The Next Five

The world is grappling with the need to hit the global Net Zero by 2050 target which means the net amount of greenhouse gases emitted into, and removed from, the atmosphere is zero by that date. All the while providing safe, secure and affordable energy for citizens. A tug of war between outcomes is afoot, where difficult decisions and trade-offs will need to be made by governments, energy majors and consumers. Energy security is key for economic resilience. Progress made in the last few decades in the UK and Euro area was buffeted by the Russia Ukraine war. Geopolitical events, such as mounting international tensions in the Middle East, could create further energy shocks. However, according to the European Security Mechanism, to enhance resilience to energy supply shocks, the EU needs to increase the use of domestically produced renewable energy. In this episode of The Next Five Torgrim Reitan, CFO and EVP at Equinor discussses the need for a balance between transitioning to renewables and offering stable supply of reliable energy sources such as natural gas. Rebecca Williams, Deputy CEO of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) offers insight into the future for wind projects and how renewable energy can provide much needed energy security. Irina Kustova, Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy studies (CEPS), highlights the policy landscape surrounding the energy ecosystem and the challenges and opportunities ahead. Sources: FT resources, National Grid, European Commission, WEF, windeurope.org, European Security Mechanism, Mckinsey, S&P Global Commodities Insights, IEA.

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We live in a world of tremendous uncertainty where businesses are increasingly challenged to adapt to a rapidly evolving risk landscape. Economic instability, rising geopolitical tensions, technological disruption, cyber threats and the energy transition, are just some of the concerns for boards and businesses globally. Companies need to prepare for risk and maintain resilience. In this episode of The Next Five, Vince Tizzio, President and CEO of AXIS highlights the important role that the insurance industry plays in managing risk, and the need for specialisation and collaboration within industries. John Doyle, CEO of Marsh McLennan, discusses the increasing climate related risk landscape and how technology is being used to help map global risk, as well as the risk reward balance of technologies such as AI. Mark Erickson, Global Head of the Financial Institutions Group at BlackRock offers insight into Blackrock's recent report on the insurance industry's views on climate and AI risk and opportunity. 

Sources: FT Resources, WEF, Mckinsey, EIOPA, KPMG, Swiss Re

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If money makes the world go round, then data tells you how fast it’s spinning and when it might stop. 90% of all data was generated in the last 2 years and every 2 years the volume of data doubles. With 11 billion devices connected to the internet today, the annual global data generation in 2025 is expected to be 181 zettabytes, that’s 181 trillion gigabytes. To put it in context, we use about 3 gigabytes to stream netflix in high definition for an hour. In other words, the modern world can’t live without data. To continue to understand the world, especially as we move ever more into the digital age of AI, we must better understand the data we are creating. And this means in every part of life, including in business. Alexander Igelsböck, Co-Founder and CEO of Adverity joins us to show how data can unlock business opportunities and create a competitive advantage. Florian Jacquier, Global Head of Data Consumer Engagement at Nestlé, discusses the importance for large global companies to see, understand and action your data correctly. Dr Clare Walsh, Director of Education at the Institute of Analytics, highlights how data is used by organisations and governments and the importance of data policy and governance. 

Sources: FT Resources, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Tyger Vilan’s Spurious Correlations, Whatsthebigdata.com

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The premium alcohol industry is about more than just indulgence. It’s a category that is garnering greater attention from consumers, investors and collectors. 

Increased disposable incomes, celebrity culture and social media has created new avenues for brand recognition and sales. Partnerships with other luxury brands also bring cross pollination appeal and is an area top spirit brands are looking to take more advantage of. Investing in premium alcohol is also an area of growth. Brand, age and rarity set the standard for big prices. The whisky category has seen records consistently broken in the last few years as wealthy individuals battle for the best bottles. In November 2023, a single bottle of The Macallan 1926 Valerio Adami, one of only 40 bottles originally released, sold for a new record price of £2.18 million at Sotheby's in London.

But there are some headwinds in both the primary and secondary markets that brands and consumers need to weather.

In this episode of The Next Five we speak with Duncan McFadzean, Managing Director at Noble & Co, who discusses the growth and challenges of the primary market and how brands can buck the economic downturn. Jaume Ferras, Creative Director at The Macallan, shows how luxury brands are working together to increase share of pocket. Jonny Fowle, Global Head of Whisky at Sotheby’s, conveys the highs and lows of investing in the secondary market and calls for the joys of consumption as well as investing in fine bottles. 

Sources: FT Resources, Forbes, Matter of Form, Mordor Intelligence, Whisky Advocate, Spirit Filled

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Individual creativity and idea construction sets us apart within our own societies, it is a deeply desirable trait, and can give you power and wealth. ‘Gosh, what a great idea!’, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ are often thought and heard. Cue Artificial intelligence, AI can enhance and enable our creativity- giving thousands of creative solutions to our input ideas. Less a brainstorm and more a cosmic tsunami of creation, all in a matter of seconds. It does this without its own personal agenda and selfish desire to have the idea that brings with it the potential for expression, power and wealth. But is it creative? Or, like in many industry applications, is AI a tool that makes us more creative.

In this episode of The Next Five, we hear from Doug Eck, Senior Research Director at the Google DeepMind working on generative media, who discusses how we amplify our own human ideas with technology and that AI brings an inflection point where new art forms could develop with its help. Youtube content creator Dani Verdari, discusses the use of AI in her own content creation, the benefits of having this technology at her fingertips and how it can help others become artists and creators. She also discusses some of the issues around copyright of works that arise. Neil Maiden, Professor of Digital Creativity at the Bayes Business School, City University of London and Director of the Center for Creativity Enabled by AI, looks at how we embed creative thinking in professional practices and how AI can be used to solve problems more effectively.

Sources: FT Resources, Harvard Business Review, Goldman Sachs, American Museum of Natural History, Science Daily, Lesley University, Forbes, Accenture.

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"Prevention is better than cure” is a fundamental principle of modern healthcare. In this episode of the Next Five, in paid partnership with GSK, we look at health care prevention in ageing societies, with a particular focus on vaccine uptake. Ever since 1796, when Dr. Edward Jenner inoculated an 8-year-old boy against smallpox with a vaccine containing the milder strain cowpox, vaccination has become a part of the preventative medicine armoury. Vaccines have lowered the impact of many diseases, and benefits go beyond the health of the individual by reducing the cost and burden placed on healthcare systems and society. The COVID-19 pandemic placed a fresh spotlight on vaccines, highlighting the need but also, in some instances, the ambivalence towards them. By 2030, the number of people aged 60 and over will have increased by more than a third to 1.4 billion people. Even with the lessons learnt from the pandemic, low adult immunisation uptake remains a global problem that needs urgent solutions.

In this episode I speak with Kate Hashey, Director of Communications and Government Affairs at GSK, who leads their adult immunisation work and discusses the role vaccinations play in the healthy ageing of our societies and how we must bolster action in the future to embed adult immunisation as the standard of care . Murray Aitken, Executive Director of the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, highlights hyperlocal data showing trends in adult immunisation globally. David Sinclair, Chief Executive Officer at the International Longevity Centre in the UK, offers insight into how we can live longer, healthier lives and where the UK sits compared to other countries on preventative healthcare spending and solutions.

Sources: FT Resources, European Commission, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, British Medical Association, OECD, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

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After slumping during the pandemic, business travel is picking up pace: it’s expected to hit pre-pandemic levels this year with spending on it slated to reach $1.4tn in 2024. But post-Covid, the landscape of corporate travel is changing, reflecting the evolving global economy, a diverse workforce and the growing importance attached to sustainability. 

The cost of travel is rising and businesses seeking to balance budgets need to find flexible tools for managing business travel and the variables and unexpected events, such as flight delays, that come with it. New innovations are becoming even more influential in the decision-making processes, such as what form of meeting or collaboration justifies the need to travel in the post-pandemic era. 

The whole sector is ripe for innovation and new technologies such as AI present a timely opportunity for companies to rethink their approach to business travel. Tim Lebel, Vice President and Head of Product for SAP Concur Spend Solutions joins me to discuss how AI is helping to streamline outdated travel processes and how important trust is when building AI platforms. Shelley Fletcher- Bryant, Vice President of travel consultancy firm, Advito, advocates for more sustainable travel practices in the travel sector and how AI can play it’s part in giving organisations more transparency when booking business travel. Theodora Lau, Author, Public Speaker, and founder of Unconventional Ventures offers her insight into trust of key travel data in the new AI world and the sustainability of AI systems themselves. 

Sources: FT Resources, PWC, Fortune, BBC, Forbes, McKinsey & Co, Business Travel News Europe, Global Business Travel Association, BCD Travel, Accenture. 

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Cybersecurity has never been more important; Everything is now connected to a network, and rapid technological advancements are being met with new and novel cyber threats, however cutting-edge advancements in AI within cybersecurity are rising to meet them, empowering individuals, businesses, and governments to build a safer, more secure online future. In this podcast, we examine the importance of collaboration between public and private players to safeguard society, critical infrastructure and valuable assets against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

In the fourth episode of this five-part miniseries, we look at AI's role within cybersecurity. By making cybersecurity accessible to more people, can AI increase the protections for European organisations and businesses of all sizes or will the ability to process large amounts of data enable attacks on businesses?

In this episode we speak with Philippe Humeau, CEO of CrowdSec, a French threat intelligence company that offers participative behavioural protection from malicious IP addresses. Isabel Praça, Professor at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto and AI Expert at European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. Vicente Diaz, Author of VirusTotal’s research on AI-driven threat mitigation and detection and security engineer at Google.

Our sources: IBM, Cobalt, Digital Skills Job Europe, Morgan Stanley

This content is paid for by Google and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times' Commercial Department.

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The EU must prioritise digital skills development, bridge the existing skills gap, and foster an innovation-driven environment. By embracing AI and equipping its citizens with the necessary skills, the EU can navigate current challenges and secure its position as a global leader in the digital era. In the third episode of this five-part miniseries, we look at AI's role in workplace and productivity.

In this episode we speak with Andrea Renda, Head of Global Governance, Regulation, Innovation and the Digital Economy at The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), a think tank based in Brussels that undertakes research “leading to solutions to the challenges facing Europe today". Anna Anderson, CEO and Co-Founder of RigaTech Girls, an NGO which is the only organisation in Latvia specifically dedicated to the cause of advancing women in technology. Inger Paus, Public Affairs Director at Google Europe further discusses the impact of AI on the economy and productivity within the workforce over the next five years.

Our Sources for the show: ERT, European Commission, Public First, CEPR, IBM, EY.

This content is paid for by Google and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times' Commercial Department.

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We are in the sixth mass extinction phase and it’s primarily driven by human activity. Globally, 1.2 million species are at risk of extinction and around 70% of the planet's ice-free land has already been altered, primarily for agricultural use. In the second episode of this five-part miniseries, we look at AI's role in sustainability and how it can help us better understand the natural world.

In Europe, unsustainable farming and forestry, urban sprawl and pollution are predominantly to blame for a drastic decline in biodiversity. This latest era of extinction in the natural world also comes at a time when we are making giant leaps in an artificial realm and while AI is no silver bullet it could help us better understand how to sustainably reinvent our agriculture, farming and food systems. Protecting species is also of the utmost importance. Insects, for example, are an important piece in the biodiversity puzzle and are under threat. But AI can help us understand our insect friends and the environment they serve. In this episode we speak with Faustine Bas-Defossez, Director for Nature, Health and Environment at the European Environmental Bureau, which is the largest federation of environmental NGOs in Europe, where she discusses how AI can help understand the problems that exist within the agricultural industry and the importance of transforming our food systems to a more sustainable, circular model. Katharina Schmidt, CEO of APIC.AI, an AI startup from Germany that monitors bee populations, tells us how AI models are helping to analyse individual bee behaviours in a hive of 50,000, and what this tells us about the health of our environment. Adam Elman, Head of Sustainability, EMEA, at Google further extols the value that AI can bring to mapping key environmental change and the value of data sharing on a global scale.                           

Our Sources for the show: FT Resources, WWF, LSE, European Parliament, Royal Society, United Nations.

This content is paid for by Google and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times' Commercial Department.

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The advent and speed of advancement in AI has far reaching consequences for multiple industries. This five-part miniseries will spotlight various industry sectors where AI has a significant and growing impact, with this particular episode centering on AI's role in healthcare.

AI in healthcare offers life changing benefits as well as raising far reaching concerns. In the medical arena, various AI programmes like Large Language Models and Foundation Models are being used in many specialities, both in research and clinically. AI’s ability to rapidly process vast amounts of data and identify subtle patterns affords unrivalled potential within medicine. It can also help save money by streamlining processes. But there are risks. As the technology advances so do concerns over inaccurate diagnoses that could exacerbate health inequalities that already exist in the system. Another area of particular focus is the transparency and trust of the AI models being built. This is where the importance of regulation comes in. We speak with Dr Alan Karthikesalingam, Senior Staff Clinician Scientist and Research Lead at Google who offers his insight into the research and clinical applications of AI in healthcare. Greg Sorensen, Lead at Aidence, shows how AI is being used in the clinical screening of lung cancer, a key prevention tool that is already saving lives. Inma Martinez, chair of the multi expert group at the global partnership on AI addresses the importance of regulation and governance of AI in healthcare and beyond.

Our Sources for the show: FT Resources, CEPR, European Parliament research, CSET, BMJ, KCL.

This content is paid for by Google and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times’ Commercial Department.

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Oceans cover 71% of the planet’s surface and are a life support system making up 97% of the world’s water and 95% of all space made available for life. Oceans are a key climate regulator, sequestering a third of all carbon emitted by human activity a year, controlling the weather and mediating temperature. With this alone, their importance to our existence is paramount. 

But oceans also support an entire economy, a ‘blue economy’. Alas, rising sea levels and temperatures due to climate change, overfishing, man made pollution and other mismanagement is affecting the blue economy and those that rely on it. 

Furthermore, oceans can provide us with a revolution in power generation. They offer a natural and low carbon alternative to fossil fuels and are the world’s largest untapped source of renewable energy. In this episode of the Next Five we explore the oceans as a blue economy, a climate regulator, and a power generator all while reflecting on the importance of ocean preservation. Céline Cousteau, a documentary filmmaker, public speaker, author and socio-environmental advocate highlights the importance of the oceans to all life on earth and how we need more marine protected areas and laws to preserve our seas as well as sharing examples of successful marine preservation projects.Karine Measson, Head of Water Management at the European Investment Bank, who is responsible for ocean activities at the EIB talks about the importance of a sustainable blue economy,and how to overcome the challenges including access to fundable projects and international cooperation. Miguel Stilwell d'Andrade, CEO, EDP and EDP Renewables discusses the growth in demand for ocean based renewable energy and that both the capital and technology is there to help meet climate goals if short term challenges can be overcome. Our Sources for the show: FT Resources, United Nations, WWF, World Meteorological Organisation, OECD, European Commission. This content is paid for by advertisers and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times’ Commercial Department

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Ever since the emergence of sundials and water clocks in Egypt around 1500 BC, humans have been fascinated by timepieces. Over the centuries, portable clocks, pocket watches and wristwatches gave people the chance to carry time around with them. Many of these became status symbols – the luxury of portable time afforded to only the few. And now, with the advent of wearable tech over the past decade, what is on our wrist has come to tell us much more than simply the time. Whether it's Swiss watches or wearable tech, the status of watches is evolving. In our productivity-obsessed world, our lives are driven by accurate timekeeping – and now we have multiple devices, reminders and calendars to keep us on track. So how is our relationship with time evolving now that it is commoditised, and what role will watches play in a digitally dominated future? In this episode of The Next Five podcast we explore the future of watches, timekeeping in a digital world, and the psychology behind our fascination with time. François-Henry Bennahmias, CEO of Audemars Piguet, talks about the current watch market, the strength of luxury Swiss watchmaking vs wearable tech, and how mechanical timepieces maintain their status in a digital world. Andreas Zimmer, Head of Product for Huawei Europe, offers insights into the wearable watch world and the role that the tech-led wristwatch play in modern life. Dr Ruth Ogden, Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, discusses how we, as humans, have developed a relationship with time, and how the products we use affect what we do with it.

Our Sources for the show: FT Resources, Forbes, EY, Bloomberg, Insider Intelligence, Morgan Stanley, pyments.com, appleinsder.com. This content is paid for by advertisers and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times’ Commercial Department.

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EVs are already displacing 1.5million barrels of oil usage per day or 3% of total road fuel demand, however emissions from vehicles are still responsible for between 12-16% of global emissions. But now imagine a world where there are no ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) cars on the road. That’s the future that is needed if we are to hit net zero targets. To realise this by mid century annual EV sales must hit 138 million units by 2040.

In this episode of The Next Five podcast we take a deep-dive into the current landscape, tackle the future for EVs from industry leaders in the legacy and pure EV space, and highlight the opportunities and challenges along the way. Adrian Chai, Managing Director, Institutional Banking Group at DBS Bank discusses the gaps in finance in the EV value chain and where capital needs to flow to support the industry growth, as well as the future of the fast evolving battery market. Pras Ganesh, Executive Vice President & Corporate Information Security Officer at Toyota talks about the challenges and opportunities that legacy automakers have in the space, how capital investment is front loaded in new technologies and calls for a just transition. Mike Whittington, Head of Global Sales and Network at Polestar offers insight from a pure EV business model, extolling the need for supportive policy and greater investment into infrastructure globally to meet climate targets. Our Sources for the show: FT Resources, IEA, Mckinsey, BNEF, WEF, Reuters, Forbes. This content is paid for by advertisers and is produced in partnership with the Financial Times’ Commercial Department.

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Global supply chains are near breaking point. The pandemic showed their weaknesses and geopolitical tensions, like Ukraine, have exacerbated the issue. And yet the biggest issue facing our world is climate change - and supply chains have a big part to play in the solution. But with complex global supply chains comes challenges - mainly maintaining net zero agendas across multiple partners. Arco Berkenbosch, VP Innovation and Development at Smurfit Kappa tells us how collaboration and experimentation are key to success and that sustainable packaging can make a big difference to our climate goals. Abe Eshkenazi, Chief Executive Officer, Association for Supply Chain Management also extols the virtues of technology to offer visibility across partners and calls for consumer demands to change to help make supply more sustainable. And finally, Stanton Thomas, Senior Vice President of Sustainability Solutions at o9 solutions, joins to show how AI and machine learning can help organisations track and test their supply chain sustainability like never before.

Our Sources for the show: FT Resources, Mckinsey, Gartner, Morgan Stanley, Meteorspace, CNBC, Harvard Business Review, Climate Partner.

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