Sylvain Duranton helps companies build AI-enabled businesses. As the the global leader of BCG X, he has a front row seat to the generative AI revolution. He discusses the industries likely to face the most disruption, the future of work, and how generative AI can help solve challenges in climate and health. His advice to companies unsure how to get started? Pick a difference-making opportunity; invest adequately; upskill your people; and rethink processes to accommodate generative AI. (Read more...
May 10, 2023•23 min•Ep. 41
CEOs generally face either economic uncertainty (the Great Recession) or great change (the digital-driven era preceding the pandemic). Today’s leaders are facing both at the same time, explains Rich Lesser, BCG’s chair. While uncertainty requires resilience, change requires evolution. It’s hard to do both. Nonetheless, Lesser sees great potential with the advances in AI but also physical technologies such as synthetic biology. He shares insights from his own discussions with CEOs as well as from...
Apr 26, 2023•22 min•Ep. 40
Companies and banks have often pursued social goals such as financial inclusion as an obligation rather than a business opportunity. Douglas Beal, who leads BCG’s client work with financial institutions on sustainable finance and investing, argues that doing good is also good business. Companies and banks can build profitable, sustainable social business and improve their bottom lines. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy Th...
Apr 12, 2023•21 min•Ep. 39
Financial crime has become big business. The United Nations estimates that 2%–5% of global GDP is laundering every year. If businesses—all businesses, not just banks—are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem, argues BCG’s Hanjo Seibert. Over the past ten years, half of all fines levied in financial crime cases have been regular businesses. Beyond satisfying their legal obligations, businesses can reap other benefits, such as more intimate knowledge of their customers and supplie...
Mar 29, 2023•18 min•Ep. 38
In Indonesia, consumers began mixing together several orders of McDonald’s soft serve ice cream into a dessert mashup. Videos of this quirky development quickly went viral, and the trend spread to Thailand. Rather than worry about losing control over its carefully crafted image, McDonald’s encouraged the activity by creating an online video ad campaign around their customers’ videos. Welcome to the crazy world of shoppertainment, which BCG projects will grow into a $1 trillion market in Asia by ...
Mar 15, 2023•21 min•Ep. 37
Nadjia Yousif, BCG’s chief diversity officer, explains how an inclusive workforce creates happier employees who are more likely to stay—and she has the numbers to back her up. Executives and leadership extol the virtues of teamwork. Inclusion is just that—the feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. Nadjia Yousif says that if people feel included, they will be happy, feel a greater sense of well-being, and stick around. This is not fluffy conjecture but a core finding of a BCG su...
Mar 01, 2023•21 min•Ep. 36
James Lowry has devoted most of his professional life trying to bring corporations and minority communities closer together. While Lowry views many of the corporate diversity efforts in the 1960s and 1970s as charity, he says companies are finally starting to create business-driven initiatives supported with resources and leadership commitment. Lowry talks about how corporations and communities alike benefit from supplier diversity, leadership diversity, financial inclusion, racial equity, and m...
Feb 15, 2023•15 min•Ep. 35
Artificial intelligence has generated both business rewards and reputational risk for companies. Consumers and customers have legitimate concerns over the use of AI in business. The best way to address those concerns, says Steven Mills, the chief AI ethics officer for BCG X, is to develop responsible AI principles that set forth how organizations will and will not deploy AI—and what they will do when they fall short of these principles. By working closely with employees, consumers, and customers...
Feb 01, 2023•25 min•Ep. 34
In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously declared that “software is eating the world,” meaning it would disrupt traditional industries. Alex Koster, who leads BCG’s automotive technology and software business, explains just how fundamentally software is altering an industry, whose main product, the car, has changed relatively little in 100 years. In self-driving vehicles, for example, the cabin will offer an immersive experience for riders. Besides the consumer experience, the rise o...
Jan 18, 2023•24 min•Ep. 33
Three decades after the development of the commercial Internet, nearly half the world’s 8 billion people do not have access to high-speed Internet. For Vaishali Rastogi, BCG’s global leader of its technology, media, and telecommunications practice, closing this gap is an economic, social, and moral imperative. It’s also personal, a reflection of her broader interest in inclusion. For the past 30 years Vaishali has trailblazed a professional career in Asia as a woman, and she now works in industr...
Jan 04, 2023•22 min•Ep. 32
Over the past 20 years, assets under management of financial firms have nearly quadrupled to more than $110 trillion, powered by the growth in equity values. Dean Frankle—who leads BCG’s asset and wealth management in Western Europe, South America, and Africa—foresees a more textured and nuanced future for the industry. Alternative asset classes, such as toll roads and other infrastructure, could account for up to half of the industry’s revenue. Passive investing will continue its growth as the ...
Dec 21, 2022•23 min•Ep. 31
Linear thinking is valuable when the environment is relatively stable and familiar. But in uncertain economic times, executives also need to think expansively about the future, analyzing a range of potential scenarios. Alan Iny discusses how executives can prepare for uncertainty rather than be overwhelmed by it. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac -...
Dec 07, 2022•20 min•Ep. 30
COP27, the global climate conference in Egypt, represented a mix of accomplishments and frustrations. Wealthy nations agreed to establish a fund to help pay for the loss and damage that their emissions have imposed on poor countries in Africa and elsewhere. And yet the current levels of emissions from the North remain stubbornly high, and will continue to affect nations in the South. Several members of BCG’s COP27 delegation discuss what the conference means for Africa—the need for resilient inf...
Nov 23, 2022•21 min•Ep. 29
We often hear that the climate transition must also be a just transition. But how can we make that happen when, for example, coal remains both the largest source of energy in the world and a source of steady income for miners in many countries? Keshlan Mudaly, a BCG principal in Johannesburg, South Africa, unpacks the many tradeoffs and dilemmas that confront public and private leaders in their quest to lower carbon emissions. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Ch...
Nov 09, 2022•21 min•Ep. 28
It’s 2050 and we’re exploring how the world radically reduced carbon emissions and saved itself from climate catastrophe. What have our cities done to accommodate massive population growth? And how do businesses, governments, researchers and everyday people work together to build sustainable supply chains, agricultural practices and transportation infrastructure? This is Climate Vision 2050 , a new podcast series from BCG. In an exclusive peek at episode 1, energy islands around the world power ...
Nov 03, 2022•25 min
How well will the world adapt to ever more extreme climate events? To date most government and business leaders are focusing on climate mitigation at the expense of climate adaptation. Charmian Caines, a senior partner at BCG, argues that they must do both. They should build scenarios assessing the economic, social, and natural damage of rising temperatures and develop financial and operational plans to combat rising sea levels, raging fires, and other extreme weather events. This podcast uses t...
Oct 26, 2022•20 min•Ep. 27
Corporate values are more important than ever. Should companies boycott countries with values they do not share? Kushal Khandhar, global Pride@BCG manager, argues it often makes sense for companies with LGBTQ+–friendly policies to continue to work in queer-unfriendly countries. Companies can be “embassies of values,” says Khandar who has worked in conservative countries whose governments outlaw his sexuality. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://...
Oct 11, 2022•17 min•Ep. 26
Inflation is higher than it’s been in a generation, but policy makers still have room to maneuver. Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG’s global chief economist, is concerned about inflation but not yet willing to say the world is in a new era of constantly spiraling prices and collapsing asset prices. Central banks and policy makers still have the tools to control potential contagion. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy This podc...
Sep 28, 2022•24 min•Ep. 25
Are companies looking for talent in all the wrong places? Only 10% of jobs are filled by internal lateral candidates. Companies need better ways to find internal candidates especially those who work in a different part of the organization or have latent skills, explain BCG's Nithya Vaduganathan and Gloat's Brian Hershey. Internal talent marketplaces, which are sort of dating apps matching employees to jobs, are one promising option for companies to pursue. This podcast uses the following third-p...
Sep 14, 2022•21 min•Ep. 24
Are traditional companies, long derided for being sluggish and stuck in the past, about to undergo a renaissance? Patrick Forth, of BCG’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications practice, talks about the exciting future for incumbents that succeed at digital transformation. Unfortunately, only one-third of digital transformations are successful. What separates the winners from the losers? After years of studying digital transformations, Forth has identified the six factors that can elevate th...
Aug 31, 2022•19 min•Ep. 23
The future of the tech industry depends on women. So how do you grow that tech career, and why is imposter syndrome sometimes a good thing? In this episode, hear from our new podcast series In Her Ellement , where AI expert Andrea Gallego and product designer Corin Lines from Boston Consulting Group have honest conversations with women at the vanguard of technology in business, art, education, and more. They're speaking with Alaina Percival, CEO of Women Who Code —the largest and most active com...
Aug 17, 2022•22 min
Johann Harnoss doesn’t just advise companies on innovation and global talent mobility. He also has cofounded a nonprofit organization to help students from nations such as Syria and Afghanistan secure jobs in Europe. In other words, Harnoss has seen global talent from both sides. He debunks notions that immigration is harmful to host nations or that it leads to a brain drain from countries of origin. He’s not optimistic, however, about the state of immigration in the US. This podcast uses the fo...
Aug 03, 2022•22 min•Ep. 22
In an interconnected world, global health is not just a scientific aspiration but an economic one. As supply shortages brought on by factory shutdowns in China demonstrate, a disease outbreak in one part of the world has ramifications on the other side of the globe. Johanna Benesty, who leads BCG’s global health work, talks about the opportunities for pharmaceutical and other health care companies in serving underserved populations in lower- and middle-income countries and elsewhere. Price is no...
Jul 20, 2022•21 min•Ep. 21
Companies will never achieve net zero unless they can measure their emissions, and few of them do it successfully. Only about one in ten companies accurately tracks its emissions. Artificial intelligence is starting to help fill in the data gaps. Charlotte Degot, BCG partner, and founder of CO2 AI by BCG, an an AI-based solution for emissions measurement and reduction, explains how better data about emissions accelerates action. She's joined by Dexter Galvin, global director of corporations and ...
Jul 06, 2022•20 min•Ep. 20
While the world races ahead into the metaverse, education remains rooted in the era of neat orderly rows of desks and lesson plans. In this wide-ranging conversation, Leila Hoteit, the managing director and senior partner who leads BCG’s education, employment, and welfare work, argues for a lifelong approach to learning inside and outside the classroom—one that teaches people to solve hard problems and develop soft skills. She talks about why students should think about the fairytale “Little Red...
Jun 22, 2022•21 min•Ep. 19
Over the past two years, the world has seen what happens when supply and procurement chains seize up and shortages in such staples as infant formula and sunflower oil become commonplace. Daniel Weise, leader of BCG’s global procurement business, explains how companies can move beyond a cost-cutting mentality to treat their supply chain as a strategic imperative—the way that Apple did when it promoted Tim Cook, an operations and supply chain executive, to CEO. Unfortunately, most CEOs spend only ...
Jun 08, 2022•19 min•Ep. 18
A Pride@BCG leader talks about how a supportive culture unlocks creativity. For Dakota Santana-Grace, being out at work is a professional necessity as much as a personal choice. When Santana-Grace once hid his queer identity from a client, he was stressed and exhausted, and his work suffered. The weight of his secret lifted after Santana-Grace, BCG’s Northeast lead for Pride @BCG , casually mentioned his boyfriend. Santana-Grace also talks about the time a straight ally called him out for deepen...
May 25, 2022•22 min•Ep. 17
Corporate leaders often view sustainable products as a series of technical challenges—how to decarbonize the supply chain, reduce waste in manufacturing, eliminate plastic packaging, and so on. But what about the human dimensions? Shalini Unnikrishnan, a leader on social impact at BCG, discusses the importance of designing, marketing, and pricing products through the lens of the consumer. She also discussed the need to create ecosystems of like-minded companies and institutions and to connect su...
May 11, 2022•24 min•Ep. 16
Nan DasGupta played soccer in her youth and worked as an engineer at GE early in her career, so she has firsthand experience breaking into male-dominated realms. DasGupta, BCG people and organization expert and Women@BCG leader, talks about the difficulties in breaking down bias at work, how bias prevents men from assuming more caregiving responsibilities, the importance of role models, and why nobody wants to talk about menopause. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysi...
Apr 27, 2022•25 min•Ep. 15
Businesses that lead on climate and sustainability will have tailwinds at their back, says Rich Lesser, BCG’s global chair. Reaching net zero will require investments of $3 trillion to $5 trillion per year for the next 30 years—and it is much smarter to participate in this massive industrial transformation than to fight it. To succeed, businesses will need to engage deeply with other businesses, their customers, and governments. The challenge is too large to go it alone or to view government as ...
Apr 13, 2022•21 min•Ep. 14
