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If you woke up in <keyword id="19900881" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="delhi" source="keywords">Delhi</keyword> recently, you might have noticed more than just the nip in the air – a thick, toxic smog has blanketed the city, turning the air almost unbreathable. On Monday, Delhi’s <keyword id="19920379" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="air-quality-index" source="keywords">Air Quality Index</keyword> (<keyword id="19916482" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="aqi" source="keywords">AQI</keyword>) hit 481, placing it in the "severe plus" category. For context, the “severe” category begins at an AQI of 401, and anything above 450 poses serious health risks even for healthy individuals. According to Swiss group IQAir’s live rankings, Delhi is currently the most polluted city in the world, with an air quality score of 1,081 – a “hazardous” level that is 130.9 times the World Health Organization’s recommended limit for PM2.5. <h3 style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:14pt;margin-bottom:4pt;">Major contributors to Delhi’s smog</h3>The root causes of Delhi’s pollution are manifold: <ul><li>Stubble Burning: On Saturday, crop residue burning contributed 25% of Delhi’s air pollution. By Sunday, this figure had climbed to 40%, according to SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research). Satellites recorded 1,334 stubble-burning incidents in six northern states on Sunday alone, the highest number in four days.</li><li>Vehicles: On Sunday, vehicular emissions accounted for 15.8% of the city’s pollution, according to the Centre’s Decision Support System for Air Quality Management.</li><li>Construction Dust and Industrial Emissions: PM2.5, a deadly pollutant, remains the most prominent factor, capable of penetrating deep into the lungs and leading to severe respiratory and cardiac diseases.</li></ul><h3 style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:14pt;margin-bottom:4pt;"><keyword id="24020184" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="GRAP-Stage-4" source="keywords">GRAP Stage 4</keyword></h3>To combat the rising pollution levels, authorities have enforced Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP). Here’s a breakdown of the restrictions: <ul><li>Vehicle Restrictions:</li><ul><li>Diesel medium and heavy goods vehicles (BS-IV and below) registered in Delhi are banned unless carrying essential goods.</li><li>Non-essential light commercial vehicles from outside Delhi can only enter if they use CNG, BS-VI diesel, or are electric.</li><li>Trucks carrying non-essential items are barred unless they use cleaner fuels like LNG, CNG, or BS-VI diesel. </li></ul><li>Workplace and School Adjustments:</li><ul><li>Classes for students in grades 6 to 9 and class 11 have moved online.</li><li>Offices in the National Capital Region (NCR) are advised to work at 50% capacity, with the rest operating remotely. </li></ul><li>Construction Ban: </li><ul><li>Construction and demolition (C&amp;D) activities have been halted, including large projects like highways, flyovers, and pipelines. </li></ul></ul>Out of Delhi’s 40 monitoring stations, 32 reported AQI levels above 400 on Monday. Visibility in parts of the city dropped to just 100 metres due to the thick smog. The health implications of these numbers are alarming. <keyword id="20118319" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="PM2-5-levels" source="keywords">PM2.5 levels</keyword> in Delhi were recorded at 130.9 times the safe limit set by the WHO. According to experts, long-term exposure to such air quality could lead to an 11% increase in premature mortality rates due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Studies have shown that Delhi residents may lose an average of 10 years of life expectancy if pollution levels persist. Despite the restrictions, life in Delhi continues under a cloud of smog. Iconic landmarks like India Gate have become barely visible through the haze. While flights and trains are operational, some delays have been reported.

GRAP Stage 4 restrictions take effect as air quality in Delhi deteriorates; PM2.5 levels 130 times higher than WHO limits

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The United States is preparing for civil unrest surrounding the election.</li><li>Election Day itself isn't as high of a risk as the postelection period, analysts say.</li></ul>The turmoil that took place after the last US presidential election has left its mark.So this time around, as Election Day looms, businesses and governments around the country are preparing in advance — especially if the results are close.The consensus going into Election Day is that will be the case.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/harris-trump-presidential-election-swing-state-polls-sun-belt-2024-10">Seven swing states</a> offer multiple avenues for each candidate to win. And the final polls have largely shown the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump as a virtual tie nationally.Glen Kucera, an executive at Allied Universal, a private security company, told Business Insider that his clientele are concerned enough to seek more resources to protect themselves and their businesses."The threat is kind of imminent and everywhere," Kucera said. "We're trying to get ahead of the threat."In the final stretch before Election Day, it seems like everyone — from voter advocacy groups and election officials to risk management and security companies — is preparing for civil unrest."I think what is also now on people's minds is the emotion, the anger that goes with some of these elections," Kucera said. "We're being deployed to try to figure all those imminent threats out and try to protect the public as we go into this election."But just how high is the risk?<h2 id="6f2d6248-0787-4c0f-9dc3-5d53c2aad9c9">Election Day isn't the biggest worry</h2>Election Day itself isn't likely to be the most high-risk day for unrest because there will be extensive protective measures taken, said Rachel Brown, an expert on violence, hate speech, and civic engagement at Over Zero, which works to deter identity-based violence."I wouldn't expect us to see a high level of organized violence. People should feel safe voting, and if there is any danger, it's likely to be very highly localized, such as a single person taking action where there seem to be groups trying to mobilize," Brown said on Friday at a press panel hosted by the National Task Force on Election Crises (NTFEC), a cross-partisan election organization.That appears to be the case in Washington and Oregon, where authorities are searching for what they say is a lone actor responsible for placing incendiary devices on at least two ballot drop boxes, burning hundreds of ballots. Officials in Clark County, Washington, where some 488 ballots were damaged, said in a press release that they have been in contact with the majority of the voters affected to issue them replacement ballots.<div type="image" title="A ballot box was damaged in Multnomah County in Portland, Oregon." height="1500" width="2250" msid="114923430" hostid="261" sizebytes="146584"></div>There are protections in place for the voting process, voters, and election workers, Brown said. Voter intimidation is criminal and prosecutable, and locally, voting sites are preparing for any incidents, including swatting attacks, where a fake call is made to law enforcement to trigger an armed response, Brown said."Some of the threats that many of us aren't even thinking about day to day, election officials are working day in and day out to prevent and then respond to," Chris Crawford, an NTFEC staffer and policy strategist at Protect Democracy, said at the panel. "There are remedies when activities like this arise that election officials can still try to ensure that every person can have their votes submitted and counted."The greater risk is likely postelection, when the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-kamala-harris-preparing-legal-challenges-election-decided-court-2024-8">results may be decided in courts</a> instead of on election night. Then, there's the waiting game until Congress counts the electoral votes on January 6, followed by the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony on January 20.Brown said she is "most concerned" about a spike in conspiracy theories and threats to state capitals, vote count locations, and the individuals who oversee them.Anticipating such unrest after the election, businesses in Portland and other cities have begun boarding up their windows."Violence tends to happen to target the process and to contest results," Brown said. "We know the dates that are relevant in the process and are able to anticipate where that might happen, but in a close election, we could see the use of violence or intimidation to attempt to sway how the results are processed."<h2 id="39042411-d542-4c03-b120-8bb15025a411">How great is the risk?</h2>Verisk, a data analytics and risk management company, ranked the United States among the five most high-risk countries for civil unrest, which could also lead to extensive insured losses, in the next year. Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and South Africa rounded out the list, with France, Greece, and Spain the riskiest in Europe.Verisk wrote in an October analysis that election-related violence is rare in the United States and that the January 6 riot in 2021 was "a standout protest event in US history." The company said the peaceful 2022 midterm elections showed that the threat of civil violence remained comparatively low.Emotions run higher during presidential elections, however, and the company's Strikes Riots and Civil Commotion Predictive Model found that the tension and political polarization could reach a boiling point, sparking unrest in urban centers like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston."Not only is the underlying SRCC risk higher than in January 2021, the potential for flashpoints to ignite civil unrest is also greater," Torbjorn Soltvedt, principal analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, said in a press release.Robert Munks, Verisk's head of research for the Americas, said that risks may also rise following the election during the certification processes."Crucially, the risk of election-related unrest will rise substantially if the outcome of the election is tightly contested," Munks said, "particularly should Trump lose to Harris."

The US is bracing for civil unrest around the election. But just how high is the risk?

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Trump's election win sparked a surge in the S&amp;P 500, but risks from China loom.</li><li>China could significantly retaliate against Trump's proposed 60% tariff, Capital Economics said.</li></ul>The stock market <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-invest-trump-win-election-stock-market-outlook-strategy-2024-11">has zoomed higher</a> since President-elect Donald Trump's win last week, with the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/index/s&amp;p_500">S&amp;P 500</a> notching a quick 5% gain.Yet, while Trump's win opens the stock market to potentially more upside <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/market-impact-presidential-election-scenarios-trump-harris-stocks-bonds-crypto-2024-10">via tax cuts and deregulation</a>, it also <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-risk-outlook-trump-deportation-tariff-anthony-scaramucci-2024-11">makes it more vulnerable to other risks.</a>According to chief market economist John Higgins of Capital Economics, the biggest risk looming for the S&amp;P 500 is China, specifically, its potential reaction to another Trump trade war."Perhaps the biggest risk to the S&amp;P 500, given that a bubble in the index has been inflated by hype around AI, would be a retaliatory clampdown by China on US big-tech firms' operations in its territory," Higgins wrote in a Monday note.During his campaign trail, Trump proposed a 60% tariff on all goods imported from China, which would be a sharp escalation from the 25% tariffs he placed on a select list of goods during his first administration.If Trump's proposed 60% tariff against China is enacted and the country responds aggressively, it would likely pressure some of America's most important companies, like <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/aapl-stock">Apple</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/tsla-stock">Tesla</a>, which manufacture and sell their products in the country.China can do anything from restricting the sale of goods from American companies within its country to disrupting American companies' manufacturing operations.But Higgins believes that's an unlikely outcome, as an escalating trade war would hit China's already struggling economy."Retaliating in that way would undermine the image China has been trying to cultivate of a responsible superpower," Higgins said, adding that if it responds too aggressively to a second round of Trump tariffs, it could lose access to technologies that are integral to AI.Instead, China would likely take a more targeted approach in responding to a second round of Trump tariffs."We suspect China would retaliate in more subtle ways, such as restricting supply of rare earth metals and older generation semiconductor chips," Higgins said.

The biggest risk to stocks after Trump's victory is China's reaction to a trade war, research firm says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>High-net-worth investors use many loopholes to reduce their taxes.</li><li>Among them are exchange funds, collars, 1031s, and hedging and borrowing against assets.</li></ul>In simple terms, there are only three places your money can go: to you and your family, to charitable organizations, and to the IRS. That's the pep talk Nayan Lapsiwala, a director of wealth management and partner at Aspiriant, gives his ultra-high-net-worth clients.The second part of his pep talk is to avoid letting tax avoidance undermine your financial future. It could be a bad idea to keep a stock solely to skip out on realizing capital gains."What if that stock falls 50% or more?" Lapsiwala said. "You are trying to save money on taxes, but your entire financial future can get wiped out with the market."This is why <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tax-strategies-irs-rules-that-can-improve-your-financial-situation-2024-5">tax loopholes</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-defer-real-estate-capital-gains-tax-1031-exchange-2024-3">deferral strategies exist</a>, and why the wealthy seek out top advisors to help them navigate the complicated and intricate tax code. The right advice can buy time, reduce tax burdens, or even avoid them altogether without breaking any laws.<h2 id="e7689c3d-b101-4cb5-aaa5-8e6baca28255">8 loopholes</h2>Most investors know and have access to an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/investing/what-is-an-etf#:~:text=An%20exchange%2Dtraded%20fund%20(ETF,liquid%20as%20some%20mutual%20funds.">exchange-traded fund</a> (ETF). But what about an exchange fund?For investors who have reaped high gains from a stock and want to shave some off to reduce concentration risk, Lapsiwala says choosing to pool their assets in an exchange or swap fund with other investors is the way to go. A manager then oversees this fund. Consider it a 'you share your stocks, and I'll share mine'-type scenario. It gives participating investors diversification without triggering a tax event. The catch is that the shares must be held in the fund for seven years to reap the benefits and defer the tax."The manager's responsibility is to reduce capital gain taxes for everyone because now as you have a pool of assets, there might be some stocks that will go down in value, some might go up," Lapsiwala said. "So, a tax-loss-harvesting type of trading will take place and then you are reducing your capital gains taxes."Another way to lock in profits on securities is by creating collars, which means buying a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/investing/option-chain#:~:text=An%20option%20is%20a%20contract,its%20own%20type%20of%20security.">put option and selling a call option</a> against the underlying asset. It hedges the share price because the put creates a floor, allowing the buyer to keep the stock but offload it if it falls below the agreed-upon price, which is the strike. But buying that put will cost a premium. Therefore, calls are sold to offset the cost, giving another buyer the right to purchase the stock if it rises. The downside is that it caps any upside potential above the strike."There are executives we work with, for whatever restriction, they cannot sell, or they have huge capital gains and they don't want to take a big tax hit," Lapsiwala said. This strategy helps them plan the timing of when they want to realize the gains."For those who need liquidity, once the stock is hedged, they can borrow up to 50% against its value on margin, Lapsiwala noted. This strategy could have a double tax benefit: One, the investor isn't realizing a capital gain. Two, if the borrowed amount is used for another investment and there is investment income, the cost of borrowing is treated as investment interest. It can be used to reduce the overall taxable income.Some investors will borrow against their stocks without hedging. This is common for short-term liquidity needs, like bridge financing to buy a property while waiting to sell another, Lapsiwala noted. The risk here is if the stock drops in value in the interim, you get a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/investing/margin-call#:~:text=A%20margin%20call%20occurs%20when%20the%20value%20of%20the%20equity,off%20some%20of%20the%20investments.">margin call</a> and must come up with the capital to cover it.As for investors who have philanthropic goals, charitable giving is tax deductible. Still, instead of giving cash that's already taxed, some of Lapsiwala's wealthy clients give their appreciated securities to a 501(c) charitable organization. This grants them a tax deduction while skipping out on capital gains tax.Another way of giving to charity is by donating appreciated assets to a donor-advised fund (DAF). In turn, the investor get a tax deduction in the year it was gifted, but they don't have to give the full amount to the charitable organization in that calendar year."This is a strategy when you have high taxable income, and you want to reduce your taxes but aren't sure that you want to give charitable grants of a high amount in a year," Lapsiwala said. "So what we typically do is, let's say clients are giving $100,000 a year, we will say, 'let's fund that by a million dollars' and they can get that million dollar deduction now, but over the next 10 years, give $100,000 annually from that account."Clients who want to give to charity while continuing to benefit from gains on their principal can opt for a charitable remainder trust (CRT). It allows them to transfer cash, property, or assets to an irrevocable trust that pays an income in the form of an annuity or a percent of the trust's assets for a term or until their death, upon which it goes to the selected charities.John Pantekidis, managing partner at TwinFocus, says CRTs are a win-win for the charity and donor. The latter gets a tax deduction up front and an annuity while helping a charity.Pantekidis, whose average client is worth close to $200 million, says this setup is suggested for clients with highly appreciated assets who want an income from it but are also charitably inclined.But perhaps the tax avoidance strategy that has been an absolute home run for high-net-worth clients, according to Pantekidis, is investing in qualified opportunity zones. These are economically distressed areas that require long-term investments in real estate and businesses.If you have a million dollars of capital gains and if you invest it in a qualified opportunity zone, you get to defer that through 2026, Pantekidis noted. Any appreciation on that investment escapes tax permanently; that's an avoidance, he said. Furthermore, an investor can depreciate the property for further tax deductions without depreciation recapture."So not only do you avoid tax on the gain, to the extent you get depreciation you can avoid tax on the initial gain. It's become an absolute home run for ultra-high-net-worth clients who have capital gains. Even some of our hedge fund managers who get compensation through carried interests of capital gains can defer those capital gains and even avoid them."However, the investment must be held for five to seven years to defer a portion of those gains and at least 10 years for the new gains to be fully tax-free.Finally, those with an appreciated property who can identify a similar property to swap it with can use 1031 Exchanges. It allows the client to defer the capital gains. If they die with the property, they can get a step-up in basis which permanently removes any tax originally deferred by the exchange, Pantekidis said.

8 of the savviest loopholes wealthy investors use to reduce or avoid capital gains tax

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Inflation has come down from pandemic highs, but one economist isn't expecting a return to 2%.</li><li>Rate cuts and other changes in the economy point to 3%+ long-term inflation, says Steven Blitz.</li></ul>For the last decade or so, the Federal Reserve's magic number for inflation has been 2%.The central bank has been aiming to keep the long-run inflation rate at this level to maintain stable prices and a healthy economy.And after the runaway prices of the pandemic era, it seems like the Fed is drawing closer to its 2% goal: the inflation rate was 2.4% for the 12-month period ending in September.However, don't count on a return to the 2% era, said Steven Blitz, chief economist at business intelligence firm GlobalData. Blitz believes the economy is on track for higher, not lower, long-term inflation."I think inflation is going to settle around 3%, 3.5%," Blitz told Business Insider in an interview. "There is now a higher base inflation rate than there was before COVID for a number of reasons."The Fed's rate-cutting campaign is certainly a contributing factor to higher future inflation, in Blitz's opinion. In the past, runaway inflation has only returned to 2% after the Fed engineered a hard landing that slowed consumer spending and wage growth, Blitz said. Financial historian <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inflation-fed-powell-mistake-1970s-runaway-stagflation-unemployment-interest-rates-2024-10">Mark Higgins</a> points out that when the Fed cut rates too quickly in the 1960s, inflation spiked and contributed to stagflation in the 1970s.But there are other factors contributing to an increased long-term inflation rate, many of which Blitz tracked even before the pandemic.Debt levels are creeping up, generating an inflationary effect by increasing demand and prices for goods. In terms of consumer and business debt, after the Great Financial Crisis, households and businesses focused on deleveraging their balance sheets, but this trend started reversing after the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2018, Blitz said. Reduced taxes incentivized spending and also increased the national debt. A higher national debt balance can erode confidence in the dollar, further increasing inflation.Changing demographics in the workplace are also driving increasing debt and higher long-term inflation, according to Blitz.The workforce is getting younger as Gen Z employees enter the market and baby boomers and Gen X employees retire, resulting in growing spending power from Gen Z.As millennials age and gain more income, they're entering their prime homebuying years."They're in that part of their life where they normally leverage their balance sheets to take in physical assets," Blitz said. And as more millennials start families and have children, their expenditures will only continue to increase. These demographic changes will stoke consumer demand and, subsequently, inflation.And lastly, inflation is creeping up thanks to changes in international trade, Blitz said. Import penetration, or the amount of foreign goods flowing into the US, is reaching a plateau. Importing cheap goods from overseas has a disinflationary effect by decreasing prices paid by consumers.Blitz believes import penetration in the US is near or has already reached peak levels, meaning that the deflationary impacts of international trade will be muted in the future. With trends such as nearshoring and reshoring driving companies to move their operations closer to domestic markets, import penetration could certainly decline.In Blitz's perspective, all of these factors add up to an inflation rate exceeding 2% going forward.<h2 id="42586d83-d9bb-4112-b404-1a3b9311f18b">Investing for higher inflation</h2>Investors could start seeing persistent inflation take hold within the next year, according to Blitz. The September jobs report is already one early sign of sticky inflation, especially wage inflation, in his opinion.There are a few ways that investors can prepare their portfolios.In a high-interest-rate environment, bonds are less attractive, Blitz said. Bonds suffer from inflation risk because inflation eats into interest rate payments, reducing their real yield. Higher inflation also pushes up yields as investors demand higher compensation, reducing the value of the assets.Instead, look towards the stock market, he said. While increased inflation might hurt the stock market overall, there are some pockets of equities that will benefit. Technology and value stocks typically perform well in the wake of higher inflation, according to Blitz.In a high-inflation environment, companies look to put their capital into more durable investments as the dollar depreciates. Blitz believes the chip industry in particular is an inflation-resilient choice because they supply assets critical to many supply chains.High inflation can be a boon to value stocks because it boosts businesses' margins."In a lower inflation environment, it's harder to grow revenue off of the nominal growth of the economy," Blitz said. That results in outperformance from growth stocks, which investors anticipate will increase profits at a substantially higher pace relative to the rest of the market.In a 3% to 3.5% inflation environment, there's more opportunity for overlooked value stocks to appreciate. High-quality value stocks with stable margins will actually receive a lift from rising prices, especially if they have good cost management, Blitz said.Those looking to increase their exposure to these areas of the stock market can do so through funds such as the iShares Semiconductor ETF (<a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/etfs/ishares-semiconductor-etf-us4642875235?miRedirects=1">SOXX</a>) and the Vanguard Value Index Fund ETF (<a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/etfs/vanguard-value-index-fund-etf-shares-us9229087443?miRedirects=1">VTV</a>).

Why inflation isn't returning to pre-pandemic levels — and 3 trades to capitalize on an overheating economy

The rapid acceleration of change in the workplace — from the boom of generative AI to shifting work models — means leaving behind old ideas of what C-suite leadership looks like.For Business Insider's third Workforce Innovation virtual roundtable, we asked board members how C-suite leaders might have previously led their businesses and how old approaches are giving way to a distinctly new way of executive leadership.Several board members said change needed to happen at every level of an organization, not just on a single team. Now it's up to leaders to harness the potential of their workforce and prepare employees for how they can play an active role in transformations across the business."The reset message here is that no function is exempt," Maggie Hulce, the chief revenue officer at Indeed, said. "Every function can change and should be changing and needs to take accountability and ownership for driving that, versus waiting for a central team to figure everything out."With evolving workplace priorities, the Workforce Innovation board also predicted which new roles might emerge in the C-suite, including "chief transformation officer" and "chief experience officer."The following has been edited for length and clarity.Julia Hood: What's the old way of C-suite leadership, and what's the new way? What is changing for those leading the workforce during this time of transformation?<h2 id="0c6ca21f-d8b4-40db-bb90-e9fb8d56ff2b">Alicia Pittman, chair of global people team, Boston Consulting Group</h2>One of the biggest differences we're seeing and we'll continue to see is that the concept of apprenticeship is becoming truly a two-way street. An old version of apprenticeship is learning the craft step-by-step — like the "Karate Kid" and Mr. Miyagi, based on wisdom and time.Now leaders are also seeing from younger generations how to embrace technology and AI, specifically, how to lead inclusive teams that maybe don't look so much like you, and how to support employees through mental-health challenges and general wellness.I'm seeing that happening in very powerful ways, truly two ways, and up and down. Organizations that embrace that — which are flatter, less formal, and allow for more of that cross-connectivity — are going to benefit as that becomes more the norm in how we craft leadership.<h2 id="f242fb98-9c94-4e5b-8135-1f191d2cb6f3">Neil Murray, CEO, Work Dynamics at JLL</h2>I like the idea that's been coined about leading from behind. The notion is that the old way was about leading leaders top-down, personally owning strategy, P&amp;L, innovation, and culture.Leading from behind has been likened to a shepherd coordinating from behind and creating an environment where people who are willing and able can take initiative and lead innovation. That company culture becomes owned collectively rather than the singular responsibility of the CEO.I don't think that's about a CEO stepping back and allowing mob rule, but rather, it's about harnessing collective genius in the organization.I think the reason for this is that the psychological contract between companies and employees has changed quite dramatically and continues to change. We know that people are looking for more meaning and purpose in their working lives. They expect to be seen. They expect to be valued for who they are and, ultimately, want to be part of and coauthor a company purpose and culture.It also applies to innovation. It's no longer about incremental innovation from a centralized chief product officer. Breakthrough innovation will be key, with consistent breakthrough innovation to sustain competitiveness. From a leadership perspective, that's about creating an environment where those closest to issues and most nimble can lean in and innovate, rather than trying to centralize it.<h2 id="d012677b-737d-445d-84a4-5d9f7a363a82">Kenon Chen, executive vice president of strategy and growth, Clear Capital</h2>When I first saw the GitHub Copilot demo before it was launched, I was struck by the idea of someone with a business use case and business knowledge being able to execute and create a technical solution without going through our typical translation layers, which are business analysts and scrum masters and technical project managers.We now have this huge layer of translators between the business, especially from the C-suite to the people who are creating the innovations or products.What gen AI is leading us to is a world in which we don't need so many translators because there are fewer hops from the idea to the value that we want to create to the execution. When you have all these translators, it's like the telephone game.As a leader, you need to be able to communicate much more precisely and clearly the outcome that you're trying to create in terms of value. You have to be your own translator, in a way, so that every stakeholder involved can take action on what's being communicated.<h2 id="df0e2c1a-ee63-46c5-b1e1-3cca22a63036">Anant Adya, executive vice president, service-offering head, and head of Americas delivery, Infosys</h2>At Infosys, one of the things we are focusing on is employee well-being. We want to be a hybrid work environment where we give flexibility to our employees to choose the way they want to work.There is obviously great value in coming to the office, collaborating with team members, and working to do innovative stuff. But this also ties back to DEI initiatives in the company. As we improve our gender diversity, especially as we go to the top, we want to make sure we give flexibility to our employees.Also very important is how we embrace innovation. We continuously upskill, retrain, and reskill our employees. How do we make sure that we embrace the culture of learning in the company? It's very critical that we have to constantly learn and upskill ourselves with all the new technologies that are coming and with all the new lingo that is being spoken. We don't want to get stuck in the old world of still talking old technology.Finally, we balance risk and focus from a long-term standpoint. Of course, everybody's focused on the quarter results and numbers, but we want to have a very long-term focus and plan at the same time.<h2 id="ef9e6c96-6d4a-4af5-a150-163cc530eada">Justina Nixon-Saintil, vice president and chief impact officer, IBM</h2>There is such a focus on employee voice across everything that we do. When you think about AI, we're asking employees, no matter where they are across the business, to come up with use cases and ways that AI can make a difference in their function.In the past, this would be the limit of just one entity, one function to come up with the right use cases. Maybe it was the software team, CIO team, or CTO.Now we're looking across the entire business and saying, "Come up with the right use cases that can help your function, your programs, your organization."Even in the area that I lead around corporate responsibility and ESG, we're deploying AI technology to create better learning pathways for our users or to look at ESG and data analytics. So this is an area we're leading within the organization and not necessarily waiting for another function to help us lead.<h2 id="b9d6a0b9-97d7-4bef-b44c-1a0b1ebba35e">Maggie Hulce, chief revenue officer, Indeed</h2>We are moving towards AI-enabled transformation being a companywide expectation, as opposed to just a few teams working on it and incubating it. That requires, as others have said, cross-team learning and development, and we are acknowledging we need both centrally driven, top-down things and a lot of bottom-up things.That's a parallel concept to DEI. We've gone through the transition of separate DEI organizations to having it be the expectation that equity is every leader's responsibility.Having a separate team that's supposed to make everybody behave with equity just doesn't work.With well-being, we've been on this track that, of course, physical and mental health, employee engagement, and employee voice are really important. Right now, there's more focus on training managers for the challenges of the multigenerational workforce and the mix of in person and remote.The speed of change is getting more and more rapid. How do we equip the managers up and down to help navigate this? And that's a big part of employee buy-in and navigating change. In the C-suite itself, you have more roles that have to think cross-functionally and be cross-functionally trained. Because as you think about how AI can change processes, it blurs and breaks old functional lines.That will make people uncomfortable. But if you let the functional lines be blockers, it will definitely slow you down. So our expectation is that we're going to see more and different types of roles that are enabling transformation.<h2 id="9b14003d-0c96-46b6-9c44-0515cc2393cf">Lucrecia Borgonovo, chief talent and organizational-effectiveness officer, Mastercard</h2>One of the biggest shifts is around decision-making — the move from siloed decision-making, where each member of the C-suite has a defined set of decisions they're accountable for, to a C-suite that acts more as a collective leadership body. It acts more cross-functionally, and there are more shared responsibilities and more joint decision-making that becomes part of the norm.There's much more fluidity and interdependency across different roles and functions. C-suite leaders are wearing multiple hats and creating roles that are much more versatile in nature.Tim Paradis: We've seen new C-suite roles emerge in recent years, like chief AI officer and chief ethics officer. The C-suite itself is getting larger in some cases. What new C-suite offices might emerge next?Nixon-Saintil: I'm seeing a lot of new roles, especially in corporate social responsibility and ESG. More "chief impact officers" are focused on social impact across the business. Those roles sometimes oversee environmental affairs and sustainability initiatives.The "chief sustainability officer" role has increased significantly over the last two years. Many large companies had them, but now smaller or midsize companies are adding that role to the C-suite, especially as they prepare for regulation around sustainability and all of the mandatory disclosure that is occurring."Chief ESG officer" is a new role that we are seeing as well, with a focus on ESG, regulation, controls, and accountability.Adya: The common thing that will happen across roles is the use of data and AI across every role.There are two roles that we are seeing in some of our bigger customers. One is chief experience officer, who is focused on what we call "human experience." It's not just about the experience of users but also of the stakeholders, business users, and customers of the enterprise.For example, if you go to a company and ask a finance person, "What does experience look like for you?" He or she will say that I would want to close my books on time. That's the experience. They don't care about whether they're using X, Y, or Z vendor. For them, closing the books on time is their experience. So this is about looking at the experience of the stakeholders, the users, and their customers.Then, while there is a "chief AI officer" role that's picking up, there is also a lot of focus on automation. How do we use automation in a business process? So the "chief automation officer," cutting across the enterprise, is looking at areas where we could potentially drive automation in a big way.Borgonovo: One that is on my mind is what you might call a "chief optimization officer," focused on how do you extract the most value across your products, your services, and all the different investments that you make, identifying items that aren't necessarily scaling.The other one that we have seen at Mastercard is the "chief risk officer," a new role created in response to the environment getting incredibly complex and the importance of embedding risk management into the organization.Roles like chief transformation officer will continue to be relevant. It all depends on the maturity of the different capabilities that you have in the organization.Pittman: I think that a lot of these roles — whether it's chief diversity officer, chief risk officer, chief digital officer — are really about building new competencies that are not widely spread. Where it's working best, you see companies standing up leadership for these capabilities and then pushing it down the line. It's got to be everybody's accountability.The number of companies naming chief transformation officers grew about 140% over the last couple of years. It's one of those roles where the impact is most measurable. You can see with a chief transformation officer, from the time they're appointed to the next two years, on average, that the company is going to improve its shareholder return performance versus its peers.That's pretty remarkable in terms of impact, so we'll keep seeing that. With the pace of change, the half-life of market leadership keeps getting shorter and shorter. We're going to see the role of the chief transformation officer being critical to enable C-suites to keep up with the pace of change and drive cross-functional initiatives.Hulce: I was just pitching this idea of a transformation leader, not necessarily reporting to the CEO but one across internal functions to help drive the next 18 months given how fast we intend to stand up totally different ways of working.When we think about transformation for external products versus transformation for internal processes, it is a bit different. So when we think about the work we're trying to do for external products, making sure the scope is clear — those are long-standing, typical questions for how you stay competitive and innovate.But rapid cross-functional, internal transformation is different. Can you make a successful role to drive a complete rethink of process and workflow across many functions with technology and AI being a critical enabler?In the past, it wasn't as important to do cross-functionally as it is now, with what gen AI can do. It's a big opportunity to radically rethink how this work gets done.Murray: Business-unit leaders now have an explicit responsibility to look at everything within their business line and think about on a 2-by-2 matrix the feasibility versus the impact of transforming end-to-end process.Chen: I do like this idea of a chief transformation officer, but the risk there is if every leader isn't equipped with thinking about how to proactively get value from tools that are around the organization and the data that is available. Everyone is going to have to be reskilled to learn how to do that, with AI as one of the new accelerator tools.

The C-suite is evolving — and new roles may join to drive innovation, say execs from IBM, JLL, Clear Capital, and more

Markets regulator <keyword id="19901201" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sebi" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Sebi" meta.hostid="153" meta.entityid="Sebi">SEBI</keyword> has asked the <keyword id="20677983" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mutual-fund-industry" source="keywords">mutual fund industry</keyword> to proactively conduct stress tests, a key component of <keyword id="20383727" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="risk-management" source="keywords">risk management</keyword> for the financial sector, which will help strengthen the ecosystem, its whole-time member Ananth Narayan Gopalakrishnan said on Friday. The regulator's stress testing emphasizes the need to assess and manage liquidity risks, especially in small and midcap equity schemes. Speaking at a mutual fund event, Gopalakrishnan highlighted the importance of modelling stress scenarios not just for individual schemes or fund houses, but for the entire mutual fund ecosystem. "It is also important to model stress scenarios for the entire composite mutual fund ecosystem. I would strongly encourage the industry and <keyword id="20090036" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="AMFI" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="AMFI" meta.hostid="153" meta.entityid="AMFI">AMFI</keyword> to take the lead and proactively conduct objective and credible industry wide stress tests. themselves," Gopalakrishnan said. He also emphasized the need to find better ways to communicate the risks associated with different mutual fund schemes. The SEBI official mentioned that while the current risk measurement system is straightforward and has had a significant impact, it doesn't fully capture the differences in risks among various investment schemes. According to him, many schemes are just labelled as high risk, even though they have different kinds of risks. The goal is to improve this system to better reflect those differences, while keeping it simple and easy to understand. One possible approach is to consider the portfolio's volatility and liquidity from stress tests to give a clearer picture. "While ensuring simplicity and ease of understanding remains a key objective, perhaps the underlying volatility of the portfolio along with the liquidity of the portfolio from stress tests could be used to provide better colour all around," he added. This comes at a time when the holdings of mutual funds by <keyword id="20234284" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="domestic-institutional-investors" source="keywords">Domestic Institutional Investors</keyword> (DIIs) and individuals have risen from about 54.3% of free float of all mid cap and small cap companies, as of March 2020 to 60.6% as of March 2024. Several fund houses have proactively stopped lump sum investments in some small-cap schemes and also capped the amount that can be invested through <keyword id="20675888" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="systematic-investment-plan" source="keywords">Systematic Investment Plan</keyword> (SIP) into small-cap schemes. He also highlighted the potential mismatch between the demand for paper and the supply of fresh paper coming into the ecosystem. Gopalakrishnan said the industry can make more progress in streamlining operations and improving efficiency for investors. "At a time when instantaneous fund transfers have become ubiquitous in our country, perhaps we should look to improve our internal processes and the security settlement ecosystem, to ensure that funds are passed on to investors on the day of the settlement itself, rather than a day after or two days after," he added. Over the last few years, the mutual fund industry has made impressive strides, and is now playing a crucial role in channeling financial savings towards risk capital formation. This was driven by stable macros, increased formalization, robust corporate earnings, digitisation and user friendly access. Moreover, the number of mutual fund investors has grown significantly from about 2 crore as of March 2019 to nearly 4.7 crore as of June 2024, an impressive compounded annual growth rate of 18% during that period. Gopalakrishnan mentioned that several exciting initiatives are in the works, developed with input from all stakeholders. These include a proposed low-ticket SIP, further breaking down regular SIPs into smaller, more accessible units (sachetisation and tokenization), and the introduction of "mutual funds lite" regulations. These new regulations will simplify rules for passively managed funds, reducing the compliance burden and encouraging competition and innovation. Additionally, a new class of higher-risk schemes is proposed for investors with a greater capacity to handle risk.

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