emerging markets summit

APRIL 13, 2019

University of Chicago, Harper Center

Largest student-led Emerging markets conferencE

 

2019 agenda

2019 Panels

Keynote

Wave of Emerging Markets in the face of Anti-Globalism

Panelist

Dr. Krishnamurthy Subramanian

Chief Economic Advisor, India

Panelist

Dr.Mahamudu Bawumia

Vice President, Ghana

Panelist

Dr. Guillermo Ortiz

Former Central Bank Governor, Mexico

MODERATOR

Prof. Raghuram Rajan

Professor of Finance and Former Governor, Reserve Bank of India

Global

Panel 1 - FOSTERING SOCIAL IMPACT THROUGH TECH INTEGRATION

  • Given the booming technology era, it's time for social impact firms to integrate technology into the core of their programs. While most nonprofits have been ensuring their fair share of uplifting the society, many of the technologies spawned there can help the social sector achieve greater impact.

Panelist

Alberto Gomez-Obregon

Director of Portfolio, Acumen

Panelist

Jesse Sullivan

CEO, Alter Global

Panelist

Van Jones

Co-founder, Hello Tractor

MODERATOR

Sundeep Vira

Chief Growth Officer, The Academy Group

 

Middle east & North Africa

Panel 1 - The new economic growth frontiers in MENA

  • Despite their diversity in size, demographics and wealth, most oil-exporting Arab countries face similar challenges to create jobs and foster more inclusive growth. The current environment of likely durable low oil prices has exacerbated these challenges. The non-oil private sector remains relatively small and, consequently, has been only a limited source of growth and employment. Because oil is an exhaustible resource, new sectors need to be developed so they can take over as the oil and gas industry dwindles. Over-reliance on oil also exacerbates macroeconomic volatility. Greater economic diversification would unlock job-creating growth, increase resilience to oil price volatility and improve prospects for future generations. Greater economic diversification would unlock job-creating growth, increase resilience to oil price volatility and improve prospects for future generations.

Panelist

Fahad Al-Sharekh

Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Techinvest

Panelist

J.K. Khalil

General Manager, Saudi Arabia & Bahrain Mastercard

PANELIST

Robert Kukulka

Deputy Global CFO and Head of Capital Markets, Real Estate and Infrastructure Department Abu Dhabi Investment Authority

Moderator

Stephen Carroll

Business Editor, France 24

sub-saharan Africa

Panel 1 - Fireside Chat

  • A fireside chat discussing "How to Build a Future of Economic Independence for Africa"

Panelist

Dr.Mahamudu Bawumia

Vice President, Ghana

Moderator

Prof. Randall Kroszner

Deputy Dean, Executive Programs and Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics

Panel 2 - Market Access & Development

  • African economies are expected to be the new frontiers of global growth. With their large human and natural resources, vast markets, and urgent demand for infrastructure across various industries, there is no shortage of interest in accessing and developing African markets. Yet there are numerous impediments, such as macroeconomic instability and political uncertainty, that are limiting the much-vaunted windfall of investment and innovation needed to underpin Africa's growth. How are governments promoting or impeding the participation of private enterprise in the pursuit of economic growth? Should innovators pioneer market creation? What are the practical considerations of trading in Africa - today's hurdles and considerations for the future? This panel will engage in vibrant discussions that explore the intricacies of accessing and developing the African marketplace.

Moderator

Toyin Umesiri

CEO, Nazaru; Ambassador, Intra-African Trade Fair

PANELIST

Efosa Ojomo

Global Prosperity Lead, Clayton Christen Institute

PANELIST

Edward Hightower

Author, Motoring Africa: Sustainable Automotive Industrialization

PANELIST

Tanja Boskovic

Director, Blackrock

Panelist

Katéy Assem

Board Member, Opportunity International; Former Executive Director, Chicago State University Foundation

Panel 3 - Entrepreneurship & Investing in Africa

  • Entrepreneurship in Africa is increasingly seen as a key to economic growth and as one of the most sustainable job generation tools in Africa. Despite its huge returns for both entrepreneurs and investors, there lies great untapped potential to drive the African continent into its next phase of development. For entrepreneurship to strongly impact Africa's economy, effective strategies and policies are required to create more opportunities for entrepreneurs. Governments must tackle some of the greatest challenges that impede its progress, including access to finance, poor infrastructure and government policies. Join experts and senior executives as they take a deep dive into what it is really like to do business in Africa at this time and what reforms are needed to improve the business environment on the continent?

Panelist

Gavin Serkin

CEO, Frontier Funds

PANELIST

Van Jones

Co-founder, Hello Tractor

PANELIST

Olugbenga Agboola

Co-founder, Flutterwave

PANELIST

Afua Osei

Co-Founder, She Leads Africa

Moderator

TOMIWA IGUN

Manager, BCG

 
 

South Asia

Panel 1 - Competing in emerging markets in a data-driven world: data and analytics are becoming mission-critical

  • Organizations now have troves of raw data combined with powerful and sophisticated analytics tools to gain insights that can improve operational performance and create new market opportunities. Most profoundly, their decisions no longer have to be made in the dark or based on gut instinct; they can be based on evidence, experiments, and more accurate forecasts. Companies are placing big bets on data and analytics. But adapting to an era of more data-driven decision making has not always proven to be a simple proposition for people or organizations.

Panelist

Gautam Tambay

CEO and Co-founder, Springboard

PANELIST

Sashi P. Reddi

Founder, SRI Capital

PANELIST

Sreepathy Vishwanathan

Senior VP, Hinduja Global Solutions

moderator

George Chellappa

Manager, Technology Commercialization, Polsky Center

Panel 2 - NAVIGATING SOUTH ASIA'S SHIFTING REGULATION TO DRIVE SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

  • Regulators across the world today are approaching more adaptive, outcome-based and risk-weighted methods to tackle the challenges posed by new technologies. In South Asia, the advent of the Modi government brought about changes to market access, such as the ratification of the WTO Trade in Services agreement, and liberalization of foreign investment criteria. More recently, the government has instituted regulation restricting e-commerce companies sales, in response to complaints of an unfair market. The Personal Data Protection Bill also looms on the horizon, with a huge potential impact to the technology industry. How do these many changes impact investment strategy in South Asia? How should firms and investors maintain sustainable growth in the evolving regulatory environment?

Panelist

Hari Eppanapally

Co-Founder, GITA Fund Inc.; Chairman, Lead India Foundation

PANELIST

Samir Sood

All Things Business & Chief Believer, Venture Highway Capital

PANELIST

ALI JEHANGIR SIDDIQUI

Former Pakistani US Ambassador

MODERATOR

Prof. Rohan Kekre

Booth Professor

Panel 3 - Training at Scale: Preparing a billion people for Make-in-India success

  • India is the 5th largest manufacturing hub in the world. The 'Make in India' initiative aims to turn India into a manufacturing, design, and innovation hub to attract foreign investment in India. One of the key challenges for this initiative is the lack of high-skilled labor. About only 10% of the workforce in India receive any kind of training or access to skilled employment opportunities. With government policies encouraging foreign investment, how should the country ensure a constant supply of high-skilled labor to support the ambitious goal? What steps should the companies in India take to train a billion people? We discuss the strategies that would give the workforce in India access to training and high-skilled jobs.

Panelist

Anurag Mathur

CEO, Savills India

PANELIST

Nagesh Basavanhalli

CEO, Greaves Cotton

PANELIST

Ashish Saraf

Head of Helicopters, Airbus India & South Asia

MODERATOR

Prof. Pradeep Chintagunta

Booth Professor

Panel 4 - Pakistan - Business Environment Reforms and Regulations in Emerging Markets

  • Pakistan has been one of the forerunners in achieving growth in South Asia. The Pakistani Government has recently been reviewing its policies to create jobs, promote value-added exports and promote manufacturing in Pakistan. While key issues such as restoring law and order, address energy shortage, kick-starting economic growth and driving investments into Pakistan have been achieved, this panel focuses on further steps needed to channelize these investments efficiently and fostering relations with the west, among other initiatives to drive growth in Pakistan.

 

Panelist

Taimur Khan Jhagra

Provincial Minister for Finance, Khyber Pakthtunkhwa, Pakistan

PANELIST

Ali Jehangir Siddiqui

Former Pakistani US Ambassador

Moderator

Adam Creighton

Economics Editor, The Australian

Asia Pacific

Panel 1 - Globalizing homegrown unicorns in an increasingly protectionist world

  • In the emerging markets, we have many successful local startups but very few of them manage to successfully export their ideas overseas. However, the success rate is higher for Silicon Valley startups. A number of them, such as FB, Uber, Twitter, etc. achieved worldwide recognition in a short time span. In our panel discussion, we hope to explore what drives Silicon Valley startups' success, and our outlook on emerging market startups in an increasingly protectionist world (i.e. U.S. - China trade tension & the rise of protectionism in Europe and Asia).

Panelist

Pedro Uria-Recio

Head of Analytics, Axiata

PANELIST

Cheryl Yeoh

EIR, Silicon Valley Bank

PANELIST

Wenchi Yu

Head of Global Public Policy, VIPKID

Moderator

Cerise Miller

Associate Director, Global Engagement – Polsky Center

Panel 2 - South East Asia, the next investment boom - navigating through political uncertainties and challenges

  • While investing in Emerging Markets is sometimes spoken about quite generally, there is nothing monolithic about evaluating the many different opportunities across the globe, in Brazil, China, South Africa, Indonesia, and Thailand. One key differentiating factor in investments is the regulatory and corporate governance atmosphere of a country and company. In this panel, we will discuss key themes and issues in Emerging Markets corporate governance and how they affect how investors should evaluate various opportunities.

Panelist

Riley Smith

Director, Mainland SEA, US-ASEAN Business Council

PANELIST

James Qiu

Head of Finance/Regional CFO, eBay SEA

PANELIST

Satya Patel

Currency Rates Portfolio Manager, Matthews Capital

Panel 3 - US-China trade war: Implications on the global economy

  • The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a major report in October 2018 that the world's projected economy growth will be 3.7 percent, which is 0.2 points lower than the previous estimate in the beginning of 2018. The adjustment signals a slight slowdown — and US's trade policies are a major reason why. When you have the world's two largest economies at odds, that's a situation where everyone suffers. In fact, a trade war couldn't produce any winner but detrimental impacts on global economic growth. This panel aims to explore these implications, shifting alliances and how the US cities especially Chicago plan to tackle Federal level policies.

Panelist

Andrew Spinelli

Director of Global Strategic Initiatives, World Business Chicago

PANELIST

Peter Fuhrman

CEO, China First Capital

PANELIST

Siva Yam

President, US-China Chamber of Commerce

Moderator

Prof. Zhiguo He

Booth Professor

 

Latin America

Panel 1 - State-driven economic development versus free markets: a debate over conservative and liberal economic policies in Latin American countries

  • Latin American countries have predominantly adopted heterodox economic policies in the past. In these countries, governments acted as the main engine for economic growth, being the protagonist of most of the structural changes in the economic environment. During the last 20 years, in light of large fiscal and current account deficits, high inflation levels, and poor economic growth, free markets rose as an alternative to traditional policies.
  • What lies ahead for Latin America? This panel explores learnings from top leaders and government officials from Brazil, Chile and Mexico.

Panelist

Guillermo Ortiz

Former Governor, Bank of Mexico

PANELIST

Roberto Castello Branco

CEO, Petrobras

PANELIST

Hernan Buchi

Former Minister of Finance, Chile

Moderator

Andres Jaime

LATAM Strategist, Morgan Stanley

Panel 2 - Corporate Leadership: Managing multi million business in Latin America

  • At the end of 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, Latin America faced many political disruptions that affected the economic environment and uncertainty raised. However, some companies managed to navigate this atmosphere and excel in their industries.
  • How did leadership in this companies make a difference, and how was the path that took these leaders to where they are now? Now, these companies face a new challenge: the rise of startups disrupting the status quo, by innovating and changing the competitive landscape. In this context, how are industry giants going to respond to this threat, especially in the emerging markets?

Panelist

Walter Bayly

CEO, Credicorp

PANELIST

Claudia Valdivia

VP of Talent, Breca

Panelist

Márcio Schettini

General Director, Ita├║ Unibanco

Panelist

Gabriel España

Principal Investment Officer Emerging Markets, IFC

 

Panel 3 - Investing in Modern Latin america - Analyzing the biggest areas of opportunities and the current threats for returns

  • 2019 is likely to be a year of volatility in Latin America, but markets look promising for long-term investors. Venture Capitalists and Private Equity funds have been increasing their fund size for the last 3 years, with promising investments in fintech and retail. What can we say are Latin America's biggest investment opportunities and which will be the key for success? A view from the private, public and association sectors of the region.

Panelist

Sergio Clavijo

Former Finance Deputy of Colombia; Current President, ANIF

PANELIST

Gabriel España

Principal Investment Officer Emerging Markets, IFC

PANELIST

Márcio Schettini

General Director, Itau Unibanco

Moderator

Claudia Valdivia

VP of Talent, Breca