Forward Thinking

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui talks with Avinash Collis, professor of digital economy at The University of Texas at Austin, and Digital Fellow at Stanford and MIT. He covers topics including:
— One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century
— How to run economics experiments to figure out how much digital services are worth
— How much value digital services provide that GDP doesn’t capture

This conversation was recorded in April 2022. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/AviCollis

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, guest interviewer Acha Leke talks with Ngozi-Okonjo-Iweala. Acha Leke is a McKinsey senior partner in Johannesburg and is chairman of McKinsey’s Africa region. Okonjo-Iweala became director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in March 2021—the first woman and the first African to serve in this role.

Okonjo-Iweala talks about her first few months leading the WTO and some of the initiatives underway, and discusses the challenge of inclusive and sustainable growth in the years ahead. She answers questions including:
— How has the COVID-19 crisis affected world trade?
— As trade rebounds, what will it take to ensure that trade patterns are much more inclusive?
— How do emerging economies ensure that they have the access they need to vaccines and build the capacity to manufacture them? What role can trade and the WTO have?
— What is the interplay between growth, inclusivity, and sustainability?
— What else do we need to do to ensure that women and SMEs have access to trade?
— What do you see as some of the opportunities emerging from the pandemic crisis?

This conversation was recorded in December 2021. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: mck.co/NgoziOkonjoIweala

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Janet Bush talks with British mathematician and technologist Anne‑Marie Imafidon, co-founder of Stemettes, a social initiative dedicated to inspiring and promoting the next generation of young women in STEM sectors.

Imafidon invokes the “herstory” of stellar female technologists, such as Gladys West, who contributed to the development of GPS; Hedy Lamarr, whose work on frequency-hopping spectrum technology enabled Wi-Fi and Bluetooth; and Stephanie Kwolek, who created the first ultra-strong synthetic fibers, Kevlar being the best-known. In a rallying call for inclusion in a technologically driven world, Imafidon talks about persistent bias in data collection and algorithms that are making very big decisions that affect large parts of people’s lives. The stakes are very, very high, and we need to get this right, she states.

This conversation was recorded in February 2022. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/Imafidon

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush speaks with Claire O’Neill. While serving as a minister in the British government, O’Neill led the United Kingdom’s winning bid to host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, in 2021. After leaving politics, she joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) where she works closely with companies on the net-zero transition, the subject of a major recent study by MGI, McKinsey Sustainability, and McKinsey’s Advanced Industries and Global Energy and Materials practices. She covers topics including the following:
● COP26 outcomes
● The potential impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on progress toward net zero
● How businesses are mobilizing for sustainability

This conversation was recorded in March 2022. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/ClaireONeill

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Michael Chui talks with Benedict Evans, an independent technology analyst. Evans covers topics including the following:
● The generational shifts in technology that occur every 15 years or so
● What characterizes a “universal product”
● Why Web3 generates the most polarizing views among senior tech people
● Whether tech is becoming a regulated industry

This conversation was recorded in February 2022. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/BenedictEvans

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, guest interviewer Jonathan Woetzel talks with Ron O’Hanley, president and CEO of State Street Corporation, a major servicer and manager of institutional assets. State Street has committed to making its portfolios carbon neutral by 2050, and O’Hanley talks about how his own organization is trying to meet that target but also helping customers to develop sustainability strategies. Among other topics on his mind are the pandemic, which dramatically illuminated vulnerabilities in societal linkages; the growth potential of digital finance; and the importance of affordable housing. He answers questions including the following:
● What will it take to make State Street’s portfolios carbon neutral by 2050?
● How will advances agreed at COP26 in Glasgow affect the climate agenda and State Street’s business?
● How does stepped-up investment in digital finance lead to growth?
● Is there a trade-off between growth and inclusivity?
● What are policy unlocks needed to create a sustainable, inclusive growth cycle?

This conversation was recorded in December 2021. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/RonOHanley

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Michael Chui talks with David Autor, Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Autor talks about the paradoxes created for labor markets by the pandemic, the effect of trade globalization, the rise of China as a world economic power, and the economic impact of automation. He answers questions including:
● How have labor markets changed as the result of the pandemic, and how might they evolve?
● How has the globalization of trade affected the US labor market?
● What could have been done, and should be done now, to mitigate localized negative effects of trade shocks?
● Does ‘cowboy capitalism’ give us higher growth?
● What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned during the pandemic?

This conversation was recorded in February 2022. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/DavidAutor

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, guest interviewer Jonathan Woetzel talks with two leading economists spanning Europe and Asia. Baroness Minouche Shafik is director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Andrew Sheng is distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong. The conversation centers on the state of the social contract that underpins society. They answer questions including:
● What is the social contract, and why do we need one?
● Is the social contract broken, and do we need a new one?
● How does the social contract extend into issues of sustainability, and, if so, is this an opportunity to reimagine that contract?
● Has the pandemic brought us closer to a different kind of social contract?

This conversation was recorded in December 2021. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/ShafikSheng

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks with Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. Jonathan Haskel is professor of economics at Imperial College Business School at Imperial College London and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Stian Westlake is chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society in the United Kingdom. Haskel and Westlake talk about their pioneering work on intangible assets: how to define them to reflect their growing role in companies and economies, the benefits and risks, and how to enable a smoother transition to a dematerialized economy with such assets at its core. They answer questions including the following:
● So we really are now in the knowledge and know-how economy. Is this a new era for capitalism?
● Are intangibles good for us?
● How do you tell whether investment in intangibles is smart or dumb?
● Are intangibles a recipe for inequality?
● What needs to be fixed to ease the transition to the intangibles economy?

This conversation was recorded in December 2021. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/HaskelWestlake

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In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui talks with Matthew J. Slaughter, Paul Danos Dean and Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Slaughter takes the temperature of globalization, discussing ways of tackling distributional challenges and ensuring it works for ordinary families. He also reflects on the evolving demands on leaders of corporations in the 21st century, positing that those who recognize their wider purpose in society tend to outperform on productivity growth and profits. He answers questions including the following:
● At a time of great challenge in terms of globalization, what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and what have we learned?
● What can be done to achieve the benefits of globalization while making sure distributional challenges are addressed?
● How have the demands placed on leaders in the 21st century changed?
● In late 2021, there is a lot of discussion about supply chain issues. What is going on here and what is going to happen?

This conversation was recorded in November 2021. To read a transcript of this episode, visit: https://mck.co/MattSlaughter

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