Latest Interviews
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Clear all filters- Milken Institute1h 1m
Leverage: How Philanthropies Use New Tools to Create Change
Melissa Stevens, Marlo Gottfurcht Longstreet, Thomas Meredith, Brian Sheth, Todd Wagner
A panel of experts from Vista Equity Partners, Charity Network, and The Nature Conservancy convened to argue that traditional philanthropic models are insufficient for addressing systemic global crises, calling for a shift toward disruptive, data-driven strategies. The group advocated for consolidating redundant organizations, adopting market-competitive executive compensation, and leveraging digital technologies to replace inefficient fundraising with measurable outcomes. By prioritizing high-impact scientific research, genetic accessibility, and corporate integration of social purpose, the sector aims to solve "wicked problems" through collaboration between governments, private companies, and evolved investors.
- Milken Institute59 min
Feng Shui Your Life: A Formula for Prosperity
Curtis S. Chin, Naomi Campbell, Sherry Chris, Pun-Yin
Master Ponyin Poon and industry leaders like Sherry Chris convened to define Feng Shui as a universal energy framework that drives high-value real estate transactions, particularly among Asian buyers who now comprise over 30% of international US purchasers. The session detailed practical applications for travelers and business executives, ranging from specific room-clearing rituals to creating "energy zones" that align with current astrological cycles to mitigate stress and enhance decision-making. By shifting the focus from material accumulation to legacy and community healing, the panel advocates for integrating these ancient principles into modern urban development and personal conduct to foster global harmony.
- Milken Institute1h 4m
Addressing Global Challenges with Investment Dollars
Jessica Matthews, Reyaz Ahmad, Thomas Hyland, Hardeep Walia
Moderated by Jessica Matthews of Cambridge Associates, a panel featuring leaders from Motif, Espada Investment Advisors, and IFC Asset Management discussed the feasibility and strategies of market-rate mission-related investing across retail, emerging market infrastructure, and climate sectors. The discussion highlighted recent performance data confirming that impact funds in private equity and real assets can achieve competitive financial returns while addressing specific social goals, driven by strong generational demand and significant institutional allocations like the Ford Foundation's $1 billion initiative. Despite identifying persistent challenges such as deal flow quality and data fragmentation, the experts concluded that hybrid structures and permanent capital vehicles are successfully bridging the gap between philanthropic intent and commercial viability for the remaining 95% of endowment capital.
- Milken Institute54 min
When Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary: Olympic and Paralympic Heroes
Gene Sykes, Janet Evans, Allyson Felix, Apolo Ohno, Sarah Reinertsen
Four elite athletes and LA 2024 Bid Committee CEO Gene Sykes explored the psychological resilience, evolving training methodologies, and unique pressures that define Olympic competition. The panelists detailed how modern data-driven recovery techniques and mental conditioning allow mature athletes to overcome doubt and extend their careers, while contrasting these approaches with the raw ambition that fueled their youth. Sykes further outlined Los Angeles's strategy for the 2024 Games, emphasizing a low-cost, transit-centric infrastructure model that leverages existing facilities to create a compact, legacy-rich event.
- Milken Institute1h 2m
Start-up Nations: Creating Laboratories for Developing Economies
Glenn Yago, Clare Akamanzi, Jeremy Bentley, Richard Blum, Eli Groner, Angela Homsi, Karen Ross
A structural inversion where emerging markets now surpass the "Old World" in GDP share has created a critical need to deploy trillions in idle global capital toward addressing climate adaptation and Sustainable Development Goals. Panelists identified that despite available financing, the primary barrier is a lack of scalable "applied innovation" and viable business models to serve deep rural areas, prompting a strategic pivot toward government-led frameworks in Rwanda, Israel, and California. These nations are successfully leveraging public-private partnerships, financial innovation centers, and educational initiatives to transform niche technologies into bankable projects that bridge the gap between capital availability and last-mile implementation.
- Milken Institute1h 5m
Space Travel: From Mars to the Stars
Michael Milken, Buzz Aldrin, Daniel Goldin, Mae Jemison, Yuri Milner
Panelists including Buzz Aldrin, Dan Goldin, and May Yi outline a strategic roadmap for human expansion from the Moon to the stars, featuring Aldrin's 2039 Mars colonization plan and Breakthrough Starshot's billion-dollar interstellar probe initiative. The discussion emphasizes a collaborative framework where private sector funding drives high-risk exploration while governments support infrastructure, aiming to solve technical hurdles like relativistic sail integrity and biological survival for deep space travel. Ultimately, the experts argue that pursuing audacious goals like interstellar flight is essential to galvanize global innovation, ensuring the long-term survival of the human species by expanding beyond Earth's carrying capacity.
- Milken Institute1h 4m
Where in the World Are the Best Infrastructure Deals?
Harry Goldgut, Sharmila Chatterjee Kassam, Joe Hockey, Stu Porter, Thomas Wu
Institutional investors are increasingly targeting $7 trillion in Asian infrastructure gaps and 12–15% returns in frontier markets by prioritizing greenfield assets and co-investment structures over traditional core holdings. To unlock this capital, experts advocate for asset recycling models that link public asset sales to visible new construction, supported by development banks to underwrite political risk and legal frameworks tailored to local conditions. Strategic focus is shifting toward energy storage, technological upgrades for AI, and specific opportunities in Brazil, Colombia, and India where customized financing and equipment adaptation mitigate developmental barriers.
- Milken Institute1h 3m
Credit Market Outlook
Michael Milken, Mark Attanasio, George Hicks, Sir Michael Hintze, Joseph Naggar, Jim Zelter
Leading credit managers from Apollo, Crescent Capital Group, and GoldenTree warned that the global credit cycle is maturing and prone to a correction in 2018 due to excessive private equity leverage and a market overexposed to passive investment vehicles. To navigate an environment characterized by covenant-lite structures and rising interest rates, these panelists advocate for active management strategies focused on strict underwriting, floating-rate instruments, and distressed opportunities in Europe and emerging markets. By prioritizing complex origination and deep fundamental analysis over index-driven approaches, active managers aim to identify value in mispriced assets while mitigating the risks of an imminent market downturn.
- Milken Institute18 min
An Inspiring Presentation by Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim outlines a strategic pivot toward ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity by leveraging the institution's credit rating to mobilize dormant global capital for developing markets. His approach emphasizes transforming traditional lending into risk-enhancement models that attract private investment, citing successful pilots in Jordan, Zambia, and Rwanda that achieved commercial viability and significant cost reductions. Kim argues that fostering equality of opportunity through human capital investment and technological integration is essential to address critical challenges like automation-driven job displacement and childhood stunting, which he identifies as primary drivers of global instability.
- Milken Institute11 min
Lunch Program | Nasdaq Closing Bell Ceremony
Adina Friedman, Mike Cloughton
Marking the 20th anniversary of the Milken Institute Global Conference, Nasdaq President Adina Friedman and Institute Chairman Michael Milken convened over 4,000 global leaders in Los Angeles to advance themes of building meaningful lives and converting ideas into action. The ceremony highlighted the critical role of capital access in driving innovation across healthcare, technology, and job creation, while honoring Milken's influence on medicine and the Nasdaq's history of transforming startups into iconic enterprises like Apple and Tesla. This collaboration underscored the necessity of funding for entrepreneurial growth as experts from finance, government, and medicine gathered to craft solutions for a more productive world.
- Milken Institute1h 1m
Trusting Brands: Companies That Create and Inspire Change
Aimée Christensen, Joanne Bradford, David Denholm, Brian Norgard, Cameron Saul, Jeff Seabright
Representatives from SoFi, Kashi, Tinder, Bottle Top, and Unilever convened to discuss strategies for building trustworthy brands through radical transparency and collective action on social and environmental issues. The panelists detailed specific initiatives ranging from SoFi's policy advocacy for student loans and Unilever's supply chain transformations to Kashi's "Certified Transitional" mark and Tinder's expansion into older demographics. While consensus emerged on the necessity of long-term value creation over quarterly results, leaders also debated whether purpose-driven strategies must originate from top-level management or evolve through a "two-way street" with employees and consumers.
- Milken Institute31 min
MIc'd Up | Part 1: A Conversation with Robert Ballard
Robert Ballard, Brian Sullivan
Explorer Robert Ballard advocates for a paradigm shift in ocean stewardship by urging a massive reallocation of resources to match NASA's funding levels, emphasizing that 95% of the planet's living space remains unexplored despite holding critical mineral reserves and biodiversity. His Ocean Exploration Trust employs advanced remote-operated vehicles and real-time data networks to discover deep-sea resources while simultaneously launching an educational initiative that targets middle school students to cultivate a new generation of scientists. By balancing regulated deep-sea mining with the establishment of marine sanctuaries, Ballard aims to transition humanity from an ocean "hunter-gatherer" phase to sustainable aquaculture and large-scale surface colonization.
- Milken Institute36 min
MIc'd Up | Part 2: Jim Yong Kim in Conversation with Michael Milken
Former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the first Asian American leader of an Ivy League school and co-founder of Partners in Health, outlines a strategy to transform the institution into a financial facilitator that aligns private capital returns with global development goals. He highlights the critical need to adapt to the fourth industrial revolution by training emerging market experts to deploy capital markets for poverty reduction while navigating automation challenges in Africa. Kim concludes by emphasizing the necessity of aggressive capital market application to solve extreme poverty and announces his impending departure to continue advocating for this integration of finance and opportunity.
- Milken Institute30 min
MIc'd Up | Part 2: Pedro Domingos in Conversation with Eric Schmidt
Led by industry leaders like Bill Gates and Pedro Domingos, the event examines how converging advances in algorithms, data, and computing are shifting machine learning from rule-based programming to generalized intelligence. The presentation details critical hurdles in generalization and the urgent global talent shortage, while outlining transformative economic shifts where traditional hardware models face commoditization and new crowdsourced learning ecosystems emerge. Looking five to ten years ahead, the discussion predicts a workforce evolution where humans act as strategic captains alongside AI systems, enabling universal programming capabilities that could unlock a $5 trillion new world economy.
- Milken Institute28 min
MIc'd Up | Part 1: A Conversation with Angela Ahrendts
Angela Ahrens is redefining Apple Retail as a global community hub by transforming physical locations into "hardware" designed for social connection rather than mere sales transactions. This strategic shift introduces the "Today at Apple" curriculum and "Creative Pros" roles across 500 stores to teach public classes in coding and arts, aiming to combat social isolation while leveraging the fact that half of recent Genius Bar visits were for education. By prioritizing human connection and meaningful work, the initiative has driven employee retention to 82% and positions the company to set new standards for corporate social responsibility through free lifelong learning opportunities.