Good morning.
Fortune hosted an enjoyable video roundtable discussion yesterday with Yale’s inimitable Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown Professor of Leadership Practice and founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. Along with being a great convener, Jeff is a thinker who looks at current affairs through the lens of leadership. Here is his writing in Fortune and a recent piece in Time where he talks about how America’s extreme left and right are coming together on some key issues.
We spoke with three CEOs from different industries: Pedro Pizarro of Edison International, who oversees one of the country’s largest electric utilities; John Schlifske, who has expanded Northwestern Mutual from its foundation in insurance to being a broad financial services company during his 14-year tenure; and John DiLullo, a cybersecurity veteran who’s now at the helm of Deepwatch. You know it’s a rich discussion when they’re asking questions of each other.
Pizarro was just back from COP29, the annual U.N. climate conference wrapping up today in Azerbaijan. Compared with the “exuberance around the Inflation Reduction Act” last year, he said, there was a “more tentative view given that President-elect Trump may pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement.” While he predicts a continued commitment to clean energy—perhaps even an acceleration in areas like EVs—he argues an American pullback on carbon commitments could have implications for trade
Schlifske talked about the transformative power of AI in raising customer service to a profound new level. In general, he’s feeling positive because of an anticipated “pro-growth agenda coming out of this administration” with extended tax cuts, less regulation and positive signals in the U.S. markets.
While DiLullo is also “a lot more optimistic this year than last year,” that’s partly because the risk environment is creating demand for his products. In particular, the threats posed by hackers leveraging AI are "asymmetrical”—companies must achieve 100% security while attackers need only succeed once to wreak profound havoc.
All hope the rhetoric on all sides translates to rational actions on the ground. Along with raising costs, trade wars make it harder to cooperate and coordinate when dealing with everything from climate change to cybercrimes—not to mention war, disease, and innovation. “The business community is not by nature isolationist. It's not xenophobic, and it is not protectionist,” said Sonnenfeld.
We discussed much more, of course, with some lively debate. Hope you can join some of our future conversations.
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Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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