Forward Thinking

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Michael Chui talks to Tyler Cowen, Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University, who serves as chairman and general director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. With colleague Alex Tabarrok, Cowen is coauthor of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution and cofounder of the online ed...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui talks with Alec Stapp, co-CEO of the Institute for Progress, a Washington, DC, think tank he co-founded in January 2022. Progress is a policy choice, its founders say, and they have chosen to focus initially on three topics—meta-science, high-skill immigration, and biosecurity. Why those three? Their...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks to Edwin Keh, the CEO of the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel. It was set up in 2006, with the aim of becoming a center of excellence in research and development in the fashion and textiles industry. The institute has won awards for garment recycling and for its work on a yarn...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks to Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Princesa de Asturias Chair and a professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics. Between 2015 and 2017, he was president of the Regional Science Association International. He won the European Regional Science Association Prize in regional science in 201...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks to leading French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry. He holds the Tommaso Padoa Schioppa chair at the European University Institute. He's a senior fellow at Bruegel, the European think tank, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute in Washington, DC. He's also a professor of economics w...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui talks with Avinash Collis, professor of digital economy at The University of Texas at Austin, and Digital Fellow at Stanford and MIT. He covers topics including: — One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century — How to run economics experiments to figure out how much digital services are worth —...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, guest interviewer Acha Leke talks with Ngozi-Okonjo-Iweala. Acha Leke is a McKinsey senior partner in Johannesburg and is chairman of McKinsey’s Africa region. Okonjo-Iweala became director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in March 2021—the first woman and the first African to serve in this role. Okonjo-Iweal...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Janet Bush talks with British mathematician and technologist Anne‑Marie Imafidon, co-founder of Stemettes, a social initiative dedicated to inspiring and promoting the next generation of young women in STEM sectors. Imafidon invokes the “herstory” of stellar female technologists, such as Gladys West, who contributed to th...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush speaks with Claire O’Neill. While serving as a minister in the British government, O’Neill led the United Kingdom’s winning bid to host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, in 2021. After leaving politics, she joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) where sh...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Michael Chui talks with Benedict Evans, an independent technology analyst. Evans covers topics including the following: ● The generational shifts in technology that occur every 15 years or so ● What characterizes a “universal product” ● Why Web3 generates the most polarizing views among senior tech people ● Whether tech i...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, guest interviewer Jonathan Woetzel talks with Ron O’Hanley, president and CEO of State Street Corporation, a major servicer and manager of institutional assets. State Street has committed to making its portfolios carbon neutral by 2050, and O’Hanley talks about how his own organization is trying to meet that target but al...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Michael Chui talks with David Autor, Ford Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Autor talks about the paradoxes created for labor markets by the pandemic, the effect of trade globalization, the rise of China as a world economic power, and the economic impact of automation. He answers questio...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, guest interviewer Jonathan Woetzel talks with two leading economists spanning Europe and Asia. Baroness Minouche Shafik is director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Andrew Sheng is distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong. The conversation centers on the stat...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks with Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake. Jonathan Haskel is professor of economics at Imperial College Business School at Imperial College London and an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. Stian Westlake is chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society in th...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui talks with Matthew J. Slaughter, Paul Danos Dean and Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Slaughter takes the temperature of globalization, discussing ways of tackling distributional challenges and ensuring it works for ordinary fam...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush talks with Hayaatun Sillem. She is the chief executive officer of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the United Kingdom—the first woman to serve in that role—and of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. She also serves as chair of judges for The St Andrews Prize for the Environment. Sillem discuss...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, Michael Chui talks to Byron Auguste and Beth Cobert whose professional life is dedicated to fostering a more skills-based labor market. Their focus is on the United States, but their diagnostic can just as easily apply to other countries and regions. Both worked at McKinsey & Company for many years on labor-market issues...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush speaks with Guntram Wolff, the director of Bruegel, which is regularly ranked one of the top global think tanks. In early 2021, he was appointed to a new G-20 panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. Wolff discusses the challenge of being better prepared for future pandemics, climate ri...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Janet Bush speaks with distinguished economist Michael Spence. He is professor of economics and dean emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, senior professor at SDA Bocconi, and Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences, 2001. Spence reflects on some of...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Michael Chui speaks with Mary “Missy” Cummings, one of the first female fighter pilots in the US Navy and now a professor in the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, as well as the director of Duke’s Humans and Autonomy Laboratory. Cummings talks about her life as...

We’d like to share a special interview from our friends at McKinsey’s Inside the Strategy Room podcast. In this episode, you’ll hear Brian Chesky, the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, in discussion with McKinsey Global Institute co-chairman James Manikya. The theme of their conversation centered around how to build companies capable of thriving in the 21st century. In particular, they address the maj...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, co-host Anna Bernasek speaks with Jeffrey Seller, producer of Broadway hits Hamilton, In the Heights, Rent, and more about the tumultuous year-plus Broadway and live performances have endured. Ahead of Broadway reopening in September 2021 and live performances coming back across the United States and other countries, the...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, host Michael Chui speaks with Laura Tyson, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Tyson shares her journey in economics, from discovering Econ 1 in college to chairing the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. She also answers questions like:...

In this episode of the McKinsey Global Institute’s Forward Thinking podcast, hosts Michael Chui and Anna Bernasek speak with Daron Acemoglu. Daron is a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a coauthor (with James A. Robinson) of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, and the author of many influential academic papers. His research cover...

In this episode of Forward Thinking, host Michael Chui speaks with Jeffrey Ding, researcher and founder of the ChinAI newsletter, about information asymmetry in artificial intelligence between China and the West. They cover why data may not be like oil, the Chinese industry adage on products, platforms, and standards, “unsexy AI” and more. There’s a lot of talk right now about artificial intellige...