Small and medium agricultural enterprises (agri-SMEs) are Africa’s largest employer and economic engine—and the key to transforming food systems and improving food security for the continent. Yet three out of four agri-SMEs can’t access formal bank financing, and are too large for microfinance, creating an estimated $100 billion gap in unmet demand for financing. How can donor governments, development finance institutions, African governments, and the private sector catalyze action to strengthen food value chains in Africa through innovative financing, and better support small and medium agricultural enterprises? The event is co-hosted with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This special Leadership Panel on strengthening food value chains was held September 18, 2023 at the World Economic Forum's New York headquarters. - Speakers: William Samoei Ruto, President of Kenya, Office of the President of Kenya; Scott Nathan, Chief Executive Officer, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; Samantha Power, Administrator, US Agency for International Development (USAID); Rebecca Enonchong, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, AppsTech;Janet L. Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, US Department of the Treasury; Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Acumen; Børge Brende, President, World Economic Forum Geneva; Anne Beathe Tvinnereim, Minister of International Development, Norway Government; Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, President, African Development Bank (AfDB). Watch the session here: https://www.weforum.org/events/sustainable-development-impact-meetings-2023/sessions/leadership-panel-bridging-the-gap-financing-africas-agricultural-growth About the Sustainable Development Impact Meetings: https://www.weforum.org/events/sustainable-development-impact-meetings-2023 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helen Mountford is the president and CEO of ClimateWorks Foundation, a philanthropy platform that has granted more than a billion dollars to worthy projects and grantees in more than 50 countries since 2008. She’s a key partner in a World Economic Forum initiative that launched this year called GAEA - Giving to Amplify Earth Action - and she'll tell us why philanthropy can be a critical way to fund and experiment with new ideas that can be scaled further by the private sector and how it creates an ecosystem to make big change possible. About GAEA: https://initiatives.weforum.org/giving-to-amplify-earth-action/home About ClimateWorks Foundation: https://climateworks.org/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More companies have set sustainability goals than ever. But many will struggle to meet those goals. Baker McKenzie's Alyssa Auberger shares insights from a special survey that reveals business leader worries and the blindspots that some might overlook. As the global law firm's first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer, she also shares her unique journey to the role -- from pianist to lawyer to her current position -- and how the discipline and creativity required in music shapes how she works even today. To read the survey, click here: The Race to Net-Zero: Is the global business community on course to beat the clock?: https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/newsroom/2022/11/new-report-finds-barriers-to-net-zero-transition To learn more about Baker McKenzie's approach to navigating risks, check out its podcast Solutions for a Connected World sharing advice on driving growth that is both sustainable – and inclusive: https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/expertise/solutions-connected-world Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dylan E. Taylor is the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Voyager Space, a space infrastructure company and one of the firms helping with efforts to replace the aging International Space Station. He and his team are working hard to ensure there’s no ‘space station gap’, all while getting the infrastructure in place so as many people as possible could one day live and work in space.  In this episode, he talks about why expanding access to space motivates him, how his own visit to space changed him, and his experience travelling to one of the deepest parts of the ocean. In this conversation, recorded at the Annual Meeting in Davos, he also shares his approach to risk taking and how he prepares for big challenges - and how that strategy helps him make decisions quickly and navigate the unexpected.  Transcript: https://tinyurl.com/yvr4zxbt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trust time, make one thing better everyday and keep upgrading yourself. CEO Yuxiang Zhou shares the lessons he has learned in co-founding Black Lake Technologies and his journey to help digitise factories -- a too-often analog world where too many still depend on paper and pencil. It’s a trip through big ideas, big disappointments (including a failed startup), and the slow process of building back from the ground up. The World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer talked to Forum video producer Kateryna Gordiychuk at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in China this summer, sharing the potential he sees for manufacturing and for cloud computing to connect factories in new ways. He also shares how taking a job on a factory shop floor and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro helped him pivot and get the perspective he needed to focus on the right solutions and priorities.  Episode Transcript: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/yuxiang-zhou-black-lake-technologies-startup World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers Program: https://initiatives.weforum.org/technology-pioneers/home Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can something as simple as a seed help the world begin to make progress across big challenges such as protecting water, tackling climate change and even strengthening food security and opportunity? Ponsi Trivisvavet, the CEO of seed design company Inari, shares the innovations that are helping to protect the earth while tackling stubborn problems like hunger. She also shares her leadership journey, the question she feels is key to strengthening any leader's resilience and the unique approaches to biotech innovation that help this company drive cutting-edge solutions.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is your team solving the right problems and building the right solutions? Are they truly pushing the envelope - in the short- and long-term? This compilation episode shares the questions top innovators ask themselves and their teams, across engineering, biotech, healthcare and more. It also highlights the practical tactics and strategies they use to keep teams challenged, focused and engaged so they are poised to develop the leading ideas that will truly reshape the future.  This episode features: Cristiano Amon, CEO, Qualcomm; Shez Partovi, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Royal Philips; Geraldine Matchett, co-CEO, DSM-Firmenich; Ponsi Trivisvavet, CEO, Inari; Rodrigo Santos, president, Crop Science Division, Bayer Crop Science; Lars Stenqvist, Volvo Group; Alex Liu, Managing Partner, Kearney. Transcript available here: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/top-innovator-strategies-tactics Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chief Risk Officers (CROs) are firefighters, investigators, counselors and -- critically -- the people trained to ensure companies have the systems, frameworks and culture in place to identify, assess and monitor big challenges ahead. They also help teams take meaningful action and chart a path forward. On the launch of the World Economic Forum's Chief Risk Officers Outlook, Bahare Heywood, the first ever CRO at global law firm Clifford Chance, shares her take on the report's highlights as well as the real-world approaches she believes are critical to make risk management effective in any business. She discusses strategies she used to help build a risk management culture, her personal lessons learned and the one thing all risk management plans must consider right now. Report: Chief Risk Officers Outlook Release: Macroeconomic and Geopolitical Conditions Pose Severe Risks to Organizations, say Chief Risk Officers Transcript: https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/clifford-chance-bahare-heywood-risk Podcast highlights: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/07/chief-risk-officer-management-culture/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Qualcomm has long served as a tech pioneer, driving innovations in cellular connectivity, AI, autonomous driving and more. CEO Cristiano Amon shares how digitalization will further transform our lives -- from health and retail to energy and the future of work. He also shares how Qualcomm drives innovative thinking in its teams and the simple framework any leader can use to decide which disruptive ideas to take forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hard-fought battles by leaders around the world have helped better protect nature in recent years but more work is needed to secure everything from future economic resilience to progress on climate action. Dr. Andrew Steer of the Bezos Earth Fund shares what transitions must happen this decade and the new approaches to philanthropy, policy, technology and more that can bring those transitions past the tipping point for true change. In this episode recorded at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Davos, he also shares how he's changed as a leader over his long career: from earning his Economics Ph.D., to roles at the World Bank and the World Resources Institute and other organizations, developing the approach he takes today that helps him better balance a range of competing challenges to solve the problems he wants to solve most. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.