LBS Hosts Global Leadership Summit
London Business School’s Global Leadership Summit took place on July 5th with business and government leaders from Brazil, Saudi Arabia, China, India and Africa joining in on the globalization debate. This year’s theme was “New Frontiers: Expansion, Opportunity and Innovation”.
Representing the worlds of finance and banking, education, technology, telecommunications, professional services and charity, speakers at the event shared the stage to debate the extent of the gravitational shift towards emerging markets and the implications of such a shift for global business.
Other topics up for debate included how societal trends and a low carbon future will fundamentally re-shape the future of work and how Western companies can best exploit the opportunities available to them in the emerging markets.
Speaking of the impact of globalization on Saudi Arabia during a panel discussion on Understanding Emerging Markets, His Excellency Amr Abdullah Al-Dabbagh gave an example of how the Kingdom was looking to take advantage of the global slowdown by accelerating infrastructure development to take advantage of the depressed prices of building materials.
During a panel titled Inside Out, Savio Kwan, independent non-executive director of the Alibaba Group, commented: “Our dream is to help society. We look how to help. We want a world open, shared and responsible. We are pushing this idea through China and wherever we go. Instead of trying to buy companies, we are trying to revolutionize the way people do business.
“We are now helping our Indian colleagues. Hopefully we will be able to do this in Brazil and other places.”
For the first time, this year’s summit was streamed live via webcast around the world and the interactive experience allowed viewers to use Twitter to “tweet” in their comments and questions for the panel.
Sir Andrew Likierman, dean of London Business School, said “The Summit is London Business School’s flagship event and the calibre of today’s speakers is a testament to this. We’ve brought together a number of key people who shape the world we live in because we believe that London Business School is a place to hear and meet people that matter.
“One of our values is an eclectic approach, which means in practice that we are not telling people what to think, but giving them an opportunity to draw their own conclusions from the argument ”“ very much today’s approach.”
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