Thinkers & Ideas

Charles Goodhart is professor emeritus of monetary economics at the London School of Economics. Charles was a member of the monetary policy committee at the Bank of England between ’97 and 2002 and is a fellow of the British Academy.Manoj Pradhan is the founder of Talking Heads Macro, an independent macro research firm, a former MD in Morgan Stanley’s global macro team, and previously an academic.The book, The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival, provides a thought-provoking narrative to the drivers of and outlook for inflation. They conclude that the benign inflation environment of the past three decades was made easy by accommodative global demographics and that the turn in demography will present a much more challenging environment for policy makers going forward.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Kevin Roose is an award-winning technology columnist for The New York Times, and the New York Times bestselling author of three books: Futureproof, Young Money, and The Unlikely Disciple. He writes and speaks regularly on many topics, including automation and A.I., social media, disinformation and cybersecurity, and digital wellness.His most recent book, Futureproof, focuses on the question, how can we be happy, successful humans in a world that is increasingly built by and for machines?In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute he discusses insights from the book, strategies to cope with the increasing roboticization of society, and learnings about how previous technological revolutions have changed our lives and our humanity, for better and worse.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Raphael Amit, Professor of Management at the Wharton School, and Christoph Zott, Professor of Entrepreneurship at IESE Business School, have co-published extensively on all aspects of business model innovation strategy. Their new book, Business Model Innovation Strategy: Transformational Concepts and Tools for Entrepreneurial Leaders, is a guide on business model design for leaders.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute the authors argue that business model innovation does not replace traditional strategy, but instead complements it by providing new opportunities to disrupt the market or reinvigorate an established firm, by creating an advantaged system of activities.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Noreena Hertz is an English academic, economist, and author of four books. Having spent 10 years at the University of Cambridge, in 2014 she moved to University College London where she is an Honorary Professor at the Institute for Global Prosperity.Her latest book The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World that’s Pulling Apart focuses on how loneliness has become a defining condition of the twenty-first century. Even before the pandemic, loneliness had become more pervasive and widespread than ever before.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute she argues that loneliness is not merely a mental health crisis — it is a physical crisis, an economic crisis, and a political crisis that has profound implications on individuals and businesses.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Spoiler AlertWe preface this podcast with a ‘spoiler alert’ as this novel is different from the more formal economics works we usually discuss on this podcast, and we wish to give the listener the chance to opt-out and read the book first if they wish. We greatly enjoyed the read and even if we don’t see eye to eye on much of the economics in this novel, we found the indulgence of literature a valuable endeavor to make more tangible some of the human aspects of economics — including the fear of collapse.***Lionel Shriver is the author of several prize-winning novels including the best-seller We Need To Talk About Kevin (2003) and A Perfectly Good Family (1996). Her novels typically tackle difficult societal problems. She is also a contributing journalist to publications such as The Economist and The New York Times.She joins BCG Chief Economist Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak in conversation to discuss her book, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047, a riveting and dystopian take on the destructive potential of national debt, currency crisis, and inflation as experienced by one fictional family across several generations and socio-economic circumstances. They discuss the novel, why economic dystopian novels are rare, and the way in which the novel can make the fears of economic collapse come alive.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Mauro F. Guillén is Professor of International Management at the Wharton School. He served as Director of the Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies between 2007 and 2019.His new book, 2030: How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything, outlines eight interlocking trends that together will reshape society as we know it by 2030.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Guillén discusses these trends and the steps companies and leaders need to take in order to remain competitive in the future.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Judy Samuelson is executive director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. She previously worked in legislative affairs in California, banking in New York’s garment center, and ran the Ford Foundation’s office of program-related investments.In her new book, The Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World, she explores how societal shifts in recent decades have upended the traditional rules of business, calling into question the business’s purpose and its role in society and offering new rules for how to make businesses successful in their new social contexts.In a conversation with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, Samuelson discusses insights from her new book and emphasizes the role of business education in changing the business ecosystem for the better.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Luciano Pietronero is an Italian statistical physics and full professor at the department of physics at University of Rome Sapienza. He was the founder and director of the Institute of Complex Systems of CNR from 2004 to 2014. Luciano’s research activities have been on fundamental and applied problems in the areas of condensed matter theory, statistical physics, and complex systems. His most recent focus is on economic complexity. He is the author of about 400 papers in leading scientific journals, and he has been awarded the Enrico Fermi Prize, highest award of the Italian Physical Society, in 2008.In a conversation with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG Chief Economist, Professor Pietronero discusses using the tools of physics to forecast long-term economic growth, the value and limitations of imposing the rigor of natural science on economics, and why he thinks that the study of nations’ “economic complexity”, a quantification of comparative advantage, is a better predictor of long-term economic growth than existing methods.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

There’s increasing dynamism and stress in business environments and we have “firestorms” ranging everywhere that could consume incumbent businesses at any time. According to Ian C. Woodward, V. “Paddy” Padmanabhan, Sameer Hasija, and Ram Charan, co-authors of The Phoenix Encounter Method, in order to avoid being disrupted, leaders need to go through “phoenix encounters”, in which they contemplate and execute their own disruption.Sameer Hasija, Professor of Technology and Operations Management at INSEAD recently discussed insights from the new book with Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Daniel Susskind is a Fellow in Economics at Balliol College, Oxford, and the author of A World Without Work (2020) and The Future of the Professions (2015). Previously he worked in the British Government as a policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, as a policy analyst in the Policy Unit in 10 Downing Street, and as a senior policy adviser in the Cabinet Office.In A World Without Work Susskind argues that technology will lead to structural technological unemployment sooner than many economists believe. This will pose a societal distribution challenge as labor markets will be a less effective way of distributing society’s income. The book makes concrete policy proposals to confront inequality and other challenges resulting from technology’s impact. In a conversation with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, BCG Chief Economist, Susskind discusses the drivers of technological unemployment, monopoly power, universal basic income, the future role of the state, as well as the personal implications for future generations.***About the BCG Henderson InstituteThe BCG Henderson Institute is the Boston Consulting Group’s think tank, dedicated to exploring and developing valuable new insights from business, technology, economics, and science by embracing the powerful technology of ideas. The Institute engages leaders in provocative discussion and experimentation to expand the boundaries of business theory and practice and to translate innovative ideas from within and beyond business. For more ideas and inspiration, sign up to receive BHI INSIGHTS, our monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.