What Should Be Expected From The G20 Conference In The US Convened By President Bush on 15 November 2008
- By Professor Prabhu Guptara
- Published 11/7/2008
Professor Prabhu Guptara
Professor Prabhu Guptara is Executive Director, Organisational Development, Wolfsberg (a subsidiary of UBS - one of the largest banks in the world). He is also Freeman of the City of London and of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, and Chartered Fellow of the of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; he is also Fellow: of the Institute of Directors, of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Commerce and Manufactures; and he continues to supervise PhD research at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) as well as to be Visiting Professor at various Universities and Business Schools around the world.
Earlier roles include: a Governor of the Polytechnic of Central London, Member of the Council of the British Institute of Management, of the International Federation of Training & Development Organisations (IFTDO), of the Association for Management Education and Development (UK), of the South East Regional Council of the Confederation of British Industry.
Judge, 1988 National Training Awards, 1980 Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1990 & 1991 Deo Gloria Prize for Fiction; Chair of the Panel of Judges, Deo Gloria Prize 1992 & 1993.
Experience with an enormous range of organisations including: Akzo Nobel (Netherlands), the Associated Banks Institute (Germany), Barclays Bank (UK), British Petroleum (UK), the Council of Europe, Cultor (Finland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Groupe Bull (France), Federation of Finnish Engineers (Finland), the International Management Association of Japan, Kemira (Finland), Kraft Jakob Suchard (Switzerland), Leadership Academy (Finland), Nokia Telecommunications (Finland), Novo Nordisk (Denmark), Sedgwick International Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers (UK), Singapore Institute of Management, Sonatrach (Algeria), Sun Alliance (UK), UNCTAD, Valeo (France), and so on.
Organiser, chair and lecturer by invitation for numerous international conferences, he has contributed widely to radio and television in the UK and other countries (The Money Program, Any Questions) and has written for Financial Times (London, UK), The Guardian, The Times and other publications; articles, for example, in The Gower Handbook of Management, The Gower Handbook of Quality, and the International Encyclopedia of Business & Management (Routledge).
A CD-ROM has been issued of his lecture at the Professorenforum, University of Zurich, titled "Making the World Better - Why it does NOT happen...and what TO DO about it"
Further information available from rbadertscher@coba.ch
His best-known research publication is "Top Executives in the Global 100 Companies and their IT-Competence" (ADVANCE: Management Training Ltd., UK, and Wolfsberg Executive Development Centre, Switzerland, 1998); and he is included in Debrett's People of Today and in Who's Who in the World. Professor Prabhu Guptara lives in Switzerland.
After a week in the UK, followed by a week in the USA, and a week of work back in Switzerland, I am in Moldova on a badly-needed break for a couple of days.
In fact, I am even headed to Transnistria in order to get an experience of the last Soviet-style government in the world (well, apart from a few other oddities such as North Korea and Byelorussia), so that we know what to try to ensure is AVOIDED by the G20 as a result of their conference on November 15....!
From that conference, we should expect a fresh wave of globalisation, which I am sure we will all welcome, especially if it includes progress towards a level global playing field through agreements on global standards, frameworks and approaches on such subjects as environmental protection, child labour, health, pensions and minimum income.
Alternatively, we can expect a fresh wave of protectionism eventually resulting in wars - or War - which would in any case be terrible.
The parallels to the end of the previous phase of globalisation, in 1873, are chilling.
Let us not make the same mistakes.
Let us move towards a form of capitalism which includes the possibility of a humane future for everyone in the world by progressing towards a global level playing field for capitalism.
All the problems produced by the current global crisis were caused initially by the WTO´s deliberately avoiding a level playing field - though it is true that these problems were compounded by debased money and by legalising the possibility of gambling with money meant for other purposes and, further, without requiring anyone even to keep track of who was betting how much and indeed whether they even had the money with which to bet.
