Rory Stewart’s Insider Guide to 2026: Three Key Takeaways

Bright and early on Tuesday 10th February, we had the pleasure of hosting our first Speaker Breakfast of 2026, welcoming political power-house Rory Stewart to the stage of One Moorgate Place, joined in conversation by the brilliant Kirsty Wark.

Our exclusive Speakers Breakfast events offer clients the opportunity to see speakers in action as they address pressing and contemporary issues. February’s session was an excellent exemplar: Rory and Kirsty unpacked the pressures and opportunities presented by our current geopolitical landscape, and how leaders can best steer their businesses through uncertainty.

We’ve pinpointed three of the most resonant takeaways from the session.

The Butterfly Effect: Why businesses must centre geopolitics in 2026

No, we’re not referring to the 2004 film. The idea of the ‘butterfly effect’ wove itself throughout Rory and Kirsty’s conversation on Tuesday morning, with reference to the amplified interconnectedness of geopolitics and international relations today.

The nature of politics, economics, international relations, and media technology has brought the world in closer proximity than ever before. The speed at which fact, fiction and opinion circulate around the seismic events of our age is only increasing exponentially, and ‘small’ occurrences have the power to trigger and spiral into others in unpredictable ways.

As a result, no global event is too far removed from businesses.

To keep a finger on the pulse as a leader is to keep geopolitics at the centre of decision-making and strategy, rather than a dismissable side-note.

Kirsty also looped back to the butterfly effect analogy with reference to Trump, posing an important question: will the qualities and effects of his presidency, the ‘batting of his butterfly wings’, make waves that will transcend his time in office?

Rory’s answer was immediate, and definite: absolutely.

In a world without Trump, the public’s trust in the realm of political possibility will have changed, perhaps irrevocably. No matter what the next president says, does, or believes, the US population has seen what is possible, and can no longer rely on the soundness of any boundaries.

As the rules around us shift from one day to the next, looking beyond clichés and focusing on the bigger picture with geopolitics is more important than ever before.

The Big Picture: Why prediction is now a thing of the past

Rory’s reflections on Trump tie in with a broader theme running through the session: the impossibility of future prediction when the rules-based order of the past 80 years is showing cracks. In his words, “anybody who tells you that they can predict the future is deluding themselves.”

To illustrate this point, Rory draws a pertinent analogy. If, during a game of chess, your opponent suddenly announces that the old rules of the game no longer apply, it’s simply not possible to anticipate what move they’ll pull next.

So, what can we look towards when preparing for the unexpected, at least tentatively?

The rules-based environment remains relatively stable in Western Europe and the UK. But we must work hard to maintain that. Rory suggests that this stability could become key to our growth and security in years to come, and could positively influence other regions.

Nonetheless, he re-emphasises that first point: the importance of paying specific attention to the unfolding geopolitical landscape on a day-to-day basis, and taking it seriously from a corporate perspective. With such little recourse to predicting the future, it is more important than ever to take seriously the events of the present.

The AI Question: What must businesses consider as we enter a new technological era?

Towards the end of Tuesday’s session, Kirsty and Rory turned to AI – a topic which has followed us all keenly into the new year.

Exploring how AI has featured on the global stage, Rory highlighted three questions which we can, and should, be asking ourselves about the systems we implement and the balance of power they enable:

• What are these systems capable of doing?
• Which countries and companies have power over those systems?
• What happens if these systems become autonomous?

Breaking down these points of concern, and asking these questions with reference to our own organisations, can help us to understand the broader consequences of the technologies we weave into our everyday lives.

AI is not apolitical, and it’s important we don’t treat it as such. Furthermore, the possibility of AI becoming an actor in its own right – an autonomous influence in the web of international relations – should not be overlooked.

If you missed us at this Speaker Breakfast, you can still watch an overview of the session’s highlights here. To enquire about Rory or Kirsty speaking at your own event, please contact us today.

Equally, if there is a speaker you would like to hear from next, or a topic you would want covered in the next session – get in touch today.

We look forward to seeing you at our next JLA event!