Eva Arias

Eva Arias

Responding to Crises

Eva Arias, President of Compañía Minera Poderosa, describes how she solved the debt crisis her company faced in the 1990s by engaging with a debt restructuring plan, regaining the trust of her creditors and suppliers, and reorganizing the mine’s operations.

Robert Brozin

Robert Brozin

Responding to Crises

Robert Brozin, the co-Founder of Nando’s, a South African-based restaurant chain specializing in Portuguese food, discusses the challenges of starting his business during the apartheid regime before 1994, and how his brand sought to make consumers laugh in the face of turbulence.

Patrick Chalhoub

Patrick Chalhoub

Responding to Crises

Patrick Chalhoub, co-CEO of Dubai-based luxury retailer Chalhoub, discusses responses to political risk after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Cas Coovadia

Cas Coovadia

Responding to Crises

Cas Coovadia, the long-running Managing Director of the Banking Association South Africa, discusses how the global financial crisis of 2008 impacted South Africa as mainly an economic crisis as the banking system stayed sound, but it did lead to much more regulation.

José Alejandro Cortés

José Alejandro Cortés

Responding to Crises

José Alejandro Cortés, President of the Colombia-based diversified business group Grupo Bolìvar, discusses how the economic crisis that hit Latin America in the 1990s impacted his business. He discusses how he handled it by selling the bank in Venezuela to provide stability for Banco Davivienda, how he handled the bank run, the importance of staying calm in tough situations, and how the lessons learned led them to be unscathed with the 2008 world financial crisis.

Paulo Cunha

Paulo Cunha

Responding to Crises

Paulo Cunha, chairman of Brazilian-based Grupo Ultra, , explains how Brazilian government policies in the mid-1990s, with the Real Plan, failed to help the country’s international competitiveness.

Alberto Grimoldi

Alberto Grimoldi

Responding to Crises

Alberto Grimoldi, head of the Grimoldi Group, in Argentina, describes the ways the company successfully managed the era of hyperinflation beginning in 1989.

Hemendra Kothari

Hemendra Kothari

Responding to Crises

Hemendra Kothari, chairman of DSP Investment Managers in India, discusses how his firm reacted to the Harshad Mehta Stock Exchange scam in 1992.

Sanjay Lalbhai

Sanjay Lalbhai

Responding to Crises

Sanjay Lalbhai, Chairman of India-based Arvind, a large textile manufacturer and the flagship company of the Lalbhai Group based in Ahmedabad, discusses how the company was hit by a major financial crisis in 1995, describes the subsequent restructuring, and the lessons learned.

Muhammad Musa

Muhammad Musa

Responding to Crises

Muhammad Musa, the Executive Director of the BRAC International since 2015, explains how BRAC functions as a learning organization. He provides an example from west Africa, where the NGO discovered that the children attending the clubs it had established suffered far less disruption when the outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014 caused social breakdowns.

Y. V. Reddy

Y. V. Reddy

Responding to Crises

Y.V. Reddy, Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, reflects on India’s balance of payments crisis in 1991, during which he headed the BoP division within the Ministry of Finance. He describes the three main features of the reform process: removing the License Raj, reforming policy within the existing frameworks instead of waiting for legal changes, and reforming the analytical framework of the IMF and World Bank.

Güler Sabancı

Güler Sabancı

Responding to Crises

Güler Sabancı, CEO of one of Turkey's largest family-owned business groups, Sabancı Holding, explains how her uncle led their family bank, Akbank, through the 2000-2001 financial crisis.