The global economic crisis and a shifting geopolitical landscape will create instability but also new opportunities, business conference attendees were told Friday.
At the Young Presidents’ Organization global leadership conference in Denver, workshops pushed the nearly 2,000 executives in attendance to prepare for the future.
A “new world order” politically and economically will bring challenges, and businesses “need to rethink what organizations are,” said Dave Maney, founder of Lakewood-based Economaney LLC, an economic media company. Maney is a panelist at one of the sessions at the Colorado Convention Center.
Speaker George Heinrichs, president of Intrada Inc., a Longmont- based developer and provider of 911 public-safety communication services, cautioned listeners to be prepared for getting work done faster and cheaper.
“The amount of time to ramp up and complete projects is much shorter,” Heinrichs said. The change of pace changes how jobs are viewed, moving from full-time employment to hiring what is needed when it is needed from anywhere in the world.
In such a volatile and challenging era, with China growing rapidly and the Middle East in turmoil, people are asking how they can protect their assets, said panelist Jim LaCamp, senior vice president of Macroportfolio Advisors in Dallas.
“We’ve kept the economy going by increasing our debt,” LaCamp said. But that isn’t working anymore, raising the question of what people can do.
There will be a bigger fight around the world for raw materials, and LaCamp’s answer is for businesses to acquire what is needed to detect, harvest and move “all that stuff.”
Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com
