Business leaders need to stay informed about global political shifts, anticipate risks, and adapt their strategies accordingly. As geopolitical tensions impact supply chains, market access, and investment climates, executives must proactively engage with these dynamics to safeguard their organizations’ interests and foster resilience.

BECI / Enterprise Europe Brussels is partnering with UBI Business School for this first event of the series "Hello World" events to inform Brussels companies with key and leading experts about the last trends of geopolitics and its influence on global business.

Programme

- ​Why geopolitics, again?  Introduction by Gaston Fornes – UBI Business School

• • Wars, friendshoring, deglobalisation, decoupling, technology restrictions
  • Russia, China, Taiwan, Middle East, Global South, Aukus (Australia, UK, USA), EU expansion
  • What do they mean for business?
    

- ​The ‘return’ of geopolitics: how to deal with it? By Ricardo Santos - European Investment Bank

• • The “return” of state aid and national industrial policies (Road and Belt, IRA, Global gateway, BRICS+)
  • Changes in trade agreements – the end of WTO?
  • ​Slower capital flows and international direct investment
  • Slowbalization, nearshoring, and stronger regional blocks
  • ​Impact on inflation and potential GDP growth

- ​ Sustainable development: [renewable] energy in geopolitics By Sebastian Nieto Parra - OECD

• • The green and just transition
  • New sources of energy, the role of Latin America
  • Opportunities for investments
  • Upgrading the production and market structures
  • Global Collaboration, new international partnerships
    

-        Beyond Bretton Woods: is it the end of the dollar dominance?  ​ByAlvaro Mendez - London School of Economics

• • De-dollarization dynamics, are we moving away from traditional dollar dependency?
  • New development banks and geopolitics
  • The financial strength of Global South economies
  • Strategic insights and global influence of the Global South
  • What’s next?
    

-        Q&A Moderated by Gaston Fornes

-        Networking and drinks

Our speakers

Ricardo Santos – European Investment Bank 

Ricardo Santos is an economist in Country and Financial Sector Analysis division of the European Investment Bank. Ricardo covers the macroeconomic and financial sector developments in several African and Latin American countries and is involved in country and banking risk monitoring in the EIB. Before joining the Bank, Ricardo has worked for private and public sector organisations, such as the European Stability Mechanism, BNP Paribas and the Portuguese Budget Office. His main areas of interest have been macroeconomic and financial markets analysis and forecasting. Ricardo holds an Msc in Economics from the University of London. 

Sebastian Nieto Parra - OECD 

Sebastian Nieto Parra is Head of the Latin American and Caribbean Unit at the OECD Development Centre. He coordinates and manages the Latin American Economic Outlook, in partnership with CAF, UN-ECLAC and the European Commission, the OECD Multi-Dimensional Country Reviews of Latin America and the report Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean. He also manages other regional reports, in key topics for Latin America including well-being and informality. Previously, he participated in the production of several OECD reports on emerging and developing economies. Before joining the OECD, Mr. Nieto-Parra was senior economist for Latin America at Santander Bank, Madrid. Prior to that, he worked at the Central Bank of Colombia and the Colombian Ministry of Finance. He completed his graduate studies in Economics at Sciences Po Paris and Toulouse School of Economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from Sciences Po Paris. He also teaches economic policy of emerging markets at Sciences Po Paris. 

Alvaro Mendez – London School of Economics 

Professor Alvaro Mendez is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the LSE Global South Unit. He is a Senior Associate Fellow and the Academic Director of short programmes at LSE IDEAS. He is an Adjunct Professor and Foreign Expert at the Institute for Global Public Policy (IGPP) at Fudan University in Shanghai. Dr. Mendez is also an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), and an International Advisory Board member of l’Observatoire Politique de l'Amérique latine et des Caraïbes at Sciences Po Paris. He teaches at LSE, Sciences Po, Peking University, and Fudan. He has won numerous teaching awards such as the 2003-2004 IR Departmental Teaching Prize in recognition of his teaching of International Relations at the LSE. 

Gaston Fornes – UBI Business School 

Gaston Fornes is Dean at UBI Business School. He started his professional career at the Citibank and then funded what became a mid-sized company with operations in Chile and Argentina. Since 2005 he has combined academic and executive responsibilities. Also in 2005 he started to be professionally involved with China where in 2010, for his work in the development and internationalisation of SMEs, he received the Liupan Mountain Friendship Award from the Ningxia Government for his “contribution to Ningxia’s economy and society”, and then in 2014 he received the Foreign Expert Award from the Shanghai Government. After this Prof Fornes was awarded the London School of Economics –Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) Fellowship and the High-End Foreign Expert by Shanghai University.