Knowledge at Wharton

Do you want to communicate a corporate message effectively? Turn it into a story says Mandalay Entertainment Group chairman Peter Guber. He argues that stories are more memorable and engaging than slide presentations memos or sales pitches. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Risk managers armed with the most sophisticated quantitative tools available did not foresee the biggest development in a generation -- the systematic breakdown and global contagion of financial markets. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton John Drzik president and CEO of the Oliver Wyman Group Richard J. Herring a finance professor at Wharton and Francis X. Diebold a Wharton professor of eco...

Now that it’s clear the recession will not turn into a depression stocks are poised for a recovery says Wharton finance professor Jeremy J. Siegel. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton he said last week’s market decline in response to rising commodity prices -- especially for energy -- and fear of the ever-growing federal deficit was no more than a short-term setback. Hosted on Acast. See aca...

Raghda Shaheen who works for the Dubai International Finance Centre recently completed a four-week business and legal fellowship program at Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania law school. The program funded by the U.S. Department of State Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and supported by America-Mideast Educational and Training Services (AMIDEAST) teaches management business and le...

Stocks have rebounded on Wall Street during the past two months. The pace of job losses seems to be slowing down. Even quarterly reports from banks suggest that the banking sector is slowly struggling back to its feet. Do these signs portend the first indicators of an economic recovery? Not yet according to experts at Wharton and elsewhere who insist that despite some of the hopeful data the recov...

Large financial institutions have failed with much higher frequency than is generally perceived says Andrew Kuritzkes a partner at Oliver Wyman and head of the management consulting firm’s public policy practice in North America. In this interview with Knowledge at Wharton Kuritzkes suggests some new guidelines that would greatly improve the financial system’s ability to absorb the inevitable if i...

Venture capitalist consultant and former Apple software ”evangelist” Guy Kawasaki talked about ”the art of innovation” during a recent visit to the University of Pennsylvania. He offered 10 rules for entrepreneurs and innovators. Among them: Make meaning not money. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a world where jobs can be sent overseas tasks can be automated and the feverish pace of technology can render even last year’s innovation obsolete students will have to learn how to think differently than their parents in order to survive and prosper says Daniel H. Pink author of three bestselling books about the changing work environment. He spoke at the recent Wharton Evolution of Learning Sy...

Superpreneur seems like a better label for Elon Musk. At 38 he has already been a co-founder of PayPal which sold for $1.5 billion and SpaceX which aims to commercialize the launching of payloads into orbit. He is also an initial investor in electric-car pioneer Tesla Motors and solar energy company SolarCity which sells and services solar energy equipment. In the second half of a two-part intervi...

Executive compensation packages that provide huge payouts for short-term stock-market gains have been blamed for playing a role in the risky behavior that triggered the continuing financial crisis. In a new research paper a Wharton professor and several colleagues say they have come up with something better: A compensation structure based on long-term escrow accounts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.co...

Just as computer operating systems vied for dominance back in the late 1970s and early 1980s smartphone makers these days are jostling for market share hoping that their mix of capabilities -- ranging from web surfing to email to calendar management -- will ensure them a critical mass of customers. What the makers of such mobile devices as the BlackBerry iPhone and Treo are trying to avoid is the...

New restrictions proposed for ratings agencies -- including Moody’s Fitch and Standard & Poor’s -- could have unintended consequences warn experts in the United States. Europe however has clamped down on the agencies whose stamps of approval on a broad spectrum of subprime mortgage securities helped pave the way to the credit crash of 2007 and the continuing global recession. Hosted on Acast....

Entrepreneur Elon Musk has three passions: the Internet space exploration and clean energy. The first paid off handsomely for him in 2002 when he sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion in stock. The second is fueled by SpaceX a company that makes space launch vehicles. Musk’s third passion is Tesla Motors which makes the Tesla Roadster an electric sports car that claims to go 244 miles per charge an...

Equities are subject to much wider price swings than previously understood according to a recent paper co-authored by Wharton finance and economics professor Robert Stambaugh. The research adds a new perspective to the work of Wharton finance professor Jeremy J. Siegel author of the book Stocks for the Long Run which says stock returns more than offset risks if you stay with the market through its...

When Leonard Abess sold a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bank last fall he did something very unusual. He took $60 million of that money and gave it out as bonuses to 399 current bank employees and 72 former employees. He did it without calling in a public relations firm or the media. He didn’t blog about it. And while he was mentioned in President Obama’s inauguration speech and was...

The world of private equity has been in a shambles since the onset of the financial crisis but some executives see that as an opportunity rather than a threat. Among them is David N. Roberts senior managing director of Angelo Gordon who manages the firm’s private equity business. A 16-year veteran of the firm Roberts also founded the firm’s opportunistic real estate area. During a visit to campus...

Even the biggest tax hikes will not raise enough money to pay off the national debt or meet coming obligations to retiring baby boomers for Medicare and Social Security. To accomplish the latter politicians must do something they fear even more than raising taxes: Reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton insurance and risk management professor Kent Sm...

Perception matters so don’t bring a politician to a union rally in a Datsun. This was one of the lessons Harris Diamond learned during a career that started with selling peanuts in Yankee Stadium. Now CEO of public relations firm Weber Shandwick Worldwide Diamond shared his thoughts on leadership -- and luck -- during a recent Wharton Leadership Lecture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

Emotion not only helped lead America into the current economic crisis but may also be helping to keep it there. At a recent conference called ”Crisis of Confidence: The Recession and the Economy of Fear ” sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychiatry and the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia an interdisciplinary panel explored the psychology behind today’s economy. Hos...

The world may be buzzing about Twitter but will the San Francisco-based messaging service with the high cool factor ever be a money maker? Or will it operate at a perpetual loss as one Wall Street analyst suggested ”until the next cool Web 2.0 social networking concept comes along and Twitter tweets no more.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach recently worked with the Obama administration’s transition team on a review of the Federal Communications Commission and related technology and telecommunications issues. In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton he says that advances in technology and the urgent need to restart the economy require the commission to rethink its role...

On April 2 the Financial Accounting Standards Board is expected to vote on a proposal to relax a standard at the heart of the financial crisis -- mark-to-market accounting rules that require toxic assets to be carried on companies’ books at fire-sale prices based on recent trades of similar assets for far less than they would command in normal times. Many big banks say the crisis has been made wor...

While military uses have tended to dominate commercial development of autonomous robots in America the business opportunities for smart robots are also sizable according to Daniel Lee an engineering professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Lee who recently spoke about the future of robotics as part of the Executive Master’s in Technology Management program has an ambitious goal: to learn how t...

”Cloud computing” promises myriad benefits -- including cost savings on technology infrastructure and faster software upgrades -- for users ranging from small startups to large corporations. That’s an auspicious future considering that not everyone agrees on exactly what cloud computing is or what it can do. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

U.S. stocks raised eyebrows this week and last closing higher in six of seven trading days including four in a row from March 10 to 13. But how does the market look for the longer term? In an interview with Knowledge at Wharton Wharton finance professor Jeremy J. Siegel says he was pleased to see consecutive gains after so many declines. He adds that history provides lots of evidence that stocks r...