Conference Presentation, Panel
What Keeps CEOs Up at Night -- and What Gets Them Up in the Morning?
- Talent engagement strategies, including the "Big Firm Small Field" program and gamified digital tools, are expected to remain a priority to support a demographic where 60% to 65% of employees are millennials, though the organization faces a "war on talent," aging workforce issues, and attrition spikes at years two and three amidst a national gap of 8.7 million unemployed and 5 million open positions.
- Access to global talent is anticipated to remain severely constrained by immigration and visa challenges, prompting continued exploration of "open talent models" where former employees return or become clients, while the broader economy requires employees to retool skills for cloud, digital, and analytics environments.
- Regulatory environments are projected to remain burdensome and unpredictable, with audits expected every two years, slow approval cycles taking up to 14 months, and rules like the "Muni Advisor Rule," Dodd-Frank, and FCC regulations creating unintended compliance hurdles, duplication across jurisdictions, and reputational risks for established firms.
- Cybersecurity is expected to evolve into a board-level priority in a "never-ending war" where hackers hold an asymmetry advantage, necessitating cultural shifts, the replacement of credit cards with tokenized payments, and recognition that no protection is foolproof, especially for large organizations with legacy platforms.
- The media industry faces structural shifts with advertising models under strain from ratings declines, though cable bundles are not expected to collapse within 6 to 12 months, while long-term trends favor short-form content on small screens and diminishing value of bundle ubiquity.
- Technological disruption driven by Moore's Law and exponential advances in storage, transmission, and devices over the next 25 years will accelerate changes in sectors like media and wealth management, potentially leading to startups displacing incumbents unless they achieve "escape velocity" through Silicon Valley partnerships.
- Strategic outlooks include a five-year plan to take a wealth management firm public, the creation of a digital consulting agency, and expectations that foundational technologies such as self-driving cars and hyperloops will transform global infrastructure within the next decade or two.
- Specific market risks include potential "reverse events" similar to recent major cable deals, regulatory audits affecting entities not originally intended for coverage, taxation threats in the municipal bond arena, and the expectation that fraud risks from wire transfer scams remain despite clients rarely questioning data security.
- Future labor market dynamics involving new technologies are predicted to result in a net neutral effect on job creation, characterized by a mix of job displacement and creation, while the landscape for women in tech is expected to shift significantly over the next five to ten years due to increased female founding.