About this keynote
Firstly, thank you to Marcelino Castrillo, CEO at Shawbrook Bank, a London based private bank that advises over half a million customers on all aspects of their financial affairs which, as the world becomes increasingly complex and disrupted, and as we move from a US centric world to a multi-polar world, is an increasingly difficult task, full of huge rewards if you get it right, and abyssal level lows if you get it wrong.
During my keynote titled “Risking it All,” which was originally given in person in front of a three hundred strong audience at the London Saracens Stadium, I was asked to do a deep dive into all manner of global STEEP (Societal, Technological, Environmental, Economic, and Political) trends from my 311 Institute Annual Trends Codex and then dive into the impact of those trends for investors and individuals in the UK and then on the UK as a whole, as collectively we race headlong into this VUCA-MAX future, whether we like it or not, and whether we’re controlling and shaping it or not.
Today 55 percent of what happens to organisations comes from external sources with CEO’s and leaders now only controlling 45 percent of what happens to their organisations. And the same is roughly applicable to you and I. After all, as an example, we’re all having to deal with huge rises in the costs of living and inflation because of COVID-19, the subsequent supply chain snarl ups, and then the Russian war in Ukraine, none of which any of us had any control over. We’re also increasingly at risk of the value of our pensions collapsing because China and the BRICS are trying to unseat the US Dollar as the global reserve currency, and many of us are worrying about the future of our jobs as tech leaders in Silicon Valley keep pumping out new generations of AI’s that increasingly make humans look dumb and redundant. And there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, of other examples.
As a country that’s reliant on other parts of the world for different things, as a country that’s pushed and pulled, sometimes like a stick caught in a rivers current, what happens to the UK and within the UK is increasingly the direct and indirect result of other countries and other people’s actions, and the downstream impact of trends. And that’s what I dove into during this presentation as we dove into tens of wormholes. So, I hope you enjoy it!
