Event Highlights – Session Two – Technology Advanced
Event Highlights
TECHNOLOGY ADVANCED
After the most significant year of digital transformation in recent history, we take a closer look at permanent changes to the human-technology nexus.
Speakers included:
- Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons
- Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary, United States Department of Homeland Security; Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Chertoff Group
- Mark Dixon, Founder and CEO, IWG MONACO
- Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson Group
- Sergio P. Ermotti, Chairman, Swiss Re
- Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Managing Director, Ooredoo Group
- Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Founder and Executive Chair, Snoop
- Poppy Gustafsson OBE, CEO, Darktrace
- Blythe Masters, CEO, Motive Capital Partners
- Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Bharti Enterprises
- Dan Morehead, CEO and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Pantera Capital Management
- Michael Novogratz, Founder, CEO and Chairman, Galaxy Digital
- Jim Ovia, Founder and Chairman, Zenith Bank
- Ruth Porat, CFO, Alphabet and Google
- Ferit Şahenk, Chairman, Doğuş Group
- Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Founder and CEO, Binance
Bloomberg moderators included:
- Tracy Alloway, Executive Editor, Asia News Desk , Bloomberg
- Haslinda Amin, Anchor, Bloomberg Television
- Sonali Basak, Financial Correspondent , Bloomberg
- Emily Chang, Anchor, Bloomberg Television
- Manus Cranny, Anchor, Bloomberg Television
- Carol Massar, Anchor, Bloomberg Television
- Mallika Kapur, Deputy Global Editor , Bloomberg Live
- Erik Schatzker, Host, Bloomberg Television
- Zain Verjee, Host and Executive Producer, Qatar Economic Forum
Below are some highlights from the session. Click here to access the full interviews.
On Bitcoin becoming legal tender: It’s just a matter of time according to Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Founder and CEO, Binance, who said, “Once one country does it, the race is on, it’s a competition. What now people realise is adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender actually makes your economy stronger. You are less prone to other governments or interventions etc.”
On the growth of cyberattacks: The scale of the attacks is more critical, according to Michael Chertoff, Former Secretary, United States Department of Homeland Security; Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Chertoff Group. “We’re seeing the severity and the scale of the attacks and the frequency dramatically increasing. And if you go back a number of years we mainly worried about the issue of theft of money, impersonation of identity, theft of intellectual property, espionage. That still continues but now we are seeing more and more disruptive attacks, including those that have an effect on critical infrastructure.”
On the scale of the mega hack risk: Sergio P. Ermotti, Chairman, Swiss Re talked about managing cyber risk at the board level. “The topic of cyber risk has taken a big part of the agenda when you talk about operational risks within any organisation. Nowadays it’s only second to the pandemic risk and the foreseeable potential slowdown in the economy.” Ermotti continued, “Management and boards are thinking about those topics, of course the learning curve is very steep.”
On the critical role of education: Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder and Chairman, Bharti Enterprises spoke about the importance of education in the development of a society and a country. “Education is one of the most important needs for India today. We have to educate our 250 million young children who are between the ages of 6 and 16,” Mittal said. “If we keep on getting disrupted in running our schools and universities the only way is through digital medium.” He went on to say that companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook are stepping in and offering tools to support India’s vision.
On being interconnected: Ferit Sahenk, Chairman, Dogus Group heads one of the largest private sector conglomerates in Turkey. “The pandemic reminded us that the world still is a small, global village. We are together, we are interconnected,” he said. Speaking about how he adjusted his media business during the pandemic, he said, “the digital age is a reality now.” His company created an online platform that he described is “like Netflixes and many other brands.” “Our news, our music, everything is online now. So yes, the way business is done will change. Not may change, will change. But still, people will listen to music. People will watch content,” Sahenk said.
On how the pandemic has boosted digital adoption at all levels: Describing the change he had seen, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons said, “What the pandemic has done is fundamentally accelerated the digital adoption at least by a decade. It’s not about only making the technology available. Yes the technology has been made available, this whole collaborative set of tools, the investment in these tools, the adoption of these tools has skyrocketed. But the more important thing is whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, living in urban or rural areas, everyone has adopted it. So digital has become mainstream.”
On a forever changed way of working: Mark Dixon, Founder and CEO, IWG MONACO was clear on the shift. “Companies are looking to change from having all fixed space to having less fixed space and lots of satellites where people can drop in just about anywhere and go into an office and work. They can choose on an app where is the most convenient place to get together and do some work. It’s a new way of working. It’s having people work where it’s convenient and get together where it’s convenient.” Dixon continued, “It changes the way companies need to manage the workforce, need to communicate with the workforce. It’s a new way of working. But done well, it’s much more efficient and much lower cost. And it’s what people want.”
On the future of Fintech: Blythe Masters, CEO, Motive Capital Partners described the medium term change she expected. “Over the next 5-10 years we expect to see the development of many, fully integrated end-to-end platform businesses that are serving the financial processing space and that will ultimately link issuers of capital to investors of capital but in a much more efficient way than the heavily intermediated, heavily manually intervened and paper based processes that still exist today.”
On mutual interests between banks and Fintech: Talking about the situation in Africa, Jim Ovia, Founder and Chairman, Zenith Bank said, “The Fintech and the banks are participating in a way that I would call co-op competition. While they are collaborating, they are also competing for the same customers. While the bank will perform the overall services, the bank needs the Fintech company to bring in the 350 million unbanked people in Africa to the banking system, who hitherto would not have done any banking transactions at all.”
On what successful Fintechs need to have in place: Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Founder and Executive Chair , Snoop emphasised the need to get over legacy. “I think that the key for finance firms and technology firms is to realise that the future for financial technology is new. Just putting a digital front end onto legacy systems is never going to be the right way forward. It means managing a complete transformation of companies’ tech stacks. I think that really is one of the cutting edges for successful Fintechs of the future – new technology, flexible technology, digitally driven and with people that are very clear about how to move forward on the innovations that are still to come. Not getting locked in, in a legacy way is critical.”
On tackling inequality: Ruth Porat, CFO, Alphabet and Google said, “The depth of pain we saw in this pandemic was unprecedented and what you clearly saw is that the pandemic put a harsh spotlight on the implications within equity and society. You saw the most marginalised, the impact on jobs, on health, survival rates, on education, it’s just unacceptable.” When asked whether the pandemic will force lasting change and whether things will be different going forward, Porat said, “it has to be,” adding, “if you want to have sustainable growth, it must be inclusive growth. It’s not just the right thing to do, it supports economic growth for the long term.”
On widespread adoption of crypto: Michael Novogratz, Founder, CEO and Chairman, Galaxy Digital said, “I think central banks all are looking at a digital version of their own currency. We call them stable coins or central bank issued digital currencies. With 100% certainty I think you’re going to see those out of most major central banks in the next five years.”
On trading beyond Bitcoin: When asked about broadening the definition of crypto beyond Bitcoin, Dan Morehead, CEO and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Pantera Capital Management replied, “If you’re just long Bitcoin, it’s kind of like in the 90’s being just long Yahoo. There were 30 other really important companies to invest in, in the 90s and the same here, there are a lot of different products to be invested in.”
On a connected world: Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Managing Director, Ooredoo Group described how the importance of networks became paramount during the pandemic. “What the pandemic has shown is how vital the connectivity was to the recovery of the world. It’s what allowed businesses to rebound, actually, businesses to continue. It also allowed social networks, when you were in isolation to carry on working and for family units to carry on working.”
On the future of connectivity: When asked about the future of 5G, Börje Ekholm, President and CEO, Ericsson Group said, “The interesting thing with 5G connectivity is that it is clearly going to drive a completely new ecosystem. I’d like to draw your attention to what happened with 4G. When 4G was rolled out globally, that drove the creation of the app economy…. but the job creation around the app economy happened in the countries that rolled out 4G the fastest and the first. That was China and North america. We think it’s going to be the same thing with 5G, but this time it touches an even broader part of society.”
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