SPEAKERS

CEO PERSPECTIVE

PURPOSE-LED PERFORMANCE: DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD

Lawrence Kurzius is the Chairman, President and CEO of McCormick & Company, a global leader in flavor with over 11,000 employees around the world. He will discuss McCormick’s Purpose-Led Performance approach to corporate social responsibility and sustainability, which outlines ambitious 2025 goals and programs that will positively impact people, communities and our planet. His presentation will speak to the company’s dual commitment to delivering industry leading financial performance while doing the right thing, and will address the broader importance of corporate social responsibility and its related value to the flavor industry.

Lawrence E. Kurzius
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, McCormick & Company

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MAIN STREET TO WALL STREET: HOW ARE WE DOING?

Counter to what the experts predicted, stocks sold off only briefly on election night and since then, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has made a succession of new all-time highs. So, what is Wall Street telling us about Washington and how will Washington, or a Trump presidency, affect Wall Street? (and even Main Street?) If, indeed, the President rolls back 70% of all federal regulations, as promised, the first beneficiaries will be financials and pharma, banks and bio-tech. If tax rates are slashed, wealthy individuals and U.S. corporations will benefit big-league!

But there will be downsides to a Trump presidency, as well. A trade war with Mexico and China could lead to a deep recession and intense pain for companies that either do business in those countries or rely on the international supply chain to obtain goods and services from around the world. There will likely be faster growth, but more inflation. There may be higher rates and a new head of the Fed. The short-run reaction on Wall Street has been positive, but what about the long-run implications for Wall Street, Main Street and Washington?

Ron Insana does a deep dive into uncharted waters to help you navigate a new economy that may have islands of prosperity in what may well be very turbulent waters.

Ron Insana
Senior Analyst, CNBC and Financial Industry Expert

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WHY CULTURE AND TEAMS ARE TOMORROW'S KILLER APPS

The old way of creating a sustainable competitive advantage in the market was to build moats and barriers to entry. But smart phones and digital commerce have proven they can tunnel under the moats and fly over the barriers with ease – and often with astonishingly little invested capital. What can smart companies do to “future proof” their businesses against such disruption?

Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes magazine and author of its Innovation Rules column, has identified culture and teamwork as pillars of sustainable competitive advantage in a fast-changing world.

In this presentation, Karlgaard draws upon his recent books, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success and Team Genius – The New Science of High-Performing Organizations, to explain how great organizations put culture and teamwork at the core of their operating principles. In a world where the workforce is becoming more transient, and ideas can come to market in record times, building and maintaining a strong organizational culture centered around trust, learning and teamwork has never been a more timely topic.

Rich Karlgaard
Publisher and Columnist for Forbes, Entrepreneur & Author

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INDUSTRIES OF THE FUTURE

The next ten years are going to be even more disruptive than the last ten. What are the industries and innovations that are going to shake the marketplace? Drawing on his New York Times bestseller The Industries of the Future and his experience in government and industry, Alec Ross describes the next big drivers of change from artificial intelligence and robotics to cybersecurity and cybercrime. Ross describes the changes which are going to impact our future, for good and ill, and the geographic and cultural contexts out of which they are emerging.

Alec Ross
New York Times Best-Selling Author & Former Senior Advisor for Technology and Innovation at the State Department

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TRADE SECRET PROTECTION IN THE MODERN FLAVOR AND FOOD INDUSTRY

Flavor formulas and food product recipes are critical intellectual property for flavor and food manufacturers respectively. As flavor and food manufacturers navigate an increasingly innovative marketplace, balancing the need to establish internal processes and external approaches to protect these trade secrets with the desire to meet customer transparency demands are essential legal and business functions. Join Joanna Drake, FEMA’s General Counsel to help you make sense of it all. Learn more about the protections and limitations of current US trade secrets law and consider how modern case law can help us identify potential strategies to address challenging trade secret protection considerations in the modern flavor industry.

Joanna Drake, JD
FEMA General Counsel

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