GBS online edition 3.0

As different nations around the world entered into stringent lockdown protocols, India’s largest media conglomerate set out to aid businesses and business leaders to not only understand the resultant economic crisis from the pandemic but also to navigate through these difficult times.

The Global Business Summit, which acted as a front-runner platform to spearhead troubleshooting and ideation to navigate the pandemic crisis for businesses, switched gears to bring together global leaders such as Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, Brian Chesky and Ted Sarandos to chalk out an implementation strategy along with other leaders to outmanoeuvre the pandemic.

These eminent speakers spoke extensively about the power of leadership during a crisis, leadership lessons that ought to be followed and prioritising the “human factor” for building long-term sustainable solutions.

The speakers also underlined the importance of continued communications. Brian Chesky, CEO and Co-Founder of Airbnb had said that in times of uncertainty, the first thing you should do is increase communication… make sure everyone knows what is going on. He, further said, that the decisions a company takes during crisis times defines the fundamentals of the company.

Bill Gates, who also spoke about leadership, underlined the importance of sustainability in all forms of government and business decisions. He had earlier said that the pandemic had increased extreme poverty by 7%.

On the other hand, speaking about the importance of human factor, Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global, said that companies should think about the mental well-being of employees instead of just focussing on providing new connected tools for work. According to her, employees without mental resilience will not be helpful in taking the company towards growth.