The following Webcast was recorded at The Premier Business Leadership Series in London on May 7, 2009.
For many organisations, the current economic climate is placing severe pressure on profits and operating budgets. With constraints on growth, the focus once again has returned to driving cost out of the business. But leading organisations also are seeing this as the stimulus to optimise their business intelligently – to focus not just on cost control, but also on value creation and preparing themselves to not just survive the downturn, but to come out of it healthier and more competitive than before. This leadership panel will discuss what it takes to not just survive, but to thrive.
Ben Edwards, Publisher and Executive Vice President of Economist.com moderates our panel discussion. The panel includes:
- Mikael Hagström, Executive Vice President of SAS Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific
- Rom Hendler, Vice President of Strategic Marketing at The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino and The Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino
- Lucy Woods, Chief Executive Officer of Viatel
SAS, in association with BetterManagement, is pleased to present The Premier Business Leadership Series, an exclusive, invitation-only event focusing on the business topics facing global leaders today. This series unites thought leaders and senior executives from around the world for new and inspired performance outcomes.
About Mikael Hagström, Rom Hendler, Lucy Woods, Ben Edwards
Mikael Hagström
Executive Vice President
SAS Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific
As the Executive Vice President of EMEA and Asia Pacific for SAS, Mikael Hagström is passionate about providing a culture where innovation can flourish, resulting in market leadership both for the organisation and its customers.
Hagström is responsible for optimising business performance, delivering revenue and managing operations in more than 50 countries with individual profit and loss centres. He has extensive executive sales management experience with a successful record of growing business and fostering strong leadership in local geographies.
As a member of the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU) Executive Council, Hagström is a frequent speaker on the multinational business climate.
Rom Hendler
Vice President of Strategic Marketing
The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino and The Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino
After seven years of working with Club Med in major tourist destinations around the world, Rom Hendler joined The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada (US) in March 2000 as Revenue Manager. He then became the Director of Revenue Management. In his current position, Hendler oversees the revenue management, Internet marketing, property marketing, leisure sales, suite reservations, direct marketing, and slot revenue management departments for the 4,027-suite Venetian. He works to maximize profitability by setting The Venetian’s distribution strategy, pricing the room and slot inventories, forming strategic partnerships, using state-of-the-art database analysis, optimizing the casino floor, and developing CRM and customer loyalty initiatives.
Lucy Woods
Chief Executive Officer
Viatel
Lucy Woods is CEO of Viatel, a pan-European business offering IP-based managed services, Ethernet, bandwidth and network infrastructure to business customers in the region. Woods has led the successful turnaround of Viatel over the past six years with the financial backing of Morgan Stanley. Before joining Viatel, she was CEO of MCI WorldCom (EMEA), a $3 billion turnover business. Prior to 1999, Woods spent 18 years at BT plc.
Ben Edwards
Publisher and Executive Vice President
Economist.com
Ben Edwards was appointed publisher of Economist.com in March 2007. As publisher, Edwards is responsible for the worldwide profit and loss of The Economist’s digital publishing activities.
Previously, Edwards was Director of New Media Programs at IBM. In this role, he pioneered social-computing applications for IBM's external communications as well as for internal enterprise transformation, and published and managed IBM’s corporate Web sites. Before joining IBM, Edwards enjoyed a 14-year career as a journalist, having spent 10 of those years with The Economist Newspaper, where he served as a finance reporter, Tokyo Bureau Chief and American Business Editor. Edwards holds a degree in English from Oxford University and a degree in economics from the University of London.
