Keynote plenaries

In 2015, the Swiss Federal Council appointed Andréa M. Maechler as Member of the Swiss National Bank’s Governing Board. She is the first woman to occupy a Board position. At the same time, she became Head of Department III (Money Market and Foreign Exchange, Asset Management, Banking Operations, Information Technology). She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Department of Banking and Finance at the University of Zurich.

Andréa M. Maechler’s early career took her to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). From 1999 to 2001, she worked as an economist in the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) Financial Stability unit in Zurich. She then moved to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where she occupied several senior positions in the Africa, Monetary and Capital Markets, Western Hemisphere and Strategy, Policy and Review departments. From 2012 to 2014, during a sabbatical from the IMF, she worked for the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) in Frankfurt. Upon returning to the IMF, she was appointed as Deputy Division Chief in the Global Markets Analysis Division. The functions of this division include monitoring global capital markets, and assessing systemic risks and the macro-financial impact of capital market developments.

She was born in Geneva in 1969. She studied economics at the University of Toronto, and then at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, where she obtained her Master’s in International Economics. Following a period of study at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Public Administration in Lausanne, she obtained her PhD in International Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2000.

This interactive event explores a challenge facing many business organisations today: how to maintain corporate reliability and strategic alignment, while fostering creativity and individual responsibility.

These issues are represented by two contrasting team cultures: classical and jazz. The classical team culture is represented by a string quartet: a formalised musical group, realising a composer’s intentions through technical precision, careful preparation and superlative performance. The jazz team culture is represented by a jazz quartet: four individuals engaged in a spontaneous musical dialogue around a common theme, embracing experimentation and risk-taking to engender a rich flow of creative ideas.
Using a series of carefully crafted exercises in which the two quartets perform both individually and together, the Fusion Experience asks:

• How are these two team cultures similar and how are they different?
• How can they co-exist, collaborate and enhance one another’s performance?
• How can business organisations benefit from both team cultures?

Biography

Dominic Alldis combines decades of experience performing internationally as a musician, with 20 years facilitating musical learning events for business audiences. He is a multi-talented and versatile performer, equally at home conducting symphony orchestras, improvising at the piano in jazz bands and teaching students at the Royal Academy of Music. As an artist exploring the synergy between different musical idioms, Dominic is uniquely placed to bring his insights to the business world, with its need to maintain the ‘classical’ values of excellence and collaboration, while fostering the ‘jazz’ values of flexibility, diversity and change. He founded Music & Management in 2003 and has worked with many of the world’s leading companies and business schools to create powerful musical experiences. His thought-provoking and transformative presentations usually feature live musicians, ranging from a symphony orchestra to a more intimate classical string quartet or jazz band.

Competitiveness refers to the ability of nations to generate welfare and employment. We will consider the competitiveness model of different countries and four complementary strategies as follows: (1) reduce the size of the state at the expense of the private sector; (2) promote export-oriented growth; (3) develop inclusive institutions; and (4) balance the social costs of income inequality vs. the benefits of globalization.

Early Days
Inspired by his compatriot and idol, Nikola Tesla, Mate Rimac has always been a relentless innovator and gifted inventor. As a child, he had an interest in cars and electronics, bordering on obsession, and his ingenuity became obvious through some of his earliest schoolboy creations, including an ‘Electric Glove’ designed to replace a computer mouse and keyboard. By 17 years old he had already written his first two patents.

In 2007 at the age of 19 in a borrowed garage, tinkering, dreaming, and already thinking several years ahead of the traditional car industry, he fitted an experimental EV drivetrain to his 1984 BMW E30. His conversion was so successful, that the humble, garage-built BMW set 5 FIA approved and Guinness World Records as fastest accelerating electric vehicle.

This was the catalyst Mate needed to aim higher and seek out investors willing to fund his desire to build a bespoke, ground-breaking car from scratch. Mate wanted to prove the potential of electric powertrains and show how exciting the sustainable future can be. In 2011 Rimac Automobili was born. But making a production car is not easy – many said that an electric supercar was an impossible feat.

Mate did not listen. He brought together a lean team of similar-minded experts and in 2011 the Rimac Concept One became the world’s first true electric supercar. With 1088hp, the fiendishly clever all-wheel drive and torque-vectoring system saw it produce performance figures that outclassed even the most expensive contemporary hypercars.

Rimac Today

In 2021, it was revealed that the newly formed Rimac Group would become the majority shareholder in a joint company, supported by Porsche as strategic partner, called Bugatti Rimac. Bugatti Rimac – of which Mate is CEO – sees the unique combination of two automotive and technological trailblazers; Rimac’s distinctive agility, technical expertise and relentless innovation in the EV sphere sits alongside Bugatti’s 110-year heritage of design and engineering some of the world’s most iconic hypercars. Within the Rimac Group are Rimac Automobili, Bugatti Automobiles and Rimac Technology.

Rimac Automobili remains the ultimate culmination of Mate’s 2011 dream to build his own car. From tinkering in his garage alone, Mate is now surrounded by more than 1,500 employees across seven sites in Croatia, France and Germany, with the 1,914hp Nevera launched in 2021 and first deliveries to customers in early 2022. It is a completely new development, with not a single component shared with the original Concept_One.

The development, production and supply of battery systems, drivetrains and other EV components that Rimac is known for and trusted by many automotive manufacturers is overseen by Rimac Technology, which is 100% owned by the Rimac Group.

The Rimac Group will be headquartered at the company’s new €200M state-of-the-art global HQ, due for completion in 2023. The scale and ambition of the new Rimac Campus are vast, making it one of the largest combined R&D and production facilities in Europe, not just within the automotive industry. Across a built area of 100,000m2 and a wider 200,000m2 site, high-tech innovation remains at the very core of operations.

Mate has personally been keen to ensure that his business’ new home embodies not just the brand’s character, but also that of its people. As such, the spaces have been refined to be friendly, open and warm, with more than a hint of fun. Featuring an on-site test track, museum, design, engineering, production and testing facilities, the striking buildings and greenery have been carefully harmonized by famous Croatian architectural practice 3LHD.

Keynote address: Facing uncertainty with resilience – leadership lessons from Mount Everest and beyond

Entrepreneur Marion Chaygneaud Dupuy, has lived in the Himalayas for twenty-two years and is the first European woman to have climbed Mount Everest three times. She is the founder of Global Nomad a social enterprise and has led over 50 humanitarian projects including “Clean Everest”, with a focus on education, social entrepreneurship, healthcare and environmental services.

Join Marion to discover her 20-year leadership journey, from project vision to the challenges, perseverance and resilience needed to lead in a high mountain environment. As a student of Tibetan Buddhism and meditation practitioner, she will share the integrative qualities of mind and body she believes leaders need to reach their full potential. She says, “the training of the heart is key to a balanced mind, and a balanced mind is key to success.”