Programme

Deceleration of global growth is calling into question the current market economy system where the benefits of free trade and technological progress are redistributed among a limited number of participants and social fairness is ensured through growth of national wealth. Boardrooms must now react to a more assertive government direction in corporate decision-making, including trade, investment, and technology strategies. Are we witnessing the start of a transformation of the capitalist model? How are these new interventionist policies impacting global trade and investment and what should business do to successfully navigate these trends?

Moderator:
Charles Robertson , Global Chief Economist, Renaissance Capital

Charles Robertson

Global Chief Economist, Renaissance Capital

Charles Robertson, a leading emerging markets specialist, is Renaissance Capital’s Global Chief Economist and Head of the Firm’s Macro-strategy Unit. Mr. Robertson covers the global economic themes having the greatest impact on emerging markets. Over the past decade, the scope of Mr. Robertson’s work has covered, among other topics: quantifying political risk in emerging markets; how the retirement age rising to 67 reflects deep-rooted problems in the West and great opportunities in emerging markets; the revolutionary nature of growth in countries with non-democratic governments; the fact that Africa’s economies are now returning some of the highest growth rates on Earth, and how this trend is set to play out; the impact of terrorism and natural disasters on economies; the effects of falling agricultural stocks on food prices and inflation; and how emerging-markets banks may have the best growth potential over the coming years. Mr. Robertson is the lead author of The Fastest Billion: The Story Behind Africa’s Economic Revolution (www.fastestbillion.com), published in October 2012. Mr. Robertson was ranked the number-one economics and macro analyst for emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the Extel survey in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. In addition, the team he led was ranked the best macro team in Extel’s 2010 survey of equity investors. Another of Charlie’s teams took first place for SSA coverage in the institutional investor survey for 2012.

Panellists
Oleg Vyugin , Member of the Board of Directors, Independent Director, Rosneft; Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics
Dmitry Kurdyukov , First Deputy Chairman, Member of the Board, State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)
Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz , Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment of the Republic of Cuba
John Perkins , Founder, Chairman, Dream Change Inc
Jim Rogers , Chairman, Beeland Interests Inc
Andy Xie , Independent Economist

Oleg Vyugin

Member of the Board of Directors, Independent Director, Rosneft; Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics

Before joining the MDM Bank Board of Directors in 2007, Oleg headed the Federal Financial Markets Service of the Russian Federation, a position he had held since 2004.Between 1999 and 2002 he was Executive Vice-President at Troika Dialog, Russia’s oldest investment company. Oleg has also held a variety of senior positions within the Russian government, including First Deputy Minister of Finance, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, and extraordinary advisor to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.After graduating from the department of mechanics and mathematics at Moscow State University in 1974, Oleg successfully defended his PhD in physics and mathematics at the same university in 1977.

Dmitry Kurdyukov

First Deputy Chairman, Member of the Board, State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank)

Education Leningrad Institute of Engineering and Economics named after P. Togliatti, 1994; Degree - Planning Engineer, Major in Informatics for Economics and Automated Control Systems. London Business School, 2013; Major in Management and Finance for Bankers. Stanford University, 2015; Major in Future of Banking: Best Foreign Practices. Academic credentials Ph.D. in Economics, 1998. Employment history 1995 – 1998 - Leading Specialist in the Stock Exchange Operations Group, Head of Stock Exchange Operations Department, Head of the Dealing Centre of St. Petersburg branch Raduga, Promradtechbank. 1999 – 2003 - Head of the Customer Services Department, Ural-Siberian Bank. 2003 – 2005 - Head of the Corporate Business Department, St. Petersburg branch, Bank of Moscow. 2005 – 2007 - Deputy Head of the North-Western Regional Corporate Business Directorate, Uralsib Bank. 2007 – 2009 - Chairman of the Board at Uralsib South Bank, Head of the Southern Regional Directorate, Uralsib Bank. 2009 – 2010 - Chef Executive Officer of the Chief Executive Corporate and Banking Business Directorate, Uralsib Bank. 2010 – 2012 - Counsellor to the President, Chairman of Povolzhskiy Bank, Sberbank. 2013 – 2017 - Chairman of North-Western Bank, Sberbank. Since March 2017 - Vnesheconombank's First Deputy Chairman – Member of the Board. Merit awards Certificate of Acknowledgement by the President of the Russian Federation; Certificate of Acknowledgement by the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly; Certificate of Appreciation by OAO Sberbank of Russia; Letter of Acknowledgement by PAO Sberbank

Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz

Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment of the Republic of Cuba

Date of birth: October 14th, 1956 Birth place: Havana City, Cuba Marital Status: Married Education level: University. Qualification: Bachelors in Economy, University of Havana, 1980 Postgraduate Studies: Negotiation techniques (ISRI). International Relations. (ISRI). United Nations System. (ISRI). Accountancy and Finances for Executives. Alternatives of Development in Latin America. (CIDE) México. Positions held: 1981-1982: Technical Expert in Projects Management, in ECIMETAL, enterprise linked to the State Committee for Economic Cooperation (CECE) of the Republic of Cuba. 1982-1992: Specialist in Cooperation in CECE. 1992-1997: Economic and Trade Counsellor at the Embassy of Cuba to Brazil. 1997-1998: Director of Developed Countries Division, at the Ministry for Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, (MINVEC). 1998-2002: Deputy Minister at the Ministry for Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, (MINVEC). 2002-2005: Ambassador of Cuba to the European Union, the Kingdom of Belgium and concurrent to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. 2005-2008: Ambassador of Cuba at the United Nations Organization in New York. In November 2008 Mr. Malmierca was appointed as Minister of the Ministry for Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation. In March 2009, due to the merge of MINVEC with the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Mr. Malmierca was appointed as Minister of the new Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment. Mr. Malmierca was elected in 2009 and 2014 member of the Popular Power National Assembly (Parliament). He was elected member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party since he was elected in the VI Congress in 2011 and in the VII Congress in 2016.

John Perkins

Founder, Chairman, Dream Change Inc

As Chief Economist at a major international consulting firm, John Perkins advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and leaders of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2016), a follow-up to John’s classic New York Times bestseller, brings the story of economic hit men and jackal assassins up to date and chillingly home to the U.S. It goes on to provide practical strategies to transform the failing global death economy into a regenerative life economy. The first edition of Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man spent 73 weeks on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list and has been translated into 32 languages. It, along with his other books, The Secret History of the American Empire (also a New York Times bestseller) and Hoodwinked, were ground-breaking exposés of the clandestine operations that created the current global crises; they set the stage for the revelations and strategies detailed in The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. John is a founder and board member of Dream Change and The Pachamama Alliance, non-profit organizations devoted to establishing a world future generations will want to inherit, has lectured at Harvard, Oxford, and more than 50 other universities around the world, and is the author of books on indigenous cultures and transformation, including Shapeshifting, The World Is As You Dream It, Psychonavigation, Spirit Of The Shuar, and The Stress-Free Habit. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, CNN, CNBC, NPR, A&E, the History Channel, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Der Spiegel, and many other publications, as well as in numerous documentaries including The End Of Poverty, Zeitgeist Addendum, and Apology Of An Economic Hit Man. He was awarded the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace in 2012, and the Rainforest Action Network Challenging Business As Usual Award in 2006.

Jim Rogers

Chairman, Beeland Interests Inc

Jim Rogers, a native of Demopolis, Alabama, is an author, financial commentator, adventurer, and successful international investor. After attending Yale and Oxford University, Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund, a global-investment partnership. During the next 10 years, the portfolio gained 4200%, while the S&P rose less than 50%. Rogers then decided to retire – at age 37. Continuing to manage his own portfolio, Rogers kept busy serving as a full professor of finance at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. In 1990-1992, Rogers fulfilled his lifelong dream: motorcycling 100,000 miles across six continents, a feat that landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records. As a private investor, he constantly analyzed the countries through which he traveled for investment ideas. He chronicled his one-of-a-kind journey in Investment Biker: On the Road with Jim Rogers. Jim also embarked on a Millennium Adventure in 1999. He traveled for 3 years on his round-the-world, Guinness World Record journey. It was his 3rd Guinness Record. Passing through 116 countries, he covered more than 245,000 kilometers, which he recounted in his book Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip. His latest memoir Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets was published in February 2013.

Andy Xie

Independent Economist

Dr Andy Xie is Shanghai-based independent economist specialising in China and Asia. He is currently director of Rosetta Stone Advisors. He is also a guest columnist for the South China Morning Post and Century Weekly. Dr Xie is one of the few economists who has accurately predicted economic bubbles including the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the more recent subprime meltdown in the United States. He joined Morgan Stanley in 1997 and was Managing Director and Head of the firm’s Asia/Pacific economics team until 2006. Prior to that he spent two years with Macquarie Bank in Singapore, where he was an associate director in corporate finance. He also spent five years as an economist with the World Bank. Dr Xie earned a PhD in economics in 1990 and an MS in civil engineering in 1987 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Xiang Bing , Founding Dean and Professor of China Business and Globalization, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB)
Alexander Branis , Chief Investment Advisor, Prosperity Capital Management; Chairman of the Board of Directors, Association of Institutional Investors
Silvana Vallejo Paez , General Director, ProEcuador

Xiang Bing

Founding Dean and Professor of China Business and Globalization, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB)

Dr. Xiang Bing is the Founding Dean and a Professor of Chinese Business and Globalization at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), a leading business school in China. Established in November 2002, CKGSB is China’s first privately funded and faculty-governed business school. Dr. Xiang’s research interests include the relationship between state and business, the reform of state-owned enterprises, innovation and the role of the private sector in China. He is a leading authority on Chinese business, innovations in China, the globalization of Chinese companies and the global implications of the transformation of China. His writings and cases on these subjects are considered among the most influential in China. He is an independent board member of a number of companies listed in Hong Kong, mainland China and the US. He also serves as a member of the boards of trustees for The United Way Worldwide (US) and for Asia House (UK), as well as a member of the International Advisory Council of FDC business school in Brazil. He has worked with many leading companies to offer consulting and training in China and globally. These companies include China Mobile, China Telecom, Huawei Technologies, TCL, Midea, Petro China, CNOOC, IBM (China), GE (China), Siemens (China), Goldman Sachs (Asia), Clifford Chance, Cummins, DFS, Lenovo, Bank of China and China Railway Construction Corporation.

Alexander Branis

Chief Investment Advisor, Prosperity Capital Management; Chairman of the Board of Directors, Association of Institutional Investors

Alexander Branis joined Prosperity in 1997 and is now Chief Investment Advisor. Founded in 1996, Prosperity Capital Management is one of the leading Russia-focused asset managers in the world, with around US$ 3.5 bn. assets under management on behalf of leading institutional investors: sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, foundations, large family offices and private banks. Mr. Branis has sat on the board of the state power holding company, RAO UES and also was a member of the Russian State Council's working group for the restructuring of the company and the country's electricity market. In December 2010, he was appointed to act as a Chairman of the Corporate Governance Sub-committee, established by the government to support President Medvedev’s initiative to establish Moscow as a leading global financial center. Prosperity also co-founded Russia’s Association of Institutional Investors in 1999 and Mr. Branis currently chairs this. Nowadays, the Association has become a permanent alliance for investors and is controlled, financed and actively managed by them. Members of the Association are the largest foreign and domestic institutional investors who jointly control over US 30bn invested in the Russian capital market working to improve country’ investment climate.

Silvana Vallejo Paez

General Director, ProEcuador

In August 2016 Silvana Vallejo Páez became Executive Director of PRO ECUADOR – Institute of Export and Investment Promotion. Under her leadership the institute produces policies and norms for export and investment in the country. Before her appointment to the institute Ms. Páez held the position of the Vice-Minister of Policies and Internal Commercial Sector of the Republic of Ecuador. An economist by training, she holds an MBA from the Central American Institute of Business Administration (INCAE), Public Policy courses from Harvard Business School and the Catholic University of Chile.