“A diverse mix of voices leads to better discussions, decisions, and outcomes for everyone.” — Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.

It is not unusual for executives of large organizations to tout the benefits of diversity and inclusion. However, year after year, the performance of these very same companies demonstrate that they are failing to increase the diversity of their workforce. Good intentions aside, these executives point to a variety of reasons, beyond their control, that prevents their organizations from realizing the diversity in their workforce that they clearly desire. Leveraging recent empirical research exploring this failure, Professor Margaret Neale will unpack the typical reasons that companies cite for their inability to increase diversity (particular gender diversity) in their ranks and actionable solutions that can be implemented to mitigate these challenges.

This session examines the political power trends and dynamics in the Middle East at three levels: internally within countries; regionally, in interactions among countries; and globally, in terms of major power engagement (principally, the U.S., Russia, and China).

First, we examine the character and stability of regimes in the region ten years after the Arab Spring. What are the prospects for stability and continuity within the region's various regimes, short and long term? What can we learn from public opinion surveys? We will examine the major Arab states of the region (such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia), as well as Iran, Israel, and Turkey.

Second, what are the trends with respect to regional conflict, particularly the tensions emanating from the regional power ambitions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, but also involving the ongoing conflicts in the region. Finally, we examine the roles of external international actors in these regional conflicts and dynamics, principally Russia and the U.S. but also China. What should we expect from the new Biden administration? The session concludes by considering the broader implications of Middle Eastern geopolitical trends for relations among the major world powers.

Each day brings more disruption and challenges to established companies across all industries worldwide. Too many established companies fail to address the innovation challenges. For corporate innovation to succeed, it is critical for the company leaders to understand why innovation in large companies so often fails and how to design corporate innovation more efficiently.

In this session, we will start by identifying major reasons why mature companies so often fail in disruptive innovation and succumb to new entrants. We then explore ways to foster innovation and innovative culture and brainstorm on the best ways to apply it to your company. We will explore internal innovation, corporate venture capital, and acquisitions. We will discuss cultural, organizational, and financial mechanisms to foster innovation.

You will go on to make critical and far-reaching economic, political, and social decisions in your quest to change lives, organizations, and the world. That’s serious stuff.

So, why humor? The late journalist Eric Sevareid said, “Next to power without honor, the most dangerous thing in the world is power without humor.” Humor is serious business. And that’s a fact backed by cold, hard research. Humor builds bonds, defuses tension, boosts innovation, and bolsters resilience through hard times.

This session is about the power (and importance) of humor to make and scale positive change in the world, and also – surprise! – to achieve business objectives, build more effective and innovative organizations, cultivate stronger bonds, and capture more lasting memories. You’ll learn why humor is one of the greatest competitive advantages in business (and life), why it’s underutilized, and how YOU can use more of it, better. More better. Welcome to your (re)introduction to humor.

It is frequently asserted that the 2020-21 COVID-19 was unprecedented. This betrays an ignorance of history. Pandemics have been a recurrent feature of human history and as a species, we have experienced many worse than this. However, the economic consequences of lockdowns and other measures taken to limit the spread of the virus SARS-CoV-2 are in many ways novel in their nature and scale. And this in turn has led to unusual social and political consequences, as well as to a notable shift in the balance of global power.

Drawing on the knowledge of past pandemics, as well as other disasters, this session will put the past 14 months of global upheaval in a historical context and to suggest implications for the future.

The only thing predictable about the future of work is that there will be lots of change. Is mass unemployment right around the corner due to the advent of robots and other Artificial Intelligence?

How will the aging of the population affect the labor market? How are women transforming the workplace? As employers were dealing with all those changes, COVID came along and transformed the world of work. We will focus on the managerial and policy implications of automation and demographic changes. We will discuss how the world of work is changing in ways that differ dramatically by labor market and with what level of skill your organization needs. We will also analyze how the short-term changes in the workplace brought on by COVID will affect organizations in the long term.

A new trust framework is emerging – fueled by social, economic and technological forces that will profoundly alter how we trust, not only what we see and read online, but also one another. Many believe technology is the villain – an enabler of lies and deception online – but Jeff Hancock believes the opposite is true: it’s our intuition that is off. And that changes everything.

In today’s collaborative economy and sharing society, Hancock explains why we’re actually trusting one another more, not less. But he also says not to throw out the psychology book just because technology is involved. Hancock will convince you that the real disruption taking place today isn’t technological, it’s psychological. He discusses how principles from psychology and communication intersect deception and trust with technology. He also reveals several key principles that can guide how we think about truth and trust on the internet, and how we – as individuals and as businesses – can rewire the ways we detect lies and better gauge truth.

This shift will lead to new and sometimes counterintuitive approaches to using technology to trust more, not less. The implications are profound and far-reaching – from how we sell products to how we manage people, and from how we love to how we teach and parent.

In these sessions we will then apply brain-based insights to a topic that has become “hot” in the last few years, becoming central to strategy, namely Customer Experience Design. We will discuss the reasons behind this development and how businesses can leverage rich customer insights to unearth new business opportunities, develop and sustain distinct competitive advantages, and in the process have a direct impact on top-line and bottom-line growth. We will examine how the X-Framework can be leveraged for customer experience design and business model innovation. We will go through several examples of how billion-dollar companies have been formed by removing “disgusters” (pain points) and adding “delighters” (pleasure points) along different phases of the customer journey.