Latest Interviews
Showing 1711–1725 of 1,991 transcripts.
Clear all filters- Milken Institute1h 1m
The Shifting Sands of Market Structure: Equity Trading in the Spotlight
Kevin Cowan, Stephen McCauley, Seth Marin, Sianna Mastofi, Jamil Nazarelli, Jatin Suravanshi
A panel of financial experts critically evaluated SEC Chair Mary Jo White's thirteen directives on market structure, debating the efficacy of policies like the Tick Size Pilot while highlighting risks posed by the proliferation of off-exchange trading venues. Discussions revealed significant industry opposition to specific provisions that could transfer wealth from investors to dealers, alongside concerns that high data costs and a lack of institutional disclosure standards act as hidden taxes on market efficiency. As regulatory deadlines approach in May, the consensus emphasizes the urgent need for empirical evidence-based reforms to address systemic issues in capital formation, ETF concentration, and the fragmentation of liquidity across lit and dark pools.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Disequilibrium in Global Debt
Felix Salmon, Peter Budko, Damian Lillicrab, Nouriel Roubini, Gene Sperling, Andrew Whittaker
Leading economists and strategists including Nouriel Roubini, Peter Budko, and Gene Sperling analyzed the unsustainable trajectory of global debt, debating whether net asset offsets and low servicing costs justify current high leverage ratios. The panel highlighted a critical disconnect where massive debt accumulation has fueled asset bubbles and corporate buybacks rather than productivity, leaving markets vulnerable to earnings shocks due to "covenant light" lending and constrained fiscal safety nets. Concluding that central banks have become overstretched fiscal substitutes, the experts warned that without a political compact linking stimulus to structural reform, the global economy faces a prolonged cycle of financial repression and inequality.
- Milken Institute1h 3m
From Marketer to Influencer to Global Brand Shaper
Beth Brady, Matt Durella, Hannah Groove, Mark Wilson, Nancy Kanwisher, Hannah Hartmann, Cecilia Giovannini, Mark Siegelmann, Martha Minowski, Margaret Brennan, Nicole Sinclair, Caroline O, David Kwong, Shirley Moody, Tana, Angela Duckworth, Nina Savari, Mark Goulston, Mark McCurry, Mark Zuckerberg, Cecilia Arradaza
Executives from Principal Financial Group, Twitter, State Street, and BlackBerry convened at a Milken Institute panel to redefine marketing as a strategic revenue driver driven by data and cross-functional integration. The discussion highlighted a sector-wide pivot where leaders leverage hyper-personalization, advanced attribution modeling, and security imperatives to transform complex industries into consumer-centric ecosystems. Participants emphasized that future success relies on cultivating trust through simplified storytelling and rapidly iterating strategies to convert marketing from a cost center into a critical business engine.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Transforming Global Supply Chains to Be Humane and Ethical
Jim Potofsky, Justin, Jean Batter-Schneider, Federica, Julia Ormond, Chris McGrath
A panel of industry leaders and policymakers addresses the global scale of forced labor, highlighting a criminal profit gap that far exceeds current anti-trafficking spending while urging a strategic shift from punitive compliance to collaborative "race to the top" incentives. Major corporations including Mondelez and Lands' End demonstrate that direct investment in supply chain transparency and worker empowerment can simultaneously enhance productivity and brand value, supported by new technologies that utilize predictive analytics to mitigate risks before violations occur. The event concludes by advocating for public-private partnerships and narrative reframing to mobilize both businesses and consumers toward sustainable, ethical sourcing rather than relying on static certification labels.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Digital Future: The Internet of Things
Alex, David Levinson, Bridget, Kathleen Murphy, Mark, Gary, Michael, Shirley Moody, Dan Galpin, Margaret Burns, John McCutchan
The event analyzes the Internet of Things as a rapidly expanding "physical graph" driven by industrial applications and projected to host 50 billion devices, fundamentally shifting market models from hardware sales to recurring data services. Industry leaders emphasize that robust security must be embedded at the silicon level and advocated for open platforms to mitigate risks inherent in interdependent legacy systems. Furthermore, the discussion addresses the economic viability of IoT through predictive maintenance, the convergence of connectivity standards, and the ethical challenges surrounding privacy, algorithmic bias, and public safety governance.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Convergence: Philanthropy, Technology, Celebrity and Marketing
Ryan Cummins, Matthew Polson, Michelle Kidley, Stacey Boyd, Adrian Grenier, Karina Kogan
Co-founders Ryan Cummins and Matthew Polson leveraged Omaze's democratized auction model to transform celebrity experiences into multi-million dollar fundraising tools, while Skoola successfully pivoted to a for-profit clothing resale platform to raise funds for schools at scale. The event also highlighted Adrian Grenier's focus on conscious consumerism and Participant Media's development of the Participant Index, a metrics tool designed to measure the behavioral impact of social storytelling on viewers. Panelists concluded that the future of the $240 billion charity sector depends on adopting business-aligned strategies, reducing entry friction, and utilizing data to authenticate the social value delivered by celebrities and organizations.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Credit Markets: What's Next?
Mike Milken, Rich Byrne, David Warren, Tom, Steve, Michael
Regulatory constraints have forced banks to retreat from middle-market lending, creating a liquidity vacuum now filled by alternative capital providers such as Business Development Companies and institutional investors actively engaging in bespoke direct origination. This structural shift compels pension funds and credit managers to abandon passive index strategies in favor of deep fundamental analysis and flexible capital deployment across complex assets like legacy CMBS and emerging market debt to achieve realistic returns. By acting as both lenders and equity partners in distressed or restructuring scenarios, these active managers are capitalizing on a sustained "golden era" of institutional credit investment driven by regulatory disintermediation.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
Global Real Estate: Best Countries, Best Classes
Tom, Sam, John, Eyal, David Einhorn
A global panel warns that the most severe demographic shift in 500 years is compressing cap rates and driving institutional capital into Grade A assets in North American cities while highlighting Mexico's supply chain diversification and China's distressed opportunities as key investment targets. The discussion identifies floating-rate debt structures and disruptive technologies like short-term rental platforms as primary risks to market stability, even as these forces force a bifurcation between public long-term holding strategies and private tactical trading in volatile Asian markets. Ultimately, experts debate whether soaring high-end prices reflect income inequality or a global search for wealth preservation, concluding that the sector is evolving toward specialized assets like assisted living while navigating complex regulatory and currency headwinds.
- Milken Institute1h 17m
Ebola and Economy: The Cost of Infectious Disease
Tom Evans, Michel Deville, Catherine Deland, Gabrielle Fitzgerald, Dr. Pranav Shetty, Nancy Ossie
The 2014 Ebola outbreak, which caused $32 billion in economic losses and halted growth in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, triggered a $4 billion global response that accelerated vaccine development from academia to clinical trials within 18 months. While the crisis exposed critical gaps in healthcare infrastructure and delayed detection, it also drove unprecedented regulatory innovations and established the UN's first dedicated public health mission alongside active participation from BRICS nations. Looking forward, stakeholders are advocating for a standing global emergency workforce and sustainable funding mechanisms to address the projected health worker deficit and prevent future zoonotic spillovers.
- Milken Institute48 min
A Conversation With Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz discusses the unexpected broad resonance of his book *The Hard Thing About Hard Things* while detailing the dramatic $2.8 billion valuation of Slack, which emerged from a $18 million failure at TinySpec. He analyzes modern market dynamics, arguing that Silicon Valley avoids bubbles due to lower capital requirements and cloud infrastructure, while noting that regulatory gaps in private markets pose significant risks to liquidity and valuation. Additionally, Horowitz outlines a non-quota hiring strategy that eliminated unconscious bias to achieve 53% female representation and debunks the notion of a ride-sharing monopoly by highlighting driver saturation and the imminent disruption of self-driving technology.
- Milken Institute55 min
The Business of Healthy
Jane Wells, Anu Chatterjee, Dr. Bill Dietz, Michael Johnson, Ryan Shadrick-Wilson, Tara Palmeri, Kathryn Hartmann, Kathy Hartmuth, Rachel Alters, Jeff Dunn, Dr. David Heber, Anu Srivastava, Anu Vatsalavanda, Eric Schmidt, David Levinson, Bill Alford Jr.
Major food corporations are pivoting toward fresh and healthy platforms through billion-dollar acquisitions and reformulation strategies, responding to consumer demand for organic and plant-based options while leveraging data showing significant sales growth in low-calorie segments. Public health projections warn that obesity rates will continue to rise without intervention, prompting government initiatives like school nutrition acts and corporate policy changes such as antibiotic bans to mitigate a crisis expected to surpass tobacco-related healthcare costs. Ultimately, the industry faces the dual challenge of overcoming affordability barriers in food deserts and adapting marketing tactics to normalize healthy choices among younger demographics.
- Milken Institute1h 0m
The Future of FinTech
Debbie Hopkins, Igor Tulsinski, Rob Antonides, Arjan Chute, Finn Upham
A panel of venture capitalists and banking executives analyzed the $12 billion global financial services investment surge, highlighting a strategic pivot toward serving underbanked populations and small businesses while traditional banks retreat from high-risk segments. Incumbents are increasingly adopting "build, buy, or partner" models to modernize legacy infrastructure and navigate complex regulatory landscapes, potentially evolving into back-end utility providers for specialized fintech operators within a decade. Experts caution that while the sector faces risks from market bubbles and algorithmic lending bias, successful disruption depends on prioritizing the bottom 90% of consumers over the elite "top 5%" to truly democratize access to capital.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Investing in Growth: Opportunities in Developing Markets
Mark Kutis, Juan Sartorio, Brian Orodjako, Jay Ireland, Matthew Wood
Panelists project emerging markets as the dominant global growth story over the next five years, despite near-term turbulence that necessitates a shift from broad BRICS investments to selective country and strategy-specific bets. While Latin America and Asia face distinct structural headwinds, Africa is identified as a primary engine for growth driven by governance reforms in nations like Nigeria and Kenya, with infrastructure projects in stable jurisdictions offering high-yield alternatives to sovereign debt. The consensus emphasizes private market allocation for investors with long horizons to capture illiquidity premiums, specifically targeting distressed assets in Peru and Uruguay while cautioning against dabbling without specialized expertise.
- Milken Institute1h 16m
U.S. Overview: A Catalyst for World Growth?
Ross Duvall, Gene Sperling, Sarah Quinlan, William Kahana
A panel of economic experts, including Gene Sperling, John Donohoe, and Sarah Quinlan, analyzed the U.S. economy's robust 3.8% annualized GDP growth and accelerating job market while highlighting persistent structural challenges such as weak non-defense capital goods orders and housing ownership declines. Despite record corporate profits, the group noted a significant disconnect between earnings and capital expenditure, driven by global uncertainty, a strong dollar that dampens exports, and regulatory barriers restricting mortgage access for millions of borrowers. Looking forward, the experts predicted the Federal Reserve would delay interest rate hikes until late 2015 and forecast that housing construction and global demand will only begin to recover in the coming 12 to 18 months.
- Milken Institute56 min
Women Challenging the Status Quo: Building Businesses Their Way
Joyce Chang, Maha Dahil, Minka Kelly, Maladi McCluskey, Puna Mohajer, Robin Ward, Tina
The Milken Institute convened a high-level forum where panelists like Joyce Chang, Minka Kelly, and Malia McCluskey addressed systemic gender disparities in venture capital and technology, where female-founded companies outperform male-led rivals yet occupy merely 6% of investment partner roles. The event moved beyond problem identification to outline actionable strategies such as "frindtorship," bootstrapping to maintain control, and leveraging the proven 35% higher equity returns of women-led enterprises to challenge entrenched biases. Ultimately, the gathering aimed to accelerate the transition from a 10% to a 30% representation of women in leadership, emphasizing that technological entrepreneurship and peer-to-peer support are the most effective levers for dismantling the "boys club" and fostering a new generation of female industry leaders.