Angel Cabrera

Townhall meeting in Davos

One of the most inteteresting novelties this year at Davos was a townhall meeting that tried to capture the collective concerns of participants.  What are the big issues  that affect the world?  What are the priorities?  What are the challenges?  After half a day of work, I was relieved to see how Davos participants (a sample of the richest and most powerful individuals in the world) to a great extent share the priorities set by the UN as the most important issues.  Check out the outcomes of the townhall meeting on pdf, or some brief thoughts about them in an article of mine in Das Tor, the newspaper of the students of Thunderbird.

The Madrid Agenda

The Madrid summit on terrorism has ended with a declaration called the Madrid Agenda. One paragraph in the agenda makes a reference to the connection between poverty and terrorism, and cites trade, aid, investment and women's education as potential drivers.  I couldn't agree more.  A great example, the Artemis Project, brought 15 women entrepreneurs from Afghanistan to Thunderbird to help them develop their business plans and support them as they create wealth and employment back home. 

Quote from the Madrid Agenda:

While poverty is not a direct cause of terrorism, economic and social policy can help mitigate exclusion and the impact of rapid socioeconomic change, which give rise to grievances that are often exploited by terrorists. We recommend:

• the adoption of long-term trade, aid and investment policies that help empower marginalised groups and promote participation.
• new efforts to reduce structural inequalities within societies by eliminating group discrimination.
• the launch of programmes aimed at promoting women’s education, employment and empowerment.
• the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Madrid against terrorism

March 11th is the one-year anniversary of the terrible terrorist massacre in Madrid.  My friend Martin Varsavsky and the Club de Madrid are running a very interesting conference--the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security--bringing some of the greatest thinkers and doers from around the world to crack the terrorist puzzle from the only decent antidote we have so far come up with: democracy (see video).  The summit will be followed by a brainstorm session on global terrorism on march 11th itself.  A great example of how entrepreneurial skill can make things happen even outside business.  From the distance, you have all my support Martin.

College presidents do think

Can university presidents have independent opinions?  US News & World Report just raised that question in an article about Harvard University's brouhaha after President Summers' remarks about gender differences in performance in the sciences.  By no means I am trying to defend Summers.  But let's not get carried away with the implication of his faux pas for the very nature of the job.  Presidents do have opinions.  Without them, I don't see how anyone could ever build the vision of such a complex organization as a university. 

New French Finance Minister

Thierry Breton is the new Finance Minister of France.  When I met him last December in Paris (European Leadership Forum'04) he did not seem interested in serving on the French government.  For what I could tell, given his experience in the private sector, and his ideas about managerial responsibility, I'm glad he changed his mind.  I hope he can contribute to dinamize one of Europe's leading economies and improve conditions for entrepreneurship and innovation in the Old Continent.  Good luck Thierry!

CSR in DC

I was invited last week by the Foreign Press Center of the Department of State to speak to a group of foreign correspondants in Washington DC about Corporate Social Responsibility.  A very interesting group of journalists from Korea, Brazil, China, Germany and Spain.  Is corporate social responsibility a fad?  At least for global companies, it is not.  In fact it may be impossible to build a global brand, a global reputation, without a clear social strategy that goes hand in hand with the company's business strategy.