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Greetings from sunny Davos.
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We are wrapping up a productive and busy week here in Davos,
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and we wanted to share a few reflections with you.
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I'm here with BCG's Global CEO, Christoph Schweizer.
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Good morning, Mai-Britt, how are you?
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Great, it's been a super week.
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Yes, and it's even nice and sunny now.
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How is that?
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Very different from winter Davos.
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Totally, yes.
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Christoph, you had a quite packed agenda
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and you met with so many CEOs, what's top of the agenda?
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Well, not surprisingly, top of mind is the question,
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how is the situation in Ukraine going to develop?
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What is the path forward?
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What are the scenarios?
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How likely are they?
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And then, how can we mitigate
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the many secondary and tertiary effects?
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The global food crisis that is not a risk,
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it's a reality that is happening as we speak,
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the raw material and energy shortages,
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the supply chain disruptions,
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that is top of mind for any leader
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whether government or business, doesn't matter.
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Other than that, I found this an interesting week
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because compared to some years ago
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where everyone started to talk about climate
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and sustainability and make nice pledges,
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I think we are at the point
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where the innovative and bold CEOs
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are now moving from pledge to action.
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I'm stunned by the magnitude of some of the investments,
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in particular, in the renewable energy sector,
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in the hydrogen space.
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I think there's definitely a new phase
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in that whole journey and that's exciting.
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Of course, we need to be fast
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and a lot needs to be done, but I do feel there's progress.
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It's great to see how we've moved from pledges
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also in 2020 - the last Davos in person - to action.
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What else was on the agenda?
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Well, I think the topic that we've all been going through
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for quite a while now is the shortage of talent,
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any talent, anywhere in the world.
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And I think that was, yet again, a big theme here in Davos.
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How do you attract the people into your organization?
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How do you develop and retain and excite them?
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A lot of conversation about purpose,
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about the employer value propositions,
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about flexible work models, etc.
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Speaking of those, you were on a panel
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about the future of work and in particular also flexibility.
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What are your takeaways, Mai-Britt?
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Yes, my big one line takeaway is that
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nobody has the answer yet.
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(both chuckling softly)
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So by taking a step back,
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I had a very great panel discussion,
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and I think it's very important
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to distinguish between different job types,
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because if you work in the frontline, retail, construction,
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in a manufacturing site, flexibility and the discussion
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is very different compared to
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if you are a knowledge worker in an office.
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But let's zoom in on the knowledge worker,
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which is also the business we are in.
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I think we need to experiment.
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We learned in the pandemic
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that we can work in a different way,
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but in order to make that work,
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we are still in the laboratory phase, I would say.
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So we are adopting a growth mindset.
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I didn't meet any leader here who knew the formula
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for how this is going to work.
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But the one thing I would say is from a DE&I perspective,
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we need to make sure that men and women
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embrace these opportunities in the same way.
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You're spot on.
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I don't think there is going to be any good answer
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for any employer without also over indexing
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on the whole diversity, equity and inclusion side,
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and I think that was, yet again,
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one of the overarching themes here.
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Absolutely, now to wrap this up,
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the most surprising moment for you or the biggest insight,
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what was that, Christoph?
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During the week, a number of studies got published
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on the whole question of trust -
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which institutions carry trust and which don't?
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And what you see is that
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there's a steady erosion of trust
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in basically all societies, in their government,
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in political parties, in even the church,
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pick your favorite, which is a tricky thing.
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The flip side of that is that more and more,
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the leaders of the corporations, the companies, matter.
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It's interesting that the corporations
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carry a lot of trust and CEOs do that as well.
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That's a good thing, but, of course,
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it's also a huge responsibility.
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And what I took away from this week is - it is top of mind
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for so many CEOs,
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how do you build the trust with your consumers,
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with your staff, with the potential recruiting pool,
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with governments that surround you?
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I think it's front and center,
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and I do think it needs to be top of mind for every CEO
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who leads an institution.
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It's certainly also top of mind for me at BCG.
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I think we have come a very long way
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and we are definitely going to build on that.
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And on your end,
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the surprises you took away?
On my end, yes.
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I want to mention the metaverse
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because there were a lot of panels on the metaverse,
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and I spent quite some time in trying to understand
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how the metaverse can change education
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and can change learning and development.
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And if we take the corporate angle,
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seeing how you can use the metaverse at scale
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in global organizations to drive onboarding
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to upscale your workforce
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and we know we need to upscale much more frequently.
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And I think the metaverse,
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used in a responsible and safe way,
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will be a key strategic tool for many leaders.
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But, of course, nothing beats - like we've seen this week -
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being together in person.
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Definitely so, and even more so on a sunny morning.
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Mai-Britt, it's great to see you.
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Great to see you, Christoph.
Take care.