This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Today, Fortune is launching Fortune Education, an important platform to help people prepare for the new world of work.
During the pandemic year, two things happened that are propelling this new initiative. First, the speed of technological change—already head-spinningly fast—accelerated even more, underscoring the urgent need for programs that help workers acquire new skills to keep up with change. And second, digital access to everything expanded, making online education the dominant mode for lifelong learning.
Once learning moves online, choices become infinite, and traditional means of making those choices—by geography, for instance, or brand name—become less useful. Fortune Education solves that with a team of experienced editors who will scour the universe of online offerings and rank, rate and recommend the right ones for you and your career.
What does Fortune bring to this effort? We understand business, and the skills that business needs. All of our rankings, ratings and recommendations will be based not just on the historical reputations of offering institutions, but on what works best for business. As always, our goal is to make business better.
We start Fortune Education with the launch of a new ranking of online MBA programs, which you can check out here. Ultimately, our mission will take us well beyond that, focusing on graduate, post-graduate, executive education and personal and professional improvement programs. In doing so, we dedicate ourselves to your continuing success. Our goal is to help you find the programs that will enable you to achieve your life goals.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Vaccine components
The U.S. is finally ending its prohibition on the export of COVID vaccine raw materials, for the benefit of India, which having an utterly shocking experience with the pandemic right now. It will also send therapeutics, testing kits and ventilators. President Joe Biden: "Just as India sent assistance to the United States as our hospitals were strained early in the pandemic, we are determined to help India in its time of need." Reuters
Visiting Europe
American tourists will be able to visit Europe this summer, as long as they've been vaccinated against COVID-19. That's according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who told the New York Times that such travel would be fine, as the vaccines used in the U.S. have also been approved by the European Medicines Agency. Of course, the same can't be said for Chinese vaccines and others. Also, the U.S. State Department isn't advising travel to Europe. NYT
Credit Suisse
In the wake of Credit Suisse's disastrous exposure to both Greensill and Archegos, some of the bank's largest shareholders are seeking the ouster of risk committee chair Andreas Gottschling. Harris Associates vice-chair David Herro: "It’s the director’s job to represent the shareholders and to watch over management…Not only should Mr. Gottschling be voted down, but I’m actually surprised in light of current events that he hasn’t already resigned." Financial Times
Academy Awards
Nomadland won Best Picture at the Oscars last night, with Chloé Zhao becoming the second woman (and first Asian woman) ever to win Best Director. Frances McDormand won another Best Actress Oscar for her leading role in Nomadland, and Anthony Hopkins won Best Actor for The Father. Meanwhile, this South African, rock-fan newsletter writer/editor (David, not Alan) is both delighted at South African documentary My Octopus Teacher winning an award, and pleasantly perplexed at the idea of Nine Inch Nails co-winning an Oscar for scoring a Disney movie (Pixar's Soul, which also won Best Animated Feature.) Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Piling on
The administration of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has denied a claim that he said "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" rather than agreeing to a third lockdown. It's an extraordinary claim in itself, but it could prove particularly damaging as it comes soon after many other revelations suggesting unethical behavior on Johnson's part. Reuters
Second chance
The Business Roundtable and a host of its members, including everyone from Visa and JPMorgan to Microsoft and Walmart, have launched the Second Chance Business Coalition that's aimed at "providing employment opportunities to individuals with a criminal record, supporting their reentry into the workforce and improving equity in employment." Second Chance Business Coalition
Reshoring jobs
This piece—the last that Fortune's David Z. Morris wrote for us before his sad departure—delves into the Biden administration's efforts to reshore U.S. manufacturing. After touching on the "green shoots nurtured by pandemic spending," he continues: "Long-term reshoring success, though, will likely depend on serious reform to U.S. national trade and industrial policies." Fortune
Equitable infrastructure
Three things are needed to ensure that President Biden's big infrastructure push achieves his equity goals, writes Carnegie Mellon University assistant professor Daniel Armanios in this piece for Fortune: enforceable equity metrics for infrastructural siting and replacement; targets for involving businesses run by underrepresented groups; and legally enforceable community review processes for development projects. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
