Franck Riboud

Congratulations: the topics you have chosen to work on are the right subjects. These are the stakes that are going to change the world tomorrow. But, while discussing, be sure of the reasons why you are talking about these topics: the WHY is what really matters. Is it to make more money? Wrong answer. Is it to be more efficient? Wrong answer. Is it to really build the futur of the world? Yes, that is the right answer.

Danone
France
Dr. Jacques Bughin

Many summits are show horse, not workhorses. Many summits have too many people gathering to listen to big figures, but in an impersonal building. Many summits are just an excuse for a good escape and business card exchange, but not about days of learning about themes/new people. A great summit - is the one where you learn new things, you meet new peers, and you get inspired- all that with a zest of close community, and of marvelous natural surroundings and arts. The G-20Y Summit is just that, especially for the set of young leaders ready to take a step up in their career, and build new leadership.
It has been a pleasure and honor to attend the G-20Y Summit and support the G-20Y Association.

McKinsey, McKinsey Global Institute
Belgium
Rachel Barger

I'm most certainly going to take back my experience at the G-20Y Summits to my customers and to my company. The more people we can have come into environment like this, the more diverse ideas we can have on how we leverage the power and the opportunities that exist with digital transformation.

SAP
Singapore
Daniele Agostini

I have been moderating and facilitating a large number of sessions across the world and it is the first time that I find such type of diversity of very focused and motivated people - it is really a great thing about the G-20Y Summit!

ENEL
Italy
Gregor Pilgram

The G-20Y Summit is a unique platform for insurers, where many insurance sector representatives from all over the world could meet.

Generali
Czech Republic
Barbara Kreissler

I feel very honored that G-20Y Organizing Committee has asked me to be part of this. I’m really excited just reading the program, the agenda and the list of participants on the kind of interaction and discussions that we are going to have on global issues that affect us all.

Signify
Netherlands
Olga Ryabova

I loved the whole idea of top executives coming from different industries and delivering their professional experience to make the best of recommendations for G20 countries heads and for international organizations. You know there was such mood of cooperation, of future understanding I would say. That was really great.

Former Deputy Chairwoman of the Board of Rosbank
Russian Federation
Onur Taysu

G-20Y Summit brings a magnificent group of people together who have adopted a global philosophy and perspective.
The G-20Y Association has utilized an effective selection process and following this selection came an in-depth work, consultation, evaluation and idea-sharing platform. In my opinion, G-20Y Summit is an efficient international think tank and networking platform that will mark the future.
The way the Summit was organized enabled me to learn and at the same time, thanks to the positive synergy existent, led me to contribute as well.
I would like to congratulate everyone who contributed and who attended the summit. I wholeheartedly will continue to support the G-20Y Summits and the G-20Y Association.

UCOM Global GmbH
Germany
Holger Erchinger

I believe the vision of the G-20Y Summit is to make a real and independent contribution regarding what the young generation of business leaders think around the issues the G20 has on its agenda. The G-20Y Summit brings together devoted participants from around the globe with diverse professional backgrounds onto a platform of creative thinking in order to develop some fresh ideas regarding potential solutions.

KPMG LLP New York
United States
Jorge Lukowski

I think the most important thing is to have different cultures, different people, different companies with different interests and all of them in different committees; that they are working together, merging ideas and arrive at consensus. And I think the young perspective which is a different thing – we don't need to make recommendations under any precision of politics or different kind of pressure you have if you are only a company or if you are only representative of government. So I think we can have an opportunity to be fresh, innovating, and creative in order to present a proposal that more recommendations could be actions. I think that the young people would like to take action more than make recommendations.

President & Founder
Argentina
Ekaterina Petelina

The whole idea of G-20Y Summit is that young people bring their ideas that might be controversial, that might be a little provocative, but are fresh. And they share it with the business community. I think and I hope that what we accomplished during these three days will actually be meaningful and will impact the decisions and discussion of G20 leaders.
I just have a habit – wherever someone asks “who?”, I just put my hand up. And this is not the best habit I have but when they asked the volunteer to be Co-Chair – I just thought that I have relevant experience as a former consultant, as a former Head of Strategy of VTB group and a business leader now. I think I have the relevant experience to talk about financial stability and financial regulation, which was the topic of our committee. And I think it’s a very important topic and it’s really one of the top items on G-20Y Summits agenda. Because without financial stability as we’ve seen before it’s really impossible to deliver growth, to deliver prosperity. I really enjoyed working with our committee members, we had ten people from different countries, different economies: Europe, UK, Russia, Malaysia, and Japan. It was interesting to see what similarities we have, what differences we have and different and similar ideas that we share. I think it really enriched my understanding of the industry at the global level and I believe we were able to deliver some meaningful and practical recommendations.
The most interesting moment for me of the Summit was the dancing master-class, because I’d never thought that you can learn how to dance tango in 30 minutes. I think our teachers did a very good job: very simple moves that everybody could repeat and learn within 30 minutes. It was a very good G-20Y and a very fast delivery of results.

VISA
Russian Federation
Philipp von Girsewald

I think it's great to have young business leaders, participating in the G-20Y Summit, who come together from a broad variety of expertise and cultural background, and who come together to discuss certain topics of particularly interest at these times and who try to find the solutions. I think it is not important to have technical expertise in each of the subjects, discussed at the G-20Y Summit. I think it's great to bring in your general expertise, your cultural background and a lot of common sense to come to some proposals which otherwise couldn’t be brought up.

Deposit Solutions
United States
Rolf T. Pasel

You have many business meetings during the year, you have many seminars where you learn something, but these are always in your industry with the same people talking about the same topics. So bringing together business leaders from different industries, geographies, different levels across the G20 – this is interesting. I mean you don't often have the opportunity to talk freely, open-mindly about these kind of topics and discuss the challenges and thoughts of G20 of today.
The Co-Chairing was an interesting experience, because in the end of the session you had a different perspective, different people to integrate. I thought about it before doing the Co-Chairing: one of the important things is not to lose somebody during the process.

Atos International
France
Frank Klaas

Arriving here I saw very fascinating group of people, acting together, discussing together and for me the first step towards understanding G-20Y was to see that this is like a market place where international global people can, without borders in thinking, be together and this is for me the most important aspect.
G-20Y for me stands for creating a global world of communication. We don`t have problems understanding each other and we are probably not creating results, but we are creating the right solutions to create results in the future.
My job was always communication; I’m probably an expert in crisis communications. I think G-20Y is a fascinating opportunity, where people can start to communicate and start to discuss with each other, have the opportunity to meet people from Europe, from Brazil, Australia or Russia, and Italy, and Spain and to share experiences. That is the fascinating world of G-20Y.
I’m a part of a huge financial organization. The whole financial world is today seen a lot in the media. We have here the opportunity to show that we are interested to have a dialog with a lot of people who want to change the world, to develop a new way of acting together. I think it’s very important not only for me but especially also for the industry to have this opportunity to be in an international dialog. I think it’s a great opportunity!

Deutsche Börse Group
Germany
Ananthakrishnan C. Bhoopathy

It's a really good opportunity for people from India because this is the second time we had a delegation to G-20Y Summit. I'm only one person but I hope that probably the message from us will be that more and more Indian participants should be here, because it gives real good chance to interact with people from many countries and to get to know all sorts of issues, global issues which are current and which need to be addressed in future.
The evening events were really enjoyable – especially the day before we had concert over here – it was really enjoyable.

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
India
Manuel Ortigao

Having read the information that was sent to me I immediately concluded that it’s a very interesting organization with very ambitious objectives and for me to be part of the G-20Y Summit would be a challenge and I immediately accepted the invitation and I`m very happy to be here.
I expect that we will be able to put together a few recommendations to the G20 governments and that these recommendations will contribute to improving the working conditions and living conditions of citizens across the world.

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions
Ireland
Anton Kotov

I think we all, participants of G-20Y Summit, care about our planet and we are not indifferent to what is happening in the world.
The organization is fabulous. I can only say the words of compliments and I have been very impressed with both: the quality of participants and the way the event is organized.
I would be very delighted to continue and I definitely recommend this event to my colleagues in Schneider.

Schneider Electric
France
Valerie Diele-Braun

Having been nominated by DSM, I felt very honored to be able to attend this event as it had always been a dream for me to participate in such a venue. The G-20Y is for me the small version of the WEF and a learning ground for young executives to exchange thoughts and ideas, make connections and work on the future with other smart people. Having more and more burning issues in the world, such as the economic crisis, the change of demographics and the environmental shifts to name just a few, I think it’s fantastic to exchange views with a wide variety of people and to come up with suggestions that might help to shape our future positively.

Royal DSM
Netherlands
Ann Haugh

Thank you so much for a challenging, entertaining and worthwhile G-20Y Summit event. I thoroughly enjoyed the people, the atmosphere and the challenging opportunity presented to us.

Zurich Global Corporate
United Kingdom
Paolo Sarcinelli

It's pleasure for me to be invited for the G-20Y Summit. It's been interesting two and a half days of work. There was a lot of discussion. I think at the end we have been in a position to have a positive dialogue between different members of the Committee. And we have been able to find and put together a nice compromise on a number of controversial matters.

Intesa Sanpaolo
Italy
Alistar Rose

We are fortunate that we had participants across a multiple different countries across the world, from different types of organisations, from different sectors. We had a very interesting lively debated times. I think it was of a very high quality. I realized the depth of the conversation to be going on in the each of different committees. I think the whole concept behind the G-20Y is great.

Tesco Plc
United Kingdom
Kartini Sally

The working process was wonderful. Because we can see a lot of people from other countries: Brazil, from Malaysia, even from UK –a UK person works in China, he shared his experience in China and also from US. We share all information and all the practices of how to fight corruption in our country. We are very surprised that there is actually only one conference – United Nation Conference about fighting corruption and also UOECD conference against bribery. But I think not all the countries have ratified and implemented the conference, maybe we should give some views, some recommendations that all G20 countries and other countries can implement the United Nation Conference and UOECD conference against bribery. There have been discussions that fighting corruption, money laundering and also bribery and financial terrorism are linked together, so every country should be aware about these issues, this not only a problem of developed countries.
My president attended G-20Y Summit last year in Mexico, he asked senior level manager in Bank Mandiri, he shared his views of G20 of last years, so this is a good opportunity. We are going to send our senior manager to G-20Y Summit.
I think it's a very good opportunity for me to attend G-20Y Summit. This is first time I have attended an international Summit with different views and different subjects. I usually attend workshops or meetings about banking, just only banking but there are more issues we can discuss together.

Bank Mandiri
Indonesia
Caio Ramos

For me it was a big honor to come here because I think it's a good forum in which many countries in the world including the emerging countries can discuss and debate all the problems that they have and try to come up with some suggestions for the future.

Suape Port and Industrial Complex
Brazil
Mathieu Staniulis

I think G-20Y is such an important event in the world because as the young leaders we have to tell the world what we think and what we should accomplish in the next few years, because we have a responsibility to make things change and make a better world.
I worked on the “City of tomorrow” Committee – we had a broad issue to talk about, we tried to figure out what the city of tomorrow would be like and one of the things that I’m very happy to see in the result is that we talked about local communities – how we should design the cities of tomorrow with strong local communities where you can actually get involved as a citizen in your community to share services and actually go further with the challenges the city now faces.
The G-20Y events are nice because you actually have a lot of real work during the day it's so much fun to work with a bunch of people from all around the world with different backgrounds – this is very interesting. And then at night you can socialize, talk to those same people by the way with a more personal feel – this makes the entire experience, so much fun.
My favorite event was the opening Gala ceremony. Our company Desjardins, we got an award for our 3-year friendship with the G-20Y. So it was quite nice experience for us to receive that award.

Desjardins
Canada
Irina Bakhtina

There was no question of whether to participate or not actually when the invitation arrived because, for our company, it is incredibly important what exactly is on G20 agenda, not only this year, but in general. Over the last period of time Unilever was Co-Chairing the “Food security” Committee on the B20 initiatives in Rio with a quite valuable contribution, I hope, to the Communiqué which was produced by this committee. For us food security is not just an empty word and we really look to this agenda and how it’s being approach by the government on the G20 level.
What was specifically interesting about the Summit, actually, was the combination of participants which attended. The executive level of the biggest international corporations and some of the real big and significant Russian corporations, as soon as we are in Russia we are speaking about this, representatives of the international non-governmental organizations as well. I believe, this is an incredible group of people, I believe, team of people, who got together in St. Petersburg are really invested their time, not having to open e-mail and stuff which we left behind in office, but really invested our time, being focused on the agenda, which is with us today; and really trying to share the best ideas, many fresh ideas by the way, the most creative ideas I’ve ever heard, on those important areas of real G20 interests.
The program is really sophisticated: dance master-classes, the whole atmosphere of the classical music, combination of it and really amazing atmosphere of the city itself. It's the best season in the city. I believe it's something that going to be quite memorable.

Unilever Rus Ltd.
Russian Federation
Jose Joao Batista Stival Jr.

It`s important to be here: from the political part and also from the private part.
It's a unique experience to meet 20 countries partners and discuss the same themes. It’s shows that we are going to the same direction – we want to have the same result. For sure a discussion of the mid or long term will be useful for me and for Brazil and for all the countries.
About the organisation I just have to say that everything is perfect!

Cooperfrigu
Brazil
Raimund Kirchleitner

In my eyes, the G-20Y Summit is a unique opportunity to interact and communicate to motivated young ambitious c-executives; and to also interact with people from other business sectors.
I think it is super important to have the young generation of c-executives round one table at such aconference to exchange ideas,and to forward these ideas to those who are really on the steering-wheel regarding the future of our planet. I believe by havingworked out our papers we can somehow, let’s say contribute to the future and a better development of the world, whereby in our working group`s case especially regarding the financial world.
I believe it was quite useful, quite interesting, even if we were discussing theoretical topics mainly,but this is the purpose of this one. It was in any case also interconnected withreal life and with taking concrete action in the future. I was also able to extend my network, meet interesting people, which I will follow up with in the future. I found it quite useful, also to experience St. Petersburg, which is truly a nice place for this event. I also enjoyed very much the side events.
My favorite one was the yachting regatta – it was really good fun. We had perfect weather, even if we were lacking wind, so we were not really going that fast, but nevertheless it was good fun. Unfortunately we only got the second place – so we were the first loser. But nevertheless it was not really about competition – it was much more about fun and communication. For me it was alsoa nice opportunity to have my daily swim in the Gulf of Finland. I really enjoyed it very much.

St. Moritz Bäder AG
Switzerland
Alastair Grier

G-20Y benefitted both me personally and also RBS. The different cultures and points of views were interesting and refreshing. What came out most is that the challenges that our customers have in the UK are also the same challenges that customers have in many different countries from India to France. This gave me excellent insight into new solutions for our customers and also into how RBS could better support at a macro level, the UK economy.

The Royal Bank of Scotland
United Kingdom
G-20Y Summit 2015 Online
Outcomes of the G-20Y Summit 2015: Creating Jobs Committee
November 2, 2015
As the world population increases in the face of modest global economic growth, so too does unemployment. Linda Kromjong, Secretary General of the International Organisation of Employers, conveyed to the 2015 G-20Y Association the need to understand the issue of creating jobs through the business perspective, and to utilise business as the driving force for solving employment issues; as Kromjong stated, "No one else will be able to do so."
For the 2015 Creating Jobs agenda, the Committee - with Olga Ryabova, Former Deputy Chairwoman of the Board of Rosbank in Russia as its Term Chair - highlighted three key focuses; youth unemployment, female participation (and gender equality), and the needs for labour supply to meet demand. Africa was also discussed; a region with a population set to boom in the oncoming years that will have unavoidable consequences for creating jobs on a global scale.
It is difficult to deny the relevance of the issue of unemployment for every society. An acute and ongoing lack of jobs means a lack of economic growth and GDP stagnation. This, together with negative impacts on social cohesion, and disproportionate use of natural resources amongst the unemployed social demographic. Social issues that impact on a more idiosyncratic, yet long-lasting level also come into play; issues of inclusiveness, providing meaningful life, and the lack of mental stability that may come with a lack of financial income. Negative conflicts can also arise in the political arena when unemployment is on a wide, national scale. The committee emphasised the crucial necessity of a politically stable, secure environment in order to see a nation's workforce prosper and flourish.
Youth unemployment has been and remains a critical global issue, despite its place on the top of many corporation agendas. Across the world, seventy million young people remain unemployed, legitimising fears held by those such as Kromjong of a "lost generation". This is despite the fact that investing in youth has its clear advantages; companies can increase productivity, create positive brand awareness, stand out from competitors and benefit the communities that surround them by encouraging schemes for youth employment. However; one of the utmost important issues the committee identified was educational and training institutions who are not offering up the adequate skills employers require, both in the professional and the personal sense. Skills in professional competencies - for example, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and time management - and those in the personal sense, such as time keeping and adaptability, are largely found to be lacking for many employers. 30% of global employers find it difficult to fill vacant positions. This can be solved by adequate vocational training and lifelong learning practices from a young age. Youth with VET certificates in OECD countries have an 11% higher employment rate than their peers without such early qualifications.
Peter Shiras, one of the Creating Jobs Committee Speakers and Executive Vice President of the International Youth Foundation, outlined a number of key recommendations in the role businesses can take in combating youth unemployment. Businesses, it was stated, should align social responsibility and sustainability programmes with businesses' demands for talent, providing benefits for both business and society in that the right jobs are created for the right people. This could take the form of work placement volunteering; accelerating the workforce development for youth, businesses and society in broader terms. Challenges may arise, however, when considering that not every young person can afford - both in terms of time and money - to volunteer in a company. Taking on actual employment simply to support themselves or their families is a better option for a lot of global youth. This raises the issue of financial support for internships, apprenticeships and training programmes for youth to ensure that young people from every background are exposed to equal opportunities. Businesses, it was stated, may want to do more to create partnerships with educational institutions willing to fund their students to undertake unpaid roles. This would eliminate one of the main workforce constraints (unequal opportunities due to wealth) hindering young people when it comes to finding experience relevant to their skills, or the skills they wish to acquire. The need to upgrade and expand capacity of institutions working to support young people as entrepreneurs - by vocation, not necessity - and giving them the necessary financial and educational tools they need in order to do this was also seen as key.
Education-business partnerships will also ensure a better communication dynamic between the respective business and the institution, in that relevant training is taking place that is guaranteed to benefit and meet the needs of employers. Providing "on-the-job" ROI training, internships and apprenticeships to young people as a talent sourcing strategy is crucial. This enables practical experience, and gives companies more means to hire the best talent.
Developing sufficient skill sets from youth, however, has no advantage if there are no young people willing to work in those businesses. The growing trend of certain industries being seen as undesirable needs to be addressed. Many young people have images of certain industries (this is particularly relevant to manual labour industries) as being low paid and boring, despite the fact that these industries are very focused on developing specific skills for a specific need that will always be in demand. This means that some regions have more than enough young people ready to join the workforce, and enough jobs, yet the jobs which are vacant are being shunned in favour of focusing on jobs with a more uncertain route to success (such as journalism). A move away from industry bias and stereotypes is crucial if countries want to mobilise one hundred percent of their talent pool, and increase GDP in the long-term.
The challenges that women face, both in terms of getting into the workforce and the workplace environment, continue to hinder the optimum potential of companies. Female empowerment, it was discussed, is critical for sustainable development, and equality benefits business. If female employment figures matched that of male figures, GDP would increase by 5% in the USA, 9% in the UAE and a significant 34% in Egypt. Ensuring women have a place amongst the national workforce is essential for building strong economies, as well as establishing a more stable and just society. The committee agreed upon the need for businesses to increase their investments in female participation in a broad range of areas.
Living in a highly diverse world does not mean it is inclusive by default. This is especially true in the business sphere. Underrepresentation of women in decision making bodies worldwide is clear; just 13% of parliamentary seats across the globe are taken by women. In EU businesses, just 10% are female directors in large listed companies. This is in contrast to the growing trend of women overtaking men in education; UNESCO, for example, reports that globally, women outnumber men in Bachelor's degrees. Gender equality laws also fail to influence businesses sufficiently to combat the issue of silencing women into "lesser roles" such as those within Human Resource departments, rather than considering women for leadership roles. The gravity of the current situation is further emphasised when considering that whilst decisions in business are largely being made by men, the main consumers holding such businesses afloat are women. Women are influencing or making 85% of all consumer purchases, yet 91% of women say advertises do not understand them. This further highlights the need to increase, for example, the feeble 3% of female creative directors within US advertising agencies.
The committee recommended that difficulties attributed to implementing equality, and bringing women to the forefront of business decision making be identified in the workplace and the workforce as a whole. Social advancement, it was discussed, is one of the key issues; discrimination attributes and gender role expectations (namely, culturally dependent philosophies on what makes a "good mother", a "good wife", and negative connotations behind the "stay-at-home Dad") are stumbling blocks on the way to a higher social position, therefore educating and changing mindsets is crucial.
Educating women on the realities of a promotion is also critical; contrary to the belief that balancing career and family demands is not possible when a woman reaches the top, higher percentages of women in work have been seen in many places to encourage women to have more children, not less, possibly due to comfort financially and flexible company policies regarding childcare. In areas such as this, it was recommended that politicians should adapt laws and legal framework for businesses then to build upon. This is particularly relevant to countries such as Japan, where tax restrictions on those not considered "dependents" encourage many women to exclude themselves from the workforce, especially in favour of baring the majority of the childcare burden. Having said this, multinational companies have the power and resources, it was recognised, to implement their own new standards, and this should be utilised in order to set the bar across the business spectrum and make a difference.
With more women taking up leadership positions also begs the questions of who fills the roles left behind. In such roles that remain crucial to a company's internal structure, it is mostly women of a foreign nationality that fulfill these roles, causing them to leave countries and thus decrease the prosperity of their homeland. The issue of educated and qualified individuals abandoning their native countries for more attractive offers in developed nations is an issue that affects both men and women. The question of how to best combat this phenomenon remains to be seen. Global institutions, the committee suggested, with increased knowledge transfer and connectivity, more transparency and better support for local communities may be a starting point for making homeland institutions attractive enough for educated and qualified individuals to remain in their native workforce.
Labour supply and demand, and the mismatch in these two factors, was also propelled to the top of the 2015 agenda. 40% employers struggle to fill entry level positions. Even in regions such as Africa, with an oversupply of people looking for jobs, employers are struggling due to a mismatch of skills that will adequately benefit businesses. Small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) were identified as driving factors in creating jobs, but this cannot remain the case if skill sets continue to lack. A key recommendation in combating this was to identify ROI initiatives for workforce training and investments on the part of companies. As was previously seen as a possible solution for tackling youth unemployment, individual companies establishing partnerships with academia and creating consulting forums to ensure such investments are really paying off is critical for business growth. Building the capacity of training providers both public and private is critical for meeting industrial needs for talent.
The issue of loyalty was highlighted as a concern, however, in that there are clear losses for companies who hire and train employees, only for them to go elsewhere with such training. Jeremy Goldstrich, Managing Director of Ground Operations for FedEx Express in the USA and Japan, conveyed an example within his own company of a significant number of new FedEx employees in China quickly leaving for a rival company because of attractive wage offers. This may be where the priorities of companies and implementing the right policies in regards to employees are considered in detail, in regards to how they can best benefit their employees in order to increase the loyalty factor.
Another focal point concerned Africa. Africa's upcoming population growth, and the implications this may have in regards to creating jobs, are crucial for the future of the global economy. 70% of Africa's population is under 30, and by 2040, Africa will be home to 50% of the world's youth. However; the formal economy only makes up 20% of the employment in Africa, with most working in the informal economy. These factors present an economic opportunity as well as a challenge. If Africa is not successful in combating these trends, this will present a huge threat to consequences for social cohesion and stability. The problem with Africa, according to the committee, involves literally creating the jobs, as well as precarious employment, as opposed to unemployment.
There are no single routes to creating jobs, and the committee's eclectic approach to the various methodologies made discussions, recommendations and possible solutions balanced and attainable for all parts of society. In Switzerland, only 16% are able to go to university, yet this country is still economically prosperous. The future goal is for all nations to be able to create more routes for jobs to be attainable for every member of society. To achieve this, collaboration is critical in both public and private partnerships, businesses and educational institutions, and ensuring equality between the genders. SMEs, it was stated, need to ensure they are meeting the standards held by the larger companies in terms of what they seek in the suppliers of their service, and resistance from businesses that are loath to invest the time in training in favour of the current working model need to be persuaded to change their mindsets. As Kromjong stated, it is the responsibility of businesses to influence the debate on both national and international scales, as "Without the leadership of business, it's not going to happen...When we find solutions together, that's the best way forward."
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