From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
For businesses to survive, let alone brands, you need a secure and stable base. You need secure economic and social conditions to reduce risk.
Well, do you remember those Venn Diagrams from school? Those overlapping circles to represent what two things do and don't have in common? The overlap of these two is incredibly fertile territory and this is exactly where businesses in the U.S. and UK see each other – places where they both need to do business and want to do business.
This is a race to the future, a future powered by renewable energy sources and underpinned by efficient energy use. The winning nations, corporation and citizens will reap enormous benefits in terms of jobs, sustainable economic development, energy security and vastly improved local environments.
What on earth they [referring to government] will do next…
I have not been an urban investor in re-gentrification, which tries to change the character of a community and, candidly, is very speculative. Instead I look at revitalisation, which constitutes investing in existing densely populated and ethnically diverse communities and delivering the goods and services that are sought after but not provided.
What the 1% of SMEs in a region that can really grow desperately need is local risk finance. We can think of this as venture capital. But we need venture capital that will work for SMEs, and that means it's got to be locally based. We've got a lot of venture capital, but it's nearly all in London and the Southeast.
Concepts like democracy and human rights will always remain fairly abstract if you cannot feed your family. It is therefore important to ensure that job creation, and protecting livelihoods occurs early on in the process.
Typically, when you ask a business person about their progress, their immediate response tends to revolve around growth figures – 'We're 20% up from last year' – under the assumption that growth equates to robustness and sustainability. However, empirical evidence doesn't support this assumption.
Dubai offers a lot. We're currently at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). There's a separate jurisdictional regime in this area meaning that companies are treated under English common-law principles. It's a very safe environment for transactions to occur, and this gives us a big advantage of areas which simply do not have that framework.
I often pose a critical question to businesses: if the economy began transitioning towards sustainability, would this be a boon or a bane for your business? If it's perceived as a threat, your paramount priority should be to modify your business model until this transition becomes an opportunity.
The genius of the classical economists was to think of economics and politics as the same. Remember, in Smiths' Day, there was no economics faculty, it was political economy. We may need to go back to that.
Research shows that empowering women to gain financial independence generates lasting impact, with women typically investing 90% of their income back into their families. In addition to this, McKinsey estimates that if women and men were to play an identical role in labour markets across the world, an extra $28 trillion would be added to the global economy by 2025.