Digesting Davos

Welcome back to Spark, a weekly newsletter from Vivace Content. We compile news signals from across the business, financial, and cultural landscape, and spark ideas to help you and your business jump on something new to talk about. Send tips and feedback to [email protected] or just hit reply.

Happy Monday! How are things?

Pleased to share the piece of client work that we teased in last week’s issue. We were delighted to partner with Broadridge to produce their 2024 predictions package, featuring insights from 10 of their SMEs on AI, ESG, Blockchain, the democratization of investing, digital transformation, and more. Give it a read and let us know what you think.

In today’s issue: Digesting Davos, the British Post Office scandal, a poetic AI bot, and Vivace goes to the movies 🍿

Davos recap

We’ve already chatted about how the World Economic Forum Annual meeting in Davos plays an important agenda-setting role for the rest of the year. Here are a few excellent recaps of some of the biggest themes emerging from the week:

• Davos puts climate on the back burner (New York Times)

• Digesting Davos - Takeaways across business, tech, media, policy, and more (Semafor)

• Moral Money & Gillian Tett share top takeaways, most notably AI and critical minerals being high on the agenda (FT)

• DealBook has a great list of top takeaways here, but equally as important is their reporting on the biggest consensus from business and political leaders attending: Trump will win re-election (New York Times)

• The Breakingviews team has a great piece explaining how, like a funhouse mirror, Davos “tends to exaggerate and distort.” (Reuters)

The role of the “little people”

You may have been following the drama of the Post Office scandal crashing into everyone’s consciousness in the UK, credited largely to BBC’s superb four-part TV drama. A wonderful piece of storytelling! We were struck by the failure of the Post Office board to consider the plight of their wrongly-charged and beleaguered postmasters.

Contrast this to the wonderful Starbucks Barista story that’s gone viral, giving the coffee chain a very welcome wave of warmth and good feeling. Do you have more opportunity to bring to life the stories of your champions on the front line? They could bring your brand values to life in unexpected and highly engaging ways.

📺 Now streaming

If you haven’t noticed, we’re huge fans of media — TV, films, documentaries, podcasts — basically if it’s streamable, we’re into it. Especially if it makes us smarter about the industries we play in — even better!

Here are a couple of picks we’ve enjoyed recently.

DUMB MONEY

A fun and fast-paced dramatization of the GameStop short squeeze saga. It’s a good reminder that the democratization of investing is here to stay — and retail investors are not to be ignored. More here >

MAN ON THE RUN

The true story of Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal, which will make you think about a lot of things differently. Leo DiCaprio is involved. More here >

Best of the rest

Peak S&P500 (see chart below). Making ESG a crime. Inside the anti-D.E.I. crusade. Alphaville makes a chart of FTSE’s biggest companies, almost losing their minds. UK parcel firm disables AI after poetic bot goes rogue. How the Stanley Cup became the internet’s favorite water bottle. Women in tech: Always the “adult”, rarely the CEO. How Walmart’s financial services became a fraud magnet. Lack of boardroom curiosity allows corporate scandals to take root.

Off the charts

📆 Upcoming events

• January 23: Academy Award nominations announced, New Hampshire presidential primary

• January 24: 700th day of Russia-Ukraine War (FT Week Ahead)

• January 25: 100th anniversary of the first Winter Olympics (FT)

• January 26: Australia Day, 75th anniversary of Republic Day in India

• January 28: Finland presidential elections

Reminder: 76 democracies will hold elections in 2024. Check out this convenient 2024 Global Election Quick Reference guide compiled by Marshall Manson.

Start planning now: International Women’s Day (March 8th)

Friends of Vivace: News and views

• Join Fractional CSO and Revenue Officer Keesa Schreane, and a fabulous line-up of panelists from American Century Investments, ESG Global Advisors, and more for this upcoming webinar on 2024 climate regulations. Details and registration here.

• Sneha Shah, EVP and Head of New Business Ventures, is hiring a director to help lead the SEI Venture Studio.

• Susan Martin, Communications Manager at Allianz, is hiring an internal comms specialist.

• Congrats to HSBC’s Kathryn Taylor, who is celebrating two years in role. Where has time gone?!

Send us your shout-outs, strong opinions, and headlines to include in next week’s edition.

Thanks for joining us this week. Anything we missed? Something we should include next week? Please send all ideas and feedback to [email protected]. 

Spark is a production of Vivace Content, where we help our clients navigate what to say and how to say it every single day. Get in touch if you’d like a no-hassle consultation about how we can help you. Have a great week ahead, and see you next Monday.