In 1992, long before Vicente Fox Quesada became president of Mexico, before Jose Manuel Barozzo led the European Commission, before U.S. trade representative Bob Zelick joined the Bush Administration — they were inextricably linked together by Paul Laudicina.
These men, part of an elite group of the world's foremost policy thought leaders and influential corporate executives, would participate in private, sometimes off-the-record dialogs to discuss the risks and opportunities of globalization and the relationship between government policy and economic growth. They were the pioneers of A.T. Kearney's Global Business Policy Council — with Laudicina as facilitator.
"It's a continuous process of identifying the people who have the right stuff, who are shapers of thought and the policy environment in which business has to operate," says Laudicina, A.T. Kearney vice president and managing director, who created the council. "We've had very good luck in identifying the most important people who are helping to define the business environment globally."
Laudicina cultivated his early relationships with future leaders through his work as a legislative director in the U.S. Senate, as associate fellow of the Overseas Development Council, as a research associate for the United Nations' Center for Economic and Social Information, and as a vice president of SRI International — all before joining A.T. Kearney in 1991.
Armed with his 24 years of public and private sector experience and the knowledge gained from the council, Laudicina today helps clients navigate the rapidly changing terrain of globalization.
At the council's first meeting in Vienna, Austria, in the spring of 1992, the group focused on the opening of Eastern and Central Europe and began to identify the interdependent risks associated with globalization. By the mid-'90s, the group foresaw the prospect of a SARS-like disease that could create a pandemic because of the integration of societies and the rapid movement of people. "That's been the mission of the council — to be an early-warning sentry," Laudicina says. "We have counseled companies on the kinds of things they need to do to be able to wire around problems."
Today, the council sees an environment of fundamental risk aversion in the post-9/11, post-Enron world. "Companies have to develop a much better peripheral vision to be able to see advancing opportunities and risks," observes Laudicina.
Among the council's highly regarded intellectual capital is the Globalization Index, an annual report that measures the extent to which countries are integrated economically, politically, socially, and technologically. "Those countries that are globalized also have better income distribution, better environmental standards, higher educational performance, and better performance against the UN human development index," which creates a lucrative business environment, he explains.
Business leaders need to recognize looming global changes and at the same time seize opportunities — a process Laudicina covers extensively in his book World Out of Balance (McGraw-Hill, 2005), which one reviewer describes as "a matter of rigorously researching and powerfully imagining the future in order to inform the present."
"Don't assume that the past is prologue," Laudicina cautions. "Fine-tune your organization to be sensitive to future opportunities and risks." — Stacy Collett
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