Management in Practice

Millions of government workers in the U.S. are relying on pension plans for retirement, and yet these plans are underfunded by at least $1 trillion. Asset manager Ranji Nagaswami ’86 argues that addressing this challenge is about more than assets and liabilities—we have to look at how funds are run and, critically, how they think about risk.

How do companies with rapidly evolving business plans and a constantly shifting competitive landscape hire the right people for tomorrow, let alone next year? While education and training still matter, Laszlo Bock, head of people operations at Google, says that the company looks for people with the ability to learn, solve problems, and step in when leadership is needed.

Social enterprises seek to make profit while having a positive impact on communities. As a nascent and hybrid form of organization, social enterprises are vaguely defined. Might a certification process provide benefits for such organizations? Andrew Kassoy of the B Lab talks about the potential of the benefit corporation, or B Corp, to change the way business is done.

Does sustainability clear the fiscal hurdle? Yale Insights talked with Kurt Kuehn, chief financial officer for UPS, about how he evaluates sustainability initiatives in the face of a fast-changing and complex global market.

Performing arts organizations are contending with aging audiences and shrinking budgets, and looking for new ways to reach audiences. Yale Insights spoke with Jed Bernstein ’79, formerly a theatrical producer, as he prepared to begin his new job as president of Lincoln Center, the country’s biggest stage for classical music, opera, and dance and a pillar of New York City’s economy.

Starting in the late 1990s, a series of television shows with a novelistic sweep, many of them produced by cable channels, have redefined the medium; at the same time, technology has given audience members new ways to engage with each other and their favorite shows. As AMC’s executive vice president of marketing, Linda Schupack '92 has had the job of selling two of the biggest hits of TV’s second golden age: Mad Men and Breaking Bad. She talked to Yale Insights about creating great marketing for great stories.

The global luxury goods market recovered quickly from the financial crisis due in large part to growth in emerging markets, especially China. Chanel CEO Maureen Chiquet YC ’85 discusses how she shepherds the quintessentially French company in a fast-moving global market that may be transcending national identity.

The state of global health is never static. The past century has seen some of the greatest advances in life expectancy and overall health in human history. And yet huge disparities exist between rich and poor nations in measures such as infant mortality and life expectancy. Richard Skolnik, a global health expert, talks about how to use the data to inform better decision-making—and to save lives.

Asset classes have long been the building blocks of investment portfolios, but when apparently uncorrelated investments moved in sync during the financial crisis, it raised fundamental questions about whether diversified portfolios actually were diversified. Eugene Podkaminer ’01, vice president of capital markets research at Callan Associates, discusses whether there is a better way to understand the deep forces driving these results.

Any financial institution that is going to last for decades will have to survive a crisis or two—most likely by adapting and innovating, perhaps by leaving behind chunks of its old identity. Yale Insights spoke with James Gorman, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, one of two major investment banks to survive the 2008 financial crisis, about how the firm has managed to refashion itself and prepare for the future.