 Well, good afternoon and and welcome to a Discussion that will be focusing on one of the most fundamental challenges that we could be talking about today When we look at issues of unemployment when we look at issues of equality when we look at trying to deal with challenges from food security to dealing with technological revolutions and and other issues it often comes back to what is the role of business and and over the last Few years There have been some very strong criticisms of some of the excesses a business or some of the risks associated with Systemic issues in the financial sector and others at the same time. I think there's a strong realization That critical economic and social issues cannot be addressed without using the capital the capabilities and the competencies of the business sector But really what is clear is compared to the past when some would say the business of business is business Today the business of business is society That you know business is an economic structure that has been created by societies to help meet their collective needs And the license to operate a business can only be renewed if societies continue to believe That businesses can actually meet broader requirements than just those of the shareholders easy to say hard to do and yet so important and So important in different ways for countries at different stages in their development And that's what the conversation today is going to be very much about Not just the general theories of the role of business in society But what can businesses do for specific societies at specific stages in our development? And I'm so pleased to have with us a very talented and diverse group of leaders to help us discuss these issues and To provide their perspectives about what they and their organizations are doing with their societies and Let me start with Mahmood. Go ahead. The chief executive officer of Buran, Montalacat and Sir Montalacats played a very special role in in the development of Bahrain Hasn't existed very long but has already had an enormous impact. Perhaps you could share with us its strategic intent and What you see as the CEO as being the way in which you're trying to balance the need to have business performance with meeting real social needs Sir, thank you very much for having me. I think your opening statement was really describing in my heart What Montalacat is all about, you know, if I can put it in a few words is growing the wealth of the Bahrain of the people of Bahrain Clown the wealth is not just come from financial wealth. That's a lot of things I think part of our role is our duty is to bring in International values into the portfolio that we are managing to bring in Transparency to bring in this corporate governance And once you do that one then you really you bring sustainability into the business You are working with if we have the wealth of the people of Bahrain We don't want them to wait until the end for them to give the fruit It's our duty that they give the fruit as we go on through the journey. So our motto is or our mission is really listen to the process as we go on We'd like the people of Bahrain to feel the benefit as we are doing our businesses as we are going about our businesses And I think it's very important that you know, we are a new organization Mom Tariqat was established as part of a reform that the Bahrain government did in the country Reform talks about you know a new way of doing it's a the way people look forward to So it is very important for us that we have to lead by example So we need to put our best corporate governance into our own organization and then roll it down into the other Entities that we have and we have been very actively introducing all of these sort of values and standard into the portfolio We have there's a lot of example. We can talk about it And I think the issue is not only financial result. It's corporate governance transparency is developing the Bahraini people Bahraini talent of this organization and really we start At the very top at the board of director levels We tried scenes in the board and say what type of talent we have there And the way the model that we have used we try to merge the experience And some are many times the international experience that there is With the local Bahraini expertise that we have in the board and we will never forget the younger generations that are coming in For us, there are very good value added in these board because they are the people who will always pick up on the new ideas I really push for them and we have seen that dynamic Working very well in Bahrain So will we do that sort of the board the next step will be is that the board will be The model for the management of companies because if they function properly The management will be function properly and then the whole process go down to whole organization And that is a very important thing that we need to look at it as overall that the Bahraini people our shareholders They need to benefit from all the activities that we do in the portfolio that we have We have been there for five six years. I think we have achieved a lot But I can see the future is a lot for us to do achieve more there I think the potential is a lot there But the most important thing that we think about it every day We need to lead by example So we are very careful what we do because everybody will look up to us And they need to look up to us that we are doing it the right way One of the issues you talked about what was the question of developing talent And and making sure that you're actually providing the opportunities for people to actually Take on these new positions What any particular challenges trying to do that in in Bahrain any special Ways in which one telecast trying to address this Yes, I think you know the challenge that we have is you know, we are a small society We are a small sort of pool of Bahraini. They are talented It is very important that we don't go and try to reinvent the wheel It is that these boards of dynamics that we try to bring in the expertise The international best practice into these boards and then train them And when we do that one it is we don't just work as a normal Institution, you know, we try to work with all our boards as a family of board members So we try to within our group to dissipate information and dissipate knowledge we we hold Two three times a year Just social gathering where we sit and we allow each board members Share the experience share the knowledge they have and share the challenge of them with With each other and not only that the process we do it is you know, we are the owner Our people always look that I'm the owner. I can appoint or remove board of directors What we do we have a lot of process of you know talking and consultation transparency When we create a booklet for to govern our board members The first thing we do is we put it to our board members in a casual session and say Is this workable or no you can see any problem with it And then we get a lot of feedback from them that are you know, usually you don't think about them The important about that one is if there is any problem it disappears But the most important thing is you get ownership They feel that they are part of them making in the process You know, it's not something that they are put to them. It's something that they were In the making of it and you find a lot of commitment to it and you know It is implemented from the heart and it's interesting this idea that Untalakar can contribute to Bahrain's development by bringing in these world-class governance approaches diverse Perspectives from around the world and I know that actually in terms of the sovereign wealth funds It scores one of the highest in terms of the global transparency measures as well So that from that perspective the high level help in the society but also in terms of the training of Bahraini's locally and We talk about education for employment providing employment and therefore educating through the employment as well Is a key element now this is with Bahrain, which is actually endowed with A certain riches a certain base if we now move to to another part of the Middle East which has an extremely A important set of challenges and and Palestine Sameer, you're the chief executive officer of the Palestine development and investment pedico holding How do you See your role in Palestine and in particular, how do you measure success at the end of the year In terms of whether you're delivering Both on the business and the social side I would say that There is a bit of a contradiction in what we do in Palestine because In most of the world making profit is something good In Palestine, it's a controversial issue because people are busy resisting or busy dying or busy being imprisoned or busy You know, there is a national cause And exactly making profit is not part of it making making jobs is part of it. So this Contradiction I would say was all the time inherent in the Relationship that we have as a company with our public And it was smooth. Maybe in the last three four years only not at the beginning People when they have let's say a poverty ratio of 43 percent in Gaza And we are making a hundred million dollars of profit. What does it say to them that we are Succeeding, however, they are impoverished. We are not the reason but we are still next to them So it's not it wasn't easy. It needed a lot of sensitivity from our side And it needed a lot of very strong messages on different levels and I can tell you about some of them We we have started in 1993 94 by founders. Mr. Masri the chairman. Mr. Khouri the also board member All of them were committed to investing in Palestine in particular So we are one of the holding companies that cannot invest somewhere else This is a commitment by itself because during an intifada or during a problem you cannot escape the country This is your fate and you have to make success out of investing in that country No matter what the situation is So first is committed to invest in Palestine This tells a very strong message to people that we are with them In good and in bad. We are not running away when it comes bad and we're not coming back only when there is an opportunity Second when we declared all the time that our policy of investment is not to compete with small Investors in particular projects less than five million dollars Is not part of our interest and we have to look for strategic projects that will build something Special that will bring technology or know how on management, etc These kind of projects like establishing the stock exchange in Palestine in 1996 Or establishing or having the first telecom business in Palestine in 1996 The first power generation station in Gaza in 1996 and so on. So these projects are needs deep pockets needs A lot of technical assistance and technology transfer And that our choice of these projects is basically a reflection of this feeling that we have had with the people In that context in addition the corporate culture Palestine didn't have a corporate culture Palestine had few public shareholding companies before 94 and a lot of even a lot of problems in the supervision and management of these of this culture I think at least the Wealth of experience that our shareholders have elsewhere in europe in the gulf and in in jordan Have helped to create a corporate culture in Palestine Now at least the stock exchange have 46 publicly listed companies and this culture I would say is dominant in a sense a fourth dimension. We have at least used is to choose environmental projects People sometimes choose environmental projects because they are specialized in it. We are not we are again a holding company We can go into ICT or trading or just name it But we have chosen environmental projects in particular in Gaza But also West Bank solid waste recycling sewage treatment plants Discernation plans, etc Just to make sure that we are working not just in high tech that brings money To us not in telecom not in banking, but also in really something that is Very dirty people would not like any way to invest in and they will be proud that we are investing with them in it It's not just we are choosing the best of the sectors But also every single sector that brings something good for them However in all what I have said it doesn't yet deal with the corporate responsibility component of of what we do Living in a country where you have a lot of poverty And a lot of agony means that hundreds of people will be waiting at your door asking for some help Not for personal help. It could be for cultural activities. It could be for I mean just name it everything a government that is almost with a deficit A political confrontation sometimes high sometimes low So this puts on us huge pressures on trying to engage with the people on the in these needs Thanks god the arab spring came in last year because with the arab spring We for the first time we could challenge all our people that we are determined to work on the issue of youth Youth employability is our preference is our choice And we would like to put all our social responsibility component into that direction And I'll tell you that we have have created a program on that on that context I can speak about it during the session, but at least we are focused on this component After 2011 We'll come back to the question of youth employment or But before that I'm struck by the idea that you define part of a role as identifying white space We always talk about strategic white space for companies. It's an unmet consumer need But you're almost saying it's an unmet societal need or key economic need And and that's where you try to focus so you're not competing with things that the smaller medium enterprises could be doing And how do you go about doing that and identifying that? Look, it's uh, if you are living there, that's extremely important at the end of the day our investors came from outside the country We are diaspora Palestinians who are living in diaspora outside and they are investing inside the West Bank and Gaza and Jerusalem So this diaspora does not mean necessarily that you know the place, you know the system, you know the people it needs time And it took us like 15 years to get to realize what are the sentiments within the West Bank Gaza With all the goodwill you could have it could be completely misinterpreted By a single businessman who thinks that you are just following up your profit immediately You're going for trading. You doesn't care about the poor a lot of slogans could come out, especially under pressure So again, the sensitivity is the most important and remember we are publicly listed Whatever people say is will affect our share will affect the price of our stock So you have to take care of the public opinion and of the stereotype a lot during our story during our work Damien Gamal, we've just been hearing about Bahrain Mumtalaqat basically Who shareholders are are the Bahraini people? A government structure with an independent governance system And now in in it with Padigo and in Palestine publicly listed but also with the engagement of the diaspora So whether palestinians abroad can contribute to Palestine there Both with the role they play you represent as the chief as the chief executive officer of coca-cola ice tech in turkey A global player with global capabilities Very deeply involved in in in in the particular areas that you work in How do you see your responsibility and coca-cola's responsibility In terms of the relationship with the communities and the countries that you're involved in and particularly the ones that you're at most engaged in now Thanks Robert. Good afternoon I I think you've you've got to start with a few Givens, I think transparency and accountability Are definitely going to continue to be themes that all companies and businesses are going to be Held up against and that's certainly the case for a business like like coca-cola We're in 206 countries. I mean, we're a global business, but in essence, we're very local We've 700,000 employees in my region alone. We've over 20,000 from from here to pakistan We've over 40 production sites. So we are globally accountable, but we're very much in essence a very local business And our dna is local. I mean that we started off as a very local business 126 years ago So we firmly believe that This new year of accountability transparency demands from our own shareholders Demands from our employees demands from our partners It's a positive thing. I mean, we don't look at this as a negative In some ways, I think it's a fantastic development that it's getting so much airtime And there's so much pressure on companies and people and organizations and governments To move this agenda forward. So I think it's positive when I look at it specifically In the region I operate within I I also think we're going back in history. I think if you Look back Previously businesses, society, governments NGOs as they existed at the turn of the century were very very close I mean, you really couldn't start a business without having the goodwill of your neighbors the goodwill of your community And businesses generally started off in small family operated and then grew I think what's happened over a number of years is organizations got too big You know some of that dna that existed and existed in the Bahrain example and in the Palestine example today got lost So as a global organization, you know, we see the opportunity to kind of Leverage that to be a strength Going forward One thing that I would caution against Is that you've got to get it right in house first So certainly our challenge within coca-cola is how do we get Our 700,000 employees engaged believing And acting in a way that supports that goal as much as going outside first I mean, I think if it's not part of your own culture your own dna Whatever you do outside is going to lack credibility So we see kind of pressure coming from stakeholders shareholders And interestingly also coming from employees I was in Iraq two weeks ago where we just opened up a new sales office in Baghdad and I was interviewing people for managerial jobs And you might think given where Iraq sat that it was very easy to get people to say I want to come and work for you and you know, where do I sign? It was amazing the number of questions I got about our social responsibility practices You know, how did we view communities in Iraq? What was our policy on water? and so That's coming from the top and the bottom and that's a good thing and I think companies have gone embrace that Be very open towards it And we'll also not be afraid to put pressure back So, you know one of the challenges we have is how do we empower our employees? So as much as they look to us in terms of shareholder leadership We're also saying, okay, we'll empower you. What do you what can you do in your local community? So I think it's a positive thing. Um, I think it's some ways going back in time history repeating itself But the key challenge for all organizations is it's got to be an internal agenda first And only then can you bring it with credibility to society and would you look at at at iraq for example What do you hope coax going to be? Providing there so if the employees of the community were looking five years from now and they'd say Well in addition to having to find beverage, you know, what have you done? What have you changed? What would you like to be measured against? I mean there's many Many studies and the multiplier effect and I'm not going to talk about that. Everybody knows those numbers, right? What I do think is often overlooked is what organizations bring in terms of capabilities So, you know, a lot of people join our organization and leave and that's the nature of every business But when we set up a business like any other organization, you tend to bring new capabilities You know, whether it's in the area of quality health and safety Um different expectations in terms of accounting transparency corporate governance Um an any organization within its four walls builds that capability And that gets transferred into society. It can be transferred by people leaving and becoming an entrepreneur social or business It can be transferred by them using those skills in their own endeavors sports clubs charity work community work so I think one of the power of Any organization Not just any organization is that you have a chance to see new capabilities in these countries Or enhance ones that exist by investing in them. So The economic benefits the multipliers the supplier the value chain. I mean all that is well documented And that is a benefit What I think the legacy is that you help to breed Um And and and inculcate a new level of leadership in the society um And you know our Our reality is and our hope is that a lot of people will join coke and leave And go on and do bigger and better things that will benefit their Their community and the country at large. So that capability multiplier is something that doesn't get talked about Yeah, it's very hard to quantify and um, I think it's a big big benefit And and there's no so this idea the individual capabilities and the broader competencies and mindsets I'm going to move To a different perspective in just a moment, but let me just before I leave that What do the three of you find the most difficult or the most challenging Situation now because we're talking about the things where businesses are making positive contributions. This is all great but There's a lot of criticism of business is a lot of criticism particularly in this region of business What do you see as some of the challenges not necessarily talking about your organization? We're just talking more broadly. What are the most some of the the legitimate criticisms Or shortcomings of businesses that need to be addressed over the next few years please I thought that During the arab spring I was terrified by the fact that the private sector in the region is connected To government and to governments and to parties and to corruption and so on And this was to be frank a nightmare for us because if that Reflect on how our people And our public opinion will be the case in palestine not just in egypt or tunisia Then we are in real trouble. So that's the best thing we have done immediately. We have studied this carefully We have had few workshops in palestine all over between again the the private sector and other Representatives from the community to make sure that we are not a replicant of what was happening in egypt with Ahmed is or with whoever is in tunisia or And so on however, it's not the only issue Again, I would say that to manage the public opinion or to manage the perception Of the company is the most sensitive issue now And this needs a lot of ir and pr a lot of work that has to be done And it's not just words. It's not a technical skill It's something genuine yet that you have to do within the company that reflects and overflow on the public And that's why doing it for your own again in our strategy of investment It's an integral part of the investment. It's an integral part of employment It's not just an outside. I would say again a pr component, but it needs a lot of Management that we didn't use before and I think this is now the challenge for the coming year or two minimum For for business to show that they're truly separate to deal with these issues or to be We have to we have to really be that we have to meet the expectations when it comes to employability When it comes to how the transparency that look there are a lot of cliches in what we do We can easily say that we are transparent But if people does not believe that we are what can we do you have to be serious about it? It's not simple You are not going to Fool the masses of youth that are there around their governments could not fool them And the 30 or 40 years of governing them with all the instruments they they would have could not fool the youth And the public so it's not a matter of just a face that you have to show It's something integral. It's something internal and you have to believe in it And again, this will determine the the future of the business in our communities If we are not going to be just international and run away from palestine or egypt or whatever We are saying here. We have to face the public and we have to deal with their perceptions So that critical issue of trust. Yes This issue of trust comes up Not only here, but also comes up globally as well And and kathryn garrick cox that trust is is built into the name of the corporation that that you are the chief executive officer of alliance trust And in that sense it's built in but it's also of of a One of an industry that actually has lost a lot of trust of people in the financial industry over the last many years How do you as ceo Look at this issue of of trust And look at the role of the financial institutions particularly now Thank you robert. Well, I uh, you're absolutely right having trust as part of your name is is probably A great opportunity as much as something that we have to overcome at the moment But we're an organization that's been in existence actually for nearly as long as you for 124 years And we've seen a lot of change over that period of time not many chief executives I'm only the ninth so I see my career mapped out ahead of me Um, but I think you know to really to really answer your question I think you need to understand why trust was lost And I think yes a lot of blame has been laid at the door of financial services institutions And it's absolutely clear that some people did Uh display extremely bad behavior But the reality is everyone was happy to live like that for decades. We've lived beyond our means We've been very happy to over consume. We've been very happy to take easy credit conditions and the reality Is that you know, we're now suffering a massive bout of indigestion So I think the really the really critical part of this is The restoration of trust in my humble opinion will come through a rebuild of confidence Because if you're confident in something Whatever it is you typically tend to have a bit more trust in it So I think that's really the key to unlocking it and so right now I think I mean everyone's talking about leadership and the style and and I suppose approach Of strong leadership that we need to see displayed across the world whether it's in the political arena Or in the business arena And I think for You know for the trust to really be felt we have to behave better as leaders So for instance, what tangible things can we should we be doing? I think we've had a lot of these things here. I think Firstly as a leader I think you need to be very clear what drives you Because if you're not authentic people won't trust you So you need to be very very honest with yourself what you're good at what you're not so good at So I think having a very strong moral compass It may sound trite, but I think it's really important I think along with that and this picks up some of the themes we've already had You need to be very open and transparent not only in the way that you engage with your employees Because if people You know everyone is searching for leadership It's not just people outside the organization. It's people inside the organization And so they want to have You know a sense of confidence in you. I think you need to be transparent Absolutely, it goes without saying we're a publicly quoted company And have been since 1888 so it goes without saying But I think the other point is that you need to have a very clear strategy And you need to stick to it. I mean how many times have we seen people say well I was doing this and now I've changed my mind and I'm now going over here And that's when people lose confidence. So I think be clear about what you're doing You know be true to your mission be open and transparent And then I think as leaders then we will restore trust particularly in the financial services sector And an interesting issue about the fact that Lots of people were happy to live with the illusion That it was possible to have the massive amounts of debt and that this would continue to go on in terms of increasing real estate prices and so on What's the role and responsibility of businesses in terms of that dialogue with consumers and with governments In terms of what's realistic. What's appropriate in terms of regulations or what's appropriate in terms of self regulation And kind of collective Financial literacy around some of these issues and maybe in what concretely are you or should others be doing on this Well, I think on a concrete basis if you get asked to do something useful do it At the end of last year I was appointed to the uk prime minister's business advisory group And it's very clear to me that he wants to hear what business has to say on these issues So I think that actually an engagement around that really helps So to what degree what is the nexus between the political world and the business world I think you know the other point is that we have a responsibility as a financial services business With over 60,000 shareholders that touch probably far more people in the uk We do have a duty of care to help people learn But it's not just about one particular sort of group or demographic you have to touch them all So on a tangible basis as an organization, we've been running very active pensions workshops in the uk So we go up and down the country. We engage with people. We help them understand Why you need to save your pension because the uk government isn't going to give you any money Secondly, we're engaging with the universities locally. So we loan out some of our better Employees to the universities to actually teach on a practical basis What they're doing in a theoretical basis in universities and then lastly Again around the whole financial literacy point. We engage with school children We basically have an annual program where we bring in about 20 15 and 16 year olds and we bring them in We educate them on why it's not a great idea to borrow with a credit card with an api of 30 percent The power of compounding again why you need to start to save and I think that We as an organization and the financial services sector in general Has a duty of care to help educate people who are coming after us Because then at least they know what they're getting and they won't be doing it from the basis of ignorance A buyer beware to a buyer be aware kind of approach, which is actually a very different Responsibility than perhaps business saw themselves as having a few years ago. Well, I think you're never too young to learn Now I was gonna turn really cool you you're with McKinsey and company you've been spent many years in the united arab Emirates But you're actually Turkish and you're coming back to turkey. That's correct I mean given the conversation here and also what you've observed What do you think is driving the fact that The expectations of business seems so different than perhaps they were a few years ago That's the easy part of the question The second part of the question will be as the head of McKinsey office here in turkey What will you be doing to actually improve the positive role of business? Let me start with the easy one first Um A lot of very interesting examples and I think that really highlights the fact that There's a lot of soul searching going on right now with respect to the business and stroll in society I think life used to be simpler a couple of decades ago. I mean as a business leader There was an implicit social contract or contract with the society and what that contract set is You know make money But please do it in a clean way right don't engage in corruption Make sure you have good labor practices make sure you don't pollute the environment And then you're free to just do whatever you want to do and just you know A profit is the bottom line and this all there is to it The problem is and that was the whole you know business of businesses business basically Thinking the problem is it's much more complicated right now as we look at look at what's going on There is an expectation from the business leaders to be to do a lot more than that So I mean in the in the words of uh, the the you know the Harvard professor Joseph Nye Effectively the business leaders now have to be this this triad leads, right? So you're not just a business leader running a business, but you're also Supposed to have a government had a public hat as well as a society had and be able to be Able to become a leader that can run all these three In paradigm Which is quite challenging and it is challenging because especially in the you could say in the western markets where The view of the markets are very short term and the expectation from a CEO is very short term in terms of quarterly results Whereas a lot of the activities one has to engage in on the social sides are actually quite long term and in nature And by all sense of purposes they pay off, but it just takes You know years sometimes decades and many of the times now CEOs aren't staying that long right the 10 years have come down Now what are the trends behind all of this? I think many of the trends are quite obvious to to all of us Clearly there is the whole sense of technology right from a So if you wish one too many technological view right where a common media just went out We're now in the many too many zone Where anybody on On many technological platforms can basically raise their perspectives and immediately If you are a business leader that is not contributing to the society or doing things that the society doesn't feel happy about That just gets disseminated all over the place right so I think technology is a is a big driver of that and that's not That's quite obvious But I do think there's another dimension which is probably a bit more challenging to To solve and that is life has just also got a lot more complicated So the types of problems that the society is facing is probably a lot more complicated today because People have now the expectation across all the world to have access to services and products You know at a level That is just way higher than what it used to be because again technology shows them you get on the internet And you know what is the type of product service you can have And and the problem is the governments What were the the typical You know vehicles to solve for those problems are just not Naturally equipped to solve for that so it goes back into the business To be able to and the governments are saying I want you to help me with the problems that I am facing today Governments are sometimes taking the market-state role right the mark governments are saying Tell me how I can basically grow my economy. Tell me how you can help me with youth unemployment Uh, I was having a discussion the other day with one of the again garment leaders, you know education It's a major problem for many of the governments and governments are again looking back at business and say Tell us you seem to be doing a lot of great training. And so now the hard part of the question So what do you do to help businesses bridge that gap? Yeah The hard part of the question is one easy side of it actually at the easy side is as follows What I'm seeing is in the many of the If you wish to developing markets or markets like turkey actually many businesses are already quite Capable because to succeed in turkey you had to have or or many of developing countries So you had to have that tree hat on you Right because just the nature of the job required you To have the capability to be able to not just be a good business leader but also help, you know support the society so And in a way the way for example, we Have discussion without the senior leaders They're not just business discussions You start from a business discussion and what you find out is actually it immediately moves into a To solve for that specific issue. You need to look at a vocational Education solution and a number of the business leaders and therefore in a way I have to carry that multiple adds myself to which is a challenge You have to be able to talk about how do we solve for example a Labor and a quality of labor issue in terms of the right capability of skills And then you need to be able to talk about what are the type of education solutions One brings on boards as a corporate leader Now we're gonna I'm going to make sure we actually get Comments as well as questions from the audience in just a moment But the one element I want to draw upon this issue of Drawing upon the best talents And this issue of how does one as business ensure that it's a truly meritocratic system Where the best talent is is well regardless of gender regardless of ethnic background religious background And and what role does business play and and how does that play out? And what examples are there? I mean, I mean, how how does bareng muntala cat look at this issue of diversity? Okay, I think a follow-up to his question Consultant do play a very good important role in bringing the you know the knowledge that's outside there into the company But when you come into it maharad is a very sort of Very sort of rich and slow manpower yet. We are a very open society You know, if we talk about muntala cat, we have something like eight nine nationalities When you look at the portfolio companies, we have a lot of nationalities I think it's very important that you create that culture You know, if I use an example, you know, one of the portfolio companies that we're working with When we first went in we realized, you know, they had Seven type of employment contracts Differentiating between people what gender they're coming from What area they're coming from we said that's not right We abolished that one and we put one contract for all the employees That really put everybody together. They put, you know, united employee employees all that they are All are doing the same job, but they're paid for the same job Having said that there is opposite Approach as well Once you that one, there are people that you need to look at them especially And here I've talked about You know, trying to empower women You know, when we put everybody equally together, we said but you as a woman have a special needs So we had a session where we found out, you know, what is common between them what we can offer them So they will be more empowered And we found out, you know The requirement was very very small very minimum It was a process of transparency And dialogue and listening to them and it was, you know, it created You know that bond with the company that there is a unity and everybody's working as a teamwork To me, I think transparency is very important And not to start all over from yourself, you know Don't shy away from to go outside there and bring the best talent to bring you the expertise That other people share in other countries and Start from where other people ended up don't start from the beginning So there is Damian, do you want to build on that? I think I am I don't want to frighten everybody, but I'm sure if we had This room full of 15 16 year old Teenagers from across the globe, they'd probably go what you guys are talking about is already history We're worried about what's you know, what's going to come next So I think one of the challenges for all organizations is You know, how do we change our systems and our culture to allow all of these diverse insights in I mean, I'm sure in one of the most famous banks that ended up collapsing For many years, there was probably people in that organization saying we should be more transparent We should be more ethical. We should be more, you know open And many organizations crush the diverse Voice within them So I think as an insurance policy for organizations in order not to miss The next agenda or to help create the next agenda. I think diversity is key But I think it's diversity along insights Employees religion culture Opinion so I think having an organization that embraces diversity across a number of areas Is a big challenge because there's corporate cultures. There's history There's the way the boss does it and if you do the way the boss does it you'll get promoted and for sure All organizations have to ask themselves. How did we miss Some of these big trends that have come at us like a tidal wave And not use them as a competitive advantage because I'm sure if the first bank that came out and said We're going to be the most transparent the most social the most open bank, you know, that could have been a huge competitive advantage So this not this diversity agenda to me is far bigger it's it's about changing the way organizations operate and the systems and helping leaders to be really comfortable with having different opinions in the same room different cultures sex religion whatever and um To me that's a given now the challenge is changing organizations that are 124 years old 126 years old Are new with strong leaders. I might be given for you as a young global leader Right, there may be other people for whom that's not quite so so given yet And and it's I'm reminded of a speaker earlier here who talked about the ghetto of the like-minded You know you sort of cluster all together and it's funny that you don't see the new things happening Catherine you've been thinking a lot about this. I mean, how do you because Montalacat's a real leader on the whole issue of of Of both genders being involved in the workplace in in Bahrain But in the uk, how's it going? Well Hopefully as a woman, I'm the best qualified on this panel to talk to this issue But you know it I think we've made great progress But I think we're a bit stuck in some senses. So I think there is a business case for a genuinely Better sense of balance in the business environment and that's how I see it I don't see it as Diversity as such. I think in a way. It's quite a tired word. I wish we could find a different way to reframe the argument So I see it as balance But actually it's much more than that. It's about competitive advantage And if you think about it for any company or indeed any country to be sustainably competitive You want the best People because we are unique in all of themselves. We can't easily be cloned So you want to engage the best people and I think one of the interesting statistics is that we've talked a lot this This summit about crisis and how we get out of it And I think we're almost so much mired in the crisis We really can't see the wood for the trees and we're scrabbling around looking for solutions But I think this this whole discussion links to a potential solution Which is around the SME sector and if you look at the SME sector on a global basis, you know, not only You know, does it typically promote innovation? But it also gives you a safe place to to fail You know people like to experiment and I think if you take risk you generally can do better So if you look in Europe 30 percent of all entrepreneurs are women And if you actually broaden out the discussion and look at it in an economic basis 70 percent of all decisions made by consumers, you know are female related So actually we have to try and find a way to engage women in a broader context I mean, I was struck by a report I was reading which said that one quarter of the world's population Are rural women And I just I found it incredibly surprising and yet quite depressing So we do need to engage in the uk We've made some strides actually at a at a corporate level alliance trust is a bit of a trailblazer We are the only footsie 350 company with a female chairman and chief executive And we also have 50 female on our board. So we're not just talking about it We're actually doing it, which I think is very important I mean, there's been you know a perennial discussion around quotas How do you move forward? Of course, Norway introduced a quota system in 2003 And they you know, they're they're very proud of the fact that now 40 percent of their business positions at board level are held by women But when you drill down and look at it only 2 percent of them are chief executives So that's kind of my point that I think On the face of it, it looks like we've made a lot of progress. I still think there's a long way to go It's interesting. We look back on the last few minutes the whole the role in terms of bringing in world class capabilities and governance mindsets That you've actually feeling critical space in the in the economic and social needs of the community Bringing in capabilities and and leadership approaches that actually cannot be used just only in the company but outside This idea of kind of rebuilding trust providing the space for For diversity to actually flourish and in all its its different Elements and actually the recognition of the fact that the role of business has changed So it's not a matter of business is lost its way. Let's go back to some nirvana of the past It's no no no the world has changed We ought to go forward to actually keep up with the changing expectations. I mean Challenging context, but let me now just turn to the audience. If there's any comments questions that people have or points that they would like to make themselves Please sir, if I could ask you to introduce yourself and and perhaps in in no more than 30 seconds or one minute Lay out either a question or your comment. Please a comment if you don't mind. That's fine. Jamal Fakhra from Bahrain I think I mean I totally agree with all the comments here. I think we have The whole environment of doing business is being changed over these We have lost lots of our values in doing business We have lost integrity in doing business. I think I think people started to Really to look into the bottom line before looking into the into the assets of the company People become very greedy looking after the money. We are not looking into people development agenda I mean everybody are talking about about people agenda training people development to professionalism all that Unfortunately in the past a few years Have we can see it going down and that's one of the reasons definitely We have all the problem in the financials in the financial center in the financial services I mean, I mean, I mean we need really to go back to basics We know we need to go back to check imbalance. We need to give much more empowerment To the government agencies government agencies in the recent years are really very much proactive Once once an issue happens, then they start to be very much proactive where they really Give lots of difficulty for the business to restart again Talk about starts with oxley talk about about bocb talk about the sec the your regulations I mean really these are all reactive and they are not very helpful The other bit is the role of the business leader and the civil societies Unfortunately in most of the countries and I think Europe is part of them They do call business leaders to come to participate in discussions They do call civil societies to come to discussion, but when it goes to the politicians It will have a different view So really that link between the politicians business and business community the civil society Need to be much more stronger. Excellent. So the whole whole issue of The relationship between governments and business around this role is great Let's take one or two more comments and then come back to the panel for for comments on the comments any other Sir I'm Carlos Piedrajita from Colombia, South America And I would say that I very much agree with the panelists and with you Robert On what you have said and I would Say that this is all summed up in two perspectives. One is ethical and the other one is practical It has to be ethical because it has to be from a conviction whether it is Accountability transparency balance in gender and so on it has to Start from a conviction and that's basically an ethical position But also we have to recognize there is a practical angle to this And that means all the stakeholders consumers and so on We have to realize that consumers especially the young consumers in masses are taking collective decisions Vis-a-vis their consumption that what they what they buy the products and so on So they can be blocked And if there is not a good behavior in the company or in the brands they perceive So I believe this is basically a sustainable development issue and basically Has to do with ethics and pragmatic view Any other comments or questions? Actually turned back on on those two because I think the issue of the role of government But also the idea of the role of the citizen consumer The idea that actually in some cases citizen action can completely bypass the need for regulation to put pressure on companies to change behavior Which is a relatively new but certainly, you know quickly massively accelerating an issue Simran, did you want to comment? Yeah, I think there is a Major difference between the MENA region and the rest of the world. Sorry not the rest of the world, but the western world governments In democracies generally improves and goes parallel to how their private sector moves The speed is not the same. They lag behind a bit, but still it's the same I'm talking about education social services and so on They are more or less connected In the Middle East what happened is that we have seen at least 30 or 40 years difference So what kind of curriculum we have in our schools? It's 30 40 years ago We were still reading the green book in Qaddaf, Libya just recently And this Complete parity difference between how the governments exactly how governments were providing their basic services education and health, for example And how the private sector was moving speedily in a global world. We were running We always thought that it's not our responsibility Educating our people. We always thought it's the government responsibility If they do it, it's fine. If they don't do it. It's their responsibility I think now we're realizing That we are the agents of change We are the one who are global our governments could be democratic could be not democratic We could be under occupation. We could not be free countries in all the cases We are responsible as if we are the only one responsible We have to take responsibility in that component because we are the global ones We are the fastest of those agents of changes in our community In our case in palestine. I wanted just to mention one component, which is the workforce We cannot import laborers from outside the country at any level Including foreigners americans british. They cannot come except as the tourist visas on three months Which means that we are Our our fate is to educate our graduates our locals And the problem is that it will cost us money and it will be much smaller much slower It will need years of work to gain the experience. They don't have this experience locally So we know it's a more painful process But it's a must it's a destiny for us And I think this is something that we have realized lately We have surrendered to the fact that you cannot just say it's somebody's else responsibility Ultimately, it will be ours and we have to take it Proudly and to take it courageously and to find some help if we can but again, this is the way I see things happening Really interesting point Let me build also on this issue of the responsibility for the education of the youth And I want to come back to the point that many of you which is youth unemployment I mean, it's a critical issue in many countries spain. It's almost 50 youth unemployment But in the middle east There's a unique situation in terms of High levels of unemployed and high levels of the university educated unemployed So What's the role and responsibility of business generally, but also let me ask you what are each of you doing? So if we came back a year from now or two years from now, we could talk about the progress against it And why don't we actually just go around? I have we have looked carefully into this because We have around for example women are now graduating from our universities In a ratio of 55 56 percent while men are 45 However, when it comes to unemployment or or how much of the women are enrolled in in in work It's around 17 percent. So it shows the the parity Now in general both men and women those who are getting a university Degree are doomed not to have any job while those who are completely either illiterates or they don't have any experience are Basically having their jobs and they are happily ever after So the problem this this dichotomy means look at the beginning. We thought it could be our responsibility But when we digged into the issue, it's it's not exactly alone Our universities in palestine. We have 230 000 students in our universities So we have 40 50 000 graduates every year while really we don't need that number And most of them are learning education sharia history Sociology just name it. They are not engineers. They are not technical people So there is a public policy component that has to be Tackled and it's a major issue. I have seen it in israel. Israel have solved this problem 10 years ago They were having the same kind of problem and they have changed their public their their Education policy and now as I see it. It's it's balanced. I think we need first a role with the authority We will be ready to look into our responsibility in that component in particular The employability and preparing these kids or these graduates to what we need And there is a third component that is in the people themselves the youth Youth has to be able to learn has to be responsible people. They have to know what they want There is a lot of responsibility on their shoulder also and we cannot just take it away from them So I think this kind of alliance this kind of relationship is what is required and after the Arabs playing In this region, I mean, I'm afraid we won't have about three minutes left. So I mean we we firmly believe in this region I mean and we're investing four to five hundred million dollars a year Just into the Middle East region in terms of facilities capacity people so and unused and Most of that's in terms of if you look at who's coming into work and our businesses is the youth in the region. So We're certainly looking to attract the best talent in the region build the best talent And you know, what we would look for is for the politicians to continue to create a stable environment because Has been talked about throughout the whole conference is that stability Really allows entrepreneurs to invest and businesses to invest So, you know, we would hope that you know, even today Across the region while stability is better. We know there's many areas that need to be addressed. So Which stability will come investment and I think That investment our commitment is to do it in a sustainable diverse And with a long-term view and I think that's good for the region And we're committed to listening as well, which I because I think we we don't know what we don't know, right? So we've got it. We want our ears open not just our wallets. Yeah But allow me let me share one one one experience that we have at Bahrain The government part of the reform Have created a fund The fund very simply takes money from the private sector And it's controlled and decided by the private sector in a fund That fund is around it varies between 200 to short of 300 million dollar a year Half of the fund goes to really develop people who are working the private sector people who are employed that they want to get Improving their jobs or scales or employment employability But the other half goes encouraging SMEs Because we think you know that is really sustainable Do not private sector development that we need to Encourage people not to look for a job but start their own businesses and be a private sector Sort of contribute in the future Let me share with you one success story. I was very touched with it, you know I joined this fund sometime ago and left but you know Early in the fund a lady came in with a problem to find and her problem was very simple She had school kids. She could not take to school. She wanted help And they told her like we don't give you this type of help what we will do is we'll set up a business for you How about if we give you a bus and you can take your kids And the neighbors school and Aaron living out of it I was happy that when I joined that fund Two years later Roman was a year and a half later the husband came in He wanted to quit his job and he wanted to join His wife in the business to expand their businesses So these are elements that I think is We need to put in the society and we need to encourage people to be in the SMEs. That's the future 30 seconds Catherine. Okay. Well the the regular staff internships work placements We do all of that but the other thing we do is we support a local scottish charity That helps youth unemployment by giving people grants of between 250 and 20 000 pounds to do exactly this to start their own business because the reason that youth unemployment needs to be tackled Is because we need people like that in the workforce. We need more jobs The trick to solving the global crisis is not sitting around talking about it. It's to create jobs I was good I think it's been very well said the the answer lies in education for employment, right? How do we actually create the right education model that will enable employment? It's not that there are no jobs out there. There are actually millions of jobs in across minna markets It's just we don't have the right employment to to to create the if you wish to supply for those jobs We're running an internal initiative Which is basically looking at at a multiple market education for employment initiative try to understand What are the primary leader? Leavers have to change the perception around for example vocational schools which are very very critical Yet you find a lot of students hesitating to take those for for several reasons and really try to create You know different vehicles to be able to educate the kids for those jobs that are out there And I guess in a sense we end up where we started which is part of the dialogue between Companies and the community in terms of what's actually possible in terms of what's possible in terms of financial unknowns What's possible in terms of employment so people know okay? Here's the kind of skills we need Here's the kind of skills we can provide employment for so whether it's colleges designing their curriculum or students deciding where to go They actually can do it knowing Where the likelihood is for them to actually find an opportunity Well, it's been An hour that's passed very quickly with a lot of different perspectives I hope actually we also have a chance to come back in a couple of years And actually see how each of you in different ways has helped move this forward But in the meantime, I'd like to ask everybody to join me in thanking our our panel here today