Date: 23rd – 24th July 2025

Venue: 23rd July 2025: Financing defence and security hackathon/workshop, Guidehouse, Angel Court 24th July 2025 The Future of Security Annual Conference, Great Hall, Kings College, London

Overview

Economic security is the capacity of a nation’s economic institutions and infrastructures, financial frameworks and policy levers to underpin national security against multiple threats. It is therefore a vital component of our credibility to deter threats and defeat our adversaries.

Yet within an era of undeclared economic war, defence and security thinking on the role of economic security is not understood as well as it should be. As Governments across NATO and beyond move their forces to warfighting readiness in the face of a step-change in the threats we face, there has never been a more important moment for finance, commerce and government to begin to work together to achieve economic readiness as well.

The Centre for Economic Security’s mission is not just to highlight this imperative, but to bring together senior leaders from across the financial services sector, business, government and academia to consider how collectively we can address it. The Future of Security Conference marks the start of the urgent conversations required to deliver the practical steps we must take now as a Nation and with our Allies to deliver economic security fit for our future.

Who should attend

If you are a policy maker, your policy goals will be affected by the capacity of economic actors such as banks and corporates to implement your strategies. If you are a financial services organisation you will feel like the foot-soldiers in a conflict that has not been declared or defined but that is Registered Office: Linden House, Linden Close, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 8HH Company Registration Number: 10101457 Company VAT Number: 259100519 Admin address: 9 Ashburnham Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN21 2HX

affecting where you can allocate financial resources. If you are a corporate, you will be limited by your need to access finance and new markets that are, in turn enabled or restricted by policy measures such as sanctions. If you are part of the defence and security framework, you will be concerned about the capacity of critical supply chains to deliver goods where they are needed and when they are needed. If you are a defence supplier, you will need to understand where the barriers to finance are and how to overcome them.

If you are any of the above, you should attend this event. It is a unique opportunity to hear about the challenges and opportunities that present themselves as economic measures are increasingly used to coerce and deter adversaries. You will be surrounded by like-minded senior leaders in policy, academia, defence and security, finance and business who share the same conviction that economic security is fundamental to sustaining the democratic and market-based values that have unpinned peace and security for the last 80 years.

July 23rd: Hackathon/ideation day hosted by Guidehouse Consulting focuses on two central themes:

1. What do banks need from government, and what does government need from banks to get comfortable with funding defence, security and critical national infrastructure?
2. How would a Shadow Ministry of Economic Warfare draw on the expertise of finance, innovators and technology experts in the defence and security area?

Learn more

July 24th: Future of Security: Article 2, Collective Economic Defence and Institutional Responses, hosted by Kings College London, Great Hall: