Meet The Leader

Helen Mountford is the president and CEO of ClimateWorks Foundation, a philanthropy platform that has granted more than a billion dollars to worthy projects and grantees in more than 50 countries since 2008. She’s a key partner in a World Economic Forum initiative that launched this year called GAEA - Giving to Amplify Earth Action - and she'll tell us why philanthropy can be a critical way to fund and experiment with new ideas that can be scaled further by the private sector and how it creates an ecosystem to make big change possible.

About GAEA: https://initiatives.weforum.org/giving-to-amplify-earth-action/home

About ClimateWorks Foundation: https://climateworks.org/

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More companies have set sustainability goals than ever. But many will struggle to meet those goals. Baker McKenzie's Alyssa Auberger shares insights from a special survey that reveals business leader worries and the blindspots that some might overlook. As the global law firm's first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer, she also shares her unique journey to the role -- from pianist to lawyer to her current position -- and how the discipline and creativity required in music shapes how she works even today.

To read the survey, click here: The Race to Net-Zero: Is the global business community on course to beat the clock?: https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/newsroom/2022/11/new-report-finds-barriers-to-net-zero-transition

To learn more about Baker McKenzie's approach to navigating risks, check out its podcast Solutions for a Connected World sharing advice on driving growth that is both sustainable – and inclusive: https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/expertise/solutions-connected-world

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Dylan E. Taylor is the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Voyager Space, a space infrastructure company and one of the firms helping with efforts to replace the aging International Space Station. He and his team are working hard to ensure there’s no ‘space station gap’, all while getting the infrastructure in place so as many people as possible could one day live and work in space. 

In this episode, he talks about why expanding access to space motivates him, how his own visit to space changed him, and his experience travelling to one of the deepest parts of the ocean. In this conversation, recorded at the Annual Meeting in Davos, he also shares his approach to risk taking and how he prepares for big challenges - and how that strategy helps him make decisions quickly and navigate the unexpected. 

Transcript: https://tinyurl.com/yvr4zxbt

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Trust time, make one thing better everyday and keep upgrading yourself. CEO Yuxiang Zhou shares the lessons he has learned in co-founding Black Lake Technologies and his journey to help digitise factories -- a too-often analog world where too many still depend on paper and pencil. It’s a trip through big ideas, big disappointments (including a failed startup), and the slow process of building back from the ground up. The World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer talked to Forum video producer Kateryna Gordiychuk at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in China this summer, sharing the potential he sees for manufacturing and for cloud computing to connect factories in new ways. He also shares how taking a job on a factory shop floor and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro helped him pivot and get the perspective he needed to focus on the right solutions and priorities. 

Episode Transcript: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/yuxiang-zhou-black-lake-technologies-startup

World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers Program: https://initiatives.weforum.org/technology-pioneers/home

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How can something as simple as a seed help the world begin to make progress across big challenges such as protecting water, tackling climate change and even strengthening food security and opportunity? Ponsi Trivisvavet, the CEO of seed design company Inari, shares the innovations that are helping to protect the earth while tackling stubborn problems like hunger.

She also shares her leadership journey, the question she feels is key to strengthening any leader's resilience and the unique approaches to biotech innovation that help this company drive cutting-edge solutions. 

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Is your team solving the right problems and building the right solutions? Are they truly pushing the envelope - in the short- and long-term? This compilation episode shares the questions top innovators ask themselves and their teams, across engineering, biotech, healthcare and more. It also highlights the practical tactics and strategies they use to keep teams challenged, focused and engaged so they are poised to develop the leading ideas that will truly reshape the future. 

This episode features: Cristiano Amon, CEO, Qualcomm; Shez Partovi, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Royal Philips; Geraldine Matchett, co-CEO, DSM-Firmenich; Ponsi Trivisvavet, CEO, Inari; Rodrigo Santos, president, Crop Science Division, Bayer Crop Science; Lars Stenqvist, Volvo Group; Alex Liu, Managing Partner, Kearney.

Transcript available here: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/top-innovator-strategies-tactics

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Chief Risk Officers (CROs) are firefighters, investigators, counselors and -- critically -- the people trained to ensure companies have the systems, frameworks and culture in place to identify, assess and monitor big challenges ahead. They also help teams take meaningful action and chart a path forward. On the launch of the World Economic Forum's Chief Risk Officers Outlook, Bahare Heywood, the first ever CRO at global law firm Clifford Chance, shares her take on the report's highlights as well as the real-world approaches she believes are critical to make risk management effective in any business. She discusses strategies she used to help build a risk management culture, her personal lessons learned and the one thing all risk management plans must consider right now.

Report: Chief Risk Officers Outlook

Release: Macroeconomic and Geopolitical Conditions Pose Severe Risks to Organizations, say Chief Risk Officers

Transcript: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/clifford-chance-bahare-heywood-risk

Podcast highlights: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/07/chief-risk-officer-management-culture/

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Qualcomm has long served as a tech pioneer, driving innovations in cellular connectivity, AI, autonomous driving and more. CEO Cristiano Amon shares how digitalization will further transform our lives -- from health and retail to energy and the future of work. He also shares how Qualcomm drives innovative thinking in its teams and the simple framework any leader can use to decide which disruptive ideas to take forward.

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Hard-fought battles by leaders around the world have helped better protect nature in recent years but more work is needed to secure everything from future economic resilience to progress on climate action. Dr. Andrew Steer of the Bezos Earth Fund shares what transitions must happen this decade and the new approaches to philanthropy, policy, technology and more that can bring those transitions past the tipping point for true change. In this episode recorded at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Davos, he also shares how he's changed as a leader over his long career: from earning his Economics Ph.D., to roles at the World Bank and the World Resources Institute and other organizations, developing the approach he takes today that helps him better balance a range of competing challenges to solve the problems he wants to solve most.

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The global gender gap isn't budging, new research shows, and in this week's episode, women leaders share some of the unique policies and programs that can help build a pipeline for women in leadership and get closer to bridging that divide. Women also share the strategies that they have personally used to get their ideas heard and lead in only the way they can.

This episode features: Ashley Dartnell, Global Senior Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Boston Consulting Group; Jane Sun, CEO, Trip.com; Peggy Johnson, CEO, Magic Leap; Anna Katrina Shedletsky, founder, Instrumental, Nela Richardson, Chief Economist, ADP; Ashleigh Streeter-Jones, CEO and Founder, Raise Our Voice Australia; Lynn Martin, President, NYSE Group; Cristina Gamboa, CEO, World Green Building Council; Geraldine Matchett, co-CEO and CFO, Royal DSM; Becky Frankiewicz, Chief Commercial Officer, Manpower Group.

Transcript: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/how-top-women-leaders-work-and-thrive

Global Gender Gap report: https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2023

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Speaking to the media during COVID drove home to epidemiologist Prativa Baral the need for clear science communication training so experts can build trust with the public and be understood. Her experience led her to found Let Science Connect, a social enterprise that trains scientists and technical experts how to speak without jargon and connect more effectively with audiences. She shares the frameworks and tips that can help anyone get their message heard. 

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This Co-CEO and CFO explains how biotech leader Royal DSM invests in innovation that propels the company in the short term while putting in place the solutions that will be critical for the future. She'll share key mindsets, such as the frameworks critical for balancing present and future needs, the key role purpose plays, and more. She also shares the skillset that must be built in the next 3 years that not every leader might be considering and the surprising advice that shapes how she looks at leadership - and that helped convince her to take her current role. 

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In this special compilation episode, top CEOs, founders, activists reveal the advice that shaped them, helping them change their minds and their approaches to work and life, improving on everything from patience and authenticity to how they team and learn.

Featured in this episode: Leif Johansson, former non-executive chairman at AstraZeneca, AstraZeneca; Marie-France Tschudin, President of Innovative Medicines International and Chief Commercial Officer, Novartis; Caroline Casey, founder, the Valuable 500; Nicola Mendelsohn, Head of the Global Business Group, Meta; Cassandra Mao, Chief Strategy Officer, Halo Car; Ponsi Trivisvavet, CEO, Inari; Melonie Parker, Chief Diversity Officer, Google; Blake Scholl, founder, Boom Supersonic; Nazanin Boniadi, activist and actress.

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The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report finds that 44% of worker skills will be disrupted in the next five years. In this episode, experts from Google, LinkedIn and more talk about the mindsets and approaches that will help workers and employees navigate the skills disruption ahead - and what some companies are already putting into place to help workers stay relevant. 

In this episode: Becky Frankiewicz, Chief Commercial Officer, Manpower Group; Nela Richardson, Chief Economist at ADP; Valérie Beaulieu, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Adecco Group; Judith Wiese, Chief People and Sustainability Officer, Siemens; Melonie Parker, Chief Diversity Officer at Google; Lindiwe Matlali, founder, Africa Teen Geeks; Allen Blue, co-founder, LinkedIn, Nicolas Schmit, Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, European Commission, Soon-Joo Gog, Chief Skills Officer, SkillsFuture Singapore; Alex Liu, managing partner and chairman at Kearney.

Transcript: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/10-leaders-on-reskilling-for-the-future-of-work

Report link: https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023

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Josef Aschbacher's role as Director General for the European Space Agency (ESA) requires mobilizing support for visionary innovations that often take decades to build. He shared the strategies he’s learned while at ESA to talk about technical marvels in a clear way, without jargon, to earn buy-in for big ideas and connect with a range of stakeholders from policy makers to children. These methods for sparking inspiration, trust and excitement can be critical to any leader making long-term change a reality. He also discussed the $350-billion-dollar (and growing) space economy, sharing how a range of initiatives and shifts can foster new businesses and help ensure space will continue to strengthen economies and protect the environment for years to come.

Transcript: European space chief on speaking to inspire - and making big change possible

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With a background in software engineering and ad tech, Blake Scholl has an unusual CV for an aviation CEO. However, his singular passion for aviation drove him to learn this sector and eventually found a sustainable aviation company with flights twice as fast as what's offered today. Founding Boom was one of several crossroads moments in Scholl's life that drove home to him that knowledge and skills are adaptable and changeable, and there to support our passions.

In this episode, recorded at the Annual Meeting in Davos, he explains the opportunity supersonic flight offers now, decades after the famed Concorde, for tackling emissions and connecting the world. He also shared key pivot points - from leaving high school early, to hitting a wall as Boom founder - where he relied not on what he knew but what he could learn and possibly teach himself. Such an approach is critical for any listener as the job market will be increasingly transformed by a demand for new skills.

Story: Learn the skills-first approach this CEO uses at every crossroads moment

Transcript: Skills are changeable - passions are not: Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl

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The CEO of Mercer, one of the world's largest human resource consultancies, shares the blind spots holding companies back from building healthier and more resilient teams. She shares how targeted uses of data can boost uptake of health and wellness benefits, the role of reskilling in future workforces and the importance of rethinking retention strategies in the long term.  

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With a career that spans nearly 5 decades in science and technology -- one that includes time at AstraZeneca during its history-making effort to deliver billions of vaccines to countries around the world -- Leif Johansson shares his unique lessons learned. Before he stepped down from his role as non-executive chairman 27 April, he shared with Meet The Leader how his interest in physics has made him a better leader, the key moments that shaped him and even changed his mind, and the advice he's been most grateful for.

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A blood cancer diagnosis turned this Meta exec's day-to-day upside down in 2016. But it also reinforced a key personal philosophy: control what you can control. It's an approach that she stresses to her teams at Meta, reminding her staff to stop worrying about what they can't change and to focus instead on areas where they can make the biggest, most unique impact. And it's an approach that has empowered her to make big change happen for others, inspiring her to build a special charity to seek a cure: the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation.

In this episode, recorded at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Davos, Mendelsohn shares what she's learned about focus and resilience and how she's put those qualities to work to drive a host of innovative solutions, from leveraging virtual reality for remote meetings during COVID to building resources to support a new generation of women entrepreneurs.

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Augmented reality (AR) is transforming retail, surgery and even how we read a book. Peggy Johnson, CEO of Magic Leap -- a company pioneering in this technology -- shares how AR might evolve – and what could hold that progress back. She also shares key milestones from her decades in tech -- including the surprising lesson mobile ringtones taught her about making way for big breakthroughs and how as an introvert early in her career she found ways to get her ideas heard.

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