Earlylands in Conversation

A discussion series with leading thinkers focused on issues at the intersection of business, politics, and culture. Whether it be trends in corporate deal-making, shifts in geopolitics, or notable new writing, our aim is to focus on the ideas and themes that drive headlines, inform boardroom conversations, and motivate policymakers.

Earlylands in Conversation is a news podcast hosted by Earlylands Advisory, with 36 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Earlylands Advisory hosts Earlylands in Conversation, a news show with 36 episodes published.

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  Earlylands in Conversation

  Earlylands in Conversation - Ep. 35 - "Russia Has Leaned Into Its Worst Impulses": RUSI’s Dr. Jack Watling on Ukraine's Changed Battlefield Dynamic

  Jul 28, 202641 min

  Russia's military is materially weaker today than it was a year ago, and Ukraine has established an asymmetric approach that drives up the cost of every Russian advance. Yet those facts still do not guarantee Kyiv the ending it wants. Dr. Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Applied Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London and one of the world's leading experts on the war in Ukraine. He is also the author of Statecraft: The New Rules of Power in a Divided World (Pan Macmillan, 2026) and has spent the past four and a half years moving between London and Kyiv. His method rests on primary research: time with Ukrainian units at the front rather than reassessment of other people's data points. In this conversation: what the Ukrainians solved between 2024 and the beginning of 2026 and what the Russians did not; Russian force quality and replacement rates; why Jack believes the war has reached a turning point and why that is not the same as a happy ending; and the signposts he is watching over the next six to twelve months. We recorded as the news was breaking out of Kyiv about the replacement of Ukraine's defense minister and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, so we do not address those changes directly. If you enjoy this episode, please follow Earlylands in Conversation wherever you listen. Books Mentioned on the Podcast -Statecraft: The New Rules of Power in a Divided World by Jack Watling - Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott - Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham

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  Earlylands in Conversation

  Earlylands in Conversation - Ep. 34 - "Do More With Less": Traxtion CEO James Holley on Turning Africa's Rail Bottlenecks Into a Continental Business

  Jul 13, 202642 min

  Rail rarely makes headlines, but it may be doing more to shape Africa's economic trajectory than any single mine or trade deal. James ('Jamie') Holley is CEO of Traxtion, the largest privately owned rail operator on the continent, with a deployed fleet of over 55 locomotives across ten countries, from South Africa's core network to the Tazara line linking Zambia to the Tanzanian coast. Earlylands Advisory's Todd Johnson sits down with Jamie to unpack what it actually takes to revive neglected rail corridors, why private capital is willing to take on infrastructure risk that governments have struggled to manage, and what a serious Transnet turnaround could mean for South Africa and the wider region. The numbers do the arguing. The Johannesburg-Durban line still runs on 1970s signalling, moving freight over 710 kilometers in roughly three days when it was designed to run trains every 20 minutes on an 18-hour transit. Modern positive train control could cut that to under ten hours and let Traxtion invoice the same train six times more often in a month. That gap between what the infrastructure could do and what it currently does is the essence of the conversation. If you enjoy this and our other episodes, please like and follow. Books Mentioned on the Podcast -Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-Time CEO Hunter Harrison by Howard Green -SwitchPoints: Culture Change on the Fast Track to Business Succes s by Judy Johnson, Les Dakens, Peter Edwards, and Ned Morse

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  Earlylands in Conversation

  Earlylands in Conversation - Ep. 33 - Whose Dirt Is It Anyway: Chatham House’s Chris Vandome on the Politics of African Mineral Wealth

  Jun 30, 202640 min

  Critical minerals have become the connective tissue of modern geopolitics, linking energy security, manufacturing, and great power competition in ways that didn't exist a decade ago. Christopher Vandome leads the Critical Minerals Initiative at Chatham House, the London-based foreign policy think tank, where he's also a senior research fellow with both the Global Economy and Finance Programme and the Africa Programme. Earlylands Advisory's Todd Johnson sits down with Chris to unpack the African critical minerals story: the geopolitics, the financing gaps, and the question of who actually captures the value when resource wealth meets global demand. The conversation goes deep on Zambia and the broader southern Africa region, where mining policy, industrial strategy, and great power competition are converging in real time. A sharp, on-the-ground look at one of the defining economic and security stories on the African continent. Books Mentioned on the Podcast Mining Is Dead, Long Live Geopolitical Mining by Marta Rivera & Eduardo Zamanillo Digging Deep: A History of Mining in South Africa by Jade Davenport

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  Earlylands in Conversation

  Earlylands in Conversation - Ep. 32 - From Dartmouth to Dar es Salaam: Clementine James on Building Africa's Critical Minerals Supply Chain

  Jun 16, 202638 minS0

  <p>The critical minerals story in Africa is typically told through the lens of geology, geopolitics, and finance. Rarely does anyone talk about the unglamorous reality that sits between the mine and the market: the roads, the trucks, the borders, and the sheer logistical challenge of moving product across some of the world's most difficult operating environments.</p><p>Clementine James knows that reality better than almost anyone. As a director and owner of Alistair Group, one of Africa's premier logistics operators, she has spent her career moving freight across corridors that would humble most Western supply chain professionals. That...

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  Earlylands in Conversation

  Earlylands in Conversation - Ep. 31 - From Zelenskyy's Office to the Frontlines: FT Kyiv Correspondent Christopher Miller on Ukraine's War of National Survival

  Jun 2, 202647 minS0

  <p>Throughout the course of the over four-year full-scale war in Ukraine, one of the most respected Western media outlets covering the conflict has been the Financial Times. The core ofthe FT's coverage has been provided by its Kyiv-based correspondent Chris Miller. Chris has lived and worked in Ukraine since 2010, when he was a Peace Corps volunteer in eastern Ukraine. The country is clearly in his blood, and his understanding of the Ukrainian people and their motivations is unparalleled among Western correspondents. He has probably spent more time with President Zelenskyy than any other journalist, and he continues to maintain...

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