London School of Economics: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): Laura Spira, Michael Power | 10.30-10.45 Welcome from Michael Bromwich and Al Bhimani10.45-11.45 Laura Spira (Oxford Brookes University) - Corporate Governance and Management - a Blurred Boundary?11.45-12.45 Michael Power (London School of Economics and Political Science) - Searching for Risk CultureAfternoon Session Hong Kong Theatre, CLM.G.02, ground floor, Clement House, Aldwych14.00-14.30 Martin Thomas (Call4Change) - Measuring Thriving Organisational Performance in Turbulent Times14.30-15.30 Alfred Wagenhofer (University of Graz, Austria) - Characteristics of Accounting Information that Serves the Board of Directors15.30-16.45 Panel Discussion - Management Accounting and Corporate Governance - Gillian Lees, Michael Power, Martin Thomas, Alfred Wagenhofer - Chairman: Michael Bromwich17.15-18.00 ICAEW Distinguished Practitioner Lecture - Philip Gregory, Senior independent non-executive Director, Hansard Global plc. - The Effect of Changing Governance on the Finance Function; Some Personal Observations and Experiences

Speaker(s): Colin Pyle, Ryan Pyle | When Canadian brothers Colin Pyle and Ryan Pyle set out from Shanghai on a motorcycle journey that had never previously been attempted, they thought they had some idea of what lay ahead of them. It was a misconception that had become evident by the end of Day 1. But, despite the many challenges they faced, 65 days and 18,000km later they’d succeeded in circumnavigating China. In an expedition of extremes, Colin and Ryan visited the third lowest point on Earth and slept at Everest Base Camp beside its highest mountain. They traveled off-road through deep desert sands in suffocating heat, traversed mountain passes in freezing temperatures that turned the moisture in their clothes to ice, and rode in torrential rain through mudslides beside rapidly rising flood waters. At the end of their remarkable journey, the brothers had strengthened the bond between them, gained a Guinness World Record, tested their endurance to its limits, and shared an adventure that most of us will only ever dream of having. In their book The Middle Kingdom Ride, Colin and Ryan take us with them as they travel through the diverse and extraordinary landscapes of China, from its border with North Korea, to the ancient Muslim city of Kashgar, across the vast empty spaces of the Mongolian grasslands, over the mountains and into the monasteries of Tibet. Ryan Pyle graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Political Science and made his home in Shanghai, China, where he still lives today. Over the last 10 years, he has gained an international reputation as an award-winning documentary photographer and now author and television presenter. He is regularly invited to give talks about his work and about China at universities and institutes around the world.Colin Pyle graduated from Ryerson University in Toronto with a degree in Finance. Colin was part of a very successful currency brokerage start up in Toronto that was sold in July 2008. After managing the successful integration of his old company Colin stepped down as President of Equity Foreign Exchange Services to hit the road and live life. In October 2010, Colin completed the Guinness World Record setting Middle Kingdom Ride with his brother Ryan. The two of them followed up with a 2012 India Ride; an amazing 54 day circumnavigation of India. Colin is involved in lecture engagements and future television productions. Colin completed an MBA from Hult International Business School, is an active entrepreneur in London, England where his main focus is growing Mandarin House to be the first global Mandarin language and cultural school.Nick Byrne is director of the LSE Language Centre.

Speaker(s): Rolf Dobelli | Rolf Dobelli argues that we are swayed by cognitive biases when making decisions. By knowing what they are and how to spot them, we can avoid them and make better choices. In this lecture, Rolf will guide us through the most common errors of judgement and how to avoid them. It will transform your decision making – at work, at home, every day.Rolf Dobelli is a Swiss writer and entrepreneur. He has an MBA and a PhD in economic philosophy from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and is a co-founder of getAbstract, the world's leading provider of book summaries. Dobelli is also founder and curator of Zurich.Minds, an invitation-only community of the most distinguished thinkers, scientists and artists. His book, The Art of Thinking Clearly has sold in over 17 languages and has been a massive bestseller in Europe.

Speaker(s): Salman Khan, Professor Martin Bean | Join Salman Khan as he tells the inspiring story of how the Khan Academy came to be and shares his thoughts on what education could be like in the future. The lecture will be chaired by Rohan Silva, Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister. Professor Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University, will respond to Khan's lecture.Salman Khan is the founder and executive director of the Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization on a mission to provide "a free world-class education for anyone anywhere." Khan was listed in Fortune's annual "40 under 40," which recognizes business's hottest rising stars, as well as Fast Company's list of the "100 Most Creative People in Business." Khan was also recently profiled in "60 Minutes," featured on the cover of Forbes, and recognized by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Speaker(s): Nik Gowing, Asun Gomez, Kelly Evans, Jonty Bloom | 1000 - How to build trust in your journalism?Speakers: Ruurd Bierman, Cilla Benkö, Trushar BarotWhat can news media organisations do in the digital age to build the confidence and engagement of their audiences?1230-1300 - How to use social media for journalismSpeakers: Yasmine El Rafie, Nadja HahnWhat can journalists do with social media to improve their journalism?1400-1500 - Trust In EuropeSpeakers: Nik Gowing, Asun Gomez, Kelly Evans, Jonty BloomAs the European economic crisis continues, what can journalists do when the public lose trust in their leaders?

Speaker(s): Yasmine El Rafie, Nadja Hahn | 1000 - How to build trust in your journalism?Speakers: Ruurd Bierman, Cilla Benkö, Trushar BarotWhat can news media organisations do in the digital age to build the confidence and engagement of their audiences?1230-1300 - How to use social media for journalismSpeakers: Yasmine El Rafie, Nadja HahnWhat can journalists do with social media to improve their journalism?1400-1500 - Trust In EuropeSpeakers: Nik Gowing, Asun Gomez, Kelly Evans, Jonty BloomAs the European economic crisis continues, what can journalists do when the public lose trust in their leaders?

Speaker(s): Ruurd Bierman, Cilla Benkö, Trushar Barot | 1000 - How to build trust in your journalism?Speakers: Ruurd Bierman, Cilla Benkö, Trushar BarotWhat can news media organisations do in the digital age to build the confidence and engagement of their audiences?1230-1300 - How to use social media for journalismSpeakers: Yasmine El Rafie, Nadja HahnWhat can journalists do with social media to improve their journalism?1400-1500 - Trust In EuropeSpeakers: Nik Gowing, Asun Gomez, Kelly Evans, Jonty BloomAs the European economic crisis continues, what can journalists do when the public lose trust in their leaders?

Speaker(s): Dr Ben S Bernanke, Olivier Blanchard, Professor Lawrence H. Summers, Axel A. Weber | Five years on, the global economy continues to come to terms with the impact of the financial crisis. This event examines the lessons that both economists and policymakers should learn in order to lessen the chance of future crises.Ben S. Bernanke was sworn in on February 1, 2006, as chairman and a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. Before his appointment as chairman, Dr. Bernanke was chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006.Olivier Blanchard is economic counsellor and director, Research Department at the International Monetary Fund. After obtaining his Ph.D in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, he taught at Harvard University, returning to MIT in 1982, where he has been since where he holds the post of Class of 1941 Professor of Economics.Lawrence H. Summers is President Emeritus of Harvard University. During the past two decades he has served in a series of senior policy positions, including vice president of development economics and chief economist of the World Bank, undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, director of the National Economic Council for the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011, and secretary of the treasury of the United States, from 1999 to 2001. He is currently the Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard University.Axel A. Weber is visiting professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, former president of the Deutsche Bundesbank and current chairman of the board of UBS.Professor Sir Mervyn King is governor of the Bank of England. Before joining the Bank he was professor of economics at the LSE, and a founder of the Financial Markets Group.

Speaker(s): Dr Steffen Hertog, Professor Giacomo Luciani, Dr Marc Valeri, Dr Khalid AlMezaini | Although most Arab countries remain authoritarian, many have undergone a restructuring of state-society relations. Lower and middle class interest groups have lost ground, while big business has benefited in terms of its integration into policy-making and the opening-up of economic sectors that used to be state-dominated. Arab businesses have also started taking on aspects of public service provision in health, media and education that used to be the domain of the state, while also becoming increasingly active in philanthropy.This launch for Business Politics in the Middle East (Hurst, 2013), a volume by LSE's Dr Steffen Hertog and edited by Professor Giacomo Luciani and Dr Marc Valeri, will cover the political role of regional capitalists during and after the Arab uprisings, prospects for the emergence of a more independent bourgeoisie, economic reform and new social contracts.Dr Steffen Hertog is Senior Lecture in Comparative Politics in LSE’s Department of Government. Hertog has been researching the comparative political economy of the Gulf and Middle East for more than a decade, working with a number of local and international institutions.Professor Giacomo Luciani is Scientific Director of the Master in International Energy of the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences-Po and a Princeton University Global Scholar attached to the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Near Eastern Studies. He is also a visiting professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and co-director of the Executive Master in Oil and Gas Leadership.Dr Marc Valeri is Lecturer in Political Economy of the Middle East at the University of Exeter. After a Master's Degree in Comparative Politics, with speciality on Arab and Muslim worlds, he received a PhD in 2005 from Sciences Po Paris. His work dealt with nation-building and political legitimacy in the Sultanate of Oman since 1970.Dr Khalid Almezaini is an Assistant Professor at Qatar University and was previously a research fellow in the Kuwait Programme at LSE. He has taught International Relations at Cambridge, Edinburgh and Exeter universities. His research focuses on International Relations of the Middle East and the Gulf in particular.

Speaker(s): Dr Linda Yueh | What drives China's impressive growth and will it continue? Parsing the evidence leads to some surprising conclusions and also points to needed reforms to sustain development in the coming decades. Linda Yueh is director of the China Growth Centre and fellow in economics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford. She is also adjunct professor of economics at the London Business School. Linda's new book is entitled China's Growth: The Making of an Economic Superpower.

Speaker(s): Professor Andrew Abbott | This lecture argues that since excess and overabundance are central phenomena of modern life, we should refound social theory on the concept of "too much of" rather than "too little of." I trace the origin of the scarcity theories that dominate our reasoning, and sketch the outlines of a social theory based on excess. Andrew Abbott is the Gustavus F and Ann M Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology, Chicago University. Abbott's major research interests lie in the sociology of occupations, professions, and work, the sociology of culture and knowledge, and social theory. Abbott also has longstanding interests in methods, heuristics, and the philosophy and practice of sociology.

Speaker(s): Evgeny Morozov | Evgeny Morozov will be presenting his latest book To Save Everything, Click Here, which argues that the proliferation of sensors, big data, and social networks have given policymakers the irresistible temptation to solve problems that, perhaps, should not be solved at all - or only solved via democratic debate, not nifty technological fixes. Evgeny Morozov is the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (which was the winner of the 2012 Goldsmith Book Prize) and a contributing editor for The New Republic. Previously, he was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, a Scwhartz fellow at the New America Foundation, a Yahoo fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown (where he also taught), and a fellow at the Open Society Foundations (where he also served on the board of the Information Program). Prior to moving to the US, Morozov worked as Director of New Media at Transitions Online, a media development NGO based in Prague. His monthly column on technology comes out in Slate, Corriere della Sera, El Pais, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and several other newspapers. He's also written for The New York Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books and other publications.

Speaker(s): Hilary Lawson, Dr Parashkev Nachev, Dr Jaime Whyte | We have seen a gradual erosion of belief in objective truth, but in a world without truth how are we to understand lies? This second event in the series debates the nature of lies and their importance. Are lies necessarily morally wrong, and what is the relationship between lies, power and individual identity? This lecture is the second of a three-part series entitled Error, Lies and Adventure, the first talk 'Beyond Truth: Error and Adventure' will take place on 4 March. Hilary Lawson is director of the Institute of Art and Ideas and the author of Closure. Parashkev Nachev is senior clinical research associate at the Institute of Neurology, UCL, and honorary clinical lecturer at Imperial College London. Jamie Whyte is a former Times columnist and Cambridge philosopher. Joanna Kavenna is an Orange Award-winning novelist. She has written for the London Review of Books and the Observer.

Speaker(s): Professor Ulrich Beck, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Professor Mary Kaldor | The basic rules of European democracy are being subverted or turned into their opposite, bypassing parliaments, governments and EU institutions. Multilateralism is turning into unilateralism, equality into hegemony, sovereignty into the dependency and recognition into disrespect for the dignity of other nations. Even France, which long dominated European integration, must submit to Berlin’s strictures now that it must fear for its international credit rating.In this event, Ulrich Beck, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Mary Kaldor discuss the current political crisis and how to reinvent democracy in Europe.Ulrich Beck is professor of Sociology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. His recent books include Cosmopolitan Europe (with Edgar Grande) (Polity Press 2007), World at Risk (Polity Press 2009), A God of One’s Own (Polity Press 2010), Twenty Observations on a World in Turmoil (Polity Press 2012), Distant Love (together with Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim) (Polity Press 2013) and German Europe (Polity Press 2013).Daniel Cohn-Bendit is a German politician, active also in France. He is currently co-president of the group European Greens–European Free Alliance in the European Parliament and co-chair of the Spinelli Group, a European parliament intergroup aiming at relaunching the federalist project in Europe. His latest book is For Europe (2012; with Guy Verhofstadt).Mary Kaldor is professor of Global Governance in the Department of International Development at LSE, where she directs the Human Security and Civil Society Research Unit. She has just completed a report on The Bubbling Up of Subterranean Politics in Europe based on research undertaken by seven field teams across Europe.

Speaker(s): Professor Ian Goldin | The growing gap between global problems and solutions reflects a crisis in global governance. Professor Ian Goldin will present ideas from his latest book, Divided Nations: Why Global Governance is Failing and What can be done about it? Ian will focus on the financial crisis, the internet, pandemics, migration and climate change to highlight the need for urgent global action and provide proposals as to what is to be done. Professor Ian Goldin is director of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. He was previously vice president and director of policy for the World Bank after serving as advisor to President Mandela and chief executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa. He has been knighted by the French government and author of 16 books, including Globalization for Development, Exceptional People (On Migration), and his most recent Divided Nations. Born in South Africa, Goldin has a BA (Hons) and a BSc from the University of Cape Town, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Doctorate from the University of Oxford.