Manuel P. Nappo

Manuel P. Nappo explains a world that has changed its rules. As head of the NZZ Academy and an independent board member, he brings together topics that are usually discussed in separate panels: geopolitics, technology and the decisions that follow from them.

His starting point is a sober one. The world has not become unstable — the rules that ensured stability have ceased to function. Those who understand this see a pattern behind the daily news and a decision behind the pattern. This is precisely where Manuel P. Nappo leads his audience: away from the noise, towards the question of what this change means for Switzerland and for their own companies.

Manuel P. Nappo interprets this new world from two perspectives. For fourteen years, he was at the forefront of digital transformation in Switzerland, as founder of the Institute for Digital Business and a pioneer of Europe’s first academic digital programmes. Today, he analyses the geopolitical forces that drive and constrain this technology. As a native of Zurich who grew up in Italy, he brings an outside perspective that identifies Switzerland’s vulnerabilities more clearly than is often possible from within.

Manuel P. Nappo Lecture topics

• The 2026 mid-term elections: What to expect in Washington — and how it will affect us.

The US goes to the polls in November, and the result will have an impact on Europe — the only question is how significant. Manuel P. Nappo reveals what to expect: how the midterms might turn out, which scenarios are most likely, and what each of them means for us — in terms of tariffs, trade policy, Europe’s security guarantees and the pressure on the Swiss franc. His conclusion: Washington will no longer be a reliable partner, but a variable for which we must prepare before the result is known. Nappo explains why the US will no longer follow a unipolar logic in future, but rather a pragmatic, interest-driven one — and why this forces Europe to act. The audience will go home with three decisions they can make today: regarding location, supply chains and hedging. Those who wait for the result will have reacted too late.

• The Middle East, closer consequences: what the war means for Europe and Switzerland.

A war thousands of miles away — and Switzerland is footing the bill. Nappo highlights the three channels through which a distant conflict affects us: energy, supply chains and capital. What happens if the Strait of Hormuz closes is not an abstract question, but a direct link to energy prices and industrial competitiveness in Europe. At the same time, the region is a proxy arena in which global alliances between North and South are shifting permanently. Ultimately, this raises the uncomfortable question for Switzerland: what does neutrality still mean when energy, technology and capital have long ceased to be neutral commodities? Distance no longer protects. It merely delays.

• Six straits through which your daily life flows.

Your morning began at six chokepoints, none of which you have ever seen. Nappo takes a product — a phone, a tank of fuel, a shop-bag — and traces it backwards: through Hormuz, Malacca, Suez, Bab al-Mandab, the Bosphorus, Panama. The journey from raw material to end customer is more uncertain in 2026 than it was in 2020, and the reason is not a force of nature, but control: whoever owns the chokepoints controls the global economy. This is the new geopolitics of infrastructure — ports, canals, cables. For businesses, this means a shift from ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’. A world map has six locks. We do not hold the keys.

• AI, models, chips, rare earths, supply chains: the new geography of power.

What looks like a race for artificial intelligence is, in reality, a struggle for raw materials and manufacturing. Drawing on fourteen years at the forefront of digital transformation, Nappo guides the audience along the value chain — from rare earths to chips to models — and reveals, at every stage, who controls it and where the bottlenecks lie. Chips are the new oil wells: whoever possesses computing power gains sovereignty. And he exposes the illusion Europe is labouring under — technological sovereignty without a raw materials strategy of its own, whilst remaining dependent on China. The AI question is not a software question. It is a question of geography.

• From crisis mode to systemic change – The global redistribution of power and influence.

We are not in a crisis. We are in the midst of a systemic change. Nappo situates the present within a long-term historical arc — from the bipolar world, through the brief unipolar moment, back to what has been the norm for most of history: competing powers. The post-war order is not collapsing; it is being superseded, and with it come new rules — security over efficiency, location over cost, adaptation over planning. This raises the question that concerns every Swiss decision-maker: what will become of the model of the small, neutral trading nation in an age of power blocs — and how can we remain capable of acting? Those who still follow the old rules lose out according to rules that no longer exist.

Who is Manuel P. Nappo

Since August 2024, Manuel P. Nappo has been establishing and leading the NZZ Academy — the Neue Zürcher Zeitung’s executive programme, which annually guides over a hundred board members and C-level decision-makers through the geopolitical, technological and economic shifts of our time. It is the practical application of the themes he explores on stage: from the systemic shift in the global order and the new geography of power to the question of who remains capable of acting in a world of dwindling sovereignty.

Manuel P. Nappo approaches these issues not as an observer, but from within the organisation. As an independent board member, he advises several companies. In 2024, he completed the International Directors Programme at INSEAD in Fontainebleau to meet modern governance requirements.

His credibility in technology matters is earned, not claimed. From 2010 to 2024, he founded and led the Institute for Digital Business at HWZ Zurich, developing it into an educational hub that trained more than two thousand executives. In 2011, he launched Europe’s first academic degree programme in Social Media Management and, in the years that followed, developed the MAS in Digital Business, the Executive MBA in Digital Leadership and, in 2024, the MAS in AI Leadership. Fourteen years at the forefront of digital transformation are the reason why he can now read the geopolitical forces behind this technology — chips, models, raw materials, supply chains.

His career has been international from the very start. Born in Zurich in 1971 and raised in Ferrara, he studied International Management at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), spending a semester abroad at the University of Gothenburg and completing an internship in the USA. He is an alumnus of Singularity University in Silicon Valley and INSEAD, and speaks German, Italian, English and French. Before embarking on his academic career, he founded his own agency in 2005, specialising in branded entertainment, and in 2016 co-founded the Digital Festival Zurich, which he developed from a concept into an event attracting over three thousand participants.

For his contribution to digital education in Switzerland, Manuel P. Nappo was named ‘Digital Pioneer of the Year’ by IAB Switzerland in 2013 and ‘Thought Leader of the Year’ by the Swiss marketing and communications industry in 2014.

As a sought-after keynote speaker – including at the Alpensymposium – and as a commentator for SRF, Handelszeitung and NZZ, he brings this perspective to the stage and into the public debate.

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