2021 Virtual Casualty Loss Reserve Seminar

Global Warning: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World's Most Wicked Problems

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, award-winning author and Energy & Climate Innovation Editor of The Economist, will deliver a provocative keynote address that surveys the megatrends reshaping the 21st century global economy, from the prospects for future pandemics to the disruptive and widespread impacts of climate change. Global warming in particular poses enormous challenges, and if left unchecked, could devastate significant parts of the global economy, turn low-lying and vulnerable parts of the world uninhabitable, spread disease and famine and fuel refugee crises. However, a much more open, accelerated and ambitious approach to climate innovation could also produce many solutions over the next decade as every industry in every geography is forced to respond to this existential threat.

Biography

Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran

U.S. business editor for The Economist and leading specialist on China, business and technology, innovation, and emerging markets

Vijay Vaitheeswaran is the US Business Editor of The Economist, its former China Business Editor & Bureau Chief, is an award-winning writer. He served as an advisor on sustainability and innovation to the World Economic Forum/Davos. Vaitheeswaran is a leading authority on China, global health, international trade, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

With a career that has taken him from Mexico City and London to Shanghai, Vaitheeswaran brings an impressive depth of expertise to topics and issues ranging from politics and economics, the business and technology of energy and the environment, and China’s dynamic and in-innovative private sector. As The Economist’s former Healthcare Editor, he gained valuable experience covering the health and economic impacts of pandemic outbreaks.

Financial Times declared Vaitheeswaran to be “a writer to whom it is worth paying attention.” His latest book is Need, Speed and Greed: How the New Rules of Innovation Can Transform Businesses, Propel Nations to Greatness, and Tame the World’s Most Wicked Problems. Kirkus Reviews declared it to be “a perfect primer for the post-industrial age” and Amazon named it a “Selection of the Month.” His previous books have also garnered accolades, ranging from lengthy reviews in The New Yorker to short listing for the “Financial Times Business Book of the Year” prize. He wrote The World is Not Flat, a timely and provocative Special Report in The Economist on the disruptive future for globalization, multinational firms and supply chains.

He led the editorial team that launched Economist Global Business Review, a successful app that is the first bilingual product offered by The Economist in its 175-year history.

Vijay is a Life Member at America’s Council on Foreign Relations, served as a member of the Economic Club of New York and on the Adjunct Faculty at New York University. At the invitation of the Dean, he created and taught the first interdisciplinary class on Energy & Environment offered at the Stern School of Business.

His opinion pieces have appeared in leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The New York Times and Foreign Policy, and he frequently appears on CNBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC, BBC and NPR. He has addressed groups ranging from the US National Governors’ Association and the UN General Assembly to the TED and Aspen Ideas conferences. He also serves as chairman of a provocative series of Innovation Summits organized by The Economist, held annually in Chicago, Hong Kong and London.