Jan 26

1. #genderbalance Goldman Sachs said that it won’t take company public without at least one woman in their board (CNBC)

This article impressed me as I do not usually think that gender balance is that much important in company control. Goldman Sachs CEO confirmed that companies with a diverse member board have performed significantly better than their counterparts within this four years.

2. #economics Corona comes at the worst possible time for China, and what people buy more? (Morning Brew)

The dangerous virus comes at the busiest travel year for the most crowded country in the world. Stocks of hospitality and travel companies sank yesterday. In this dark time, people tend to buy three more things: (1) Face masks (with janked-up price); (2) Macabre video games (same like SARS) and (3) Safe haven assets like gold and US Treasury

3. #economics How e-commerce and the gig economy is transforming Southeast Asia (McKinsey)

Reuben Lai (MD of Grab SEA) mentions four mega challenges and three recommendation for companies in SEA to tackle those challenges.

Four mega challenges include economy, physical infrastructure, financial infrastructure and people. First, with a population higher than the US and a growth higher than China, SEA owns massive growth opportunities. Second, we need to use technology to invest in, expand and transform physical infrastructure to fuel the growth chance. Third,  70% of the population are unbanked and 400M people (larger than size of the US) need to join in the financial ecosystem, that poses a question of how to serve them with new techniques?. Finally, a young population, ⅗ population under 30, is tech savvy and looking for opportunities to leapfrog new technologies to make their lives more efficient and better

Three recommendations are focus, partnership and technology. First. All companies should focus their resources to resolve these challenges with the government. Second, a partnership-led approach is wise in the situation of a fast.-changing economy. Third, to unlock these opportunities, it’s better to focus on technology. For example, Grab utilize their ecosystem to collect customer data, crunch and make sense of it.