What does sustainable and inclusive growth mean to leaders?

McKinsey: What are some key takeaways from your time in Davos?

Kweilin Ellingrud: Just coming out of the [McKinsey Global Institute] lunch, where we hosted a couple hundred executives and leaders from different sectors. And what really struck me was the lively debate. It was fun, it was engaging, and a lot of people disagreed about where we are, about how optimistic or pessimistic to be about this next phase. They disagreed on whether we are on the cusp of a new era, and whether the next few decades will be dramatically different than what we’ve experienced so far.

I think what really struck me across this MGI lunch, but also other conversations I’ve had over the last few days, is that economic inclusion is really underpinning so much of what’s going to happen going forward. We talk a lot about sustainable and inclusive growth, and within that I think inclusion is going to be the key for us in creating both a more equal but smooth development path.

One of our next MGI reports will be on: How do we think about inclusion globally? What are the levers to improve it? Where across history, across the world have we actually seen inclusion improve? And what can we learn from those instances? And going forward, how can we shape a more inclusive economy? And for every unit of growth, how do we change that relationship with inclusion, but also sustainability?

Resilience in crisis: Perspectives from Davos

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McKinsey: Do you think we are on a cusp of a new era?

Kweilin Ellingrud: I fundamentally believe so, because of all of the changes, and how fundamental some of the shifts have been since the last 20 to 30 years of our last era.

And we talk about these sort of seismic shifts, these earthquakes around changes in our society, from a uni-polar world to more of a multi-polar world; changes in technology, changes in capital and how we finance our growth and our demand. So, I think this next era will be, hopefully, an exciting one if we can shape it in an inclusive way. But it will certainly be a different one than we’ve had over the last few decades.