Content: Thriving in the New World Order

SESSION 1: The Four Forces Redefining the Future for Businesses

July 16, 2025 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM ET

In his opening session, Dr. Shervani lays the foundation for understanding how demographic shifts, economic trends, geopolitical realignments, and rapid technological advancements are reshaping the business landscape. After unpacking the historical developments that have created the highly prosperous global economic order from which U.S. businesses have particularly benefited, he will bring the discussion into the present by addressing current disruptions, including trade tensions and their implications.

SESSION 2: Demographics—Navigating a Shrinking Workforce and Smaller Consumer Base

July 23, 2025 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM ET

While macroeconomists often struggle to accurately predict economic trends just a few months out, demographers are predicting with certainty a significant decline in working-age populations and consumer markets over the coming decades. This session explores the business imperative to adapt to a smaller workforce and consumer base, highlighting how AI and automation has the potential to mitigate the adverse consequences of these inexorable trends. Demographic forces also have an important bearing on the major geopolitical rivalries driving the behavior of global and regional powers.

SESSION 3: Near-Term Economic Outlook—Scenario-Planning for the Next Two Years

July 30, 2025 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM ET

While businesses leaders need to weigh the strategic implications of the long-term transformation of the economic world order, consideration of potential near-term economic scenarios is also critical to informed decision-making. Dr. Shervani posits potential economic outcomes over the next two years, helping leaders prepare for varying scenarios from growth and recession to broader economic forces that could tip the scale between stability and instability.

SESSION 4: The Trump Effect: Reshaping of the Global Economy

Aug. 6, 2025 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM ET

While U.S. economic policy has always shifted somewhat from one administration to the next, this time it appears to be different in scale and in kind. In a sweeping series of moves including the imposition of “on again, off again” tariffs imposed on both friend and foe and the consequent trade conflicts, the Trump Administration appears to have fundamentally reshaped the world economic order for years to come. With a look at historical parallels going back to earlier Presidential Administrations, we will consider how businesses will need to deftly navigate a profoundly altered global economic environment.

SESSION 5: The Realignment of the Geopolitical Landscape—The Implications for Businesses

Aug. 13, 2025 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM ET

With the United States stepping back from its traditional alliances, China ascending economically, technologically, and militarily, and Russia’s increasing belligerence, the geopolitical landscape is rapidly undergoing a radical transformation unseen in the decades following the World War II. In this session, Dr. Shervani will explore the implications from the vantage point of global security, risk mitigation and business strategy.

SESSION 6: Technology and an Optimistic Vision for the Future: The Challenges and Opportunities that Lie Amid Disruption

Aug. 20, 2025 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM ET

In this final session, Dr. Shervani weaves together the insights from previous sessions, offering a synthesized vision of the future. While acknowledging the myriad of known and unknown, quantifiable and unquantifiable, economic and geopolitical challenges, threats and risks, he ends on an optimistic note on how breakthroughs in technology—in particular AI and automation—holds great promise and presents enormous opportunities for informed business leaders prepared to navigate an uncertain and rapidly evolving future.