Leadership Beyond Borders

Globalization is very often thought of as a new phenomenon, but it isn't. It is simply the contact between diverse individuals and it actually began when prehistoric wandering tribes settled and integrated themselves into more stable tribal environments.

Digitalization- what is that? It will be a tremendous opportunity for society: over the years to come, it will be one of the strongest drivers for growth, jobs, and well-being. But it is a little scary.

You toss in the span of generations working today, diversity, integration and everything else and we conclude we are living in a rapidly changing world.

These changes can also be overwhelming for the individual, for society as a whole and for business. But we must grasp these opportunities with both hands and welcome.

This speaker integrates her own philosophy not only into her private life but helps companies recognize how important shifting values and social changes are in leading successful businesses.

Body language is something we notice but do not think about,but body language is the unspoken element of communication that we use to reveal our true feelings and emotions. Our gestures, facial expressions and posture, for instance tell people what we are thinking. Body language can heavily influence how anyone feels about interacting with us, it plays an important role in your career, and affects whether you have a positive or negative impression of you after an interaction. And when we are able to read these signs, we can use it to our advantage and when we are not aware of what our own body language is doing others can use it to their advantage. It is something so simple yet so complicated and in this episode we talk with a body language expert that helps us better understand the in's and outs of body language.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing everything. It is merging our personal lives with our business lives as devices learn more about us and location-based intelligence always knows where we are and what we are doing. We see AI used in internet searches, customer targeting applications, performance evaluations and it is rapidly changing many industries and the future of work.

But AI is not new. In 1956, the term artificial intelligence was used at a conference at Dartmouth College, but not until 1997, when IBM’s Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a human at chess did it become a popular term.

Now, 20 years later, AI is still in its infancy, even though we have voice-detection technology, suggestive searches, and autonomous cars. The question is where is AI headed?

Many companies are competing to be the first to unveil the next level of AI do we really understand its capabilities? This episode takes a lot at AI from a very practical point of view.

Consumer insight is one of the most powerful tools marketers and publishers can hold. Discovering where your audiences are, and their interests and habits can not only allow you to talk to them in the right manner, with the right message, you can engagement them and grow your business. While mobile usage is on the raise, and people engage more and more with their mobile phones, there is one channel that leads the way in getting consumers engaged and that is the APP. Most businesses would love to have the engagement rate that some of the top APPS have, therefore we ask what can businesses learn from this APP behavoir? This episode explores the lessons we can learn from the way consumers engage with APP's and how they can be applied to everyday business operations.

The 'digital Sector' is an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of industries – all having a big impact on the way that we live, work and play. Companies that create digital products or are involved in digital advertising must serve a wide and diverse customer base and they need a talent pool that understands this customer base. Their products and messages must be free of ideology, bias or prejudice. That's why having more diverse teams at every level of development in a digital company means that end products and services can better reflect users and diverse groups. This episode explores why diversity in digital services is not just a nice to have, but a must.

As part of our series on the Middle East and Africa, this episode explores the digital opportunities in East and West Africa. Africa is on the verge of massive digital disruptions with the explosion of mobile, the increase of cross-border data and the constant focus on development that is skipping a lot of the earlier digital technologies. But even while all this is going on only about 15% of SME's in East Africa have a website. When you compare this to South Africa with 30%, select ME countries with 45% and select European countries with 80-90%, African SME's have a lot of catching up to do, despite the digital disruption that is going on. Considering that between 80 – 90% of buyers in developed markets will conduct some research online before making a purchase decision – the lack of digital presence could be hurting the region. Our guest in this episode wants to help change this and has established a project that will help SME's in East/West Africa get online.

When are artificial intelligence and big data going to achieve traction within Fortune 1000 corporations? We think It actually already has.

In 2018 NewVantage partners’, conducted an annual executive survey on AI and Big Data. The study was conducted on 60 Fortune 1000 or industry-leading companies, with 93.1% of respondents as C-level executive decision-makers.

The main findings of the survey revealed that an overwhelming 97.2% of executives reported that their companies are investing in building or launching Big Bata and AI initiatives and there is a growing consensus that emerging AI and Big Data initiatives are becoming closely intertwined.

One of the companies leading the way in recognising, reporting and contributing to the opporutnites that AI and Big Data bring, is Dun & Bradstreet. As experts they provide insights and knowledge to companies, governments and the general public. In this episode, we interview the Vice President, Chief Data Scientist at Dun & Bradstreet.

In ancient times the ability to memorize was a considered a magical skill --sometimes even thought of as mystical and it was essential to the passing down of stories, legends, history, and taboos and laws. It was used as a basis for social and economic development.

Today, the Internet seems to be making memorization irrelevant. What we don’t remember, we look up.

Many schools have also generally abandoned requiring students to memorize poems, famous speeches, math tables, and all sorts of academic material that used to be ingrained in the curriculum.

The question is -Is technology making us mentally lazy and if so how does that affect us in our business and private lives?’

Memorization is a discipline of the mind and our guest on this episode believes we should exercise our memory more than we do.

Our guest also believes that not only should we exercise our memory but he helps people learn how to do this.

We still do not have enough equality in the C-suite. It does not matter how we cut the numbers they are just not there, and the question is why? One of the answers could be that we are all still living with unconscious biases, which can close the door to equality in the workplace. Many companies have diversity, equal opportunity and discrimination policies but they are not always "living missions and values". But unconscious bias can also be within ourselves, and very often we women stand in our own ways when it comes to climbing the career ladder. But regardless if the biases are conscious or unconscious and the challenges stem from internal or external factors, we still need to understand them and face them. This episode looks at what the research "Shooting for the C-Suite" reveals about the challenges women face today. It helps women explore the challenges, face up to them and help them grasp the courage to move ahead with great advice from an expert in the field.

When are artificial intelligence and big data going to achieve traction within Fortune 1000 corporations? We think It actually already has. In 2018 NewVantage partners', conducted an annual executive survey on AI and Big Data. The study was conducted on 60 Fortune 1000 or industry-leading companies, with 93.1% of respondents as C-level executive decision-makers. The main findings of the survey revealed that an overwhelming 97.2% of executives reported that their companies are investing in building or launching Big Bata and AI initiatives and there is a growing consensus that emerging AI and Big Data initiatives are becoming closely intertwined. One of the companies leading the way in recognising, reporting and contributing to the opporutnites that AI and Big Data bring, is Dun & Bradstreet. As experts they provide insights and knowledge to companies, governments and the general public. In this episode, we interview the Vice President, Chief Data Scientist at Dun & Bradstreet.