dr. Jean-François Rischard

Jean-François Rischard, the first European vice president of the World Bank and writer of the best selling book: “High Noon; 20 global problems, 20 years to solve them!”. In this book Jean-François Rischard makes it absolutely clear that the policies governments have pursued until now are totally inadequate to solve global problems in the fields of the environment, peace-negotiations, conflicts, poverty and mass-migration. Problems that will shape the 21st century.

Jean-François Rischard was the first European vice-president of the World bank, and as such in this role as “Chief Spokesperson” in Europe, he represented the World bank at the highest levels, being it’s ambassador to the 18 countries of the European Economic Sphere(EU plus Norway, Switzerland and Iceland) This includes governments, parliaments and players in the private sector, NGOs and opinion-makers. As the only expatriate”vice president of the world bank it was his task to bring the world bank closer to Europe, and to have Europe cooperate more closely with the world bank.

He also held the general responsibility for relations between the World Bank and all the European institution, the organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The WTO, and the agencies of the United Nations that are based in Europe. He was based in Paris, it was from there that he oversaw the diverse European teams stationed in the offices in: Paris, Brussels, London, Frankfurt, Geneva and Rome. Jean-François Rischard’s main areas of attention where the importance of corporate governance (good governance), the hightened international interdepence and the possible role of Europe in this process, as well as the new rules of the game in the emergence of a ‘global economy’ and the implications for the different players in this system, especially the developing world.

High Noon; 20 global problems, 20 years to solve them appeared in 2002 and was translated into several languages. Jean François Rischard worked and lived on both sides of the Atlantic, he still maintains a home in Washington DC, though it is Paris that he lives when in Europe. He has always been on two sides of the Atlantic in every sense. Knowing his way around European and US business culture. He knows the rest of the world too, he worked in no less than 60 countries. He well versed and very knowledgeable about the world of finance, business. He obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School(where he merited first and second years honours) He also holds a law doctorate and a PhD. in economics from the University of Aix-Marseille.

Brief description of the lectures and presentations offered by J.F.Rischard, former vice-president of the World Bank, author, and international consultant.

At the present time, Rischard offers most frequently ten main types of presentations, all of them based on highly structured powerpoint presentations that provide both the big picture and the detailed examples. All are challenging speeches whose goal is to be mind-opening and thought-provoking, while being at the same time easy to absorb and to recall. He can prepare customized presentations by combining elements from several presentations.

1. High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
   This presentation takes 30-40 minutes, followed by an (always lively) Q and A. It reviews the main and most pressing global problems, why they are not being solved by the existing international system, and what one could imagine in the way of new approaches so as to get them solved faster and in-depth. It's a mind-opening, provocative lecture that leaves no one indifferent, and that gets people to think about the future in new, unaccustomed ways. The lecture is based on his book 'High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them' (Basic Books, NY, 2003), which was published in fifteen languages.
   
   
2. The Role of Business beyond its Traditional Borders
   This presentation takes 25-30 minutes, followed by a Q and A. It jumps off the previous lecture, or can be offered alone. In the speech, he distinguishes 5 stages of large companies' engagement beyond their traditional borders: philanthropy; defensive corporate social responsibility (CSR); proactive CSR; business as sustainable development agent where governments fail to deliver alone; business joining others in global problem-solving (the latter comes with four sub-types). The lecture provides many recent examples for each stage. It unleashes a lot of discussion on the role of business in the complex world to come, and goes beyond the usual confines of the CSR topic.
   
   
3. Looking into the Future: 10 Big Trends and 2 Problematic Regions
   This lecture gives a broad, yet detailed picture of the large, tectonic shift-like trends that will condition the context in which governments and business will operate in the decades to come (e.g. ageing; massive changes ahead in the international division of labor; the ascent of China and India; new technologies...) It also discusses the special issues of the world's most challenging regions (Africa, and Middle East). The lecture takes 40-45 minutes, and, while sobering, gives business leaders or other audiences a more organized sense of the general environment and background forces they will have to deal with.
   
   
4. The Knowledge-Based Economy: Worldwide Trends and New Ideas
   This presentation shows how countries can and do rethink their future in more ambitious, mindset-changing ways, using scores of detailed examples from Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Chile, Korea, Malaysia, the US, and other successful knowledge-based economies, both North and South. It introduces a seven-point intellectual framework. It takes 25-35 minutes, and gives the audience a sense of the practical steps involved in thinking in knowledge-based economy terms.
   
   
5. Navigating in a High-Risk World: Implications for Business Leadership, Strategy and Risk Management
   This presentation starts with an overview of some 10 factors falling under three clusters that make for a much higher risk world than would have been projected a few years ago. The three clusters are: global security threats, global economic imbalances, and emerging global constraints. All ten factors are briefly commented upon, and 2-3 of them are then presented in more detail, for example: dangerous climate change, the ecological footprint overshoot, oil peaking, ageing populations, or extremism/terrorism. The presentation closes with some speculations on what businesses could do to prepare for the higher risk of discontinuities and stresses: more comprehensive risk management and long-term hedging; bringing on board world-aware outside directors; establishing a scanning/watch function; going beyond traditional corporate social responsibility into more activist efforts to move global problem-solving along. Takes 20-25 minutes; a bit overwhelming, but carrying important messages.
   
   
6. Global Constraints
   This presentation identifies the emergence of global constraints as a major source of long-term risk. It examines three of them: dangerous climate change, the ecological footprint overshoot, and oil depletion. To illustrate what kind of solutions could be envisaged, the presentation uses the case of dangerous climate change and describes the 150 year effort necessary to stabilize carbon dioxide at 500-550 ppm . This is explained with enough detail to reveal the huge magnitude of what must get done. As the chances that 200 nation-states will get together around such a 150 year plan are rather weak, the presentation then discusses the state of debate on the question of the global problem-solving methodology. If the current one isn’t working, what should we do? Takes 25-30 minutes. Provides a sense of dimension with respect to both problems and solutions, and provokes to a deeper reflection on the future. Can be given under the title “An Inconvenient Solution”.
   
   
7. Understanding Globalization
   This presentation defines globalization, breaks it down into its constituent characteristics (with many examples), and sets out the four key success factors that have emerged in its context. It then maps out the key opportunities (three clusters) and the key risks (three clusters as well) it brings. Takes 20-25 minutes. Explains globalization with more clarity than is usual in such presentations, which too often wrongly assume that there is a prior, shared under-standing of its meaning within the audience.
   
   
8. The Innovation Imperative: People, Companies, Countries, Planet
   This ambitious presentation starts by looking in detail at what’s behind the unprecedented rate of change and degree of complexity that increasingly overwhelm human institutions, minds and mindsets. It then discusses how innovation is the only way out, and how the resulting innovation imperative concerns four levels: innovative individuals, innovative companies, innovative countries, and innovative planetary management. The innovation agenda at each of these levels calls for a specific reversal of values: more developed right brain skills for individuals; flatter and more innovation-friendly structures for companies; more activist, vision-driven government leadership for countries; and out-of-the box, alternative global problem-solving methods for the planet. But all four levels have one thing in common when it comes to innovation: the need to abandon traditional, orthodox navigation methods and adopt innovative, unorthodox ways of doing things. Takes 40-45 minutes. This presentation covers a considerable range of materials, ideas and thoughts, yet does so in a way that makes it all come together in the end.
   
   
9. Taking the Current Credit Crisis Apart
   The on-going credit crisis, triggered by the sub-prime woes in the US but now morphed into a to a global systemic crisis of staggering proportions, has struck even seasoned observers as extremely complex and multi-faceted throughout its surprise-filled evolution. This compact presentation (it takes 25-30 minutes) strives to bring factual and conceptual clarity into the picture, by focusing on the “steroid return” element whose pursuit explains much of the behavior that led to the crisis, the three ingredients to these steroid returns, the two forces that acted as amplifiers, and the two interlinked dynamics that characterize the ongoing crisis developments. It then briefly summarizes the potential losses as well as the main moves that are necessary to put a floor under the vicious spiral that has been unleashed and to lower the probability of such crises in the future.
   
   
10. Navigating in Turbulent Times: Does One Crisis Hide Another?
    This presentation starts with a bird’s eye view of the general context in which humanity finds itself in: that of fast-forward globalization, characterized by a huge run-up in the rate of change and the degree of complexity of human affairs, as well as by an upside (an opportunities-filled world) and a downside (a crisis-prone world). Against this backdrop, the presentation discusses and explains in detail the current credit crisis (unpredicted, avoidable, reversible) and then brings up four much bigger crises that could unfold over the decades to come (and that are by contrast entirely predictable, hard to tackle, and irreversible lest acted upon). The presentation describes what it would take to avert these four much bigger crises (ageing time-bomb, conventional oil depletion, the ecological footprint overshoot, dangerous climate change), and argues that we must act to defuse them now – in fact drawing on the lessons from the current credit crisis (that ex ante prevention beats ex post mitigation any time; that governments are entirely capable of working together and marshalling crisis resolution resources almost overnight…). This presentation takes at least 90 minutes but has an unusual comprehensiveness; it comes through as an exercise in lucidity, not in doom-saying.

Other
In addition, I give more occasional speeches on other topics, such as:

• The future of international organizations, with the World Bank and OECD in 2015 as examples
• The role of Europe in global affairs
• Main challenges of the Middle East
• Growth and reform dynamics in the Mediterranean region
• Four key success factors in the new world economy...