UM Worldwide

See which workplaces made this year's list.

Employees say: 
 
"UM Worldwide cares about individuals, and they go to great efforts to ensure that culture is a part of our company and that culture is celebrated. I love that; I love the diversity and inclusivity that exists in the company and how we celebrate and champion those initiatives. Also, they encourage mental health days once a month and discretionary time off to ensure minimal burnout."

Best Workplaces in Advertising and Marketing

Fortune partnered with Great Place to Work to analyze survey feedback representing nearly 100,000 U.S. employees.

Employees say: 
 
"UM cares about individuals, and they go to great efforts to ensure that culture is a part of our company and that culture is celebrated. I love that; I love the diversity and inclusivity that exists in the company and how we celebrate and champion those initiatives. Also, they encourage mental health days once a month and discretionary time off to ensure minimal burnout."

35 Best Large Workplaces in New York

GPTW Advertising Marketing Industry 2022-UM Worldwide

Employees say: 
 
“UM cares immensely about the employees' balance in their life, as well as their health and well-being. I love the resources we're offered from childcare/parenting sessions, mental well-being tips and meditation, leadership seminars and mentorship opportunities. You can constantly improve on your skills across all areas of your life, not just professionally. I really feel UM is a leader in this space and offers many benefits that most other companies do not.”

The companies on this year's list stand out for celebrating innovation, promoting cooperation, and more.

GPTW New York Large 2022-UM Worldwide

Employees say: 
 
“I find most media agencies are the same in terms of capabilities and tools. What really makes UM different are the people, starting with management. Both the UM CEO and my account leads are wonderful people managers who lead with empathy and understanding. To me that makes all the difference. I also feel that I have opportunities and platforms to make my voice heard, which is also important. Other work environments that I've been in have made me feel disempowered, but not this one.” 
 
Read the Great Place to Work review .

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UM Worldwide Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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In just over six decades, Saudi Arabia transformed from a predominantly rural society to a Highly urbanized nation, with 85% of the population now living in cities. This reflects a growing global trend by 2050, more than two thirds of all people worldwide will live in urban areas. As entirely new cities rise and existing ones expand at breathtaking speed, Saudi Arabia is laser focused on training and attracting professionals who can bridge urban design with business strategy to encompass the complexities of building and managing a 21st century urban ecosystem. The Chairman of the Saudi Conventions and Exhibitions General Authority, H.E. Fahd Al Rasheed, discusses how this new urbanist thinking is positioning the nation as a laboratory for innovation one that will not only define the future of cities in Saudi Arabia, but offer a bold blueprint for sustainable urban development that the world can follow.

Saudi Arabia's Urban Century

Conferences

Your Excellency. Great to see you. Great to see you. I, I have to admit we did not mention Skega, but I have not yet introduced you as urban 2 lead. Can I just, what is Urban 20? And thank you. No, I did not. Well, I know I read your bio, but you've been busy, but, but tell me more about like what, what exactly is that? And Thank you for your support again. No, thank you. It's great to have everybody here. It's uh I know it's a big investment in people's time, so I really appreciate it. Last year I met you in New York City during the Fortune Global Forum there, and now we're here. It's been an amazing journey and you, you planned so much for these, uh, events and then. 2 days it's over, so I don't want to take the presence of any of you for granted. Thank you. But I think, well, yes, thank you. You know, I, I am, I'm, I'm digressing a bit, but we also did the most powerful women summit, and I, I wanna tie it back to the topic that we're talking about because one of the things that really struck me when I spoke to the people there was it was eye opening for them, not the not the amount of development because that's actually something that's gotten a lot of press. I think it was the um the experience of the people they met on the ground, the talent that you would have expected. expected to be more nascent, and let's put it that way. So I feel like that is very much at the heart when we're taking talent and cities together you've got a rich experience and that means talk a little bit about your own thinking as to how you're shaping whether it's urban 20 or some of the other initiatives here around the people who are building the cities. Well, I think the, the experience that I've had with hosting international people in uh in, in Saudi Arabia over the past 20 years has been incredible because when we think about promoting a country or promoting an investment destination, we always think about, well, what can we say? I think more importantly we should talk about what can we show and because cities don't lie. If I say Riad's an amazing city and you come here, your experience from the passport gates all the way to the city and back out. I can't lie about it, so it has to be real. And my experience is when you bring people here, they actually feel it. They can imagine, they can feel the hospitality, hospitality, the optimism, and then meet these incredible women that you showcased at the MPW. These are vice ministers and mysterial level women who have helped shape the country, not for the past 10 years, but actually since the beginning in different ways. You cannot just act like the ladies yesterday in the event, the two opera singers, they didn't learn this in the past 2 years. This has been their livelihood and their lifetime. They we're now just putting them up on stage and celebrating them. And this brings us back to our cities. And I've been working in the city space now for 20 plus years. Um, and our cities deserve a lot more. Can I just ask, what did you glean from those experiences because you've peppered throughout this conference you've mentioned, for example, you know, building cities you've, you've worked, you know, in government, the private set and you've had this opportunity to really sort of go across and develop this skill set. It's different to lead a city, to lead. In the public sector, do public private than it is to be a leader in business. Absolutely. So, um, we invest a lot in our leaders in business, so they, they go to bachelor's degrees, they get MBAs, etc. and they get to, uh, eventually work and lead corporations, but imagine our cities. As a city leader you have to be a politician because you have to convince stakeholders of what needs to happen and what not needs to happen and then you also have to be an executive, so somebody has to clean the streets. So it's a very hands on job of trying to get things done. But finally the level of technical competence required to make decisions. It is unbelievable. You have to be an expert on mobility, sustainability, uh, on energy, on, on building and construction and project management, and on urban economics, and then you have to promote the city. It's a plethora of knowledge and tech and technical capabilities. But we don't train our mayors and city leaders, so you're training mayors. You are training mayors. Well, the Urban 20, which is a civil engagement group under the G20, gets the voice of urban leaders to G20 leaders. Um, we agreed that we need a masters of city administration and that we need to lure lure some of the best talent in the world away from just doing business, the thinking about city urban leadership as a career. And so the MCA now is in talks and we're talking, we've, we've launched it in Johannesburg under the leadership of South Africa. Uh, and, uh, we're working with universities around the world now with 50 mayors plus on doing this, and the response has been amazing. So, uh, we, we think we're gonna need about, um, 200,000 urban leaders in the next 20 years. You know, I want to bring it back to Riyadh for a second because, uh, one thing that strikes me in this world where we're putting up walls, this actually is a place that is going in the opposite direction. It feels very much like a global city pro-globalization in a way what I like about this event and others is the ability to create a village green for people from across the world China, US, etc. Talk about. This as a place for people to develop as leaders as well. How do you want global talent to think about Riyadh? Matthew Bishop is now living here. He just moderated. Yeah, he's a great friend of mine, um. I think Saudi Arabia understands that. You can't build a country on your own. That you need To partner with the world. This has always been the case. Uh, Saudi Aramco was was the California oil company, Standard Oil Company, right? So, so we understood that yes, we have a lot of human resources, we have a lot of resources in the ground and geographically. But how do you do that? How do you build all of this? You have to partner and you have to attract the best talent in the world, not just develop your own. I think over the next 5 years, we need at least 400,000 executives and middle level management in the country. Because we are already non-Saudi, we're already 7% unemployment, so we're hitting that unemployment rate that will, will, will, will drive, um, uh, you know, uh, stability in the in the labor market, and you need all of this knowledge so we cannot do it all on our own. We have to open our doors and bring people in and have and partner with companies and human capital. I'd be remiss not to ask how you found this event, what you've gleaned from it. Well, it's been amazing to host people. I love doing that. I get a lot of energy out of meeting people, meeting peers who would improve our thinking. We are, we have a culture of the Mejlis where we sit and we debate and we talk about everything. Nothing is off, uh, you know, um, nothing that we can discuss and to see people, our peers come from all over the world to have this discussion and get to learn a little bit more, and we of course learned from them has been fantastic. And give us a sense, I know time is ticking down here, but uh, we talk about vision 2030. I'd love to know your vision personally like near term, what are some of your own aspirations for Riyadh, for Saudi Arabia, for the people in this audience, and how they engage with you? Um, I graduated in 1999 from a bachelor's degree. I came here. I had been away from the country for all my life, basically, and I came in with my suitcase and two boxes of books, and Saudi Arabia is the ultimate meritocracy. Uh, I had the chance to build a startup city and then to uh run the capital under the the leadership of the crown prince, run hospitals, build universities. And when we talk about land of opportunity, it's not the land of training, yeah, it's great training ground, and it's not just the land of opportunity for companies and capital. It is a land of opportunity for people and to get that kind of experience, if I was anywhere else, I'll be probably just moving vertically from an analyst to VP to CEO. So here people like me and all of my brothers and sisters, Saudis and our colleagues from around the world get to move across industry, which is fascinating, which means now I'm mid-career. I feel like I'm in my prime and therefore I'm still upgrading my skill sets and I never stopped because I have to, and we learn ultimately from the crown prince. He walks into a meeting talking about a major project, and I'm an urbanist. He can look at the customer experience. He can talk about the IRRs and the investment capital like Goldman Sachs investment banker, and then he has the aesthetic capability to look at buildings and say, Well, where's this architecture from? Why does it look like this? And then we have a great debate. So this is the kind of opportunity that Saudi Arabia now is creating for human capital, the idea of building the future, building it together, and then becoming your best when you do so. I like that we've talked about power. We've talked about so many different resources that we've, it's nice to be able to talk about the power of people and what you've gleaned here and the opportunities for others. Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking His Excellency and look forward to doing more. Thank you so much.

In an ever-increasingly connected world, financial markets play a vital role in ensuring the smooth flow of capital across borders and time zones. For market operators, the rise of digital trading systems and new blockchain technology holds promise for always-on accessibility but comes with potential drawbacks, including gaps in oversight, cyberattacks, and navigating complex regulatory environments. What are the global forces influencing financial markets? How can market operators worldwide advance transparency that enables investors to match their portfolios with environmental and social objectives while reinforcing global market trust? A panel of financial market decision makers share their strategic insights. 

The Global Forces Reshaping Financial Markets

Thank you all for being here. Thank you. um, Bonnie, let's start with you. OK, we're seeing a wave of new listing destinations. Um, what are you seeing? And do you think that the traditional financial powerhouses, you know, New York, London, these exchanges are gonna see challenges in the years ahead? OK, uh, maybe let me start with what I am seeing on my part of the world, um. And uh I'm very conscious that I'm still the old fashioned stock exchange when it comes to uh capital raising. And the reason I'm, I'm saying that is because, um, I guess, you know, a lot of you would have been reading about how the private money, you know, has been taking over a little bit, uh, and quite a lot of companies have decided to Stay um private for longer and there's a lot of available capital whether it's from private equity or private credit, etc. However, uh I'm, I'm very pleased to say that um actually year to date we've been doing really quite well uh and Hong Kong. In fact, we have by now probably uh completed close to 80 IPOs, uh raising uh close to $30 billion US dollars for these newly listed companies, uh, and we're gladly sort of at the, at the top of the global league table. Um, and, and I guess at the end of the day, um, Running an exchange or running the capital markets is really about connecting capital with opportunity and there are now various different alternatives that companies can seek to make use of. Um, but my personal view is that we're going to see this increasing um Uh, availability of, of different venues, right, so that companies will have more choices, investors will have more choices, and in fact, you alluded to it at the beginning already with the technology uh now uh also uh being featured, um, the, you know, I, I think, you know, people are, are now seeing a lot more proliferation of From fundraising channels and and uh and means so I think it's upon us, uh, runners of of operators of exchanges to make sure that you know we find ways to stay relevant absolutely and bringing you into the conversation, um, yesterday I was on a panel with uh an entrepreneur who has decided to stay private a little bit longer. What are you seeing in this region and thank you Lou. Good afternoon. Um, yeah, if I look at it from the Saudi capital market point of view and the Saudi exchange point of view, we have been blessed also of having a very healthy IPO pipeline. Of course it's driven by the uh macro level transformation that is happening in the kingdom, um, so, uh, we witnessed a growth in the last 3 years I would say. Um, at least, um, on the average IPO pipeline we have around 8 to 9 IPOs a year. Now the average is around 40, 45 IPOs a year, which is a significant increase, and I think that for for us it's mainly driven by um the transformation driven by Vision 2030. However, as, as uh Bonny was alluding to. Um, the alternative, uh, channels and platforms for issuers, for investors, for market intermediaries today are totally different. We're playing with the different players today compared to, um, yesterday. traditional exchanges used to be the go to, um, to capital formation. Um, it started a few years ago on the private market. Um, but it, it has its own challenges, um, in my opinion. Now it's, it's a wider range of, uh, of, of channels, but I just want to remind ourselves that, um, historically, um, stock exchanges are a source of innovation, uh, from the beginning because whatever we, we, we provide today it's based on technology and innovation, um, the products that has been on the um. Um, and on the markets between developed, uh, emerging and frontier markets has been there for decades, and these are based on innovation and, and I think what, what, what we, the situation we are in today is basically we need to make sure that we are faster, uh, we are adaptive, uh, to what the clients needs, um, rather than being the only. Capital formation. Well, Bob, I think when people think of the NASDAQ, they think of huge tech IPOs, but actually your business is everything outside of the US, and the Nasdaq technology underpins, I think you said, 140 different exchanges. So tell us a little bit about your model. Yes, thankfully I'm actually honored to be up here with two of Nasdaq's long-term partners. So thank you for inviting me to participate with them today, and I What is interesting is that NASAQ has grown as an organization. When I joined 19 years ago, we kind of did two things. We did listings and trading, and that's still the kind of the bow of the ship. When people think of Nasdaq, they think Nvidia today, but they also think Microsoft, they think Starbucks, they think Regeneron, they think the biotech sector that that we've been able to develop. But the reality is we've gone from a $5 billion market cap company. to a $5 billion revenue company that's $50 billion in market cap and done acquisitions and we do everything from trading technology, matching technology, regulatory technology, risk and treasury management, anti-financial crimes. So we do a lot of other things that are beyond the scope of just thinking, listings, and trading these days. But as we said, I spend Most of my time working with entrepreneurs around the globe, we have about 800 companies that are non-US, and that's where I spend my time working with them as well as talking to those companies that might be public companies and you know what one of the things that I'll say to all of you, which is what I said last backstage, is that I believe that most companies belong in their local markets. I firmly do. I don't go to. Kong, China, Tokyo, Singapore, Argentina, and try to convince companies not to list in the local markets because most companies do belong there. But there's a small group of companies every year that choose to list outside their local market, and we at Nasdaq firmly believe we have the strongest value proposition for those companies to list on our exchange, and that's, that's where I spend most of my time. Yeah, I want. Say we do want to take some questions from the audience. So if you have one, raise your hand, we'll get a mic over to you. Um, but Bonnie, you, I think you said that you have about 200 companies in the pipeline, uh, more than that with 300, 300 by now, OK, and talk about what kind of companies like what what do investors want right now, right? So what do investors want right now? Well, maybe I should talk about the 80 IPOs that we've um completed year to date. I would say over half of them are technology focused, so what we call new economy companies. And this year, in particular, we've been uh doing especially strong in the biotechnology space. Uh, I think this is just, you know, very well sought after. And if I look at uh especially the, the books, you know, during the IPO times for um these um companies. Uh, we are very glad to see actually a return of um international investors, um, because, you know, as you've probably been reading in the last few years, we went through a phase where, um, there, there were questions, right, as to, you know, the investability of Chinese stocks, but I think we have, you know, made a lot of progress and so this year, uh, what we were able to To see is really very strong appetite on the investor side. They want AI, they want, you know, anything to do with semiconductors, they want a lot of um uh um um names in the green technology space. Um, but aside from technology, what is also emerging is a very interesting phenomena, uh, which is what we call new consumption. OK, I don't know if you know this, uh, thing called Labubu. Of course, of course, right? I guess, you know, a lot of people know about. I was, I was with Grant in in Shanghai a couple of weeks ago. He's built an amazing business, right? So, um, we now see, uh, you know, a lot of these, uh, sort of new companies. In what we call the IP space, and they're growing very quickly, very well sought after. In fact, you know, I've visited a few cities recently, uh, Paris, London, and, you know, I always see the Pop store and the lines outside waiting to get that blind box. So Tim Cook just got one. you see that? Yeah, yes, yes, yes. I got a mini one for myself. Anyways, um, so you know, really quite a broad spectrum, uh, of what interests investors and, and, you know, to, to sort of put more color on it. I think what we are seeing also is a desire, um, on the part of investors around the world to seek more diversification. I think you know, your Bob has been obviously doing really well on the NASAQ side and we see a lot of flows right globally uh being attracted or gravitating towards the US markets, but I think I missed a lot of the volatility and, and um or uncertainty and predictability we're seeing in the markets. Um, it's quite uh You know, uh uh phenomenon this year seeing um more investors trying to adopt a more diversified, uh, uh, trading or or investment strategy. So the 300 companies in my pipeline this year are waiting to be listed, uh, I would say still, you know, predominantly in the tax space, but we are now seeing um. A lot more variety. In fact, I can tell you that in the last two months I've probably met over 20 different types of humanoid robots. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they do all sorts of funny, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know, quite a few of them are looking. Uh, to seek a listing on Hong Kong Exchange, I think, one of the great things that Khalid, Bonnie, and I all do is that we're able to expand the market. Like, it's, it's not necessarily 300 companies, 300 companies, 50 companies that like we talked about that are in the pipeline. Does the, the, the number continues to grow. Well, we've gone, we went through the end of 21 through 2 or 3 years of tough markets where people couldn't get public. Now suddenly in 25, we're suddenly getting. Some momentum in the US unfortunately they've thrown cold water on it with the government shutdown, but you know we know what the pipeline looks like for 26 and beyond, and I think all of our markets are seeing more and more early stage investors who want to get out, private equity companies, you know, government backed companies, you know, more mature companies, recycling of of companies that have come through private equity. So we're seeing a lot of these fantastic companies that want to come to market and and. We're growing the market together and our platforms are where people are able to raise money and help help the economy. That's what, that's what it's really about for us. Khalid, talk a little bit about the startup culture here, you know, the VC funding like how is that whole ecosystem combining to bring you good candidates? Well, this is basically what we have done when we created, so we run two equity markets, the main market, and we started in 2017. Um, a parallel market we call it the growth, um, uh, as a translation of NO. This is basically to capture, um, these small startups, family businesses that they cannot meet the requirements and the demand um of listing on that platform and we it's tremendous. We, we, we are over 130 companies, um, if we, if we discount corona period. Um, that's a significant and the number of applications we're reviewing now on that particular platform is over 50 applications and every year it's repeated itself. So, um, the exchange as traditionally do, um, they provide, um, um, a platform for exits realizing of of investments or a long investments capital formation for them. And it's a safe, uh, regulated environment that brings a different type of investors to these companies because this is could be part of what the uh startups is looking for, um, as part of their continuation and growth. What, what's, uh, what's striking is basically for us is these companies moving from unregulated environment to a regulated environment. Did we, do we see a big struggle on them and some companies, yes, um, um, and, and this is basically what we encourage, um, these startups, um, small, medium enterprises, family houses, if they decide to go public. This decision is not a 3 month decision. This is a 3. So you have to start the process from early on to change the culture, to change the way you manage things, to understand what the investor will look look at at your company in order for you to perform. And when you say struggle, are you talking about reporting requirements? What are they struggling with? I don't think the reporting requirement is stringent for them to comply with. I think it's a lack of being able to. Understand what are the continuous obligations that they're supposed to live with. Many companies in these small enterprises do not apply compliance officers, for example, the governance officers. All of these types are, all of these functions types of functions are new to them. So we help them through several inductions prior of workshops that the exchange does for them. But um I just, since we, we, we looked at private placements, in my opinion, public and private, um, they used to be far away. They used to be competing heavily against each other. I think the, the gap now is narrowing because of the other alternatives that are coming in place, and this is what we need to be concerned about, um, and I think we're not, we're feeling the pressure, but we're not, I'm not concerned. Because I think this is an evolvement that exchanges have gone through, um, started with. Equity markets then look at the space of um. Security offering services offering around um issuer needs uh financial intermediary needs as well as an investor needs. So with a lot, it will evolve and I was discussing with Bonnie this morning, it is. The The base of change, um, on the alternative platforms on the sophistication of investors, um, it's, it's unheard of. I have been in this business for the last 1819 years. Well, this is, you wake every morning. Um, you come, there's a new channel, there's a new way of doing things. There is a new requirement. Yeah, I mean, we, in fact, that's exactly what we talked about this morning. I think you talk back two decades ago. If you have money and you want to invest, what do you, you likely want to call your brokers and then you talk about, you know, what. There are available and then, you know, you may decide to put some some money on one stock or another. Now, right, we, we basically compete to be to, you know, against cryptocurrencies, commodities, and people can get exposure through pretty exotic um Instruments, right, to get exposure to, you know, all sorts of investment opportunities. So I think now we're entering into the stage where exchanges are not really competing with one another. We're working together with one another to make sure that we all stay relevant and miss all these um uh this intermediation and, and that's quite a fascinating. Well that's a good, that's a good segue to token. and Bob, give us a little primer because I know it's huge and I, you know, it's going to change all of our lives. What is going on in the US versus the rest of the world and what's going to happen in the future? So tokenization in terms of trading is allowed in US securities but outside of the US. So many of you may have heard of that Robin Hood and eToro and some of these companies are trading tokenized. Securities of US companies outside of the US, um, what we actually announced at NASDAQ and that we're trying to use the benefits of technology and, and certainly the blockchain is one that in this area is super relevant is that we're going to move towards the tokenization of the clearance and settlement piece. The trading actually. You know, to say this sounds kind of almost crazy, but blockchain does their validation in about 1 2nd or so. It's maybe a little bit less, it's getting faster, but markets trade faster than that. All of our markets trade faster than 1 2nd. They actually are calculated in microseconds, so we can't do tokenized trading. as quickly as those market participants want us to in the US, and so we'll diminish the liquidity in our market by moving towards that. But what we do know is that the clearance of settlement piece is the natural place and a place that we're moving quickly towards figuring out with the community, you know, obviously we're bringing everyone along, but we think that that's the best place to use tokenization in the US. I see we have a question in the audience if we can get a microphone. Um, Stand up. Hi Alex Tranoff in Silicon Medicine. Um, my question is, uh, to Bonnie, um, uh, you've done such a phenomenal job with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and uh, uh, in recent years, and, uh, uh, you know, in the past couple of years it was a little bit kind of gloomy and doomy. And now it's uh the listing of more so everybody wants to invest in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is hot. I've got 300 companies that are being listed. What's driving this growth and also what, what's driving biotech growth as well and um. Uh, how many of those companies are international and also since we're in the Middle East, how easy it is for the Middle Eastern companies to list in Hong Kong. OK. All right. Well, I think, you know, the first question maybe because they appointed a new CEO at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that explained the upturn. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. I, I guess, you know, I, I touched upon it earlier. It's, um, you know, this desire on the part of investors to really diversify, um, you know, just miss all the uncertainty in the world, um, they, they, they want to put their eggs in more than one basket. And I guess the fact that, you know, China is able to turn out so many fascinating companies. And I mentioned the 300 number, which is my pipeline number, um, that has drawn a lot of attention um to um the, the Hong Kong listings. Um, and I guess, you know, the liquidity also, uh, it's another big attraction. Um, you know, many of you may know that we have, uh, something called the Connect franchise. This is an infrastructure that was built 11 years ago, uh, which basically connects the China market to the rest of the world, uh, meaning that investors. In the Chinese mainland can actually invest in securities listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which includes a lot of international issuers um through a pretty convenient route, uh, and vice versa, international investors can also invest what we call northbound um into the Chinese mainland through the Hong Kong uh connect franchise, and that has been actually our trump card I have to say. Secret weapon. I stopped using trump card. That's your card, yeah, because, because, you know, we're the only market which offers that, and you can imagine the growing middle class in the Chinese mainland, which is now, you know, reached 400 million, and they are looking really for ways to um uh to, to, to get a return. And so, um, southbound trading, it's now accounting for about 25%. Of our daily trading volume and I think that provides a very good support to our liquidity and therefore um increase in turn the attractiveness of our market as a capital raising center. Now your question about why biotechnology um is, is such a, a, a, we have a very uh well performing biotechnology segment this year in Hong Kong. I guess it's because, you know, we are able to attract very Very exciting companies, um, uh, from the Chinese mainland as well as actually around the world. Um, we have, uh, today attracted biotechnology companies from Singapore and, you know, elsewhere, um, but most importantly, they see it as a convenient way uh to enable them to maybe get into the phase of doing licensing deals with the big. Farmer and having an an acquisition currency in the form of Hong Kong uh stock is a useful one. So you know, quite many things, um, you know, acting together, but I would say, you know, that you know we, we definitely want this, uh, to sustain and so and I think we're gonna have to end it there. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.

Life expectancy has doubled over the past century and continues to grow. By 2050, the number of people over age 60 will double worldwide, and those over 80 will triple. Closing the gap between how long we live and how well we live is one of the defining challenges of our time. Hear from global health leaders on how their organizations are tackling this challenge from multiple angles: Advancing breakthroughs in longevity science, developing devices that preserve mobility and independence, and reimagining health systems to support an aging population. Their perspectives reveal how innovation can reshape the future of healthy, active living worldwide. 

Living Better, Longer: A Social and Economic Imperative

A record number of students are pursuing higher education worldwide—but the map of where they go is changing. Rising tuition, restrictive immigration policies, safety concerns, iand stronger regional options are driving students—and their parents—to reconsider traditional destinations like the U.S. and U.K. At the same time, universities across Asia, the Middle East, and beyond are positioning themselves as new magnets for global talent in a job market being upended by technology. What are the geopolitical, cultural, and economic forces shaping higher education, and who will win the race to train and retain tomorrow's workforce? 

Higher Ed's New Power Map

Hello ladies and gentlemen. What an honor to be here today. Thank you all for attending this very amazing session that we're gonna have with our lovely speakers. We're excited to kickstart it inshallah, and I'm gonna start with you, Doctor Lina. Saudi Arabia has been investing heavily in education as part of Vision 2030. The scholarship landscape today looks very different from what it looked like decades ago. Can you tell me a little bit about how Saudi Arabia's scholarship programs are increasingly aligned with Vision's 2030 strategic sectors? How is the ministry ensuring that the new direction translates into real world skills and employment opportunity for Saudi graduates? OK, thank you, Nora and uh thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure to be here with uh with my colleagues. So uh let's talk about the scholarship program in Saudi. Uh it has evolved, you know, for the last 100 years, and today the scholarship program, it's not about numbers and destination. It's basically about purposes. OK, so, uh, when, uh, his royal highs, the crown prince, announced the new wave of the scholarship program in 2022, uh, we have uh four specialized tracks. One of them is dedicated for students who got accepted in the top 30 universities all over the world, and we have more than 2000 students. Been accepted in such universities over the last 3 years and uh the second track is the R&D research and development and uh this is specifically for uh PhD students who want to pursue their education and and and PhD and these are aligned with the national priorities within along with the vision 2030. The fourth track, which is MA basically it's, it's aligned with. The vision 2030 and the labor market needs. The last track, which is wide, it's about the giga projects that are going on along with the 2030 vision, and we have a very strong partnership and collaboration with different private companies and we have more than 50 partnerships along with, you know, different universities around the world. Thank you so much, Doctor Lina. The future is indeed bright in the kingdom, especially with the scholarship programs and more happening here. Mr. Brier, as someone leading one of the world's most recognized educational networks, you have a unique view of how families around the world are re-evaluating their choices. Malvern College has a global footprint, and soon a new home here in Riyadh as the CEO of Malvern International, which operates schools across several regions. How are you seeing global students and parents' attitudes shift when it comes to choosing destinations for higher education? Thank you all. It's a pleasure to be here. Uh, I mean, I think really there used to be very much a dominance of the US and the UK in the past, uh, and whilst they still remain strong, what we've started to see now is much more of a sort of multipolarity in, uh, higher education. And with growing hubs around the world which Saudi Arabia is clearly already started on that journey and I think is well poised to go forward on that. And I think what we're starting to see now is our pupils are really embracing the fact that there's so much choice now around the world to go for to find things that match their character and their aspirations. And one of the things that I think is really important for them as well is this idea of global citizenship. I think in the past it was very much of I'll just go abroad to study, whereas now what we're starting to see is people see themselves as entering the international community and expecting a career within the international world, which I think is really, really important. But one of the other big pieces to that is around the concept of employability, and that's something we're particularly seeing accelerate at the moment. There are many graduates now that are coming out of universities, which means that there are more people that are graduating necessarily for the jobs that are there. I saw a rather shocking statistic in the UK earlier this week that was talking about the fact that last year there were 1.2 million graduates for 17,000 jobs, which starts to give you the idea of just how competitive that market has become. And on top of that with AI, many of those graduate jobs are changing or are more difficult for people to get into. So what we're starting to see with that is that they are looking to their universities and to their educational program to really give them that fast start to thrive as they come out and go into life. And what we're trying to do is look at this idea that you take intellectual intelligence and you enhance it with emotional intelligence and with cultural intelligence. And I think one of the benefits of, for example, having your education in Saudi Arabia and entering into that and what we're looking to do by having a Malvern College here is this idea of being able to work with anyone anywhere as a result of the skills that you can build up. You just said two key words, emotional and cultural intelligence. I think we really need to implement this for the students' upcoming show in the future. Thank you so much, Mr. Beer. Of course you're Edward Byron, it's such an honor for me to be here with you, and we've had such a great discussion beforehand. You, you have such extensive experience in many different institutions, but let's focus now on CAS and what it's doing. So CAS has built a strong reputation for world class research and global collaboration. Can you tell me about the students that you're aiming to get into the university? What's the number and percentage and more about what's happening in that area? Yeah, thank you very much. Well, look, CAST is an amazing institution. It's, uh, the 3rd great university I've had the privilege of leading as the president, and a lot of the other two have been around for, you know, a long, long time and very famous. Uh, CAST is by far the most exciting. Uh, it's, um, it is a postgraduate research university with master's and PhD students. We don't have undergraduates. Many of our students come from the elite programs run by the Ministry of Education, but we're getting more and more in kingdom Saudi students as the quality of the education system here rises and it's becoming very strong. About 60% of our students at the moment are international. Uh, and we get, um, we only have about, uh, 400 places a year for international students, for our master's students, and we get about 25,000 applications. So we're very much a university of, um, Selection rather than recruitment. You know, in the international student world, you either have a lot more applications than you could take, you're a university of selection or you're working to get as many qualified students as possible. Um The quality of the students is amazing, and I just wanted to say that the experience international students have in the, in the kingdom is absolutely superb. Uh, the, the country is so welcoming, it's so rich, it's so diverse, uh, and, um, I've never had as positive feedback from an international student group as I have with the students at. Uh, I know that the quality of the universities in the kingdom is increasing quite dramatically. Uh, differentiated sector, but they're going to be, uh, 7 or 8 universities here, which are in the top few 100 in the world very rapidly, some are already, and the opportunities for more international students to come to the kingdom will be enormous, and I, I guarantee any students who come here, you will have a great time and a great education. Thank you so much, Sir Edward. Absolutely. I think Saudi Arabia is the future with the education really bettering itself when we see that changes on the ground at the moment. Doctor Lina, I would like to turn to you, please. Now, traditionally, Saudi Arabia has sent its brightest students abroad. I don't want to contradict what you just said, Doctor, so please. Saudi Arabia has sent its brightest students to students abroad traditionally we're talking about in the past, but there are new initiatives to make the kingdom itself a magnet for international students and researchers. I think you can follow up on what Sir Edward said. Yeah, exactly. This is going to be a follow up to to what Sir Edward just mentioned about international students coming to the Saudi Arabia. Uh, we're looking at Saudi Arabia as an international educational hub basically. And we have just uh launched the new platform that we have which is study in Saudi with the new educational visa. Uh, this year we have received more than 200,000 applications, uh, who, who wants to study in, in Saudi. We have uh different universities participating within that platform. And uh uh as, as, as uh what uh Edoard mentioned the experience here is different, especially with international students, and we don't want them just to come here and study, want them even, even to be able to work to participate in, in, you know, different. Research Center and so on. So, uh, the main idea of study in Saudi and all these related initiatives is to have more international students coming to study in Saudi, uh, and they even private or even international universities that are opening soon in the kingdom. Uh, so we're looking at international students as, uh, uh, you know, uh, they can come not only to study, to create knowledge, to innovate, even to create future together. So it's a holistic approach when coming to study in the kingdom. Not only will you receive a great education, but also, also a cultural experience. Yes, exactly, and we call this is a study plus, OK, so we don't want the students just to come here and study with them. We want them even to, to, to work here in this in Saudi to participate in in different initiatives and within the innovation centers and these kind of things. Uh, Mr. Beer, I'd like to turn my attention to you and ask you more about Malverne. Of course, uh, it will be opening in 2027 and Riyadh exciting news. What does that decision say about how Saudi Arabia is positioning itself in the new global educational landscape? Thank you. I mean it was terrifically exciting to announce the launch of Modern College Riyadh a couple of months ago, and it really talks to the dynamism that we're seeing in Saudi Arabia, the sense of movement, progress, and it's both actually already within the kingdom, but also the number of businesses and companies and workforces that are moving here. So we see really high quality premium education as vital both to help develop those that are already in the kingdom, but also to be attractive for companies that are bringing their staff into into the country, and that's something obviously that we want to want to provide. But one of the biggest areas for us as well is the culture of innovation that we're seeing here. So you might think, so Melbourne College is actually 160 years old. You might think that a heritage organization like that is rather old fashioned and stuck in its ways, but we're very much not. We have our school sort of motto is Wise is the one that looks ahead. And we have a real heritage of innovation. There's actually 4 Nobel Prize winners that have come out of the college, and it's been quite interesting today because there's been a lot of talk about AI. Well, one of the original members of the what was known as the Dartmouth Workshop back in 1956, who were the original sort of birthplace of AI was an old Malvernian, which we're very, very proud of in the current environment. So that culture of innovation for us is very, very important and what we're looking forward to here and it goes back a little bit to what I was talking about employability. is that we can give students the absolute fundamentals of an excellent education through the International Baccalaureate, the foundations of regular subjects, but actually we can build on that with digital skills, with AI skills, and with looking at new ways of engaging our pupils. So for example, through gaming, which is obviously very, very popular in the kingdom, and how we can use that as a learning tool and a way to drive pupil engagement in our schools. So there's a real match for us about making the best of a strong heritage in education, but also bringing together the innovation that's there. And the last thing I do want to say on that as well is that we think there's a real cultural element in there that we're looking forward to. So it's about combining what the British side of the education that Bolton College brings, but melding that with the culture in Saudi Arabia, so making sure that Arabic is right up there on our curriculums, but also how we do our performing arts, music, theater, and bringing in the wider Saudi culture. Thank you so much, Mr. Weir. Sir Edwards, I'd like to turn my attention to you and ask you about the era of geopolitical shifts. How can universities act as bridges of collaboration, particularly between East and West, to advance scientific and educational progress, and if you can share a success story also. I think this is one of the most important things universities do in today's world. An international student movement is a huge part of that because when international students come and work in a country, you know, some of them stay and make their careers there, but the great majority go home and they're then soft ambassadors, soft cultural ambassadors for the country they've been to. That's been hugely helpful to the UK, but also to Australia, you know, another country where I, I worked for many, many years, which, uh, was probably the first of the Western countries to establish major links with much of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Um. Now, this means that universities must have a global mindset. We have to educate our young people as global citizens, as part of the skill set you mentioned, you know, tolerance of ambiguity. People come from different backgrounds, learning to listen to people whose points of view are different to your own, helping you grow, and acquiring this broad experience at the same time as the skill set that makes you job ready. So, and I think we're getting quite good at doing that, but the opportunities that come from modern technologies like the advances in AI, you know, give us a huge increase in bandwidth in achieving these things. I do want to ask a follow up question on this because I feel during my time we were trying to be a global, global student, but now students truly are global. So wherever they go they already have, you know, information about that universe that country. They go in understanding more about that. People tell me about your experiences from that area. I think. This is probably more advanced in countries like Australia and to some extent the UK than the US as much of the US system is quite homogenous and international students in large numbers have only started to come in fairly recent years. But many UK and Australian universities have had 30 to 40% international students from almost 100 countries, you know, for 25, 30 years. And this has given an incredible mindset to the young people who go there. Kings, the last university in London I was the president of, had over 100 student societies from different countries, including the Saudi society that had about 300 young Saudis in it, and I used to meet the students and it was incredibly invigorating to see how they respect each other's viewpoints, you know, young people are Almost without exception, they're open minded. They're open to the world. uh, they learn from people from other countries and they love it. Uh, and I think that will happen more and more in Saudi Arabia as more international students start to come to the great universities here. Um, you know, I see, uh, and I, I don't work for the ministry here, so I might be going. But I see as in Singapore when Singapore was starting to move forward educationally, the sending of large numbers of young Saudis overseas, which has been going on for many years now, was a sort of stepping stone as the those young people came back and populated universities and other entities in the kingdom. But also as the standard of education and universities in the kingdom itself continues to rise, so there will be a time not so long from now, when not so many Saudis would go overseas because the quality of the university system here will be so strong and Example, as to how that can be done now is a, you know, small, large research institute in some ways, uh, but, um, you know, they're going to be some very significant Saudi universities in the top 100 in the not too distant future and, and better. Thank you so much, Sir Edward. Thank you all to our amazing speakers for this lovely uh panel today. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and learned as well. So the children are truly our future. They're bright, they're understanding, and they're open to the global audience. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for being part of this.

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