The Next Five

Matthew Wright, Trade Nation’s Chief Strategy Officer, brings a markets perspective. Bernard Marr, futurist and technology author, explores AI’s business impact. Walter Pasquarelli, a Cambridge researcher and OECD advisor, examines policy and geopolitics. Together, they unpack AI’s vast data-centre buildout, soaring energy needs, chip supply-chain choke points, global competition, investment flows and bubble risks. They also ask whether infrastructure, talent and power can keep pace.

Karen Ward, J.P. Morgan’s EMEA market strategist, Russ Mould, AJ Bell’s investment director, and Jon Noble, Trade Nation’s CEO, debate whether AI is rewriting the economy or inflating a dangerous bubble. They explore concentrated valuations, hyperscaler debt, global fiscal strain, retail trading, commodities, and why stocks and bonds may no longer diversify each other. Key signals for the next market break are also revealed.

Stéphane Israël, AWS leader in European sovereign cloud, Dr. Catherine di Lorenzo, a technology regulation lawyer, and Ali Ustun, McKinsey’s data and AI strategist, explore the new rules of digital sovereignty. They discuss resilient cloud design, sovereign AI, geopolitical shocks, regulatory divergence, and how businesses can balance local control with global innovation through interoperable systems and trusted partnerships.

Seth Fox, CTO of S&P Global; Jim Rowan, Deloitte’s US Head of AI; and Steve Tarcza, Amazon’s AI and developer acceleration leader, explore why most AI projects stall while a few deliver real gains. They discuss redesigning workflows, balancing experimentation with secure infrastructure, building AI fluency, and giving teams creative freedom within data guardrails. They also examine how AI could reshape teams, software creation, and human judgment.

Thirty years ago, the role of the CFO was vastly different. While they still looked ahead to build budgets, they acted more like historians, studying the past performance to manage the books, taxes and audits, but largely kept out of board level email chains. Today, most CFOs at the top of their game barely recognise the environment they started their careers in. They are now less a historian and more a fortune teller, sitting firmly at the right hand of the CEO and guiding big strategic discussions . AI’s predictive modelling and big data crunching makes wearing the co-pilot hat for a CFO that much more comfortable as they help navigate their companies through global risks and critical business wide decisions.Joining the host,Tom Parker, to discuss the role of the CFO in an AI future is Patrick Villanova, CFO at BlackLine, Olya Brase, EVP of Finance Optimisation and Governance at Highgate and Gina Gutzeit, Senior Managing Director and Global Leader of the Office of the CFO Solutions practice at FTI Consulting.Sources: FT Resources, Deloitte, Bain & Co, Founders Forum Group, HouseblendThis content is paid for by Blackline and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times' Commercial Department. The views and claims expressed are those of the guests alone and have not been independently verified by The Financial Times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, CEO of EDP, explains utilities, renewables and grid challenges. Mo Gawdat, former Google X executive and AI author, discusses AI’s societal risks and energy appetite. José Manuel Durão Barroso, ex-Prime Minister and EU Commission President, offers diplomatic and policy perspective. They debate data centre demand, AI’s strain on grids, energy resilience, geopolitics and faster permitting.

Chris Herbert, Customer Service Director at Openreach, champions AI for high-volume customer cases. Giles Bryan, General Manager CX at NICE, focuses on enterprise AI to automate low-value tasks. Zack Kass, author and ex-OpenAI executive, brings AI adoption and leadership insight. They explore when AI should show returns, why many projects fail, workforce redesign, balancing automation with trust, and preserving human-led premium interactions.

Varun Chitkara, SVP of Product & Technology at ADP, on fit-for-purpose automation and when to keep humans in the loop. Mary Martin, BCG Managing Director, on enterprise AI adoption, governance and scaling responsibly. Scott Wiltamuth, AWS director, on automated reasoning, neurosymbolic AI and technical guarantees. They discuss trustable, explainable systems, guardrails, accountability and when to automate versus rely on human judgment.

Simon Miller, CIFAS policy lead on cross-industry data sharing and public education; Gareth Murray, Monzo fraud director focused on layered banking defenses; Hubert Behaghel, Veriff CPTO expert in biometric and device-based identity checks. They discuss AI-enabled identity mimicry, multilayered detection and verification, shared signals across institutions, the role of biometrics and voice, and legal and low-tech safeguards to shore up digital trust.

Massimo Battaini, CEO of Prysmian, shares insights on the critical state of our energy infrastructure. He highlights the need for massive investment to address grid shortcomings and the implications of rising demand for materials like copper. The discussion also covers the challenges of policy uncertainty for long-term investments. Meanwhile, the need to redirect fossil fuel subsidies towards grid improvement and storage solutions is emphasized. Join this engaging conversation about the pivotal next steps in the global energy transition.