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Anthony Monckton (London, Vienna) is an expert on risk, security, negotiation and conflict resolution, having served as an army officer before moving into diplomacy, specialising in national security. He talks this week to Jessica Fellowes about ViennEast, the company he established over ten years ago as a risk advisory and due diligency consultancy. 

ViennEast deals with a wide range of challenges faced by individuals and companies, from retrieving money that has been stolen and transferred across several countries – one case involves dealing with lawyers in six European countries – to personal fraud. Increasingly, too, there are complicated ethical and legal implications around data training in AI. But his simplest and best tip for protecting your own digital data: do the updates on your smartphone apps!

Music by Alex Vickers

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This week, we talk to Forum 500 member Hanlie van Wyk (Chicago), a social scientist, psycho-geographer and executive coach working with leaders and teams across borders, resolving polarisation and conflict. All of us, no matter what our industry, have faced something of this nature at some point.

Hanlie talks about how her own upbringing, in which she witnessed first-hand apartheid and the 1994 transition in South Africa to a democratically-elected government, informed so much of the way she works today. Hanlie brings great insight, too, to how conflict at work often starts small but if left unresolved can lead to very difficult situations: 'Death by papercuts.' There are also the bigger challenges that occur when companies merge or expand quickly, which is often the point at which Hanlie is brought in to help. Hanlie has found recently that it's become even more important to shift attention to the layer just beneath the most senior level of management, to ensure an open and fair culture. 

Music by Alex Vickers

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Winston Fisher (New York) is a partner and third generation of the Fisher Brothers, the royal family of real estate in Manhattan, founded in 1915. Winston directs the company’s financing and investing activities, property acquisitions and dispositions and oversees all new development initiatives. One of the most exciting of these being Area 15 in Las Vegas, which was developed with Michael Beneville (NY/LA). Winston sits on a number of boards and is also seriously involved in several philanthropic activities, particularly the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Funds, participating in extreme sports to raise funds to support wounded US troops. Alongside all of this, Winston has an active, thoughtful interest in politics, writing a monthly newsletter on current issues. And on the subject none of us can get away from, Fisher has a stark warning for the use of AI in his industry:

'I said three years ago, there's going to be two types of people who are employed. People who use AI will have a job and people who do not will not. At the end of this year, that's going to apply to everybody. Does that mean we're going to let everybody go? No, but if you're not able to utilize it, if you're not able to vibe code, if you're not able to understand sophisticated prompt engineering and multi-agent programs, I don't know if you have a place. It's not terrible. It's exciting.'

This episode was edited by Vanessa Heaney. 

Music by Alex Vickers

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Druv Kent – aka ‘Dhruv’ – is a financier turned singer/songwriter, recording in both English and Hindi. HIs 2015 debut saw him become the first Asia-based artist supported by BBC Radio 2 in twenty years. He’s since scored several #1 hits on the World Indie Music Charts, the Euro Charts and the US Top 20. Recently, he featured in Rolling Stone magazine. 

Brought up in Kolkata before moving to America, Druv returned to India in the mid-90s to begin his banking career. In this he was very successful, and his work took him to Hong Kong and Singapore, for Credit Suisse and Deutschbank. But all the while that Druv was working as an investment banker, he was also a musician, and finally in 2013, he decided to pursue music as a career. There are some lovely thoughts in here about creativity and how to open yourself up to it: 

"What's changed [for me] is there's a level of quiet confidence... when I started, I was in such a rush because I could not believe that I was capable or I could channel this kind of energy through me. It's less about my own capability. It's more about this ability to get into the state of being able to move yourself out of the way, move your ego out of the way, and let the song come to you and, through exploration, figure out what it's trying to say and let it speak through you."

Music by Alex Vickers

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Forum Radio host Jessica Fellowes talks in this episode with Lindsay Cooper (Singapore) about his transition from finance into the longevity and health sector. Lindsay attempted to semi-retire from business in 2017 but was scuppered when he was tempted into buying a convent in the Cotswolds just before the COVID pandemic. Initially intended as a wellness retreat, the project sparked an interest in preventative health and longevity science. 

Through connections in Singapore – he has lived in Asia for most of his adult life –Lindsay met leading experts including Professor Brian Kennedy and Professor Andrea Meier. Together they have brought longevity science research into clinical practice with Chi Longevity, rapidly growing the business through partnerships with luxury brands like Four Seasons. 

Linday argues that longevity medicine represents a fundamental shift in healthcare – from reactive, specialist-driven treatment to proactive, preventative and personalised care, driven by tech advances and increased public health awareness. 

"We've had this wellness menu for some time, with diet, exercise, sleep and so forth. But the real excitement – and the reason that everyone's putting such huge money into this space just now – is because of the medical breakthroughs, which are increasingly beginning to break and will only be helped by the AI revolution."

This episode was produced by Vanessa Heaney. 

Music by Alex Vickers

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This week, Jessica Fellowes talks to Hanspeter Kipfer (Zurich) about his extensive work in the tech industry, and his more recent transition to support start-ups as advisor and angel investor, focusing on emerging technologies such as AI, Web3 and blockchain. The discussion hones in on the balance between optimism and risk in AI – how prepared is society for the rapid, exponential growth that is coming its way? Hanspeter outlines the challenges but also presents some potential solutions, with the warning that the deadline to put safeguards in place is fast approaching. 

"Primarily by developing systems which are safe. Okay. Sounds really trivial, but as a matter of fact, that's the primary engineering principle. We need to apply everything we release as bulletproof technology wise. In addition, we also need to make things better aligned again with human values. [...] We need to ensure that humans ultimately remain the decision makers in development, and in releasing new functionality and bringing to market new products. We need to embed safeguarding systems, eventually override mechanisms, an emergency button, so to speak. We need to control access to this technology, because if it ends up in the wrong hands it could be misused to the disadvantage of all of us."

This episode was edited by Vanessa Heaney. 

Music by Alex Vickers

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In this episode of Forum Radio, Jessica Fellowes talks to Kanna Fujita (New York). Kanna is the founder and driving force behind Reforma Medspa & Wellness, Kirei House, and Femly Labo. Together they form an integrated ecosystem at the intersection of regenerative health, aesthetics and luxury wellness. Kanna grew up in Japan, and is known for blending Eastern wellness philosophies with Western science and technology. At Femly Labo, a FemTech Award-winning innovation from Japan, they pioneer hormone balance and menopause wellness solutions through stem cell and NMN-based formulations. 

In this conversation, Kanna offers great advice on maintaining good health – blending the best of what she grew up with, alongside new favourites in her adopted home of New York, having moved there just 12 years ago with her son:  

"We try to keep our feet grounded so that we understand both cultures and embrace both cultures. Because there is in both of the cultures something that I  really love. I have built my fundamental belief system and the grounding and respect – or Kaizen –  that like Japanese philosophy is grounded and rooted in myself. However, America grew me. This place really grew me and it gave me an opportunity to be able to do what I want, and be respected for going for my dream. So both cultures really have such a wonderful influence on my life."

This episode was edited by Vanessa Heaney. 

Music by Alex Vickers

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This episode of Forum Radio is a conversation with Philippe Teixeira da Mota in Lisbon. Phil is one of Europe's most active fintech investors and now co-founder and CIO of Shapers, a $75 million venture capital firm dedicated to backing early stage fintech entrepreneurs, launched in 2023 with his brother. Before he founded Shapers, Phil was the first employee at Hedosofia, an investment which he helped grow to 80 employees and where he deployed more than $2 billion across over 50 fintech companies worldwide and sat on the boards of a further 21, including Raisin and Viva Wallet, acquired by J.P. Morgan for an enormous sum. 

Phil has a great dynamic and optimistic energy, which he seems to enjoy channelling towards those young founders who are finding their way: 

"I think one of the most difficult things for founders is the transition from being a scrappy founder, when you have to do everything by yourself, then transition into a real CEO or into a C-level of an organization. This is where the name Shapers comes from. It's a beautiful definition – not ours, unfortunately. It's from Ray Dalio.  Shapers are people who can go from visualization to actualization. So it's not only people who can visualize or see the future or predict the future, but they make it happen by being very determined and very pragmatic leaders."

This episode was edited by Vanessa Heaney. 

Music by Alex Vickers

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James Ryan (New York) is the founder and CEO of RYCO Capital, a vertically-integrated real estate investment firm, which acquires, renovates and operates multifamily, mixed-use and office properties in NY and Rochester. In this conversation with Jessica Fellowes, James talks about the human side of real estate: managing hundreds of tenants means understanding their different perspectives and resolving conflicts. There's also the constant challenge that comes with operations, whether construction cost inflation or the weather. As a company, they know and understand NY and its laws extremely well – rent regulations, for example, require very close attention. 

Having been initially funded by a single family office, RYCO Capital is now planning to open co-investment opportunities. James particularly enjoys seeing how developing a mixed-use property sensitively can lead to greater benefits for the community around it. James says: 'We have a lot of capabilities for the type of construction and renovation and repositioning work that we do that requires a decent size team. We have a decent overhead and we're able to sustain that overhead, even during periods where we're not buying and selling and earning fees, earning profits.'

But if you want to know the hip new place to move to (and invest in) then ask yourself: Where's the nightlife? Where are the artists? Bushwick is the place that is like Williamsburg fifteen years ago... 

This episode was edited by Vanessa Heaney.

Music by Alex Vickers

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In the week in which it was announced that Ananda Pharma has received MHRA and NHS Ethics approval for ENDOCAN-1, their Phase 2 clinical trial testing MRX1 CBD oral solution for endometriosis-associated pain (afflicting 190 million women worldwide), we are delighted to have this interview with the co-founder and CEO, Melissa Sturgess. 

Ananda Pharma has not only been taking CBD oil through a standard drug development regulatory approval pathway, they have also been working hard to explain the myths that surround its ancient, natural and mysterious (to many) properties. The journey to this point has already taken huge investment over several years, but Melissa is driven not only by the belief that they can succeed but by the lives they know they can change with that success. 

This interview is a fascinating insight into what it takes to enter the pharmacological industry, the regulatory challenges, the risks that must be borne and the mettle that is needed! As Melissa says: 'The key thing is focus, focus, focus, because you can talk and dream about the big opportunity as much as you like, but you get to that dream by being massively focused in the short term. And that's what we're all about.'

This episode was edited by Vanessa Heaney. 

Music by Alex Vickers