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We will engage with senior leaders to understand how the role of the board has changed over the past decade, whether the board still remains primarily a device for oversight, risk mitigation and compliance or whether boards are starting to play a new role in pushing the companies towards discovery of novel opportunities. We will also explore national differences in how the boards work and the increasingly important role that female directors play in the boardrooms in different countries. Our panelists bring enormous experience of board membership from around the world. They are also eager to discuss new research puzzles that academics studying international governance could focus on. 

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Plenary: Digital Disruption: A Look at Industries and their Futures

Participants: Bruce Kogut, Columbia University; Bo Rothstein, University of Gothenburg; Luigi Zingales, University of Chicago

Business and governments are often partners, sometimes for the good, all too often for the bad. They are frequently derided by populists and by politicians of the left and right for placing their self-interest above societal interest. Yet, they are also viewed as the only countervailing global force to the deglobalizing rhetoric by nationalists. This panel features a debate among these different views, one holding that business corrupts the state and the state corrupts business especially in industries of political salience, such as the media. Another view does not reject this view, but offers an analysis of the sources of independent power when states and governments are successful in pursuing goals of societal interest.

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Plenary: Internationalizing Digital Business Models

Participants: Andrew Shipilov, INSEAD; Nicolas Brusson, BlaBlaCar; Carlos Menendez, Mastercard; Corinne Vigreux, TomTom

It seems that digital technologies have eliminated barriers for moving a business model from one country to another. Or have they? Does digital force us to rethink traditional internationalization models, create opportunities for model refinement or we should keep our models as is? In this session we will discuss with senior leaders from financial, transport and navigation sectors how internationalization happens in the digital age, what factors make internationalization of digital business models easier and where barriers to internationalization still remain. We will also examine whether digital has lowered the need for alliances and partnerships to reach international markets or whether collaboration still remains an important vehicle for internationalization.

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Plenary: Ecosystems in the Automotive Industry

Participants: Michael G. Jacobides, London Business School; Laurent Kocher, Keolis; Jörg Lamparter, Daimler Financial Services AG; Nikolaus Lang, Boston Consulting Group; Arwen Smit, DOVU

One of the sectors which has most been transformed in the past few years is mobility. After a long period of stability, with clear industry boundaries and a clear separation between the segments in the mobility sector, new technologies, changing customer expectations and resulting in new business models, as well as the evolution of societal needs, have led to new ecosystem structures which are redefining the competitive landscape. During the session, a set of mobility experts with diverse backgrounds will share their views on what is driving this strategic transformation, examine the strategic implications of these changes for the different players, and discuss how private and public sector need to work together to create sustainable mobility ecosystems.

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Tuesday Sept 25, 14:30-15:30

Plenary: Revisiting the Geographic Space of Value Creation and Appropriation from the Complementary Assets Framework

Participants:  Minyoung Kim, University of Kansas; Curba M Lampert, Florida International University; Raja Roy, New Jersey Institute of Technology; Yves Doz, INSEAD; Constance Helfat, Dartmouth College; David Teece, University of California, Berkeley; Alain Verbeke, University of Calgary

Over the past decade, the seemingly diminishing interdependence of countries begs for a new dialogue on the geographic space of value creation and value appropriation. The literature of global strategy has delineated how firm internationalization is a source of both; however, the era of de-globalization creates new opportunities and challenges for firms to manage the internationalization of their activities. To address these changing dynamics, we take the complementary assets perspective--which provides a systematic understanding of both value creation and value appropriation-and revisit the geographic space of profiting from innovation. Well-established in the technology management and innovation literature, the complementary assets framework can shed new light on the importance of geographic space in creating and capturing economic rent from innovation.

Participants: Thierry Breton, ATOS; Andrew Shipilov, INSEAD

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with approximately 100,000 employees in 73 countries and annual revenue of around € 12 billion. The group supports the digital transformation of its clients across various business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Energy & Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications and Transportation. The group's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Thierry Breton, will share the latest case studies of how Atos has created value by helping its partners go through digital transformation. He will discuss Atos' recent collaboration with Google to help partners integrate Artificial Intelligence in their processes as well as the lessons which Atos has learned in building an ecosystem for quantum computing. Finally, Mr. Breton will share his views on what companies like Atos can do in order to promote technological innovation in France and in Europe.

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Also, please don't forget a presentation by Emmanuel Faber, CEO of Danone, who is a recipient of SMS Lifetime Achievement Award. It will take place on Sunday Sept 23 right after the conference's opening at 13:45-14:30 time slot.

Best wishes