 A terrific lineup for you today to talk about corporate leadership. Let me first introduce your panelists. I think you probably are very familiar with many of them. I just also have to mention that we will open the set up for questions about 20 minutes before the end. So do prepare them. And when you do ask a question, please share with us who you are and who you work for. So Bill McDermott, here you are. Do you want to say a word about yourself, Bill? I'm the CEO of SAP, and very honored to be with my friends and colleagues on this panel. Thank you for having me. Hiroki Nakanishi, Mr. Nakanishi, would you like to start the order? My name is Hiroki Nakanishi. I'm the executive chairman of the Hitachi Nuket and simultaneously I'm the chairman of the K-dangians of the business relations of Japan. Welcome. Ginny Romate. Yes, I am the chairman and CEO of IBM. And like Bill, I feel like these are my friends for over decades here. So good to be together. Great. So do interrupt each other. Yes. It'll be much more fun. And David Taylor. I'm chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble. Pleasure to be here. And this topic is a very active one right now for all of us. So we have a broad remit. We're going to be discussing leadership in a climate of growing social concerns that ranges from data privacy to environmental degradation to market concentration and endemic corruption. The question we will try to answer is how can business leaders best serve the interests of all their stakeholders while navigating a rapidly changing technological and political landscape? And I would like to start by asking each of you whether, as corporate leaders, you have in the past decade or so, as these concerns have accumulated, whether you do anything differently, whether you manage your companies differently. And I'm talking internally, but also in your interaction with governments and with consumers. Would you like to start, Ginny? OK. Ladies first, I'll start. So as I think about this question, I don't think it's about changing what you do because of what's out in the environment. I actually think about it a lot. I guess I'd like to introduce a little bit of a concept here in that what I think has changed is what we have to focus on, and everyone does from this perspective, this being about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. And if you go back in time and look at all the times technologies come out, it's always been accompanied like a formula that said, great technology advancement if you also have matching infrastructure with it to spread the benefits to everyone. And I bring that up because what we are focused a lot on, I think is that issue of something that's been shortchanged is the focus on the degree of societal change. If you think of societal as one of the infrastructure changes that has to happen, that is what has led to such great engagement in every single country. And it's around a trust crisis and around a skills crisis, or call it a trust headwind and a skills crisis. So the idea that think back when electricity came out, there was a grid. But I don't think people realize at the same time that's when things like high school and secondary education became standards across Europe and the United States. So that it was a way that people's jobs could change and everyone could benefit. Right now, we've got so much focus on the technology, it is a real problem that there is not enough focus on this other side. So that's my answer all too. I think it's incumbent on business now to address this trust headwind around data and privacy and addressed, and I've got some ideas. We'll do it later, on the skills crisis. Yeah, I'd like to get back to that. The skills crisis. That's what's not changed, but I think it's like paramount for us to focus on it. OK, Mr. Nakanishi? The forced industrial revolution means that digital transformation. That's almost the same base of the thinking about that. The such digital transformations forced us to making some of the enterprise value change completely. The very much in the product oriented approach should be changed to more customer or social oriented, more human oriented approach. In this case, there's a very dynamic communication among the public sector, private sector, how to reorganize of the final target or final goals. Those approach is really very important to our mission of the corporate leaders. Bill, and can you also perhaps as part of this address the interaction with government and whether a business should be more vocal today than it has been? Sure. We actually did a survey with the World Economic Forum in SAP. We recently made an acquisition of a company by the name of Qualtrics. And we surveyed 10,000 people in 29 different countries and asked them about this fourth industrial revolution. Basically said, how do you feel about technology? Is it going to make your life better? Is it making your life better? Or is it not making your life better? And basically, it was split between people saying better and not better. So there's an ambivalence around the impact of technology on the average person society today. We know it's the driving force of innovation and growth, but not everybody does. As it relates to Jenny's very thoughtful comment on the trust deficit, government is not trusted today as much as the leaders of business. That's a fact. People and companies trust their CEO and their management team more than the public sector officials. That's just a fact on the trust index. But people in the wider society are also skeptical about CEOs. I'm sure they are. But on a percentage basis, they're more trustworthy of the companies and the management that they work for than public officials, which means that we have a covenant to keep in check. So yes, of course, we do have to be vocal with public sector, but also partner with public sector. We can't just assume that public sector officials and the public sector, in many cases, are really struggling financially and through other means. We have to be actively involved. And similarly, we also have to be authentic and empathetic with our people. And I believe that anything worth communicating is almost always under communicated. So this is the era where you need to take information, you need to take the experiences and how people are really feeling, and you need to overcommunicate everything, whether that's the government or your own employees. So active CEOs, active management, critical. David, you have a particular challenge, I think, here. And that is the new consumer, the millennial consumer. Yes, I'd say first to the original question, I think it is to change gene and continue to change at the accelerating rate. I think in the past, the investment community, as well as the broad stakeholder group, expected companies to deliver good earnings. I think today, each company's got to decide who they're stakeholders, beyond just shareholders. And I'd say in the past, I think it was much more focused on shareholders. And I think most CEOs today pay a lot of attention to a much broader group of stakeholders, which I think is great and needed. Beyond that, I think consumers and the broader group of stakeholders not only wants to know what the CEO thinks, but also how the brand, how our brands come forward. Brands have to have a point of view much more today than in the past. Performance alone would build a brand in the past, especially with millennials, but true under the broader audience. If a brand doesn't have a point of view and if the behavior's not consistent with the values that the company espouses, then you have a real issue. And I think it's elevating companies, one, being clear on what their purpose and values are, but it's also elevating the authenticity of what companies have to do when they communicate with various stakeholders, which I think is also very good. But I think there's a very high bar now and it's going up with the broader group of stakeholders, not just shareholders. I just wanted to pick up on something that David just said there, because when you think of all the stakeholders, back to this point about build the survey that you did, with the new technologies that are out there, I think there is a huge inclusion problem, meaning there's a large part of society does not feel that this is going to be good for their future. Forget about whether it is or it isn't or what we believe and that therefore they feel very disenfranchised. And so to your question about how do you work with government, government cannot solve that problem alone. I think those of us that build it or benefit from the technologies, we have a really serious duty about this and because these technologies are moving faster in time, then their skills are gonna change. So it's causing the skills crisis and it's gonna mean for them to participate broadly society to participate, if it's the US, not just two coasts, right? And it's what led to Brexit. It's what led to all of this that you've got to make it inclusive, which means you have to believe in some different things I believe to go forward now. So when it comes to education and skills, why government can't solve it alone if I could jump to that is that as an example, I think businesses we have to believe that I'll hire for skills, not just for their degrees or their diplomas because otherwise we'll never bridge this gap. I mean, all of us are full of companies of university degrees, PhDs. You've got to make room for everyone in society in these jobs. And so one is you have to have a new paradigm. You'd have to have new pathways that don't all include college education or tertiary education like that. And you're gonna have to have a respect for that job, meaning not blue collar, white collar, I called it new collar. And so just these different constituents, I think this is like a boiling topic right now about having it so that everyone can say, you're right, I could learn some new skills and get a very good job. And whether we, well, again, we can talk programs and the like, but that to me is the fundamental issue to all of what you see that's changed out in the market. Again, we will come back to the skills shortages, but there is a live debate today about when you're thinking about long-term challenges, whether quarterly earnings are contributing to the inability of business to actually think long-term, whether we're talking about issues of diversity, climate change, technology. This is what also I think leads many companies to conclude that for their own long-term competitiveness, they prefer the private markets. Is this something you all worry about? Maybe I'll just take a shot at it. First on this trust and this idea of brands, so you have trust and you have experiences. And if you just think about it, more than two thirds of the people out there in society today are worried about losing their job to a robot. So that's like one of the biggest concerns that there is. So tell that person to love technology and I wish you luck with that argument. So how do we create the trust that's necessary and the experience that are necessary? So David talked about brands. How do you make brands' religions where people are really loyal to them? If you look at the economy today, 1.6 trillion is leaked by losing existing customers. Any single person in this room, if they improve their retention rate by 5%, they'd improve their profits by 95%. So I think what we have to do is acknowledge that technology can be a force for value creation. Value creation creates jobs, it creates great training programs, it creates opportunities. We have to put technology in the context of experiences. We're in an experience economy, people can relate to that. Now getting back to the earnings scenario, I think most of us do annual guidance and then every quarter, everybody wants to see if you're on the right track toward achieving your annual guidance. I think an annual guidance and perhaps even updating it in a less frequent way would encourage companies to be a little bit more strategic. So there is a value to having earnings and having the process around earnings and the driving force, but maybe it is too much to actually do it on a quarterly basis. Maybe we could do it on a semi-annual basis. Maybe less frequency would actually allow people to be more strategic and not focus on every bump in the road on their way to the finish line. Does anyone disagree? In order to making some kind of the sharing of the value among the various and private sectors and also involving of the some public sectors, that's kind of the way. So the reporting period is not so important one. How to share all the common goal of the all of the stakeholders? That's our recent very important target for sustainable development goals. Those kinds of directions is very important to share. Yes. Now, I definitely agree with you Nakanishi-san. But I also would like to acknowledge I think purpose, you know, and I think David touched on it and Jenny with the education, the brand. The purpose behind these companies, the strategy behind these companies, I mean, you lay that out there and those are usually three and five year parameters. An annual guidance and updating that semi-annually wouldn't be a bad way to come to a compromise. I think what you're getting at is are companies too tactical in the short term to protect the covenant of long-term thinking and value creation? Especially given the type of issues that we have to deal with today. Yeah, I don't think most companies have a big issue taking decisions because of water learning. So if I look at major capital spending or other decisions that have a time frame of several years, the quarterly earnings don't drive us either way. I do believe that the annual guidance does provide a framework and it gives you a platform to talk about your strategy and how you plan to create value for your shareholders and the broader group of stakeholders. And that platform can be and should be the broader group of stakeholders that matter to your company. And then at times certainly there's a lot of press about quarterly earnings driving companies to do things that are inconsistent with long-term value creation. And I think for many of our companies we give guidance once a year. And for many of us we choose to only be on the call once a year and have our CFO cover each quarterly call unless there's something exceptional, which I think for us at least works very well because then there's not an overemphasis on the quarter but yet you update. If it became, everybody decided to do semi-annual, fine. The benefit you get with some kind of guidance is you have your investor base at least understanding your strategy and understanding if there's special causes out there they ought to take into consideration as they evaluate your company. I do, I think this is a false argument about does quarterly earnings make people not take long-term decisions? I think of every major company I know they take the right decisions. I think what everyone here has said is if you set the expectations, then your job is to set them properly and then communicate them and then align them to a shareholder group that wants to align with those. And I think to your point earlier Nakanishi-san, there are whether it's climate, all different areas now that are important to different shareholder groups, right? So actually in some ways more than ever if you're clear about your long-term goals there are special shareholder groups that are very interested in that. Yes. I want to read you something that Martin Wolf wrote in the FT last year. It was about the legitimacy of capitalism. And I quote, the public at large increasingly views corporations as sociopathic and so as indifferent to everything other than the share price and corporate leaders as indifferent to everything other than personal reward. The corporation, he said, is also corroding corruption. Is it, what's your reaction? Completely disagree. Completely disagree. And in fact most of our companies have purposes that go beyond just delivering quarterly earnings. We do believe, and I think that's true of the companies that are here believe that their companies can be a force for good and a force for growth, both. And frankly the platforms we have touch so many consumers. P&G touches five billion consumers a year. We have the chance to both improve lives with the quality of our products but also in the way we communicate the benefits we can communicate important societal messages. And we've got some good examples we'll probably talk later that I think are important for creating an equity. An equity is beyond share performance. When consumers buy a brand they're looking for more than that. And I don't believe at all that companies are only focused at the shareholder. I think we are all looking at the broader group of stakeholders. We care about the environment. We do take positions on important principle issues that conflict with our values. And I think that's an important part of the contribution we make to society. I think business can lift communities in society with the work we do. But David, I do think I can understand while all four of us are storied companies that I think have well known purposes and are very committed to multiple stakeholders I think I can understand why someone would write that in that it gets back to if a large part of the population feels disenfranchised to a future because what do people care number one about their job and their safety? And so if they don't feel they have a future then you would feel well then. So I do think that that problem he's getting at. I don't agree with what he wrote but the problem he's getting at is something that can only be solved with a partnership much bigger between government and private sector. I should have said that in fact that obviously he didn't mean your company. No, no, I know that. We're not talking about your company. But you can see why in general, right? And this is a general and an evolving view in society. It's getting worse right now. And it is affecting the political landscape. I mean you look at Britain and Brexit. I was hoping not to have to mention the words but it's inevitable. We should ask you a question. In fact, I would be interested in what you think. How do you, it used to be that we know that there is political risk that we need to evaluate in emerging markets or in conflict areas. But now political risk is also very important in Western democracies. So there is political risk in the U.S. There's a lot of political volatility to put it mildly. There is huge political risk in Britain because we actually don't even know where we're going. How do you navigate that? I don't want to get it. Yeah, that's a- I think she said you're going to start- The U.K. is really the mature countries. That's why I believe so. But the current- Do we look very mature to you right now? What is happening is that I have no expectations so that I simply request strongly, please avoid a no deal Brexit. That's all. I don't know how I can do it. I'll take that message back. But I do think that the one difference of having a group like us on this panel, we're 108 years old. How old are you? 182. 182? 110. So you've seen it all. 47. Well, even 47, even the baby. I would say you- I think back on this, because there have been many times when even different political governments have come in and the workforce has said, well, why do you work with this one or that one? And I say, when you look over the long arc of time, we've worked through all of them. So whether it's unrest, apartheid, I mean, there have been many things before this. And so when you say, how do you navigate it? I think you planned, you do risk management, like we always, you know, not always, but sometimes there's more of this than other times, but I don't feel that that's a reason to not move forward in all of our businesses because we will move through these things, right? And so, and I think the ability to perhaps have contingency planning is much better today than frankly it ever was before actually, right? So as many of us are doing with Brexit right now. And some of this too is, you know, it's making sure that whatever the product or the service that you offer, it is resilient in some of the more challenging and not just the optimal times. So I think that's part of what we do. We have to build solutions that help countries and companies through the choppy waters and be successful even in uncertain times because anybody can be successful when the tide is rising. The other thing I think is relevant is what we were on earlier, which is this idea of the integrated company, the integrated report. So when you think about what we do, we don't just focus on kind of that quarterly earnings routine, but you know, what is the integrated sustainable report of your company? How are you customers doing? What are the retention rates in your company? How are your people doing? What is the training curriculum? Are they more educated? Do you have a high retention rate in your people? Are you a sustainable company? Are you CO2 emissions dropping even as you get larger? And how are you impacting this world that we all love and live in? And are you a global citizen of change and innovation and positivity? So I think more and more companies will start to get measured. Leaders will start to get measured on those dimensions because that's what will help you solve the Brexit problem, where you have conflicts and populism rising in different countries. I mean, some of these mature countries, the average person has a savings of $400. I mean, their one car breakdown or healthcare crisis away from being totally broke. So we have to be authentic and empathetic and highly tuned in to what's really going on out there. And I think, Ginny, you were talking about the education and the idea of massive online computer training and what we can do to initiate those that are uninitiated. I mean, if they're worried about getting replaced by a robot, they'll be even more worried if the digital skills are the only way to actually finding a job, especially when cars and trucks drive themselves and 50% of the blue collar workers in America, for example, work behind a steering wheel. So we have to be in front of the change. And help government solve these problems. And I think the companies on this stage are representative of sustainable integrated companies with an integrated report in the way we approach things. David, do you have anything to say about Brexit? Just two things. In addition to contingency plans, which we all have to have, it's important that we remind our consumers and other stakeholders that will be there, no matter what the outcome. I've got a very clear view on what I'd want to see, but frankly, the UK people have to decide which right for their country. What we can do as P&G is stay focused on making sure our people know, our employees know, we'll be there no matter what happens. We had a business in the UK before Brexit. We're gonna have a very fine business after Brexit, whatever the outcome. The same is true for the folks in Europe. And we also have to make sure consumers know we're gonna serve them with brands of high quality no matter what happens. Now to make sure that we can do that, we have to make sure the supply chains aren't interrupted. And for that reason, as Jenny said, we're developing contingency plans because we truly don't know. We would advocate for an agreement that makes sense for both parties. But also we have to be prepared for whatever happens. Employees know we'll be there, consumers need to know we'll be there. We'll have the Gillettes. The Gillette. Want to talk about Gillette? All right, here we go. I'm coming back to it. Oh no. Jenny, I was wondering whether you might talk about your concept of the new color. Yes, yes. This is, it really wraps up everything we've talked about here, because when I say there's a skills crisis, I really do believe 100% of jobs will change. 100% are going to change. And even if you look and there's all different statistics everyone in here has, I looked at the jobs created in the US in the recent 10 years, two thirds are all digital enabled jobs. So here you have this issue and you have then this big gap between people who are in the workforce today. So whether they're age 30, 40, 50 and up that don't see that they have the skills for the future here. So we started thinking, and we've now been at this seven years, so we've got a pretty good experience under our belt here with 500 other companies. We started this idea of new color, meaning, well look, if everyone to participate in the workforce can't necessarily have a secondary or tertiary degree, what do you do? And, but they can actually learn these skills and make very good living. And so it means therefore you have to change the model of education. So new color was the idea of a job, not a blue color, not a white color, so not a negative stimulus to this. It's a new color, right? So not blue, white. Then for education models there's a couple of ways to get there. One would be, A, we all invest in education. We do a half a billion a year, my colleagues do similar things. The other way though is apprenticeships. I wanna quick give a few models. Apprenticeships, again, with many in the room, but if we scale them, we're finding with apprenticeships. I just met my most recent batch of apprentices. I have a barista, an FBI agent, a fire worker who couldn't work because of physical problems anymore, a nurse who could no longer nurse and put them through 12 weeks they're paid because of the other issues, debt in the countries, all countries. And so apprenticeships can make up a big gap closer for people already working to gain an additional new skill. Then you have, if you wanna look at the youth coming out, this idea was something called a pathway to technology. It doesn't matter. It's a six year high school. So the idea that you could get your high school degree and an associate degree at the same time and you would learn digital skills, be employable. And we're now in 13 countries, 11 states, 500 other companies are helping in a pipeline of 125,000 kids. But does that not involve changing changes within the education system? Well, interesting you say that because every country we've been in has maybe a different name, but a high school and then community colleges or they come by different name, trade schools and the like. And you marry them, ask them to work together. So it is a partnership of government that you ask them to say, I'm gonna put you together. The companies will offer mentors, their employees as mentors and internships. It's a very simple formula. It is not about a lot of money. And at 125,000 kids, they're now coming out. 400% the graduation rate, 400%. And they're able to take jobs to ex the median wage out there. And many, by the way, we're around the world where we did this together, bills in some of these schools with us. These are kids that are first generation into this. I mentioned this, there are other methods. The point though is that these new models give people pathways to get into this new workforce. Now it means something about a company. All of us that all wanna hire the top, top, top of every, you have to really look at your jobs and say, you know what, some of these jobs can be done by someone with that six year an associate. And therefore you have to change your paradigm of hiring. So most of the world will say, tech has left the middle of the United States behind. We now have centers all through the middle that are a third this kind of degree that they look like. And that provides employment for a whole segment of the population that felt they were left behind. And so that is when you said, what do I look at? I just wanna, that to me is one of the most, you can tell I'm, we as a company are passionate that if we don't fix this issue to bridge this skill right now at the rate it's moving, you will have unrest. And so people have to have a route in. I'd be, thank you, Janice, this is a fascinating concept is, can you tell us a little bit about Japan? Oh, yes. Japan. Even in, We're starting those schools in Japan too, by the way. They're starting. Blue colors already, that's the very few young people want to be. Right. So that's already that the Japanese, you know the manufacturing industry. Well, you have shortages in any case. We cannot hire those kind of the people. And also the very talented, you know, that the blue colors already that this making a sum of the, you know, that the programs to control of the robotics or some NC machines. There's always the blue color already can do it. Those kinds of the real quality of the labor has to be changed very dynamically. That's a kind of the social structure change. It's not simply of education issues, which kind of the labor or working environment is more required with that. That is also very strictly related to the sustainability of the enterprise, especially the recent manufacturing industry. Is your behind in thinking about the skills shortages and what should be, and having a more proactive approach? For technology specifically or in general? Yeah. There's not a lot of large scale tech companies in Europe compared to America. So I can say in the area of business software. This is one of your challenges. In the area of business software, Europe is actually ahead. So I think that Europe is incredibly ahead on apprentice programs. It is, yeah. So like you're talking apprentice, Jenny, you're thinking in with me. I think Europe does it really well. I mean, we have one of our executive board members that basically started in an apprentice program 15 or so years ago that's now on the executive board of SAP because we do those apprentices. But it's Germany specifically. Germany specifically, but it's not limited. But the others are now. Yeah, they are now doing very well in this regard. And I think my colleagues would agree that we're in a global world in tech. So regardless of where your company's located, we're not either a German or United States tech company. We're a very global technology company. So what we're doing is going to any corner of the earth where we can find the necessary talent to sustain our company. And as we're talking about ideas and apprentice programs and initiating the uninitiated, one example is autism at work. So we committed to hiring 1% of our workforce from individuals that are somewhere on the autistic spectrum. And this has been amazing because when you go someplace for talent that not everybody is, you tend to gain competitive advantage. So whether that's apprentice programs, whether that's initiating different folks into the tech world that currently are a little under-initiated today, I think that's what we have learned. Go places where not everybody is and then utilize what Nakanishi-san and Jenny have talked about in terms of how they are working these various program angles to get people involved. We, for example, on these massive online computer courses, we're training 3 million people today that aren't even in the tech industry. Last year with the World Economic Forum, we teamed up with great companies like IBM and others to basically use all of our education tools and our technology to train people for free. I think some of this is like making sure everyone's aware that they can get the information and they can start to get online and start to really participate in the digital economy. David, instead of coming in on this, let's pivot to campaigning. Okay. Tell us about... What are you running for, David? What are you running for? I'm not running for all of this. The Gillette campaign. Yeah, for those that don't know... Just even before that, we've had a number of brands that have taken positions on causes that we think are relevant and consistent with our values. Many may have seen. We've had an always campaign, the always brand, called Like a Girl. And it's always a whisper in different parts of the world. And it recognized that teen girls' confidence drops when they're going through puberty. And there was a phrase called Like a Girl that when you first test is Like a Girl positive or negative, 19% said it was positive. We ran a campaign that highlighted girls and lifted them up and we got to 79% viewed it as a positive outcome. And people became more cognizant of Like a Girl, not used in a derogatory sense, but positive sense. Now, to take that as something that was very successful, built the brand, it communicated a very positive societal message. We've recently run a spot for Gillette that took on a very timely topic and it was toxic masculinity. And it addressed two parts, which is bullying and sexism. And it had some illustrations of how it happens at times in society. And then paid it off with, we believe men can be better and we need to be the best a man can be and illustrated visually, men stepping in in a positive way in all those instances. And the response has been incredible. In the last five days, positive and negative, it lit up my email and many others on the negative side at first, spite where very aggressive email campaigns against us with small groups that want to be very vocal, using bots and other things to fill up our email and bury our various forms of communication with our consumer relations people. But we stayed the course because we believe the message is relevant and we believe it's right to go ahead and continue to communicate this. And it's interesting, by day three, it shifted much more positive. We've had in five days 75 million views of that spot. And what it did, which is really powerful, sparked a conversation about appropriate behavior, about civility and things that I think are very timely. And we've seen a number of people step in, advocates to take on those that attacked it. And what happened was we didn't accuse anybody of the behavior. We highlighted behavior that's happened that often has been dismissed as boys will be boys. And they do things that are very derogatory toward women or they do things that are frankly difficult to really explain bullying and others. And while it may happen infrequently, it happens. It's in our society. And the visceral response on both sides has been amazing. But I think what we'll see, now we're only a week and a half into it, we're gonna see the positives go up more and more and more and we're gonna see especially amongst millennials but also amongst the broader population that Gillette stands for something. They know the product conforms well. I mean, I assume there was a lot of internal debate discussion about this. Discussion, that's debate. What clinched it? Because it communicates a value that's consistent with what our company stands for. We believe in gender equality. The world will be a better place if my board of directors on down, it's represented by 50% of the women. We sell our products to more than 50% of the women. We touch five billion consumers a year. The people that buy our products are predominantly women. The people that do the housework around the world are predominantly women. And we try to communicate in a respectful way and behavior that's inconsistent with that is not only not good for society, it's certainly not good for our business as well. And so we try to lift up better behavior. And I believe as time goes, we're gonna see a significant shift in positive sentiment. And I think we'll see the equity of the brand rise because it stands for something that matters. Let's bring in the audience. I see a question over there. I'm Yoshi Hori of Glovis Japan. And we understood that purpose and brand and trust and good corporate behavior and working for stakeholders are important. On the other hand, we have to win and also we need to survive and prosper. What you see are the threats that you're facing in this fourth industrial revolution and how you're tackling it. Is that a question to me? Or just a group jump in? Why don't you take it? No, no, no, I just want to make sure. No, it's the way I look at the fourth industrial revolution and how do you win? How do you win is real simple. It's like technology is the baseline for winning. And these enterprises, these businesses have to be intelligent enterprises. You have to have a strong handle on your demand chain. Everything today has gone digital. It's gone social. It's an omnichannel, e-commerce world. You have to make great incredible products that add immense value to people's lives. I think David talking about his brand and his love for his brand, these brands have to create literal fans, people that just love that brand. It's a religion for them and they stay loyal to that brand. So I go back to where I started. 77% of the world's transactions run through an SAP system. So like you said, David, we feel like we have an immense responsibility to the companies that we serve so they better serve their customers. But that data that they create is huge and that data is so powerful. In God we trust, but everyone else needs to bring the data, right? So you have to have control and handle on your business. But the big breakthrough today is the experiences. When people make great products, the ones that engineer those products, they wanna know how she's doing or he's doing with that product. Is it making them happy? Am I connecting with them? Should I change the engineering design? Do we tweak it? Are we hitting the mark? And then when you get past the product, think about the people in these companies. A lot of these companies today are soulless. People are running around in cubicles, playing office. They wanna be attached to the things that make a difference in the world, that make a difference to the ultimate consumer. And you have to create that connection between the employee and that ultimate consumer and that purpose they're serving. And then finally, these brands, when people speak of your brand, they're talking about your family. They're talking about your name. And I think the idea of leaving customers stranded or not knowing exactly how they're doing today and when they give you feedback, not being on top of that, that is the next big cause to losing. You have to know the answer to those questions to win. So what's going on and why is it going on and how do you connect the experience with the operations of the company? To me, this is the winning formula. Janie, you wanted to come? Yeah, I was just going to add to compliment what Bill said. Like Bill, we run almost 100% of the banks of the world, 90% of the airlines, 50% of all the telecommunications. And we get the honor of working with so many clients. And I would just add, one sense when you said, what do you do is to go a digital transformation in. The other thing I see people doing to compete though is to go from all their process and data out. And so you go both directions on how to change a company to succeed. And I do think people will succeed or fail on their data. Now it does mean, maybe we'll get to this point about either regulation or privacy and other things, but it does mean that data, and you have to do it with stewardship, right? So you've got to be clear about your principles on trust and transparency of your data, but that it will be the thing. And a stat I like to use is that of all the world's data that everyone talks about big platforms having access to, that is only 20% of the world's collected data. The other 80% belongs to every company that's sitting in this room, if they could do something with it. And those technologies are now becoming to be there. And whether they are AI or quantum or blockchain, I mean, that will just keep going. And so I would say one of the things to do as much is to be very clear about how I'm gonna differentiate myself through my process and my data. And I would add one more thing, which I think is shortchanged. People always wanna talk about their products, they wanna talk about their digital experience, but as important for a company to succeed, I know we've lived through this in our transformation, is changing how people in your company do their work, how they do their work. That has fundamentally changed. And it's everything from things like design experience because to the easy, simple consumer world, employees expect that everything to be at work that same way. So you have to change the speed at which you work, the design element of which you work, the tools at which you work, the net promoter score. There's a long list and it's never talked about the how in your own company's people skills or ours is valuable. I suppose that's an excellent point. The other point that's not talked about perhaps enough, although over the past six months or so, it's become a much more, it's become an issue of higher priority. But we talk about data, but we haven't talked about the misuse of data. And the risk that the misuse of data is going to lead to a slowdown in the pursuit of AI, the willingness, the willingness, not just the ability of using AI. Where I know, Ginny, you have a point of view on this. We'll hear a little bit from the others and then we'll come back to you. A strong one. Go ahead. Go ahead, please. That's okay. Go ahead. I'm now feeling of how the corporate or enterprise contribute to the real society. There's that many way. But now the other, there used to be some of the technology or products are very simple, the answer. But now, recent in the moves is people want to know how the enterprise contribute to the society itself. That's another view. And they want more transparency about the technology itself. Also that very clear view of the digital world is in describing of the real result of the activities of the enterprise. That's a big change. So even in the employees, how proud of the contribution to the society I really want to contribute to the companies. Otherwise, no work. There's two things I would say to add. Consumers want transparency and they want choice. And when they have those two and you handle the data properly and treat the consumer with respect, you build trust. So I'd say the outcome we want is consumers to trust our brands. They perform well. The values of the brand are consistent with theirs. And they trust them to handle the data well. To do that, we better be much more transparent from our own ingredients to how we use data. And to me, we got to give consumer choice. Do they want the data used and if so how? And I think if we do those and do those well, we build trust. And then I think we have license to do things that will help them have a good experience. We connect with them, when and where they're receptive to a message, but in a respectful way all the time. Jini, what about regulation? Yes, because I think David actually said it well because I would have said to you, the question isn't data, it is trust. Trust. That is. I think everyone said it. It is really a key point. And right now, to the regulation point, what I'm worried about is every government feels compelled to do something right now because of the way consumers have reacted and there have been some mishandling situations out there. So I would suggest two strong points on this, on how to address it. One is for all of us as companies, you have to declare what your principles are around data and you have to be willing to be audited and accountable to them. So ours are, we believe the purpose of all these technologies is to augment, may I not replace it, ownership. The data belongs to the creator, it belongs to the creator, we're clear about that. And things like fairness and explainability of AI and that there's no bias in it. So you're clear what you believe. I do believe then if there's regulation, it should be the analogy is precision medicine, I would use precision regulation. Because my biggest fear was that it's going to derail the entire digital economy because this urge to regulate is going to be so strong for some good reasons, but that it needs to be first around consumer privacy of data, which says I get the chance, like David said, to consent, opt in or out, see my data or delete myself, right? And so you should, regulation there sounds right. I think the next thing you have to have is explainability for AI and other things we talked about. And the third is you do have to have liability when there are things like hate or illegal things going on. We got involved with child sex trafficking in the US. No, we didn't get involved in it. I mean, we were involved in a bill, a legislation. And when asked, would we support legislation that said, if we knowingly on our cloud platforms had someone with child sex trafficking, would we be held accountable? Like, that's an easy question to me. The answer would be, yes, if you knowingly had it. So there should be liability for those things. There is no such thing as a dumb platform anymore. There is not such a thing. And so I think that was a little bit of a front, in my mind, a framework for precision, just like precision medicine. Otherwise, I'm afraid the doctor could kill the whole body instead of just addressing what the real issue is. And the real issue is around consumer privacy. It is, yeah. I saw a hand over there. No? Yes, go ahead, please. Hello, my name is Horst von Butler. I'm editor-in-chief of the German Business Magazine Kapital. You talked about also about the crisis of leadership. And I would like to ask the panel about taxation and executive pay, because you didn't talk about it. If you see it as a part of the crisis of leadership, we always talk about it. Taxation, did you say? Yeah, companies evasion of taxation. Question. Evasion of taxation. I pay a lot. Yeah, yeah, I pay a lot. Well, so we asked you to pay to it? What specifically, sir? I think everybody here would say we're not paying what is. Companies do not pay taxes enough, especially the big tech companies. You're talking about the tech companies. Yes, yes. So the lack of a digital tax. Yeah, so the lack of a level playing field. A crisis of leadership. Does that contribute to the lack of trust? Look, I think I would just, I'll speak up in that. I think all of us believe you need to do the right thing. And paying your proper taxes is one of the right things. And so I think whenever people think you're not doing something that is, I know that's by definition what is right, but that's really what you're asking. And so I think there are cases where taxes need to be paid and should be paid and the like. So is that a contributor in part? Potentially, that's part. I think all I don't think any one of the things we've talked about today is the single individual item. I believe, you won't be surprised I say it, they go back to people feeling that they have a comfortable future for themselves. And then when that's not sturdy, all these things start layering on top of that. And the only thing I'd add is I think your business practices have to match your tax behavior. If all your profits reported here, but you're operating everywhere else, I think that's very suspect in my mind. On the other hand, and I use our example, we're not, I think everybody's in the tech industry, but one of the consumer products world are intellectual properties kept in the United States. And therefore we pay tax on it. There are lower tax jurisdictions, but we don't put it there because that's where a lot of the intellectual property is generated. And I think what you want to be is true to how you operate and then pay your fair tax in every country in which you operate. And I think that builds, again, trust in your company and for us, trust in the brands as well, because the company behind the brand operates with high citizenship. The most important thing is that how to utilize more of the public data itself. In order to take advantage of the digitalization, really we need public data to utilize that. So that taxes and data tax or those kinds of things is maybe that some monopolizing of the data of those kinds of things. So taxes, I don't have a clear idea about taxation is an appropriate way to release of those kind of public data. But it does get us to the issue of competitiveness and whether competition laws need to also be looked at. There are, these are such live debates in Europe, more so in some ways than in the US today. Any other questions? Back there. Yes, go ahead, please. Hi, my name is Bailey. And I'm a global shaper from the London Hub. I just want to thank you for the commitment that you've expressed to gender equity and also to diversity as part of a agenda to build more trust and towards greater transparency. But I look around this room and I see that there are very few women and very few people of color. As young people in the city of London, aside from Brexit, one of the greatest concerns that we voiced is a lack of transparency and access to promotions and equal pay for women, people of color, and people that are on the LGBTQ plus spectrum. As business leaders, what are you doing within your companies and what do you think is a moral imperative for other people in this room and those who are listening to do more to advance equity, not just from a gender perspective, but also for other members of protected groups? Look, I think we all, I believe so strongly in this. This is, we lead the tech with women and women executives. I have several of them here in this room out of my contingent. There are more women than men that are here today. But when you say what are you doing, I always say to this answer, it is not one thing. In fact, I think it's a fallacy if you believe it's one thing. It's 1,000 things that you do all the time over and over on your commitment to this. But there are some that I have watched. So as an example, to my board, every year we're accountable to look that our salaries are fair across all groups. We do an audit of it every single year to see if anything gone out of whack between any of these constituencies to be sure they're paid the same between. The other is we use technology quite well for bias and to check for hiring, for raises, for increases, to check that there is no, and you will find bias in a system. I mean, I don't care what you say, as hard as you work to get rid of it, something boils itself up. And so you'll find it. So the technology can be used for bias. I believe that holding yourself accountable to that can be used, as well as making improvement. And then the other things like gender equality, I really believe one of the biggest things is keeping women in the workforce and getting them back in the workforce. One of the most impactful programs we ever did was a return ship. And it was that women who'd left for, and sometimes it could be men too, by the way, but it was a more percentage of women who left for children or elder care, they were nervous to come back to work. They said, oh no, the world's passed me by. I've forgotten this. And we had a hunch, and it turned out to be right. We said, we'll run a three month program. Stay for a day, stay for three months, till you think you're back up to speed. I can't tell you how many people stayed one day, five days. Some have stayed the whole time, but they're like, you're right, I really did not forget that much. It's addressing what I think many women are very critical of themselves about. And so to me, these are one thing after another. These guys love great programs. I'm also interested, I'm interested to hear from all of you, we have less than a minute left, but can you also just address everyone, every single company is thinking about diversity today. But a lot of companies are also thinking, is diversity my number one priority, or is it my number two priority, or is it my number three priority? Yeah, diversity is a fact, and inclusion is a choice. And we make the choice for inclusion for all the reasons that Jenny stated. The idea of this integrated report we talked about earlier, in our integrated report, we actually report out on the progress of women in management as an example, and protected classes that we need to initiate in this digital workforce. Hispanic, African American, there's many categories that are not initiated enough in the tech world, and we absolutely need to change that. So I think Jenny's absolutely right, it's cultural, it's accountability, it's a commitment, and it's all about transparency and communication. So I firmly agree with you, and we stand by that. I'm really excited, by the way, because the one thing I've learned is, get young people into the workforce, promote them way too fast, and they'll surprise you on the upside every time. Yeah, also that's a... You wanna address the progress of womanomics. The progress of womanomics? Progress, or lack thereof. Wow. Japan is really the very big advantage of the very stable political positions, Abe, Prime Minister Abe, and so we are feeling of some of the real effect. In Japan, the most serious issue is the decreasing of the population. So we need to follow and push, is in a kind of combination. So setting up the new era for the Japanese economy as well. That's really that, I'm not criticized of the PM Abe's policies at all, and how to make a clear relationship. So there is a lot of progress. Yeah, I believe so. Thank you. Just one quick comment to build on that. David, you have the last word. Diversity is a absolutely critical part of winning the future. We benefit from a broad set of views, and those that surround themselves with the broadest set of views to me have access to the broadest range of experiences and data. So I truly believe it's a source of competitive advantage. We just named six business CEOs, three women, three men. My 12 direct reports as of July will be half men, half women, that's an advantage. And they're outstanding, each and every one of them. But I think we have to go beyond that. We have to have our workforce. We have a lot more work to do throughout our organization to recognize unconscious bias exists. It exists in all of us. And the more we accept it exists and we go on a learning journey, the better we'll be for all kinds of diversity. And the last point would be we have many assets to use to advance this. We can use our brand voices. We can insist that we treat women appropriately in our advertising. We can insist behind the camera there's a representation of women directors, not just men. And if we start to touch the total ecosystem of our company and all of our companies, we can have enormous impact. And so I think it is part of how we operate, but it's got to go beyond that. Well, thank you all. It's been a terrific conversation. Please join me in thanking...