Kellogg Impact Series: New York

6/16/2010 - The Kellogg Impact Series concluded its final event of the year June 3 in New York City, rounding out a year-long set of world forums on the future of business, innovation, leadership and society.

Keynote speaker and Lazard Vice Chairman Gary Parr ’80 shared his insights into the financial crisis with more than 180 alumni, faculty, Kellogg supporters and admitted students at a dinner at The St. Regis New York.
 
For more than 25 years, Parr has provided strategic advice to financial institutions worldwide on transactions such as the sale of Lehman’s North American investment banking business to Barclays and the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan.

Parr said he felt that the U.S. government and those working to save the economy got everything right, based on the limited amount of information they had at the time they were making their decisions.

“In this financial crisis, there were so many different combinations and permutations that hadn’t been seen before,” Parr said. “There was so little information, moving so quickly. There was almost no time to study. There was no time to actually think through issues. Many times, you wouldn’t know, because there wasn’t precedence to know what the second-order consequences would be.”

After his address, which also touched on the European economy and its systemic problems, Parr opened up a question-and-answer session during which members of the audience asked about philanthropy and the future of the economy.

The Kellogg Impact Series is a sequence of global events designed to foster lifelong learning and engage the Kellogg community in discussions on the future of business, innovation, leadership and society.

Highlights of the previous Kellogg Impact events have included:

• London — Keynote speaker Philip Kotler, the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, discussed the latest challenges in management and marketing — and strategies to overcome them.
• Chicago — Jim McNerney, chairman, president and CEO of The Boeing Company, spoke about the power and necessity of innovation in his “Maintaining a Competitive Edge in Today’s Global Economy” keynote address.
• Hong Kong — Insights on Asia’s post-recession advantages were shared by K.C. Chan, Hong Kong’s secretary for financial services and the treasury and former dean of business and management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
• San Francisco — Promod Haque ’83, managing partner of Norwest Venture Partners, discussed the global investment outlook and the impact of the recession on the venture capital industry.

The Kellogg School plans to hold a similar set of global events next year, adding a Latin America-based event to the series.

For more information, visit the Kellogg Impact Series website.