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Shellie Karabell

Biography

Shellie Karabell is Director and Executive Editor of INSEAD Knowledge.

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Economics & Finance

Can Europe Regain Its Once-Competitive Edge?

The continent has educated talent, a huge population, and massive wealth. It also has rigid labour laws, crushing tax systems and a bias against risk-taking.

Leadership & Organisations

Women on boards: No quotas...yet

EU to vote on controversial issue next month; INSEAD corporate governance leaders weigh in.
1 comment

Entrepreneurship

Global Innovation Index 2012

Report shows Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore most innovative.

Entrepreneurship

Competing for the cloud

Cloud computing has made life easy for millions of users. But it’s a different story for software companies providing those cloud-based services: the field is small, the game is fast and the battle for dominance is fierce. SAP is determined to win.

Economics & Finance

So it’s the euro, not the drachma…

New Democracy won a narrow victory in the recent Greek election and is on the verge of forming a three-party coalition government. What’s going to be interesting is to see how the new government is going to renegotiate the bailout with the “Troika‟ (European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank).

Entrepreneurship

What is our networked readiness?

When the INSEAD/WEF Global Information Technology Report was created 11 years ago, the countries with the most fixed-line telephones were the best-connected in the world. Today, it’s a much different story.

Leadership & Organisations

Steve Jobs: Speaking from the wilderness

Editor’s Note: Nearly 16 years ago to the day, I interviewed Steve Jobs at an investment conference in San Francisco, California. He was “out of favour,” in-between his bifurcated tenure at the helm of Apple, revolutionising movie-making as chairman and CEO of Pixar. In retrospect, we see that Jobs brought his Apple technology approach to the movies and took movie marketing with him back to Apple…

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership today: An inward journey

Executive training may not make a leader out of a follower, but it certainly can make a promising leader better... provided he's willing to put in the effort and take a good long look into his soul.
1 comment

Entrepreneurship

Don't make it; buy it!

There’s more than one way to become an entrepreneur: instead of starting your own company, you can go out and buy one.
1 comment

Economics & Finance

The Russians are coming!

Sberbank has been the bank of babushkas since the day of the Tsars. Now it has its sights on a much bigger market.

Leadership & Organisations

"The Awakening of the People"

Olivier Giscard d'Estaing looks back to reflect on the future.

Economics & Finance

Beyond downgrades: Seeking signs of recovery

If today's economic crisis seems akin to the Great Depression, consider this: so is the caution that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Economics & Finance

Art insurance: where beauty meets the beast

With investors turning to art as a place to park their money hoping for high returns, behind-the-scenes, one corporate CEO is keeping tabs on the risks vs. rewards of art as an asset and what it takes to keep the formula from falling apart.

Strategy

Can you survive today's business world?

Innovation may be the buzz word, but it’s no panacea. Professor Morten Hansen and Jim Collins’ new book “Great by Choice” shows what else you need to stay alive and ahead of the rest.

Economics & Finance

Too much demand, too little space

China’s booming luxury goods market means even the fashion industry’s flagship publication is working flat out to keep pace.

Economics & Finance

What kind of recession is this?

Not since the Great Depression has the world economy seen such a perfect storm of failed policies, rising unemployment and stalled growth. Many use the “R” word … but is that “recovery” or “recession”?

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership: Are you connecting and collaborating?

S. Karabell, H. Ibarrra

New research shows that unless you venture beyond your corporate walls, you’ll fall behind the competition.

Economics & Finance

Trading places

Numbers may not lie, but often their true significance lies in closer scrutiny. And a good example of this statement lies in the numbers used to tout the world’s great trade imbalance with China - a deficit that shows the EU trade deficit growing from 50 billion euros in 2000 to 297 billion in 2008. “But,” says Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the 153-member Geneva-based World Trade Organisation, “trade imbalances ... are not negative in themselves. What is important is to look at the overall trade balance. In Europe, more than 70 per cent of trade is intra-European. The impact of Europe’s trade imbalance with China is therefore more limited than one would think.”

Economics & Finance

When profits are private and losses are public

Thomas Huertas of the Financial Services Authority, regulator of the financial services industry in the UK, is a firm believer that better regulation will avoid a repetition of the recent financial meltdown.

Economics & Finance

Who should shoulder the cost of bank bailouts?

INSEAD professor of finance Theo Vermaelen makes a case for his own version of convertible capital as the panacea to government bailouts when banks fail.

Economics & Finance

Can there be financial transformation in the Middle East?

Shellie Karabell

The Chief Economist of the Dubai International Financial Center describes his vision for economic growth, consolidation and investment in one of the world’s most diverse regions in the Middle East?

Leadership & Organisations

Leadership today: less charisma, more consensus

When you think of words to describe good leadership, ‘charisma’ usually comes somewhere near the top of the list. After all, all the good ideas in the world won’t get anywhere if you aren’t compelling enough to get people to listen to you. But not all successful CEOs are charismatic and today’s complex and profound economic crisis has created a real challenge both for executives and for the professionals who train them.

Leadership & Organisations

Claire Pike remembers

In 1968, Claire Pike began her MBA studies at INSEAD, her first step on the road leading to her present position as Secretary General of the school. After three decades of service, she talks to INSEAD Knowledge Executive Editor Shellie Karabell about her experiences and about developments at the school.

Responsibility

A view of the Indian Healthcare landscape

Harpal Singh of Fortis Healthcare examines the strengths and challenges in the Indian business arena.
2 comments

Strategy

M&As: Not necessarily the best way to grow your company

There could be other ways to acquire the skills and competencies you need without actually buying them outright, says INSEAD Professor Laurence Capron.

Leadership & Organisations

What’s your CEO really worth?

If there is a culprit behind the dismal state of corporate governance today, INSEAD Professor Ludo Van der Heyden blames Wall Street capitalism.

Leadership & Organisations

Corporate models for corporate governance

 “There are some paradigms of companies that not only create strong wealth - creating incentives for top managers – but seem to sustain that, seem to do it year after year. One of my favourites is Johnson & Johnson…” INSEAD Professor of Accounting and Control S. David Young.

Economics & Finance

Putting Europe back on track

What will it take to put Europe back on track? That question was the basis for the eighth European Business Summit and a research report conducted by INSEAD, Accenture and the Federation of Enterprises in Belgium, with funding from Sun and Microsoft.

Leadership & Organisations

Taking the lead

Peter Grauer, the Chairman and CEO of Bloomberg, is a man with a mantra and he repeats it every chance he gets: “We have an aspiration at Bloomberg to become the most influential news organisation in the world.”

Responsibility

The path to energy futures

There is an obvious connection between energy and economic growth: cheap fuel means lower production costs. As energy consumption is on an upward trajectory -with growth in the Far East and Latin America outpacing the industrialised countries in the near term - the key to prosperity is to develop cheaper and sustainable sources of fuel to replace fossil fuels and curtail the environmentally-unfriendly carbon footprint.

Economics & Finance

Making more from less

Global growth isn’t all about jobs and the stock market: it’s also about people. The global population will increase, despite the ageing baby boomer generation; there will be increased demands for minerals, energy, food, even blood.

Family Business

Braving the economic crisis through family values

When the economic crisis hit, the family owned and operated shipping-real estate Romav Group suffered a double-whammy. Practically overnight.

Leadership & Organisations

Is it over yet? Businessmen offer recession insight

These are indeed times that try men's (and women's) souls. But the way forward is not to cut back or sit on the sidelines. According to several business leaders attending INSEAD's Leadership Summit Europe, you’ve got to keep one eye on the balance sheet, another on the horizon and be mindful of constant change as new circumstances will often hide opportunities in what appears to be trouble.

Responsibility

Just what kind of business is there in sustainability?

Whether in energy, healthcare or micro-investing, is there a real business model in sustaining the world's resources and improving the quality of life for its inhabitants? INSEAD Knowledge attended the IESE Net Impact Doing Good and Doing Well conference in Barcelona recently, and found evidence that many companies and individuals are finding there are business models, if you are prepared to think creatively and be just a bit audacious.

Marketing

Just a pretty face(book)? Social media tries to come of age

Emails are old hat; SMSs passe. Tweeting, blogging, and posting on “walls” are no longer the domain of the under-30s. They have become a staple of the way most people in the world communicate today, of the way Fortune 100 companies reach out to customers old and new.

Economics & Finance

Microfinance comes of age

"Microfinance is banking, and banking is our core competence, so it makes sense for us to be active in this area,” says Arthur Vayloyan, Head of Investment Services and Products, Private Banking, at Credit Suisse in Zurich.

Entrepreneurship

Wired in: who leads the networking world?

The answer is: look north – to Scandinavia. All four of those countries are in the top ten of The Networked Readiness Index 2009-2010, part of the Global Information Technology Report published by INSEAD and the World Economic Forum, now in its ninth edition.

Entrepreneurship

The double bottom line

The current economic malaise has sent investors looking for new avenues of investment - not just for the financial returns but also to make a difference in the world at large. Enter the socially-responsible investment, a niche market that is now coming of age.

Leadership & Organisations

CEO view: Josep Oliu, Banco Sabadell

Josep Oliu has been through three economic crises as a banker in Spain -- two of them since becoming CEO of Banco Sabadell Group. The veteran banker spoke with INSEAD Knowledge recently at the Group’s headquarters in Barcelona about the crisis and what we can learn from it.

Leadership & Organisations

Inside the world of Sir Martin Sorrell

“Our strategy is built on three pillars,” says communications guru Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of the world’s largest communications services company, WPP. ‘New markets’, which means the shift to Asia and the South, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and Next-11 markets; ‘new media’, that’s digital in the sense of PC, mobile and video content; and ‘consumer insight,’ “because we’re very focused on how the consumer is changing, not just in a recessionary environment but in the longer term: their media consumption habits, not just their reaction to products and services.”
1 comment

Economics & Finance

Gaining a competitive advantage with knowledge-based skills

The financial crisis has highlighted deficiencies in knowledge-based skills in Europe and unless they’re tackled now, the region could get left behind. That was one of the key messages from an event held recently at INSEAD’s Europe campus in France.

Responsibility

Copenhagen a flop? Not so, say energy investors

One look at the amount of money needed to fund the projected demand for energy, coupled with a glance at EU and other policy directives aimed at reducing the world’s carbon footprint, and it becomes clear a little political squabbling on the world stage isn’t going to deter investors from looking for big returns from a nascent industry with a bright future.