Structural Shifts, by aperture

Our guest is Manos Schizas — Lead in Regulation and RegTech at Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge. We discuss how regulatory change is accelerating so fast that people alone can’t deal with it and how does the technological solution addressing the problem looks like. Can technology solve this problem at scale? How much innovation are we seeing thanks to machine learning? And we also discuss about the Regulatory Genome Project, a recently launched long-term project that aims to sequence the world’s (financial) regulation, allowing developers and firms to build own applications on top of the platform. Before joining the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance, Manos also served as a regulator with the UK’s FCA.

Bitcoin is the best performing asset in 2020. There is growing institutional interest in crypto and broader digital assets. Tokenization is poised to be a huge market opportunity. In light of all this, we’re inviting you to a masterclass on all things crypto. We’re sitting down with Adrien Treccani, CEO and co-founder of METACO — a provider of security critical infrastructure for financial institutions that enables them to safely enter the digital asset ecosystem. Adrien is a leading software engineer specialized in high-performance computing and financial engineering and an advisor to banks, hedge funds and associations on distributed ledger technology. So today, you are going to learn about the difference between cryptocurrency, digital currencies, stable coins, you’ll hear about the evolution of blockchains, what will happen to commercial banks if we start seeing Central Bank-issued Digital Currencies, and more.

Today’s guests are reinventing the way the world measures how sustainable companies really are. Yes, we do have ESG data and CSR reporting, but those measure practices rather than impact, and describe policies rather than outcomes. In this episode, the co-founders of Impaakt — Bertrand Gacon and Sylvain Massot — are sitting down with host, Ben Robinson, to talk about how they are creating the Wikipedia of impact investing. Leveraging the collective intelligence of a large community of analysts to assess the social and environmental impact of large listed companies, they offer investors and the financial institutions the data they need to allocate capital to the companies who are having the most positive impact, and also to give everyday citizens the information they need to decide who they want to work for, who to buy from, who to advocate for.

We’re discussing with Leda Glyptis, a self-described recovering banker and lapsed academic, who’s worked in technology implementations for the last 20 years. Leda is one of the leading voices in banking and FinTech today, she has served as Chief Innovation Officer at QNB group, she was Director of EMEA Innovation at BNY Mellon, and most recently she was Chief of Staff at 11:FS. In this episode, Leda and Ben discuss what a Chief Innovation Officer actually does, whether innovation can come out of innovation departments, what most companies miss when they talk about culture, why emotions are holding back traditional and challenger banks from making money, why selling banking services like supermarket offers doesn’t work and what banks should be doing instead. For more information on Leda, look up the hashtag #LedaWrites on Twitter. She publishes an article every Thursday.

We discuss with Ian Hathaway — Senior Executive Director at Techstars, Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution, and a Co-founder and Board Member of the Center for American Entrepreneurship and book author (latest book co-authored is called ‘The Startup Community Way’ ). In this episode, Ben and Ian discuss entrepreneurial ecosystems, what governments are getting wrong when they try to foster entrepreneurship and how they can create better outcomes; why entrepreneurship can lead to bigger and better outcomes than direct engagement in politics; why entrepreneurs are going to have more opportunities than ever during the pandemic and after it — and more.

Your host, Ben Robinson, is joined by Michael O’Sullivan, author of ‘The Levelling: What’s Next After Globalization’ and former CIO of the International Wealth Management Division at Credit Suisse. Michael currently serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Economy. In this episode, Ben and Michael discuss what is the role central banks will play in the transition period to a post-globalization, multi-polar world; what international organizations should be completely reshaped to meet the needs of this new world, what new institutions should be created, and more.

There is a lot of anguish over what’s happening online these days from the rise of hate groups to media manipulation, the propaganda to interference with elections — are the positives of our digital world even worth it? Well, today, your host, Ben Robinson, digs into this question with Belén Romana García — Spain’s former head of Treasury, and an economist who has worked in both the public and private sectors. Belén is also a board member for several public companies and foundations. She says that people are primarily driven by three things: power, money, and knowledge — and she is especially driven by knowledge and curiosity and a desire to understand the world and its possible future. Today, she and Ben discuss, should our elected officials have to learn how to code to better understand the world that we’re living in? Should we scrap GDP as a metric since it’s not accurately reflecting our service economy? Does democracy mean equal voting? And how does the information and infrastructure of our online world affect our freedom or a sense of freedom in real life? And more.

When it comes to business, are you all about market research or do you go with your gut? For Michel Jordi it’s the latter — and following his intuition led him to start five groundbreaking watch companies. Michel is known for shaking things up in a traditional industry through innovative design and enviable marketing. Andy Warhol came to his New York launch party, People Magazine featured Michel on its cover and the event marketing strategies that Michel used for his launch publicity are still being used today by the best marketers. Today, your host, Ben Robinson, sits down with Michel to talk about his book, “Ignite That Spark: 10 Commandments of Entrepreneurship”. You will hear all about Michel’s fascinating personal story, as well as his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, including his ‘lucky clover’ framework that will tell you whether your business idea will sink or swim.

We’re discussing with Youri Sawerschel, CEO of Creative Supply and Visiting Lecturer at EPFL EMBA and ESSEC Business School. Youri founded the Creative Supply agency in Zurich in 2015 to be the next generation of branding companies. We talk about the problems with the traditional branding agencies and how his switching things up through a distributed, networked workforce. In addition, we discuss why branding is the cause and the solution to so many of the world’s biggest crises, how brand storytelling differs from other kinds of storytelling and why it’s kind of like murder. If you’re intrigued, hit play.

Today, your host, Ben Robinson, is sitting down with Gary Pisano, professor at Harvard Business School and author of “Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation” — a book about how large companies can construct a strategy, system, and a culture of innovation that creates sustained growth. We discuss how organizations learn, innovate, and compete — and these are fundamental questions that Gary has been exploring throughout his career. Today, you will learn the four archetypes of innovation, Gary’s definition of a business model, who in the company should own a business model innovation and more.

Today, your host, Ben Robinson, is virtually sitting down with Julian Lehr, an ex-Googler, startup founder, and current startup partnerships lead at Stripe. Julian and Ben get into all sorts of interesting behavioral psychology related to buying and how digital companies can use physical elements to take advantage of signaling. You will also learn Julian's tactics for staying productive, why advertising budgets are shifting from celebrities to micro-influencers, why the Berlin startup scene hasn't quite lived up to the hype - and much more!

Your host Ben Robinson, is speaking with Luciano Diana, Senior Investment Manager at Pictet Asset Management—one of the leading independent wealth and asset managers —  where he is running the Pictet Global Environmental Opportunities Fund. In this episode we cover: should government stimulus packages be conditional on companies investing in energy efficiency? Why plant-based products are a space that you need to be paying attention to? Why we should be bullish about the ability for market forces to solve climate change? And more!

This episode focuses on two Swiss companies rising in the maker movement. First we interview Marc Maurer, COO, and co-owner of the sports shoemaker, On. On is a brand preferred by Roger Federer which taking on Nike and Adidas with a high-end, high-tech trainer — also known as sneaker — that is so lightweight that ‘it feels like you are walking on clouds’. After Marc, you will hear from Arthur Viaud, co-founder and CEO of La Nebuleuse — a craft brewery that is taking on the giants in Switzerland, and it’s starting to expand internationally. This beer-maker prides itself on being part of an industry with a heart and a smile, brewing beer with love, passion, and Swiss quality standards.

We are speaking with John Hagel, who has been working with the most successful companies in Silicon Valley for 40 years (also a startup founder of his own). John is the author of several books — including The Power of Pull he co-chairs Deloitte Center for the Edge, which is a Silicon Valley research center. In this episode, John joins Ben Robinson for a very comprehensive discussion on the zoom in — zoom out approach to strategy; why the advertise-based business model is unsustainable and the alternative; how customers’ reluctance to accept mass-market products will drive the fragmentation of product and service-based businesses; why learning in the form of sharing existing knowledge is not where the greatest value is; why John is optimistic about the gig economy — and more.

Our guest today is Brett Bivens— a venture investor at TechNexus Venture Collaborative, an early-stage venture capital firm — and he is going to talk about why he is so optimistic about Spotify and how the future of audio will be a social experience with different network effects. One of the core investment areas for TechNexus is audio and media. And so, in this episode, you’ll hear Brett talking about that, with your host, Ben Robinson, as well as talk about the various concepts that Brett has coined, including ‘escape velocity’ and ‘clampetition’. Opinions expressed in this podcast are not investment advice

Your host, Ben Robinson, sits down with Anna Zakrzewski who leads Wealth Management globally, for Boston Consulting Group; Christine Schmid who heads up Strategy at additiv, and Laurence Mandrile-Aguirre — who heads up Switzerland & Monaco for Citi Private Bank. We cover the opportunities around Digital Wealth Management and what that truly means, how ready are wealth managers to take advantage of the shift to Assets under Intelligence, where new entrants fit into the market and what the future of wealth management will be.

On this week’s Structural Shifts podcast, we talk to the brilliant Rita Gunther McGrath, author of "The End of Competitive Advantage". In this bestseller, she talks about how the world is moving from one dominated by organizational systems and hierarchies to one of individual superstars where a stable career means a series of gigs. Hosted by Ben Robinson, they discuss strategy, the benefits / limitations of network effects, Facebook’s failures, and more.

For this episode we are discussing the structural shifts created or accelerated by Covid-19 with regards to finance, its relationship with technology and venture capital and the nature of globalisation. We are together with David GALBRAITH - partner at Anthemis; Martin McCANN - CEO of Trade Ledger; Thierry ZOIS - VC at Finch Capital

Today, we have a special episode for you on how the post-pandemic world would look like. We are bringing back three of our favorite guests: Nicolas Colin — Co-founder and Director of The Family, which is a platform for European entrepreneurs; Laetitia Vitaud— renowned writer and speaker on The Future of Work; and Ian Stewart — Executive in Residence at IMD Business School (an co-founder of WIRED).

How reliable will strategy be in the future? What if tactics were more important than strategy? Are firms obsolete? What about nation states? Can the future of companies be a model for the future of countries? How is the nature of competitive advantage changing? How are we redefining quality to meet the needs of consumers and the marketplace? In this episode, Ben Robinson is in conversation with Bill Fischer and Ian Stewart from the International Institute for Management Development — IMD. Bill is Professor of Innovation Management and Ian — who you may remember from a previous episode of this podcast — he co-founded WiReD and he is Executive in Residence at IMD.

According to our guest, Dr. Marc Gruber, Vice President for Innovation at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology — EPFL — you can’t win if you don’t know where to play. Instead of a just-do-it mentality and pivot later if it doesn’t work, Marc speaks with our host, Ben Robinson, about how true entrepreneurs and innovators are reflective and flexible and how they think about what they’re doing and in what market to play in. By the end of this episode, you are also going to understand what’s a good market to be in and you will learn about the Attractiveness Matrix and the Social Identity Theory of three kinds of entrepreneurs.

How often does advertising motivate you to buy? According to our guest, ad and branding expert, Paul Mellor, advertising fails 89% of the time. Hosted by  Ben Robinson, this episode unpacks what has gone wrong with advertising and what companies must do to turn things around. Don’t be a bland advertising wallpaper! If you like swearing, then you’re in for a treat. Fair warning.

For this episode, Ben Robinson is joined into the conversation by Nicolas Colin — Co-founder of The Family — and we argue that developed economies are defined by two major characteristics: they are able to create and accumulate wealth via large, global tech companies and they are able to re-distribute that wealth to benefit their entire society. Through this lens, neither Europe, nor the U.S. are developed economies in the current techno-economic paradigm — and we assess whether the current politicians campaigning for or holding power are in the right flow to inspire the radical imagination that is required.

This podcast was recorded at Fongit — Switzerland’s premier innovation incubator. Ben Robinson is joined into the conversation by Andy Yen — Founder and CEO of ProtonMail — and we discuss the inherent trade-offs that the current Internet presents to the users, the importance of privacy and security but also how to compete against Google head-on via business model innovation.

This podcast is part of our Future of Work series, brought to you in collaboration with Trezeo. Ben Robinson is joined into the conversation by Laetitia Vitaud — renowned author and researcher on the topic — and we explore the role of platforms, individuals, policymakers and startups in enabling a future of work that works for everyone. We also discuss the changing nature of the firm in a world where inside/outside boundaries get blurred by the rise of freelancing and self-employment.

This podcast was recorded in London and is part of our Future of Work series, brought to you in collaboration with Trezeo. Ben Robinson is joined into the conversation by: Garrett CASSIDY (Co-founder and CEO of Trezeo :  the financial safety net for the self-employed); Jonathan KEY (Co-founder and CEO of Labour Xchange) and Gareth McNAB (Co-lead of OB4G - Open Banking for Good and Money Advice Liaison Manager at Nationwide Building Society).

This podcast was recorded at EPFL Lausanne and in it we're exploring the ethics of computer science and broader technological change.  Ben ROBINSON is joined into the conversation by:  Jim LARUS (Professor and Dean of Computer and Communications Sciences at EPFL);  Philippe GONZALEZ (Senior Lecturer in Sociology at University of Lausanne) and  David GALBRAITH (Partner at Anthemis VC).

This podcast was recorded at FinTECHTalents'19 Festival and in it we're exploring the potential of unleashing network effects in financial services. Ben Robinson is joined into the conversation by: Evgenia Plotnikova (Partner @ Dawn Capital);  Martin McCann (CEO at Trade Ledger); Oliver Prill (CEO at Tide Business Banking).

Our guest is Ian Stewart, known for being, among many other roles, the co-founder of WiReD Magazine. Together we discuss WiReD’s journey from zero-to-one(-to-two), the state and future of (centrist) media, China and the geopolitical consequences of its technological progress and also how the younger generation is applying entrepreneurial methods and business models to solving social problems.

Together with Adrienne Perramond, President of Business Angels Switzerland (BAS), we discuss the landscape of angel investing in Switzerland, lessons for entrepreneurs, the changing nature of branding and marketing in the D2C age and more.

Together with Markus Menz, Professor of Strategic Management at the Geneva School of Economics and Management, we explore the role of corporate strategy in the networked age.

Together with James Miners of Fongit Incubator we explore what it takes to transform scientific discoveries into mass-market products.

Together with Mike Nolet, Co-founder of LiveBetter, we're discussing the limits of what society can achieve through startups, the health risks of founders and the importance of wellbeing.

We discuss with Martin Naville, CEO of the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce, whether Switzerland is losing competitiveness in attracting and retaining Multinational Corporations

Together with David Galbraith from Anthemis, we talk about fintech, internet business models, economics, politics, but we do so by playing the role of Devil's Advocate.