Contributor(s): Nick Giles, Michael Hayman | Business as usual is over. Belief is the new currency and to succeed you must follow new rules: purpose as the route to profit; mind share to gain market share. At this event you will discover the secrets of some of the world's most renowned business leaders, and find out how to harness the power of purpose to win in business. Michael Hayman (@michaelhayman) and Nick Giles (@nick_giles) are the co-authors of Mission: How the Best in Business Break...

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox | We have been told for years that war between great powers is a thing of the past: something that has been consigned into that proverbial dustbin of history. Yet today serious writers and influential strategic thinkers in the USA and China are now suggesting that war in East Asia is a very real possibility as China rises - and becomes more assertive - and the United States supported by its Asian allies seeks to limit China’s reach. But how real is the...

Contributor(s): Professor Fawaz Gerges | Fawaz A. Gerges is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and holder of the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies. He wasalso the inaugural Director of the LSE Middle East Centre from 2010 until 2013. Gerges’ most recent books are The New Middle East: Protest and Revolution in the Arab World (Cambridge University Press, January 2014) and Obama and the Middle East: The End...

Contributor(s): Ryan Pyle | Join adventurer and renowned photographer, Ryan Pyle, as he spends months exploring and photographing Western China’s remote Sacred Mountains in an effort to better understand these most sacred Tibetan regions. His human-powered adventure is “one of the ages” as he explores the remote provinces of Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan and Yunnan. Born in Toronto, Canada, Ryan Pyle (@RyanPyle) spent his early years close to home. After obtaining a degree in International Politics...

Contributor(s): David Smith | Sunday Times economics editor and best-selling author David Smith leads us through the mire of government policy and long-term economic trends to paint a vivid picture of how we got to now – and where we might go from here. David Smith (@dsmitheconomics) is economics editor of the Sunday Times and the author of a number of books including The Dragon and the Elephant and the best-selling guide to economics Free Lunch. This event marks the launch of his new book,...

Contributor(s): Tim Marshall | Foreign Affairs Broadcaster and Journalist, Tim Marshall, author of new book Prisoners of Geography explains how decisions made by world leaders are constrained by geography. It is true that to understand world events (such as President Putin's invasion of Crimea and events in the Middle East), you need to understand people, ideas and movements… but if you don’t know geography, you’ll never have the full picture. Tim Marshall (@itwitius), journalist, writer and...

Contributor(s): Lord Meghnad Desai | Lord Desai is an Indian-born British economist and Labour politician. He unsuccessfully stood for the Speaker in the British House of Lords in 2011, the first ever non-UK born candidate to do so. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, in 2008. Starting as an economics lecturer at LSE,in 2003 he retired as Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, which he had founded in 1992, and...

Contributor(s): Professor Frank Wilczek | In his new book, which he will discuss in this public lecture, world-class physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek argues that beauty is at the heart of the logic of the universe, a principle that had guided his pioneering work in quantum physics. As his book looks to demonstrate, this quest has also guided the work of all scientific pursuit in the western world, from Pythagoras and Plato to Galileo and Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. Indeed, Wilczek...

Contributor(s): Gerard Grech | The extraordinary growth of the UK's Digital Economy reflects all the paradoxes of British culture and history. What has been the impact of the creative entrepreneur and disruptive technology on the way we live, and where could it take us next? Gerard Grech (@gerardgrech) is the CEO of Tech City UK. Gerard has 15 years experience in the world of digital media, web and mobile. His international experience in London, Paris and New York has given global vision and...

Contributor(s): Virginia Postrel | Drawing on her path-breaking new book, The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion, Virginia Postrel cracks the code of this mysterious and surprisingly pervasive phenomenon. She identifies the three essential elements in all forms of glamour and explains how they work to create a distinctive sensation of projection and yearning. Virginia Postrel (@vpostrel) is a Los Angeles-based author and columnist whose work spans a broad range of...

Contributor(s): Professor Wendy Brown | In the United States, the extension of civil liberties to corporations is transforming democracy through rights adjudication. Best known in this regard is Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission, the 2010 Supreme Court decision permitting corporate funding to flood the U.S. electoral process on the basis of corporate rights to free speech. In 2014, Burwell vs Hobby Lobby granted firms the right to the free exercise of religion, and hence the...

Contributor(s): Professor Ruth Simmons, Dr Purna Sen | This event is part of the Above the Parapet project, which seeks to capture the experiences of high profile women who have shaped public life. Ruth Simmons was the 18th president and first female president of Brown University and the first black person to be head of an Ivy-League Institution. Purna Sen (@Purna_Sen) is Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs. Marie-Pierre Lloyd is the Seychelles High Commissioner to the UK. The...

Contributor(s): Professor Peter Ayton, Dr Sepideh Bazazi, Professor Chris Frith | In our modern world we are constantly exposed to the opinion of the group. When is the crowd wise and when is it prone to madness? Peter Ayton (@Thruthal) is Professor of Psychology at City University London. Sepideh Bazazi is a researcher at the Centre on Animal Cognition, DYNACTOM, Université Paul Sabatier. Chris Frith (@cdfrith) is a psychologist and Professor Emeritus at the Wellcome Trust Centre for...

Contributor(s): Julia Gillard, Dr Purna Sen | This event is part of the Above the Parapet project, which seeks to capture the experiences of high profile women who have shaped public life. Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) was Prime Minister of Australia 2010-13 and the first woman to hold this position. She recently wrote My Story. Julia Gillard started her Arts and Law degrees at the University of Adelaide. In 1983 she was elected national Education Vice-President of the Australian Union of...

Contributor(s): Dr Alina Averchenkova, Professor John Broome, Professor Robyn Eckersley, Fergus Green | Tackling climate change is crucial for human well-being. So why has the international community been faltering on effective climate action? How can we break through the collective-action impasse? Alina Averchenkova is Co-Head of Climate Policy in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. John Broome is Emeritus White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the...

Contributor(s): Professor Sir Paul Collier, Professor Dani Rodrik | 2015 marks the centenary of the birth of the LSE’s Nobel Prize winning economist, William Arthur Lewis (1915-1991). Sir Arthur Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics for “pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries”. As part of LSE's marking of the centenary, this event will see Rodrik and Collier reflect on some important themes on the...

Contributor(s): Isaac Herzog | In his lecture Mr Herzog will argue that most Israelis want to live in a country that is not only secure, but just, democratic, liberal and at peace with its neighbours – as envisioned by Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Israel faces complex divisions within its society, and unique security threats. Mr Herzog will set out how Israel can overcome the politics of fear, and its internal divisions, to build an Israel which fully embodies the vision of its...

Contributor(s): Herman Van Rompuy | Herman Van Rompuy is a Belgian politician who formerly served as Prime Minister of Belgium and then as the first President of the European Council in the European Union. A politician from Belgium's Christian Democratic and Flemish party, Van Rompuy served as the 66th prime minister of Belgium from December 2008 until November 2009. In November 2009 he was selected by the members of the European Council as its first full-time President under the Treaty of...

Contributor(s): Professor Sam Scheffler | Imagine you discovered that shortly after your death an asteroid would destroy the world. How would that affect how you lived your life? Would you bother to come to this session with renowned philosophy professor Sam Scheffler? We think you should. Samuel Scheffler is University Professor and Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University. Edward Stourton is one of BBC Radio 4's leading presenters of news and documentaries.

Contributor(s): Professor Amitav Chakravarti | Successful consumer insights and policy interventions are elusive; often they tend to follow a hit-or-miss pattern. The GO-STOP signal framework explains why this pattern occurs and demonstrates how to avoid it. Amitav Chakravarti is Professor of Marketing in the Department of Management, LSE. Dr Simona Botti is Associate Professor of Marketing at London Business School, where she teaches Marketing and Brand Management. Her research focuses on...

Contributor(s): Shami Chakrabarti, Professor Francesca Klug | The Magna Carta, sealed in 1215, has come to stand for the rule of law, curbs on executive power and the freedom to enjoy basic liberties. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, it was heralded as 'a Magna Carta for all human-kind'. Yet in the year in which this medieval Charter's 800th birthday is widely celebrated, the future of the UK's commitment to international human rights...

Contributor(s): Professor Richard Thaler | Richard Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans—predictable, error-prone individuals. Traditional economics assumes rational actors. Early in his research, Thaler realized these Spock-like automatons were nothing like real people. Whether buying an alarm clock, selling football tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the...

Contributor(s): Professor Joseph S Nye | For more than a century, the United States has been the world's most powerful state. Now some analysts predict that China will soon take its place. Does this mean that we are living in a post-American world? Joseph S.Nye, Jr. (@Joe_Nye) is University Distinguished Service Professor, and former Dean of the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from Princeton University,won a Rhodes Scholarship to...

Contributor(s): Richard Dobbs, Jonathan Woetzel, Stephanie Flanders | Since the start of the new century, the world has started to change - and radically. The collision of four global forces means we are now living in an era of near constant discontinuity. Competitors can burst upon the scene in a blink of an eye. Businesses that were protected by large and deep moats find that their defences are easily breached. Vast new markets are conjured seemingly from nothing. Five years is an eternity....