Join us for this breakfast session where you will meet other women from Wharton. This is an opportunity to cultivate a network of peers. It is also a chance to discuss the challenges and opportunities that women encounter in the business world. Learn from the wisdom of other alumnae, while making new friends and professional contacts. Please sign up for this event onsite at the Wharton Booth, located in the Sponsorship Expo area on the 4th Floor at the Palace Hotel!

According to the Population Reference Bureau, by 2055 Japan will have only 90 million inhabitants (down from 128 million now). Yet two-fifths (41%) of them will be over 65 years old, almost double the current percentage. How will the other three-fifths live while supporting the longer lives of the elderly? Continuing current practices and policies is clearly unsustainable. What can be done? Like global warming, this problem seems to be an inevitable challenge of life in the 21st Century. We can try to alter the trend, but learning how to live with the trend is also a wise option. This panel will bring together a group of experts to discuss challenges and opportunities relevant not only to Japan, but also to other countries that have aging populations or that will eventually face these same challenges. Wharton Professor Olivia S. Mitchell will moderate this panel discussion, which will include time for audience questions and participation.

Many manufacturing firms are re-examining the structure of their global supply chains and their associated sourcing strategy in response to the uncertainties and risks they face in these turbulent times. These adjustments are occurring against a backdrop of fundamental change to the environment in which global supply chains operate. For decades a dominant strategy in manufacturing has been to outsource to low cost global suppliers. This has led to the transfer of manufacturing jobs and development activities out of the US, Japan and Europe and into low labor cost countries such as China, India and Vietnam. Today this trend is being challenged by a movement by some companies to re-shore their manufacturing by bringing it back or at least moving it closer to their developed country market, i.e. by near-shoring. At the same time many firms continue to select offshore locations for outsourcing of material inputs and services. This panel will consider the current status of sourcing strategy from the perspective of major multi-national firms. The goal of the session is to bring a group of senior executives, from leading multi-national companies headquartered or operating in Japan, together to explore their current thinking and practices concerning global supply chain strategy and sourcing. The discussion will facilitate an exchange of ideas that will identify managerial challenges and concerns. It will also ascertain current practices and intentions of participating companies. Moderated by Wharton Professor Morris A. Cohen, the panel will focus on issues that include development of an understanding of the drivers of sourcing decisions as perceived by the participants in order to identify opportunities for improvement and barriers to implementation.

For more information on re-shoring, follow this link: Should Manufacturing Jobs Be `Re-Shored` to the U.S.?

This panel will focus on the leadership lessons that can be drawn from making tough decisions and leading change during crises. The panelists will each share their leadership experiences, within government, business and the non-profit sectors, throughout the 3/11 earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear crisis. Common leadership themes and lessons will be drawn from the difficult challenges each confronted in the face of one of the world`s most severe natural/environmental disasters in recent times. The discussion will also highlight Japan`s heightened awareness for sustainable energy supply and explore the role of government and business in leading the nation`s recent public movement towards reevaluating the need for nuclear energy and exploring alternative renewable energy sources after 3/11. Wharton Professor Eric Orts will moderate this panel discussion, which will include time for audience questions and participation.

The business environment in Japan and around the world is changing at unprecedented speed and magnitude. Consider the increased importance of the empowered and skeptical consumers, the proliferation of media fueled by unparalleled advances in science and technology, the fragmentation of markets, and the emergence of the BRIC countries as the new giants. These changes have major implications to the nature and role of advertising. In fact, the very word "advertising" is being redefined to encompass the entire communications ecosystem with customers and clients. And this is turning management`s concepts of advertising and marketing on its head. In fact, advertising as we know it is changing.

The purpose of the session is to explore the implications of the findings of the Wharton study on `Advertising in the Year 2020` to advertising in Japan and around the world. Advertising 2020 is examining the views of over 200 of the world`s leading thought leaders including key Japanese experts, on two questions: (1) what advertising could / should look like in 2020? and (2) what should companies do now to get there?

This interactive session will review the findings of the Japanese entries, compare and contrast them to the views of the other global experts and focus on the short and long term implications of these findings to advertisers and their agencies. Participants in the session will be encouraged to assess their own advertising and marketing mental models and strategies against the emerging vision of Advertising 2020 and its implications to advertising and marketing today.

There is much discussion about strategy - and lack of strategy - in the popular topic of comparing Korean and Japanese corporations. In addition to a matter of national pride, the question is an important one because the evidence shows that a thoughtfully designed and carefully implemented strategy can create a distinct competitive advantage. This panel is comprised of both Korean and Japanese experts, who will dissect some of the drivers of, impediments to, consequences of and opportunities in corporate strategy. The panel will be moderated by Wharton Professor Nicolaj Siggelkow. Questions that the panel will address include: Is it painful to develop a strategy? Is it even more painful not to have a strategy? What are the barriers to develop a strategy? Can firms still succeed by just focusing on operational excellence? How do firms deal with tradeoffs? Does a strategy require top-down direction to be effective? Does bottom-up planning (at the division or departmental levels) hinder or enable the development of an integrated strategy? Come join this panel and add your thoughts and sparks to the discussion.

What lessons have been learned from the financial crisis? The question itself begs several more questions: which "financial crisis"? There have been many within the memories of people active today. Lessons learned by whom? Financial services professionals? The investing public? Regulators? Politicians? There is no question that this panel, populated with experienced professionals from three countries, will have plenty to discuss about a topic in which virtually everybody has an interest and an opinion. And who better to moderate the discussion than Wharton Professor Franklin Allen, the Nippon Life Professor of Finance and Economics as well as a perennial teaching award winner for the past thirty-three years? You can expect a free-for-all at this panel, with plenty of audience participation once the panelists get things started. You should not expect agreement, or even answers, but you can be assured of a lively conversation that will stimulate your thinking and probably cause you to revise some of your preconceptions. Come with an open mind and be prepared to be challenged and informed.

Meet and connect with your alumni peers - Wharton graduates who are the leaders of their organizations. Round-table discussions will explore the unique responsibilities and challenges that senior executives must manage. Learn from the wisdom of other alumni, while creating new professional networks. Please sign up for this event onsite at the Wharton Booth, located in the Sponsorship Expo area on the 4th Floor at the Palace Hotel!

This breakfast gathering welcomes alumni who are at mid-career, but are striving to serve their organization in a leadership capacity. This is an opportunity for alumni who have 15 or 20 years of experience, but are not quite at the senior executive level, to establish a network of Wharton peers. Join this breakfast round table to connect with others who aspire to serve their organizations at the executive level and explore the ways that your Wharton community can continue to support your advancement and future success. Please sign up for this event onsite at the Wharton Booth, located in the Sponsorship Expo area on the 4th Floor at the Palace Hotel!

The consensus view on central banking before the financial crisis placed a strong emphasis on inflation targeting. It was regarded as the best framework for reconciling the benefits of having an institution that would focus on the long-term stability of the economy, not succumbing to short-term political considerations on the one hand, with the need to hold such institution accountable within the democratic framework on the other. Inflation targeting allowed the central bank to focus on one metric, inflation, which it could control through adjusting monetary conditions, whose stabilization at some low level was compatible with the long-term stability of the overall economy, and which was sufficiently easy to observe in a timely manner, i.e., a reasonable yardstick for measuring success or failure. As the adoption of the inflation targeting framework coincided with a period of relatively robust growth and subdued inflation in the global economy, policy makers fell into the trap of overemphasizing the connection between low and stable inflation and long-term economic stability. The Great Financial Crisis exposed the perils of such a simplistic view of central banking. More than five years after the Crisis, the time has come to look back on recent experiences and refine our thinking on the policy objectives and frameworks of central banks. The fact that the global economy is still far from healthy should not become an excuse for holding off such a discussion. The deployment by the major central banks in the developed economies of a range of unorthodox policies may have significant long-term implications. There are many questions. What is the role of central banks in maintaining financial stability? How should we define the relations between financial stability and monetary policy? How could central banks monitor and influence financial stability? What roles do liquidity and leverage play in the context of long-term stability of the economy? What are the implications of current central bank policies for the future stability of the global economy? How significant are cross-border effects (spillovers) of domestic monetary policy? What can central banks do to ensure the stability of not only their respective domestic economies but also that of the global economy as a whole?

In most companies and at most times, strategic planning processes do not produce strategies. They do not generate unique, innovative systems of choices that win in the marketplace. Rather, they perpetuate the status quo. The possibilities-led approach to strategic planning described in this presentation overcomes these shortcomings. The approach adapts the scientific method to the needs of business strategy. It starts with well-articulated hypotheses, or possibilities. It then asks what would have to be true about the world for each possibility to be supported. Only then does it unleash analysts to collect data that are relevant for proving or disproving each possibility. In this way, the possibilities-led approach takes strategy-making processes from being merely rigorous to being truly scientific.

This session will consider how the movement to a service based economy in both developed and developing countries can impact manufacturing companies. We will focus on the emerging competitive strategy, based on Product-Service Systems, (also known as "Servicization"), whereby tangible manufactured products are brought to market as services that lead to the generation of customer value through product use by customers. We will review recent research results on how quality for the bundle of products and services associated with manufactured products is perceived by both customers and firms. We will also consider how the customer-supplier relationship is impacted through incentive alignment based on a product`s delivered performance. Finally, we will discuss challenges associated with optimal global supply chain management and resource deployment in a service dominated environment. The session will conclude with discussion of the (expected/observed) impact of Servicization as firms adapt to this new paradigm in the current economic environment.

The increasingly complex and uncertain environment and the enormous advances in technology and associated increase in the segments of the empowered consumers require creative leadership. This was clearly recognized in the IBM Global CEO study in which creative leadership , rethinking consumer relationship and agile operations were the characteristics that best distinguished between successful and unsuccessful companies. Creative leadership requires the creation of a creative organization. The purpose of the master class is to outline and offer hands on experience in understanding 10 principles required for creating a creative organization. The principles are summarized by the acronym C-R-E-A-T-I-V-I-T-Y that stands for:

Culture: the Key to Success

Reexamine Your Mental Models

Empower All Involved

Align Rewards with Objectives

Tools: to Generate Creative Options

Iterative (Adaptive) Experimentation

Virtual & Networked Organization

International Focus

Talent: Finding, Developing, Retaining

Yield: The Payoff of Creativity

At the end of the master class each participant will develop a plan for experimentation in the creation of a creative organization.

The global financial meltdown has had important repercussions for capital market returns, labor market earnings, household retirement and consumption patterns, old-age Social Security systems, and pension plan resilience. Stakeholders have gained a new appreciation of the need to identify, mitigate, and finance risk faced by beneficiaries, plan sponsors, governments, and other players in the retirement finance field. In the future, improved understanding of risk is essential - and as the financial and economic collapse has shown us, risk will always play a part in retirement planning. Professor Olivia Mitchell will discuss key lessons learned by practitioners, academics, and policy analysts examining how retirement planning and long-term financial security have changed following the crisis. Participants will receive a copy of our newest volume on this topic as well Reshaping Retirement Security: Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis.

For more information, on this topic: Rebuilding Retirement System Resiliency in the Wake of the Financial Crisis

The class will expose participants with the unique issues faced by families who wish to sustain their legacy, their harmony, and their businesses along with their cultural and financial wealth. The core theme of this participant-centered session is family and Business Governance and Management. Specifically, I will attempt to (i) frame the key issues that encompass the delicate balance required for managing family life while at the same time meeting the needs of family controlled businesses and (ii), manage transitions in ownership, control and management. In that process, I will examine the range of trade-offs to be reconciled in the life of a family and its businesses. Economic considerations alongside family and interpersonal issues will be addressed.

What do you think will happen when people read and share a single book within half an hour and start discussing how to apply the knowledge to fix social problems?

In Japan, educators in public schools, and administrators in local governments have implemented a program called "Read for Action (RFA)". This program was started a week after 311 when people gathered to think about what activities could help people regain hope, and accelerate social innovations. Now, RFA has become the largest social reading group in Japan, organizing more than 150 reading sessions nation-wide. This class will share the cognitive background of the method, and how it can be implemented in any community to overcome difficulties, and achieve transformational change.