The International financial system was built for the post WW2 era – where western countries comprised the majority of global GDP and governments could shape global norms. In today’s world of AI, Climate Change and geo-political fragmentation, David explains what is broken, what is at stake, and what a reformed global financial architecture could look like. Drawing on his work influencing the G7 and G20, he explores the reform of the IMF and World Bank, debt restructuring frameworks, and multilateralism. He makes the case for why fixing global finance is one of the highest-leverage policy decisions of our time. Audiences leave with a clear-eyed understanding of the system – and of the political choices that sustain it.

Africa will be home to one in four people on earth by 2050. It holds reserves of critical minerals needed for the clean energy transition, and could become the economic powerhouse of the global economy in the next 50 years. It is already being courted by China, Russia, and Gulf states. Yet Europe’s relationship with Africa is still too often framed in terms of aid rather than partnership. In this talk, David draws on his research for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and twenty years of advocacy to set out why the Europe-Africa relationship is the defining geopolitical question of the coming decades – and what a genuine partnership would look like in practice. Direct, evidence-based, and politically sharp, this talk challenges audiences to rethink assumptions about development, trade, and power.

Governments and institutions make multi-billion-dollar decisions based on data that is incomplete, contested, or deliberately obscured. From how government financing is counted to how sovereign debt is reported, the numbers that shape global policy are rarely what they seem. In this talk, David brings together his experience in data-driven advocacy and his work with ONE Data to show how collapsing the time between data and insight can shift power, expose injustice, and change outcomes. Accessible and provocative, this talk is designed for audiences who want to understand how information shapes the world – and how to use it more honestly.

Davos, the G7 and G20 are often dismissed as talking shops. In fact, they comprise networks that shape the global economy through law, deals and high-level relationships. In this talk, David draws of decades of experience in influencing these actors and takes audiences inside these processes, explaining what is actually at stake in the processes, what the key fault lines are between major powers, and why the decisions taken in these forums matter far more than most people realise. Informed by years of direct engagement with government delegations and civil society, this is a clear, candid account of how global governance actually works.