Strategy Consultant Michael Warren: The World Needs More Global Leaders

Yale SOM can help address a scarcity of leaders with global mindsets, Michael Warren YC '90 told an audience of students. Warren, a principal at the Albright Stonebridge Group global strategy firm, spoke on January 24.

"What is a global leader?" Warren asked. "We don't have enough of them now, because the world has changed an incredible amount in recent years, and the old business model is going to die."

Global leaders, Warren said, are those who can address complex problems multilaterally across nations and cultures, and find solutions that serve a broad diversity of stakeholders. "This is why SOM is such a compelling place to me," he said. "Dean Snyder, and what he's doing here, is all about global focus. You guys are the ones who are going to change the way the world is structured. I'm interested in SOM students and what we can do together."

The Albright Stonebridge Group, founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger, serves a broad range of clients in the U.S. and worldwide. The firm focuses on clients who embrace the evolving nature of sectors today, Warren said. As an example, he cited a multinational company seeking to branch into alternative energy sources. "We help them figure out how to navigate a world that is changing," he said.

The firm's clients must also be what Warren called "tri-sector actors"—that is, companies that understand the necessity of addressing complex issues that simultaneously impact the private, governmental, and social sectors. "Multilateral problem-solving is really where the world is going," Warren said. "You have to think of many stakeholders. Some you see, some you don't see."