Podcast S9E12 | Valuing Social Capital in the AI Era with Katrin Gülden Le Maire

TRANSCRIPT

Kimberley Cole 0:01
This is Risky Women Radio, a show that connects, celebrates and champions women in risk regulation and compliance. We’re here to share the insights on the biggest issues in our industry and hear inspiring journeys from our global members. Sign up to our newsletter at riskywomen.org. I’m Kimberley Cole, your Chief Risky Woman.

Kimberley Cole 00:23
Welcome to Risky Woman Radio. Today’s risky woman is a strategic advisor, researcher, angel investor, and governance expert who has spent more than 25 years guiding companies across finance, tech, ESG, and innovation throughout Europe from fundraising and market expansion to cyber ethics, democracy development, and social cohesion, she brings a rare interdisciplinary lens that connects business, policy, science, and academia. Based in Paris, she is an author, lecturer, and contributor to thought leadership across governance, technology, and philosophy, with published research and books exploring the evolving relationship between ethics systems and society, a speaker at leading forums including VivaTech and Women in Tech, she’s also equally passionate about mentoring the next generation of leaders. So, joining us today on Risky Women Radio is Katrin Gülden Le Maire. Welcome, Katrin.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 01:29
Thank you very much for the invitation, dear Kimberley.

Kimberley Cole 01:32
It is great to have you here, and I have obviously given this incredible overview of your career, but I’d love to sort of get a bit more into all of these incredible things that you’ve done. So your career, as I said, spans finance, tech, governance, and philosophy, which is a bit of an interesting addition. So tell us what sort of pushed you into this multidisciplinary career instead of just sort of picking one lane?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 02:03
That’s a really good question. I think it was a mixture of curiosity and determination. I actually decided when I was 17 18, years old. I told my parents I wanted to study theology in London. I come from a small town in Germany, and they were absolutely apprehensive. So, to much of their dismay, I did an undergraduate degree in theology in the mid ’90s in London. And back then, it was regarded as a bit of a scandal because it was before the Bologna reforms. We had the German diploma, which was much more valuable. Why in Britain, and why the heck theology? And I was determined because I was curious and I wanted to find out why I believed what I believed, which I didn’t. It left me with many more questions. But one thing, because it was a rather conservative small college, I didn’t want to become either a pastor’s wife nor a Sunday school teacher, so in 1999 I got a job in the city in investor relations, and as a junior organising IPO roadshows, and it was the heydays. It was before 2001. I was working on some amazing IPOs, and the contrast couldn’t have been stronger from working with inner city street kids going to prisons, you know, preaching to them at 24 sitting in private jets, going to five star restaurants and organising and participating in meetings with institutional investors. So that sort of led me alongside my career. Also, maybe it’s worthwhile pointing out I come from a modest background, so anything that was postgraduate, whether it was postgraduate diploma in finance, an executive masters in communications, some business education, and even my PhD, I did alongside my work, my full-time work, and I financed myself. And I think this can be used as a bit of encouragement. And then going into tech, so I’ve spent a large time of my career in finance, a lot in asset management, and coming into tech was a bit of the same thing. In 2014, my two daughters were respectively one and two in nappies. I had my company in Germany, was living in France, and was intellectually bored with finance, so I decided and remembered that I always wanted to do a PhD. Wrote a proposal, sent it off to my former lecturer, and got going. And did then alongside my work and family a four and a half year part time PhD in philosophy, and with a focus on epistemology, which is the theory of knowledge creation, which for some reason very early on, also in some research and conference work, led me into the tech and information communication sector, and in 2018 already looking on whether tech can manipulate character, which was actually laughed about back then. So I think these varied and interdisciplinary subjects really help me today, and especially when we look at some of the players and participants in current debates. Looking, for example, just the Pope and the Vatican having entered with the encyclical, and some of the philosophies coming out of Silicon Valley and their evaluation. So that’s basically me in a nutshell, in terms of career.

Kimberley Cole 05:28
Amazing! I love that curiosity and determination, and that sort of shows all of those different angles. And I know from everything you’ve said, there’s so much we could talk about, but you’ve also lived and worked across London, Frankfurt, and Paris. So, which career move felt the riskiest I guess? And why did you decide to make that move?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 05:51
So, first of all, I don’t think there were as much career moves as life decisions, because I, since I was young, had a very strong sense of vocation and values, and allow me to reframe this question because risk is a sort of exposure to harm or loss, right? And there’s always a cost attached. And I find in the connection to my career and what I focus on, and in the context of our conversation around ethics and convictions, is to sort of really say that personal values usually stay preferences. We can easily explain. Yeah, they become a principle when a cost is attached and when it’s put to the test. And there were at least two occasions or three occasions I can tell you because I think they might be interesting for women or people listening in different career stages. And in 1995 and six, I didn’t just study theology. I also had the option actually become a model, which was much frowned upon, and which I decided against. So I studied theology, which couldn’t have been much further. In 2007, with about eight years of career experience, I had the offer to join an American bank, and I decided against it. I set up my own company, and just for example, another situation this year is some mandates, you know, which have certain values might be amazingly remunerated. I have to turn down because they don’t correspond with my values. So I think maybe it wasn’t risky, but I think overall during my career I had some situations which were both precious but also quite costly because rather than a linear corporate career, there are some financial, reputational, and also career implications that somebody else might not face, but then there are certain liberties that others do not have either.

Kimberley Cole 07:50
Wow, I mean, fascinating, and it also sounds like you’re almost ahead of the curve in some of the things that you’ve done because the tech on manipulating character and all of those things are such hot topics now, and even some of the things that you know you’ve sort of shifted, as you said, from finance into cyber ethics and governance and social impact a long time before these became real mainstream topics. So tell us more. How did all of this happen?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 08:22
So basically, I grew up with a strong Christian faith from the maternal side of my family, and there was always, since I can remember, since I was young, a focus on service and pro bono work from childhood onwards, whether within church, outside church, in the neighborhood. It was a given to help, to assist, and to apply yourself. Now, when I was 17, I was invited, and went with some friends of my mother’s, a couple who had an SME, to a Christian business leaders dinner, where I, for the first time, heard and listened SME leaders and business owners earnestly and seriously grapple on how to reconcile some of the values that resulted out of their faith commitments with everyday business challenges, and that really impressed me. And again, as a young graduate in London, I got in touch and I met one of the co-founders of the Trinity Forum, which is a U.S. think tank. I have to say it’s a conservative think tank, but maybe conservative in terms of values, not how we would define it today, and which was founded years ago by the Honorable Alonso McDonald, who was the former chief of staff of Jimmy Carter, and by Os Guinness, who is a social critic and a theologian, and there again I was introduced on a larger scale to formats such as weekends away and salons and days where leaders and decision makers through excerpts, through looking and grappling with excerpts from the classics, dealt and reflected on current issues impacting leadership and impacting their own character. And the Trinity Forum held that the transformation of society can only happen through the character transformation of leaders. And I got involved, and I was the only young woman at the time with a couple of young men who said something and helped and did some pro bono work, setting up some of their meetings and bringing in friends, acquaintances, and people for their emerging young leaders programme in Europe, and that was 20 years ago. And since then, I basically, on a pro bono basis, have not stopped to teach, write, and train on business ethics. Now, I think what is really interesting, because you mentioned mainstream. Now, the subject is mainstream, but a lot of people and company leaders don’t put their money where their mouth is, and it’s only recently that I’ve noticed that these aspects get integrated in some of my advisory mandates, and I haven’t had a standalone mandate as of yet. They’re usually connected to positioning, strategy development, or even fundraising, and I think that will be an interesting development to now follow up and see on how this will actually map out.

Kimberley Cole 11:20
I mean, it’s just fascinating, and you’ve worked across so many different kind of worlds from business, politics, science, academia. Was there a moment, or a mentor, or something that helped you realise that you had this strength in connecting all these different systems and ideas?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 11:40
I think that that was about 20 years ago when I set up my own company. I invested in some business education over a few months, where I learned and trained in a German SME management strategy that was built on cybernetics. So cybernetics is basically part of systems and systems thinking and theory, and looking at information flows, relation, causal structures of systems, and of their functionalities and dysfunctionalities. And that I’ve since then integrated into my work. And I think it’s not so much that’s really important. I don’t think we can really connect systems. Systems often stand alone. They have different setups. They have different aims, different power dynamics, hierarchies. What I think is extremely valuable and important today is to learn and understand and speak some of that particular language, look and understand some of their dependency structures, the hierarchy and power relationships. Why? Because it assists to establish insight into their functionalities and dysfunctionalities, and then it facilitates understanding to intermediate, interact, and possibly create value for a company or an organisation.

Kimberley Cole 12:54
I mean, amazing, and I think we’ve got so much to dig into in terms of the knowledge that you bring to the table. So, while we wrap up your career area, can you share what you think is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 13:10
Yes, two sentences interconnected, five years apart. “To explain simply, you have to understand profoundly.” Was the dean first year undergraduate when I was overwhelmed, and the second one when I really messed up on a job five years later as a junior. “Never assume anything” coming from a French private equity investor back then in London.

Kimberley Cole 13:35
Excellent. Okay, I think they’re very sound pieces of advice. Now we had so many different topics that we were discussing that we could have talked about, and your breadth of things that you’re focused on is incredible. But we’ve decided today we want to talk about social capital and IAS 38 in the 21st century knowledge economies. So we think that this conversation really sits at the crossroads of technology, finance, government, and the future of society itself. So I’m just going to set the scene a little bit before we hand over to you. But as we sort of discussed, it was for decades that company value was really tied to tangible assets, so factories and buildings and machinery. But in today’s knowledge economy, some of the world’s most valuable assets are invisible. So talent and data and relationships, intellectual capital, algorithms, human creativity – they’re the things that are increasingly driving corporate value. But yet many of these just don’t fit into the balance sheet, is what you’ve been sharing with me. So as AI accelerates at, of course, extraordinary speed, that raises even more provocative questions. What happens when human expertise becomes one of the most valuable assets that a company owns? How do organisations measure social capital, talent, and connected human labor in a world that’s going to become increasingly shaped by machines, if it isn’t already. And what are those wider implications for risk, for governance, for inequality, employment, and even social cohesion? So I don’t know how we are going to get through this in the limited time we have because this is a very very complex topic. So can you sort of maybe give us your context around this and how the debate sort of going and like some of it’s quite abstract and it’s quite philosophical. How do we want to live and work? But you tell us, how did you get into this, and what’s the scene?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 15:47
Yeah, so let me set the scene because this is really interesting. The scene started a few years ago with a couple of board positions I had at the ESG policy liaison group in Westminster, and then afterwards here in France on a small board of an NGO that is looking by a former state secretary for equality, bringing women into more CEO positions. What I’ve noticed within the ESG and DI debate was the strong focus on ethical and regulatory arguments, and what many proponents did not realise is that critics, and we’ve seen that very strongly now with the second Trump administration and some of the ensuing action, it doesn’t interest critics. Everything is argued and focused on financials. So my idea-it sounds extremely unsexy-but I thought for the last three years, first, how do we get women on the balance sheet? This is what my initial thoughts were. And interestingly, with the acceleration of tech and AI, with the release of ChatGPT, this focus from let’s call it not even diversity, but human to human relations, moving on to human to machine relations and machine-only relations helped me to broaden and sort of bring this debate or my reflection on a rather superordinate level, totally independent of gender as such, and or even cognitive diversity onto a larger level. So, looking at maybe some of the seismic shifts, I think that we are looking at. Let me outline them by referring to two books, which I find important, and which have nothing to do with each other. Basically, in 2017, we have two economists, British economists, called Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, writing a book called “Capitalism Without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy.” Why this was a niche subject, which was back then well received, but within an extraordinary small niche. Now it’s a very, very important book that should receive much greater recognition because they hold, and we see this. We’ve seen it last week with the SpaceX IPO. The modern economy values intangible assets like ideas and relationships more than tangible ones. We see it right now because SpaceX has a greater valuation than the DAX 40 together, which is extraordinary, right? That’s not built on their tangible assets. We also live in a 21st century knowledge economy, and we have certain significant shifts in work and life we all notice, but we find very difficult to put words to. So, what did these two economists say? They said intangible assets by certain particularities, a) their uncertainty, their optionality in their cost-benefit analyses, and their contestability, going back maybe to diversity, they can also be recognised by something that they call the 4S’s their scalability, that they are reproducible in several places, for example, software. You know their sunkenness, so their impact on resale values usually low. Their spillover effects. AI, If we then look at hyperscalers, if we look at other tech companies, robotics everywhere. And fourth, their synergies. You know, they often generate higher value in combination with other intangibles, so this is what these two guys they started off this debate, and they also said that actually our current statistical indicators, such as the definition of GDP, they’re too limited. So this is the economists I looked at. And then totally unrelated, I found this book from this U.S. sociologist Allison Pugh, who wrote a couple of years ago “The Last Human Job: Seeing Each Other in an Age of Automation“, and she basically focused much on care work and the care sector, which she called connective labour, and really outlining in a. On why human relations remain essential, and maybe let me add should not become a luxury good. And also let me add they already have. We can see that totally sector agnostic when we have a look at much of HR or customer service relations and their quality and what we’ve made out of it.

Kimberley Cole 20:19
That is so much food for thought. My goodness me!

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 20:23
I think I outlined and answered your first question already!

Kimberley Cole 20:26
Yes, exactly. So then, maybe where do we stand today? You know, you talked about seismic shifts, and they’re already at work. What’s also that sort of potential impact around those different areas?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 20:43
So there is a strong impact because a so we see a strong economic and business impact, but we can’t again we cannot really grapple it because there is no clarified definition of social capital. So we have economists and sociologists at odds. That’s really important to bear in mind. And really, when there’s quite a bit of research, but it’s can I say it sounds really harsh when I say it because of its circularity and because of its internal focus so much, it’s not transferable to business and it’s useless. But when we look at some of the impact, it’s significant on the social contracts, I think we all are aware at the moment of whether the big four, the big five, other large companies in other sectors saying they become much more efficient, letting whole layers of workforce go. So basically, an erosion of the social contract, where as of yet we have no idea what the impact will be on social cohesion, because the notion that the economy can absorb all this labor, or somebody like Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who says everybody has to suddenly be either neurodivergent or retrain as a carpenter or a plumber, it just doesn’t hold up, right? So I think there are potential large effects. So that’s overall society. We also have corporate effects that are quite strong because if you look at the S&P 500 as one example, or the largest capitalised companies in the world. I think with SpaceX, it’s now nine. They’re all in tech. The nine largest tech companies with a lot of intangible assets. Where does that leave both quoted and non-quoted companies and their valuations? Where does that leave portfolio managers and analysts? And how do we adequately put a company value onto our balance sheet even before we communicate and define it adequately, so I think there will be a strong impact. What I don’t see is there isn’t a discussion yet.

Kimberley Cole 22:48
Yeah, and you said there’s no real definition of social capital. So what…

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 22:54
What is there, right?

Kimberley Cole 22:56
How do you define it? Well, how is it understood, and then how do you tie it in with the subject of intangible assets and IAS 38?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 23:06
Yeah. So basically, what is there? So social capital is both an economic and a sociological concept. It’s disputed, and economists generally hold that there is nothing social about it, while sociologists generally think there is nothing economic to it. So what are we dealing with? We’re dealing with the value of relationships, interactions, cultural particularities, shared norms, values, and comprehensions. We can sort of roughly summarise it as a psychosocial concept. What does it result in, potentially and actually, and this is where it becomes interesting, and we can sort of take off the esoteric layer: above-average creativity, loyalty, coherence, good management, contributions to innovation, growth, and value creation. So, to date, this is almost impossible to adequately account for social capital. Why? Because it’s part due to an outdated definition of IAS 38. What is IAS 38? For maybe those who are not an accountant, it was the International Accounting Standard Boards that deals with accounting standards. There were first drafts in 1977, so really quite old. It was published in 1998 and slightly amended in 2014. It does not deal and hold the complexity and impact that corporate development, such as R&D, patents and software design and brands, structures and processes, have on companies. IAS 38 does not properly reflect this. Now, this is an issue. Why? Because these two economists hold that through the increasing replacement of material assets in companies, we have a shift and a development that is part responsible for underlying phenomena that are larger. Such as lower productivity, increasing social inequality, deficits in the public sector, and stagnating financial politics. And I think we can see this, right? Once it’s sort of spoken out, it’s like yes, that’s it.

Kimberley Cole 25:13
I think it’s really interesting. I think, I mean, challenging though because if there isn’t sort of real clarity on the definitions and how this all works, and you’ve got sort of a lot of debate, I’m not sure how you get a company to focus. So I’d love your thoughts on that. But also, you mentioned some of the other implications, and I was at a conference a couple of days ago, and there was a lot of talk about companies really should be taking responsibility for certainly the graduates, the lack of graduate jobs that we’re seeing now because things are being replaced by AI. But we’re going to end up with these holes in development that is part of that social contract that we used to have.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 26:03
Yeah, and I think what companies don’t recognise now, first, what I see often when I deal with leaders, there’s actually zero differentiation and clarification between what is efficiency, what is growth, and does any of the former actually lead to value creation, and the fact that now efficiency gains, however we might define them, actually might threaten license to operate in the medium to long term. And why is that? I think actually that is due to some non-rational, quite human factors such as fear, because a lot of leaders are overwhelmed by the complexity of what we are dealing with today, and actually by a lack of decision making. We always speak about decision making, but I think it leads to some sort of stagnation, being frozen and a lack of decision making. And why? Maybe why? Because I know that we will speak about is what can companies do? Why? Because a lot of leaders focus or do not focus on what is most necessary right now, which is concerted and deep reflection. Many are very busy. I mean, I see some of the schedules of my clients which are crazy. But when you dig, when you really say, what do you spend your time on how valuable are those meetings? I think we can scrap about 70%. So, what should a leader who walks ahead focus on? You know, and what we focus on grows. So, I think that’s a huge issue.

Kimberley Cole 27:35
Yeah, and given your view or research, where could or should we locate the debate for this subject?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 27:44
First of all, I don’t think there is a debate at the moment. I don’t think that even if you look at the large consulting companies who probably debate and offer almost everything, real thought leadership normally means either connecting issues which are previously non-connected, going into uncharted territory or challenging in any other way, there is no debate. Now, I consider it very important that this is a business-led debate for various reasons. A) as a company, let’s take the example of a quoted company, even in investor relations. If we are word and speechless at the moment, I see that the fear of certain CEOs in front of investors and portfolio managers and shareholders and is extraordinary. But even if we don’t know or cannot immediately pinpoint it, we have to give it some language. So what better than to say, here is an issue. There is a complexity we’re trying to grapple with. We’re trying to reduce. We haven’t got metrics that, as yet, is industry standard. But at least we’ve developed some definitions which will help you and stakeholders to evaluate our actions and our operations better. Why should that be? Because we know that the regulator debate is focused on risk reduction, which certainly in Europe stifles innovation. In the U.S. it’s so innovation friendly that it negates some of very important stakeholders, such as larger society. Why shouldn’t it be scientifically led? Because that is something I learned in the last decade of working intersystemically is that science and researchers, scientists and researchers love getting stuck in the nitty gritty discussions, which have zero to do with business realities, hierarchies, politics, and a lot of the issues company leaders face. So that can aid you know they might educate to a certain level, but only if it can become transferable. So I think this should be a thought leadership business-led debate, and I’ve evoked it actually the other day with a client who wants to develop it a bit further of an S&P 500. So I’m looking forward to that.

Kimberley Cole 30:02
Yeah, absolutely. And what should be, what would you define, or how did you sort of sell it to them as what would be the results of that change or focus?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 30:11
You know, whether the results are imminent or intermediate, I think we have to address it because it’s a risk and compliance and governance issue. It’s macroeconomic. It’s global, and it’s interacting with AI developments, climate change, geopolitics. So, what do I say to my clients? We start reflecting. You know what? Funnily enough, leaders are so busy, but this is often one of the most threatening exercises they can do: sit down and think, and be challenged, and maybe not arrive at immediate conclusion, but really grappling on what kind of impact this could have. How do we reduce complexity? How do we zoom in on an issue? What kind of questions do we ask what is the quality of our questioning, so that we can then focus on urgent and important subjects and issues or tasks related to that complexity that affect our excellence and our management model, basically or operations? And I’m surprised, and I think that’s actually political and has a lot to do with dominance dynamics, and how many leaders are hesitant to do so? Maybe out of fear for looking stupid, for not sort of owning a subject in the space anymore, because we’re sort of all venturing out into the unknown. And I find it quite remarkable, and it’s a shame, you know, and it shouldn’t be the case.

Kimberley Cole 31:41
And if we look at this with our governance, risk, and compliance hats on, and obviously the roles and responsibilities of GRC are very broad, and often we get this view of you know a lot of them are just focused on the governance and the regulatory approach, and it’s all about cost saving or stopping fines, etc. to a broader strategic facilitating growth. What do you think? What’s the impact of each of those perspectives, and how should GRC professionals be looking at this topic?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 32:15
I think there are different perspectives, and I think it’s the board and the CEO and CFO, maybe possibly the COO, who will probably have a strong impact on what the GRC roles are thinking, and that’s an unfortunate. But also because a lot of risk and compliance and chief risk and compliance officers come from the legal profession, they have never learned how to think interdisciplinary, let alone intersystematic. What can the impact be? It can be negative as well as positive, right? Depending whether I limit it to entity governance, tight entity governance, having a lawyer and a legal opinion on everything, and just following regulatory requirements. However, that is much likely to stifle innovation, and it can be positive, where it actually becomes part of the innovation process. It could be opened up, you know, through town halls. You know, these large subjects impact everybody, so we can think collectively across divisions and hierarchies, across generations. I’m sure there’s so much capability and talent in companies that isn’t actually arriving at C-suite level because discussions are so closed and seats at tables so exclusive and within those tables share voices so reduced. So I think there could be an impact and also upskilling and upskilling fair and well doing high-tech upskilling and AI, but it’s low-tech upskilling. It’s critical reflection. It’s not just ethical. Ethics is part of philosophy. It deals with the notion of what is right or what is wrong. You know, we have to have a more philosophical reflection, which is also metaphysics. Is it real? And epistemology – is it true? I can only answer if it’s right or wrong these days if I look at is it actually real and if it’s true. These are important questions, so broaden business education and the notion of upskilling to not just high tech but also low tech upskilling.

Kimberley Cole 34:16
It’s really interesting, and I mean, there’s always what gets measured gets done argument. So yeah, you’ve mentioned how we have to look at it, but if quantification of it remains really difficult, what kind of qualifications or metrics or things should be developed or adopted?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 34:37
Yeah, and I think this will throw a lot of people in finance and also in compliance, because qualification usually takes place outside of the disciplines, at least within social capital and a lot of the qualifications we are speaking about with the current developments and changes outside of the disciplines of economics, data science, and finance. So we have. To define what we mean, we have to even give names and definitions. Then we can deduct and clarify methodology. We can, in turn, qualify metrics, parameters, and aspects. And what I notice, and maybe let me just here refer to DEI because it’s a good example. Unfortunately, in a negative way. There is so much goodwill. There are so many studies, so many metrics and frameworks with DI, and a lot of them muddle up. They don’t have flawless methodologies. They don’t understand differences between correlation and causalities. The metrics are limited, and it really puts some amazing work, unfortunately, to shame. It makes it redundant. So I think if we can even on an A4 paper, if we say this is what we are trying to do, and then open the conversation, bring in some third parties, some select stakeholders, even those maybe unusual collaborations we’ve never thought about it beforehand. You know, cognitively different voices, and I think from that we can slowly build, and then we bring in tech to model this. But it’s at the linguistic level before the tokenisation that we have to clarify those issues.

Kimberley Cole 36:12
Right. So you’re kind of saying keep the discussion open.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 36:16
Yes.

Kimberley Cole 36:17
Externally, internally, bring in all different stakeholders, and then you think that that will sort of help shape how you can move this forward.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 36:26
Yeah, and I think we need some courageous CEOs because we need to create the debate. As I said, there is no debate yet. So who will start it? Who will be vocal about it? This is not an easy topic. It’s a very sensitive topic. This is a very political topic. So, what are some of the lowest common denominators we can all agree on in order to reach a superordinate, essentially apolitical goal, that is social cohesion and living well together and continue to do so? And I think this is sort of the main ingredient: courageous leaders.

Kimberley Cole 37:00
And what do you think? If no one does this, then what’s going to happen?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 37:04
Oh, I think you know what we saw this yesterday very well. I think this is a, I mean, in middle of June at the G7 we suddenly have the big tech bosses opposite the G7 right? If we don’t position ourselves, if we don’t clarify the parameters, we will be positioned, and especially as Europeans, we are amazing to regulate. But we regulate products and services that we don’t even own, so a kill switch will all kill all that regulation in the first place. So let’s better own the debate and start it, because others will otherwise lead it, and possibly in ways and manners we don’t agree with.

Kimberley Cole 37:44
All right, so let’s try to leave on a positive note on this and leave all of our listeners with one key action or thing that you would like them to at least think about or do. I mean, what would be that one thing?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 38:00
Yeah. So the one thing is, take one and two pages are absolutely amazing. Forget crazy, huge presentations, and write it down. Don’t let AI do it. Take an A4 page, and reflect for your company what do we define by social capital in our company, and how do we put value to it, and what and where should it be on the balance sheet? How do I broaden it? These are sub questions. Who do I invite into this discussion? What ethical and regulatory aspects would I like to see, or would I like to avoid? What kind of language do I need to use? What is the limits of thinking we have reached, and who needs to own the subject in the company? Whose head is on the block? Who’s the decision maker? Because everybody wants to be responsible. I see that a lot, right? They all want to say something. Who’s accountable? This needs to be one and the same person.

Kimberley Cole 38:57
It sounds like it could be a fascinating workshop to get some people in a room to discuss that.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 39:04
This is the scary one, right?

Kimberley Cole 39:05
Absolutely.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 39:06
Weirdly and funnily enough, people will be scared by this.

Kimberley Cole 39:10
Yeah, it’d be interesting to see who’s leading the way on this. And I think if you could show that, and people then have some kind of role models to follow, would also be ideal. Well, Katrin, that is amazing. I feel like there’s a lot more that we could get into, but hopefully that’s given everyone some sense of some of the additional areas that they really should be thinking about. And I’m sure our GRC professionals could try to push that through in their organisations as well. So thank you very much.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 39:43
You’re very welcome.

Kimberley Cole 39:44
Now we’re going to end on our little rapid fire round, what we do to try to make it a bit fun. So, as a risky woman, are you a risk taker or risk averse?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 39:56
A risk taker on my knees praying. Standing up with shaky legs and a straight back, and then jumping in.

Kimberley Cole 40:05
Excellent. And what’s your leadership superpower?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 40:08
Integrity.

Kimberley Cole 40:09
Fabulous. And one word that defines your career?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 40:14
Tenacity.

Kimberley Cole 40:15
Excellent. Because you gave us a few good words. I thought actually in the introduction, vocation and values and curiosity and determination. So I’m glad you could get another one. And a top skill required for the future?

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 40:31
Two, they’re connected. Hopefulness, because it’s intrinsic to our human and organization license to operate, we can neither live nor thrive without it. And connected to it, curiosity, because it implies openness, literacy, tenacity, and flexibility.

Kimberley Cole 40:54
Wow! And let’s end on a quote or a message to inspire risky women for the year ahead.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 41:02
Well, it has to be Albert Schweitzer, who was Nobel Peace Prize winner of 1952, doctor, philosopher, and theologian, who said that setting an example is not the main thing in influencing others; it’s the only thing.

Kimberley Cole 41:17
I love it. Well, thank you so much, Katrin. It’s been absolutely almost mind blowing to speak with you and go through all of these things. Incredible career, really fascinating the work that you’re doing, and I hope that we can get together in London, Paris, somewhere, and continue the conversation.

Katrin Gülden Le Maire 41:41
Thank you, Kimberley. It was a pleasure.

Kimberley Cole 41:43
Thank you.

Kimberley Cole 41:47
Thank you for listening to this episode of Risky Women Radio, be part of the ongoing conversation and learn more about our events and other programs at riskywomen.org