Amy Zegart

Political risk is everywhere, affecting businesses of all sizes and industries. A low budget documentary goes viral, sinking SeaWorld stock. A Manila Mayor’s well intended traffic ordinance ends up disrupting port operations and creating Toyota backlogs across Asia. An airline passenger armed with a cell phone captures United Airlines’ worst passenger moment, reaching 100 million viewers in China. North Korea wages a cyber attack on Sony Pictures, sending the studio off the grid and causing an international crisis. In the old days, political risk involved a handful of industries who worried mostly about whether dictators would seize their assets. Now political risk is everyone’s business—and it includes cyber threats, social media activism, terrorism, and more. Based on a course Zegart co-teaches with Condoleezza Rice at Stanford Business School, this talk examines the mega trends in business, politics, and technology that are supercharging political risk, the top 10 political risks that businesses confront, and what executives can do so they aren’t blindsided.

What are the major forces driving international conflict? How is new technology transforming espionage and warfare? What are the most dangerous places in the world and what should the United States do about them? This talk gives a candid look at the past, present, and future of American foreign policy, examining successful grand strategies that overcame impossible odds, the current threat landscape, and key policy choices

We all know that spies in the movies are different than spies in real life. But how different? And does it really matter? This talk examines the top five myths about espionage and examines how the rise of “Spytainment” is influencing real policy, from Supreme Court arguments to congressional hearings to the use of interrogation techniques.