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Dr Holger Schmieding is Chief Economist at Berenberg Bank in London. Before joining Germany's oldest private bank in October 2010, he worked as chief Economist Europe at Merrill Lynch, Bank of America and at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in London. Having studied economics in Munich, London and Kiel, he holds a doctorate from the University of Kiel. Before taking up his first role as financial market economist in 1993, he also worked as a journalist at "Westfälische Nachrichten" in Germany, as head of a research group on east-central Europe at the Kiel Institute of World Economics and as a desk economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. In the Reuters Extel survey, institutional investors rated him as “best analyst for European economics” thrice in a row in 2013-2015 and as No. 2 in 2018. He co-authored a the book “The Fading Miracle” on German post-war economic history in 1992 and wrote a book on the Euro “Unser gutes Geld – warum wir den Euro brauchen” in 2014.

U.S. National Editor and Columnist for The Financial Times, Edward Luce is one of the paper’s most popular writers and “one of the finest journalists of our time.” A U.K. native, Oxford graduate, and former speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, he is highly regarded by policymakers, leaders, and political junkies. In his speeches, Luce brings an insider/outsider perspective to American politics, economics, and geopolitics. His cross-border perspective provides a global insight to the future of work and the major challenges facing the West, including the rise of populism and the decline of the middle class. Luce’s book, The Retreat of Western Liberalism, examines the weakening of western hegemony and the crisis of democratic liberalism ― of which Donald Trump and his European counterparts are not the cause, but a symptom. According to Luce, “What we do not yet know is whether the world’s democratic recession will turn into a global depression.” The New York Times called the book “insightful and harrowing.” At the FT, Luce has also served as Washington bureau chief, Capital Markets editor, correspondent to the Philippines, and South Asia bureau chief. Articles and commentaries by Luce that have garnered a lot of attention in the past year have included: “The boy who escaped Trump country,” “Britain’s Voyage to Inglorious Isolation,” and “Donald Trump leaves Angela Merkel to stand up for liberal values.” With his FT colleague Rana Foroohar, he writes “Swamp Notes,” a twice weekly newsletter on money and power in Trump’s America and the big themes driving politics, business, and markets.