International Conference on Strategic Management and Business Strategy

  Apple is nursing a fresh wound this week after losing one of its most crucial AI leaders to Meta. Ruoming Pang, the executive who oversaw Apple Intelligence, has jumped ship to join Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs. Pang wasn’t just any Apple employee. He led a 100-strong army of engineers crafting the language models that make your iPhone summarise texts, generate those Genmoji, and prioritise your notifications . Now he’s traded the Apple Park spaceship for Meta’s Menlo Park headquarters, becoming the latest big name to answer Mark Zuckerberg’s call. The leading exec’s departure i s a gut punch to a company that’s been scrambling to prove it can play in the AI big leagues. The timing couldn’t be worse, either. Just last month, Pang’s right-hand man, Tom Gunter, had already packed his bags and left. Pang’s departure was reported by  Bloomberg  and the outlet’s sources suggest Apple is losing the talent it desperately needs. Apple spent years building up its A...

  Embedding target setting and achievement into business functions, budget processes, and 1-to-3-year strategic plans is critical to incremental–and ultimately transformative –change and resiliency. Companies have been setting climate targets for more than 20 years and the rate of target setting, as well as the aggressiveness and coverage of these targets , has increased in large part due to pressure from external stakeholders, including customers, regulators, and investors. Climate targets are the most viable way for companies to navigate risks, create opportunities , and ensure long-term resilience and profitability in a changing world.  Navigating climate risks Climate risks  encompass the potential financia l and operational impacts that may affect a business because of climate change . They include both physical risks and those associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy: Physical risks:  Climate change creates physical risks, including extreme we...

  Meta has onboarded a prominent  OpenAI   researcher , Trapit Bansal, to work on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning models within its recently established AI superintelligence team, according to a report by  TechCrunch . Trapit Bansal had been with OpenAI since 2022 and played a major role in launching the company’s reinforcement learning research , working closely with co- founder Ilya Sutskever. He is named as one of the original contributors to OpenAI’s first AI reasoning model, known as o1.   His LinkedIn profile indicates that he left OpenAI in June. OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood confirmed to TechCrunch that Bansal had indeed exited the organisation. Bansal is expected to significantly strengthen Meta’s new AI superintelligence group, which already includes notable figures such as former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. The team is also in discussions to bring in former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Gross. ...

Hong Kong has been ranked as the most international city in Asia, narrowly beating out rival Singapore, in a new index released by a major business lobbying group. But the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce also warned that the city must address glaring weaknesses in innovation and talent to secure its future amid rising geopolitical risks. The inaugural “Asian Cities Internationality Index 2025”, released on Tuesday, ranked Hong Kong first with a score of 73.7, just two-tenths of a point ahead of Singapore at 73.5. Shanghai was the top-ranked mainland Chinese city, placing fifth with a score of 65.1. The Swiss-based International Institute for Management Development recently ranked Hong Kong third globally in its annual World Competitiveness Index, placing the financial hub after Switzerland and Singapore. According to the chamber, Hong Kong’s victory was powered by its lead in the “business and economy” segment. But it placed fourth in “innovation and ideas”, trailing Shanghai, Si...

  India, Mexico, Brazil, and some other major emerging economies recorded strong growth, while the United States continued to extend its lead as the top destination for direct investment Global foreign direct investment grew again in 2023 after declining the previous year. Inward direct investment climbed $1.75 trillion, or 4.4 percent, reaching a record $41 trillion, according to the IMF’s latest  Coordinated Direct Investment Survey , which provides detailed information on direct investment positions between countries. FDI rose in most regions, with Central and South Asia, Europe, and North and Central America contributing most. Direct investment between advanced economies grew by $880 billion, or 3.6 percent, while those from advanced economies to emerging market and developing economies rose by $538 billion, or 7.6 percent. As our  Chart of the Week  shows, the United States extended its lead as the top destination for direct investment. Singapore recorded the l...

Key TakeawaysWhile building tools for virtual worlds , we discovered that the high- performance , real-time infrastructure needed for the metaverse is exactly what businesses need to operate in the AI era. We are entering an economy where people are seeking purpose, community and creativity in the digital environments where they now spend increasing portions of their lives. Businesses must evolve from product providers to hosts, and brands will become part of an ecosystem that thrives on participation, portability and interaction. This shift requires infrastructure that can scale in real time, preserve ownership across environments and connect disparate platforms into a single seamless experience. But in the process of building tools for virtual worlds, we discovered something far more foundational: The infrastructure we needed for the metaverse turned out to be exactly what businesses need to operate in the AI era. https://business-strategy-conferences.scifat.com/ Like many, we expec...