens. Understand what tariffs, trade restrictions, regulation and shifting alliances may mean for markets, margins and growth.

-Assess where geopolitical risk is actually becoming commercial risk. Identify where supply chains, investment strategies and market priorities may need to be reconsidered.

-Anticipate how governments are likely to think. Gain insight into the political pressures, domestic priorities and strategic interests influencing economic decisions.

-Recognize where new opportunities may emerge. See how changing trade relationships, regional blocs and global realignment can create openings as well as risk.

-Make decisions before certainty arrives. Build a more informed framework for deciding where to invest, source, manufacture, partner and grow while the political environment is still moving. -This is not simply a geopolitical briefing. It is a practical playbook for doing business in a world where politics increasingly shapes economics.

WHY HIRE CONOR:
Most geopolitical speakers interpret events after they happen. Sir Conor Burns has been inside the rooms where many of the decisions affecting global business are actually made — and today he works directly with business leaders navigating the consequences of those decisions.

As a two-time UK Minister of State for Trade Policy and former UK Trade Envoy to the United States, Conor has worked with governments, businesses and investors on tariffs, trade agreements, market access, investment and international commercial relationships. Today, he continues to advise and engage business leaders as they assess where to invest, how to respond to shifting trade relationships and what geopolitical change means for growth.
He is also a Nonresident Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, where his work focuses on international trade, trade policy and the evolving relationship between the United Kingdom and United States.

That combination gives Conor a perspective that is both rare and current: he understands how political leaders think when they make economic decisions, and he understands the questions business leaders are asking as those decisions reach the market.

Conor does not simply brief audiences on what is happening in the world. He helps them understand how government thinking becomes commercial reality, so they can make smarter choices around markets, investment, supply chains, partnerships and growth before political certainty arrives.