Conversations with Mike Milken

“For us to have a sustainable portfolio, we have to have a sustainable capital market. And for us to have a sustainable capital market, we need to have a sustainable society. And for us to have a sustainable society, we need to have a sustainable environment? It's all connected.”

 When he was managing Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), Hiro Mizuno recognized that his role went beyond fiduciary. After all, with $1.6 trillion in assets, the fund wasn’t merely a traditional asset manager – it was a major owner in the global capital markets, and its investment decisions had significant impact. The fund would need to play a greater stewardship role, he believed, and so GPIF increasingly considered environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in its investment decisions. And while he met resistance along the way, today his bold idea has gone more mainstream.

“Now people believe that ESG needs to be a professional practice to grow into their daily portfolio management operation,” he tells Mike. “So, I'm really glad to see the progress.”

“We developed a green team and a red team. The red team's job was to play defense, and first think mostly about liquidity and our downside. And the green team was supposed to think about where could we take advantage of this?”

With COVID striking at the heart of Liberty Media’s sports portfolio (Formula 1 and the Atlanta Braves), it’s understandable that President and CEO Greg Maffei injected competitive stakes into how his managers look at their respective businesses. Some of Liberty’s other holdings such as Sirius XM are more pandemic proof, while their digital commerce subsidiaries QVC, HSN, and Zulily have adapted more readily to the times.

“We moved much of the inventory and on-air time that was spent on things like apparel and beauty over to gardening, home supply,” he tells Mike. “In the case of Zulily we sold something like one million face masks. So, we were really able to shift what our focus was to take advantage of the trends, and business has been very strong.”

“Many great artists have dealt with the tragedies and the turmoil of the time they lived in. I think the artist needs some time to reflect; you take it in, you process it, and maybe not consciously even, try to depict some horrible event that is filtered through your other experiences and your craft as an artist.”

As a champion of modern and contemporary artists, Larry Gagosian has literally created the space in which their art can thrive as never before. Starting with one gallery in Los Angeles four decades ago, his eighteen exhibition spaces are now found throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia. In the process, he has launched dozens of artist’s careers. Recently, Forbes magazine named him one of the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds.”

“Things may have shut down,” he tells Mike, “But my job as a dealer representing these incredible artists – they need income. They have expenses, they have kids in school. I take it as a very serious responsibility to keep the ball rolling, not just for the benefit of my business, but also for the artists that depend on me for their livelihood.”

“More people will move to poverty as a result of the pandemic. And the estimate is at least half a billion to a billion people. … I think that might push back a little bit the shift to a greener economy. And this is where I hope that the private sector can step up because this is not just a government responsibility. It is the biggest public private partnership there is, that we need to get together.”

As the former Secretary of Finance for the Republic of the Philippines under two Presidents, Cesar Purisima is widely credited with turning the Philippine economy around and restoring investor confidence. His stewardship vastly increased government revenues, and set new records for investments in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. As a Founding Partner of IKHLAS Capital, he extends now extends his compassion to the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).  

“A lot of people are really suffering,” he tells Mike. “Unlike the global financial crisis that hit the financial markets first, this really hit the countries from the ground up. And therefore, the ones who really suffered are those in the bottom of the pyramid. And the challenge for finance ministers, central banks is to come up with interventions that will not only hit the top, but really hit the bottom to find a more compassionate way to able to deal with this crisis.”

“The biggest tailwind is going to be the voice of young people demanding that the grownups do not ignore warnings about pandemics, about climate change, about gross inequality. One of the headwinds I'm very concerned about is a retreat to nationalism. We know that trade – global trade – has been tremendously helpful, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.”

When William Lever packaged Sunshine – his first bar of soap – in the 19th Century, he couldn’t dream that his company would someday grow to include more than 400 brands, including Dove, Lipton, and Ben & Jerry’s. Today, Unilever CEO Alan Jope dreams of continuing that growth, as long as it is both responsible and sustainable.

“The business case for sustainability is, in our view, completely proven,” he tells Mike. “Our brands that score higher on social and environmental responsibility are growing much faster, almost twice as fast as the rest of the portfolio. … It has been an absolute spur for innovation.”

“Culture doesn’t just come because you wave a magic wand. It comes through hard work; it comes through sharing; it comes through cross‐fertilization of people and ideas. … The culture we built, we don't want to lose that during this process. Coming out of it, there will be an even bigger opportunity for our company.”

Since becoming CEO of Mastercard in 2010, Ajay Banga has seen his company’s annual revenues more than triple, from $5 billion to $17 billion. The company is also doing well by doing good: their Mastercard Foundation has provided scholarships, entrepreneurial grants, and a commitment to create 30 million jobs in Africa in the coming decade. It’s all part of what the Indian-born Banga calls a “decency quotient.” 

“If you bring a human decency to work, which means you basically make people feel that your hand is on their back and not in their face, you will be fair and transparent and you will provide guidance. You will lead with that thinking; you'll bring your heart and your mind to work. Then you are a winning company. You will win, but you will win with decency.”

“Let's start talking about this. How are we going to diversify our boards? How are we going to diversify our management teams? How are we going to diversify our entry-level pipeline? How are we going to work in a community to make it better? … In the last three weeks, four weeks, it's been amazing. And I am really working to make it not stop, because there's a chance that we can be better.”

When Ursula Burns became CEO of Xerox in 2009, she was the first African American woman to reach that position at a Fortune 500 company. The daughter of a single mother growing up in New York City public housing, she rose through the ranks to also become that company’s chairman, and then held the same positions at VEON. In this wide-ranging conversation, she discusses a different way of thinking about equity.

“If you really want to do this, you're going to have to give up something. The world is not zero-sum. … So even though we act like ‘Oh my God, if we give that person a little bit too much food, we will have less.’ Never happened. We found that if you give people opportunity, the world gets bigger, not smaller; it gets him better, not worse.”

“Though the pandemic is taking so much of our energy right now in addressing it, there will be a day after. And institutions, organizations of any sort, have to have a very clear sense of what their mission and goals are in that day after.”

As the 11th Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley – and the first woman to hold that position – Carol Christ helms what U.S. News and World Report considers the world’s best public university. She sees her role as requiring both the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances as well as the steadiness to adhere to the university’s core values. 

“There's a very moving moment in The Lord of the Rings,” she tells Mike, “where Frodo says to Gandalf, ‘I wish I had not lived in these times.’ And Gandalf says back to Frodo, ‘So do we all, but what we need to do, how we'll be judged, is what we do with the moment that's given us.’ And that's what I feel.”

“We can use this low interest rate period as an opportunity to finance for the future. Will we invest in things which will enhance the quality of life and enhance economic growth and output? … Because we can't go back to the old world. And I think the new world can be a much better place if we can continue being a community.”

As Chairman of Investments and Global Chief Investment Officer for Guggenheim Partners, Scott Minerd oversees more than $270 billion in assets. In this brief but wide-ranging conversation, he discusses what he inherited from three generations of entrepreneurs in the Minerd family, environmental stewardship, and the meaning of leadership.

“We share a core value here,” he reminds Mike, “which is that the vast majority of people in the world are looking for a positive and constructive outcome. My view is that true leadership is that profile in courage that steps forward and says, ‘I'm not going to participate in the noise. I'm not going to look for recrimination. I want to talk to you about tomorrow.’”

“COVID has actually given us a time to rethink and reimagine the world. How do we repair the ecosystem? How do we repair the microbiome, which is reversible? How do we create a more socially just, and economically just world and society?”

For Deepak Chopra, healing the world begins with healing individuals – and that can begin by integrating Eastern spiritual traditions and Western medicine.  As the founder of the Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global – as well as the best-selling author of 90 books – Dr. Chopra believes that breakthroughs in technology and medicine will help lead to harnessing the collective intelligence of humanity, resulting in positive changes on micro and macro levels.

“What was science fiction is becoming science today,” he tells Mike. “This is an opportune time for all of us to reinvent our bodies, resurrect our souls, and also see how we can engage with each other to create more joy, happiness, and health. That's the only thing that ultimately will heal this planet.”