In this Inside CVC Encore episode, Deborah Elms joins Steve and Philipp for a timely conversation on the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Trump administration’s use of IEEPA tariffs—and why the ruling did not end tariff uncertainty.

Deborah explains what happened in the first 72 hours after the decision, why companies faced immediate confusion over tariff rates, exemptions, and refunds, and how the administration’s pivot to other trade tools could create a more durable, more complex tariff environment.

The conversation is newly relevant as businesses begin seeking refunds tied to the ruling, with refund processing now underway but expected to remain administratively complex.  It also lands amid continued Middle East instability, where infrastructure, energy, and desalination have become part of the broader risk landscape. 

For boards, CEOs, strategy leaders, and corporate venture teams, this episode is about more than tariffs. It is about volatility, executive power, supply chains, regional trade blocs, and what it means to operate when the assumptions of the last 80 years no longer feel stable.

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In this Inside CVC Encore from Season 1, Episode 1, we revisit his conversation with J. Carl Ganter, founder and managing director of Circle of Blue and a veteran storyteller whose work spans National Geographic, network TV news, and NPR. The episode lands at a moment when desalination plants and water infrastructure across the Middle East are making headlines as targets in the Iran conflict, putting the systemic risks Carl warned about squarely in front of the boardroom.

Carl frames water as an existential supply chain risk that cannot be solved alone. He walks through why CVCs have a "license to be curious" the rest of the investing world does not, why the AI-era data center buildout has forced water back onto the C-suite agenda, and why castle resiliency fails when everyone around you is going dry. He also unpacks the UAE and Saudi Arabia race on water tech, the U.S. Farm Bill's outsized role in global water policy, and the Apollo 13-style coordination this moment demands.

If you sit on a board, run a CVC function, or own enterprise risk inside a multinational, this one is worth the rerun.

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Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer at MIT and the originator of Theory U, the foundation of U-Path. In this conversation, Otto walks Philipp and Steve through what it actually means to lead from an emerging future rather than the past, and why that distinction matters more now than ever.

They dig into the four levels of listening. Downloading. Factual. Empathic. And the one most leaders never reach: generative. Otto explains how the quality of your listening determines whether a conversation produces something new or just recycles what everyone already knows.

The conversation also covers his new book's seven practices for transformation, the social soil metaphor rooted in his family's biodynamic farm in Germany, and what boards need to change in the next twelve months to lead through disruption rather than react to it. Including why knowledge, comfort, and action are all overrated, and what to cultivate instead.

If you work in leadership, governance, or organizational change, this one will shift something.

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Oliver Zeidler made history at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, winning gold in the men's single scull and breaking the Olympic record by nearly five seconds in the semi-final. But he will tell you the medal wasn't won in Paris. It was won three weeks earlier, at a World Cup race in Lucerne, where he finished second.

In this episode of Inside CVC, Philipp and Steve sit down with Oliver for a conversation about reinvention, high-performance leadership, and what it actually takes to build a winning system from scratch. After finishing outside the A final at Tokyo 2020 as the gold medal favorite, Oliver walked away from the German national program entirely. He assembled his own fully-sponsored, cross-functional team: sports psychologists, biomechanics specialists, physiotherapists. He rebuilt his training from the ground up. The result speaks for itself.
 
Oliver is currently an MBA candidate at IMD in Lausanne and a former Deloitte consultant. The parallels between his path to gold and what it takes to build and lead a great organization are not forced. They are exact.
 
For founders, executives, and investors who believe performance is a system, not a personality, this one is worth your full attention.

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In this episode of Inside CVC, Joanna Massey explores how AI and digital platforms are reshaping boardroom governance.

The conversation examines how polarization, employee stress, and shifting expectations around free speech are impacting decision-making inside companies. Joanna introduces the concept of “mass incitement” and explains why boards must take a more active role in overseeing how technology influences behavior, culture, and risk.

The discussion also covers the role of trust and transparency in today’s workforce, why productive disagreement is critical for innovation, and how boards can navigate increasing pressure at the intersection of business, society, and policy.

A clear look at what it takes to govern effectively in a digital, divided world.

In this episode, we discuss:

•  How AI and social media are reshaping governance, employee behavior, and board-level risk 
•  The rise of polarization and “mass incitement” and what it means for oversight and accountability 
•  Why trust, transparency, and productive disagreement are now critical to innovation and decision-making 

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The CVC Open Innovation Summit began as a small gathering of corporate venture, strategy, and innovation leaders looking for something missing in the market: a trusted environment where decision-makers could collaborate on the challenges shaping industry.

In this special episode of Inside CVC, Steve Schmith speaks with Philipp Willigmann of U-Path Advisors and Daniel Kennel of BorgWarner about how the summit series is evolving into a global platform connecting leaders across industries.

They discuss the community’s mission:

To build the most trusted global platform empowering industry leaders to unite capital, innovation, and strategy to shape the future of business and society.

The conversation explores the topics driving dialogue across recent summits in Miami and Berlin, why cross-industry collaboration matters more than ever, and what comes next as the community expands globally.

To learn more about the CVC Open Innovation community and get involved, visit cvc-summit.com. 

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When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration illegally imposed tariffs under IEEPA, markets reacted fast. But relief quickly gave way to confusion.

In this episode, Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Singapore-based Hinrich Foundation, explains what happened in the first 72 hours, why some countries now feel blindsided, and how the administration’s pivot to other tariff tools could make this moment more durable, not less.

We cover:

• Who wins and loses across Asia-Pacific
• Which sectors remain exposed under Section 232 and 301
• Whether the ruling strengthens U.S. constitutional guardrails
• How regional blocs like RCEP and CPTPP are accelerating
• What boards and CEOs should do now

Elms argues this is not just a legal correction. It may be a structural shift in global trade architecture — one that will shape corporate strategy and geopolitical alignment for years to come.

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What happens when you leave a world class platform like Deloitte without a plan, and then choose to spend your next chapter on a problem hiding in plain sight?

In this episode of Inside CVC, we sit down with Janet Foutty, former CEO of Deloitte Consulting in the United States and Executive Board Chair of Deloitte US, now focused on driving impact across women’s health, tech for good, and long-term research ecosystems. Janet shares what stayed consistent through the transition. Service. Leading through influence. And the discipline of deciding what not to do when there are a thousand worthy directions.

The core conversation centers on the health of women and the “healthspan gap.” Women live longer than men, but spend significantly more years in poor health. Janet unpacks why. Research has historically treated women as “small men.” Women are underrepresented in clinical trials. And only a small share of research and investment dollars targets conditions that affect women differently or disproportionately.

We also get practical for corporate venture capital and board leaders. Janet outlines a simple starting point. Ask every health investment whether sex based differences are being measured. Push portfolio companies to include women appropriately in trials. And treat women’s health benefits as a strategic workforce issue, not a niche add on.

We close on leadership in uncertainty. Why boards are getting stuck. What it takes to move with imperfect information. And the mindset Janet uses on the down days. Play the long game. Show up well in the small moments. And remember that complex problems stay complex for a reason.

If you care about investment with real outcomes, and leadership that holds up when the title disappears, this one will land.

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Longevity is not just a healthcare issue. It is a workforce issue. It is a competitiveness issue. It is an everything issue.

In this episode of Inside CVC, we sit down with Katharina Janus, founder of Fourth Quarter Life and a longtime healthcare leader across managed care, hospitals, academia, and consulting. She shares the personal moment that changed her work forever. Navigating her father’s Alzheimer’s care showed her how opaque and unfair the system feels, even when you know the system inside and out.

We dig into why aging is the next defining mega trend for markets and society, and why the “care at home is cheaper” argument often ignores the real cost. The unpaid caregiver. Usually a woman. Usually sacrificing income and retirement.

Katharina explains what is breaking first. Staffing shortages. Fragmented care. Incentives that turn care into transactions. And she makes a clear prediction. By 2030, systems start to buckle under the math.

We also explore what corporate leaders and investors tend to miss. The productivity drain of the sandwich generation. The loss of experienced talent. And the social risk of fear and desperation spreading through a population that sees what aging looks like up close.

Her answer is relationship based care. A return to the human motivations that make integrated care work when incentive schemes fail. For CVCs and corporate boards, the takeaway is direct. Stop funding isolated point solutions. Connect the dots. Build portfolios that integrate tech with human care, and treat eldercare support as a strategic advantage, not a nice-to-have.

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What do the Hindenburg, the Titanic, Boeing, and the Challenger disaster have in common?

According to historian and author Edward Tenner, they were not failures of incompetence. They were failures born from success, confidence, and blind spots.

In this episode of Inside CVC, Tenner explains why highly capable organizations still make catastrophic mistakes. From the smoking lounge on the Hindenburg to safety measures that destabilized the SS Eastland, which capsized in 1915 while docked in the Chicago River, we explore how innovations designed to reduce risk often create new vulnerabilities.

We discuss:

• Why disasters often strike respected, well-managed institutions
• How shared assumptions normalize risky decisions
• The illusion of safety and how protections can backfire
• Why reputational risk and public outrage should be top board concerns
• What today’s leaders can learn from long-term “deep organizations”

Tenner argues that resilience is less about speed and more about depth. Organizations that protect R&D, maintain reserves of expertise, and adopt a 20 to 25 year time horizon are better positioned to navigate uncertainty.

For boards facing AI acceleration, automation, and geopolitical volatility, this conversation is a reminder: the most dangerous risks are often the unintended ones already forming beneath the surface.

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Catch up on all episodes of Inside CVC at www.u-path.com/podcast.