Raw Nerve: Ideas worth pressing
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Ideas worth pressing

A global conversation platform on the issues shaping tomorrow, seen through public policy, economics, and society.

Register your interest Read what Raw Nerve is

Every big idea has a raw nerve, the question underneath it that most people would rather avoid. We press it.

What it is

Raw Nerve explores the ideas, tensions, opportunities, and contradictions that are truly shaping tomorrow.

It does not do this through shallow debate, rehearsed talking points, or PR-safe interviews. It does it through open, intelligent, and challenging conversations that take on the big questions facing countries, regions, sectors, and societies, and make them understandable and relevant to a global audience.

Each conversation asks what the real issue is underneath the headline, what is being avoided in public, where policy, economics, and social reality collide, and what happens when a popular narrative is tested properly.

This is not just a podcast. It is an intellectual convening platform, with media as the entry point.

Why it matters

We live in a world full of information, but often short on genuine understanding.

What much of mainstream media has become

  • Highly curated interviews
  • Performative debate
  • Headline-driven simplification

What Raw Nerve brings back

  • Open, but rigorous
  • Challenging, but fair
  • Accessible, but not dumbed down
  • Ambitious in subject matter, but human in delivery

The goal is not to tell people what to think. The goal is to make it harder for them to think superficially.

The core lens

Every Raw Nerve conversation sits at the intersection of three things. We call it the holy trinity.

  • Public policy

    What are governments, institutions, and decision-makers doing?

  • Economics

    Does it work? Who pays? Who benefits? What are the incentives?

  • Society

    What does it mean for people, communities, behaviour, culture, and everyday life?

And always beneath those three sits a fourth question.

Reality

What happens when theory meets the real world?

The questions we want to press

Topics where the dominant narrative is politically convenient, commercially seductive, socially uncomfortable, or intellectually unresolved.

  • Green hydrogen

    Hydrogen has been sold as part of the green revolution, but do the economics actually work?

  • AI

    If intelligence becomes abundant and cheap, what happens to the value of human labour?

  • Migration

    What happens when an economy needs migration, but society increasingly rejects it?

  • India

    Can India become rich before its demographic dividend disappears?

  • Africa

    Can investment create long-term prosperity without repeating patterns of extraction?

  • Climate transition

    Who actually pays for the energy transition?

  • Education

    Is higher education still economically rational in its current form?

  • Healthcare

    How much healthcare can states realistically afford?

  • Identity and diaspora

    What is gained, and what is lost, when communities integrate successfully?

The point is not controversy for its own sake. The point is depth, honesty, and consequence.

The format

Thirty-minute flagship conversations, each built around one central proposition.

Filmed where possible, virtual when necessary. Premium, stripped-back, and intellectually serious.

Each conversation has three hosts, and each host brings a different lens: systems and policy, markets and economics, people and society. Not three people competing for airtime, but three distinct ways of pressing the issue.

Editorial tone

  • Curious, not ideological
  • Rigorous, not theatrical
  • Challenging, not hostile
  • Open, not pre-scripted

The team

Three vantage points: an investor's perspective, the view from the ground, and a global lens.

Rajan Nazran

Rajan Nazran

Founder, Global Indian Network

Rajan Nazran is a British entrepreneur, media host and international convener, and the Founder of the Global Indian Network.

Through the network, he engages business leaders, investors, policymakers, heads of state, ministers and influential voices across multiple global markets, creating conversations around identity, commerce, investment and international affairs.

His work has taken him across more than 75 countries, giving him a distinctive perspective on how markets, communities and institutions interact across borders.

At Raw Nerve, Rajan brings a global lens, connecting people, ideas and markets while exploring the deeper questions that often sit beneath conventional headlines.
Roberto Rudie

Roberto Rudie, FRSA

Founder and CEO, King Capital Ventures (KCV) / Roberto Rudie Group

Roberto Rudie is an entrepreneur, private equity executive and strategic adviser working at the intersection of capital, government, sport and international partnerships.

As Founder and CEO of King Capital Ventures, he works with private investors, family offices, governments and businesses to structure partnerships, mobilise capital and support high-impact initiatives across the UK, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America.

He is also the founder of the African Nations Football Association, where his work explores the wider economic, professional and social infrastructure surrounding athletes.

At Raw Nerve, Roberto brings an investor’s perspective, international relationships and a particular interest in how capital, institutions and influence shape the decisions beneath the headlines.
Robin

Robin Lockhart

Community development, youth engagement, social cohesion

Robin Lockhart is an award-winning community development and youth engagement specialist with more than 25 years’ experience working on some of the most complex social challenges facing young people and communities.

His work sits at the intersection of community safety, restorative practice, youth engagement, cultural awareness and behavioural change, with a particular focus on understanding why people disengage from institutions and what it takes to rebuild trust, agency and belonging.

Through Catalyst In Communities CIC and his private practice, Robin works with individuals, organisations and communities through coaching, mentoring, training and direct intervention. His approach is rooted in meaningful conversation and practical experience, often working with people and communities described as “hard to reach”.

In 2026, his contribution to youth work and community development was recognised with the British Empire Medal in The King’s Birthday Honours. He has also served as Commonwealth Global Youth Work Ambassador since 2018 and has received both European and Global Youth Worker of the Year recognition from the Commonwealth.

At Raw Nerve, Robin brings the perspective from the ground: how policy, inequality, identity, belonging and institutional failure are actually experienced by communities, and what happens when society stops listening.

The editorial code

  1. Enter without a verdict

    We can have hypotheses, but not predetermined conclusions.

  2. Press the argument, not the person

    We test ideas, not egos.

  3. No PR answers

    If a guest gives the polished version, we go underneath it.

  4. Follow the answer

    The conversation matters more than the prepared sheet.

  5. Complexity is allowed

    Not every issue has a neat resolution.

  6. Leave the audience thinking

    Our job is not to close the question too quickly, but to deepen understanding.

Who it is for

People who want to understand the world more deeply: policymakers, business leaders, investors, academics, entrepreneurs, diplomats, professionals, globally minded citizens, and younger, ambitious audiences who want substance, not slogans.

Who we convene

The guest list should reflect the scale of the ideas. We aim to bring in presidents and ministers, central bankers and economists, CEOs and investors, academics, technologists, founders, reformers, and sector experts: people who have shaped a subject, studied it deeply, financed it, or challenged it meaningfully.

What it becomes

Raw Nerve is not just a media series. It is the beginning of an ecosystem.

  • Raw Nerve Conversations

    Flagship interviews

  • Raw Nerve Briefings

    Shorter deep dives

  • Raw Nerve Live

    In-person intellectual forums

  • Raw Nerve Reports

    Written insight pieces

  • Raw Nerve Global

    Conversations recorded around the world

  • Raw Nerve Forum

    A high-level convening platform for difficult ideas

The long-term ambition is to become a globally recognised place where difficult ideas are brought to be discussed seriously, openly, and intelligently.

Raw Nerve is coming.

Register your interest and we will write to you when the first conversation is released.


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