LSE London Alumni Talks

In this episode we speak to Vanessa Viana, Global Managing Partner at Capital Lab Ventures, a venture capital platform with a $100 million fund focussed on deep tech with offices in Sao Paolo and London.

Vanessa has over 18 years of experience in the fields of Private Equity, M&A and Strategic Consulting and is a founding member of the Brazilian chapter of the Association for Corporate Group (ACG- Brazil) and co-founder of Bradesco Private Equity acting as the General Partner of a $BRL 2 billion PE fund. Vanessa is a Chevening Scholar holding a Masters with distinction in Management of Information System and Digital Innovation from the LSE.

In this podcast we discuss Vanessa’s fascinating career journey leading to her current role, her perspectives on the power of capital to drive societal impact, new horizons of technological innovations and what it means for society as whole.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-viana-56121722

https://capitallab-ventures.com/

In this episode we speak to Suhrid Patel, Co-Founder of Impagro, an initiative focussed on building environmentally sustainable supply chains with India’s farmers.

Suhrid has over 10 years experience working with the agriculture sector in numerous countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. He has a masters degree in Development Management from the LSE and is a former Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Fellow.

In this podcast Suhrid discusses his journey from LSE student to agricultural entrepreneur, the environmental impact of our agricultural practices, how public and private actors influence food production across India, the UK and the US and what the future holds for sustainable farming and the work of Impagro in India. We hope you enjoy the podcast.

https://impagrofarming.com/

In this episode of LSE London Alumni Talks we speak to Adam French, former CEO of Scalable Capital, a digital wealth management unicorn and currently a partner at Houghton Street Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based at the LSE.

In this podcast Adam speaks to us about his entrepreneurial journey from LSE to Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis to developing and growing Scalable Capital. Adam also gives us his reflection on the experiences that helped to shape his entrepreneurial skills and the vision for Houghton Street Ventures. 

In this podcast we speak to Michael Muthukrishna, Associate Professor of Economic Psychology at the LSE. 

In this podcast Michael speaks to us about Culturalytics, his initiative that helps organisations to measure and manage organisational culture and how this can be used in strategic planning and policy. In this podcast Michael talks to us about what we mean by culture, useful ways to think about culture as well as unpacking these ideas in the context of the value they can bring to addressing a variety of scenarios including:

• mergers and acquisitions; 
• corporate innovation; employee retention;
• policies around fake news and climate change.

Today we speak to Bilal Baloch, Co-Founder and COO of GlobalWonks,  a software company that uses artificial intelligence to deliver expert insights to organizations worldwide.

As well as his entrepreneurial ventures Bilal has an academic background with over over 10 years’ of experience in learning how decisions are made within organizations. Bilal completed his Bachelor’s at the LSE, holds a Master’s degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a doctorate in political science from Oxford University. His new book, When Ideas Matter traces where ideas come from, how they are chosen, and when they are most salient for explaining political behaviour using case studies from India, Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia.

In this podcast Bilal discusses new paradigms of the knowledge economy, expertise and forecasting and the role of social sciences within the same as well the role of governance, democracy and free expression in developing and incubating knowledge economies. We hope you enjoy the podcast.

Check out the GlobalWonks platform here.

Bilal's new book "When Ideas Matter" is available to pre-order here and is due to be published on the 31 August 2021.

In this episode we speak to LSE’s own David Ai. David is the Head of Innovation at LSE Innovation, the School’s department focusing on assisting LSE experts to commercialise their research. Before LSE David enjoyed careers in the venture and technology licensing arenas including working for Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing for six years, managing inventions while spearheading Stanford’s technology marketing efforts in China. David also served as Vice President Chief Advisor at Hitachi Corporate VC and has been involved in several startup companies in both the US and Asia. 

In this podcast, David exchanges notes on where innovation comes from, the value of public vs private funded innovation as well as current trends in socially minded innovation and techno nationalism.

David Ai -  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidai2007/
LSE Innovation - https://info.lse.ac.uk/staff/divisions/research-and-innovation/innovation

In Episode 2 of our Planet Hope series we speak to David Wood. David is the Chair of the London Futurists, a board director at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and a Principal at Delta Wisdom, an independent futurist consultancy and publisher. His new book “Vital Foresight” explores future scenarios of technological disruption, superabundance and existential threat as well as the case for active transhumanism and principles for navigating the future.

In this podcast David touches on several of these issues in considering how to adopt a futurist mindset in considering how key trends in AI, Climate Change and convergent technologies are shaping the future and key principles and lessons from history you can use in seeking to understand the same.

Link to "Vital Foresight" E-book

4:09 - Superforecasting, Foxes and Hedgehogs

9:19 - Malthus and the population forecast

16:00 - A short history of technological ages -The 4th Industrial Revolution vs previous ones?

19:14 - Frontiers of new converging technologies

25:43 - Considering downsides to new tech/analogies to DDT and the Silent Spring

27:30 - AI and the Singularity Game

34:26 - AI and Technonationalism - A historical case for hope?

39:09 - Transhumanism and new frontiers of humanity and society

46:06 - Technology and Inequality in Society

51:25 - Corporate Innovation Strategy - A Futurist Lens and Playbook

55:07 - Case Studies - How Microsoft almost missed the Internet!

57:05 - Key corporate principles on why Microsoft was able to pivot

1:00:25 - Public Sector Innovation

Episode 1 in the LSEAAL "Planet Hope" podcast series showcasing key guests and their ideas for positively impacting global issues!

In this episode we speak to we speak to Martina Macpherson. Martina is Head of ESG Strategy and an ExCo Member for ODDO BHF Asset Management & Private Equity. Martina has held several global leadership roles in ESG strategy, product development and innovation including Senior Vice President, ESG and Engagement Strategy at Moody’s and is part of The Global ESG Leaders Forum – UK/EU/China and the European Law Institute's Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee.

In this podcast Martina talks to us about the key trends and developments in ESG and how we navigate the regulatory, technological and normative issues in delivering their promise. We hope you enjoy the podcast.


00:01:17 - What do we mean by ESG and why is it important?

00:04:35 - ESG and the traditional shareholder model 

00:09:20 - A high level overview of ESG trends and regulations

00:16:45 - ESG regulatory sanctions and incentivise to combat climate change

00:22:54 - Answering the cynics' view of ESG

00:27:21 - "Green Fraud"?

00:32:40 - ESG and the role of tech and real time transparency

00:37:00 - Standardising ESG data via regulatory efforts

00:38:18 - The problem of ESG agnostic market actors

00:43:40 - ESG - What does success look like?

In this podcast Louise talks to us about ESG trends within the global real estate and investment markets, pricing and managing climate risk within a portfolio and the potential that these trends have to shape change and impact within society.

Louise Ellison is the Group Head of Sustainability at Hammerson, a major British property development and investment company, as well as the Chair of the Better Buildings Partnership and EPRA Sustainability Committee. 

In this podcast Ben talks to us about the implications and effects of current government interventions in combating the economic effects of Covid, how these effects have impacted trends in AI and Automation, the politics of the essential worker and how this is likely to impact our view of the state and its social contract. 

Ben is currently the Director of Communications for the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice an organisation that works with companies to champion fairness, equality and effectiveness across systems of punishment and incarceration. Previously Ben was responsible for conceiving and growing Chatham House's Future of Work initiative consisting of annual conferences and workshops aimed at bringing a keen policy focus to developing trends in the future of work and their implications.