NEWS & EVENTS
Geoffrey West, a theoretical physicist and former president of the Santa Fe Institute.
Greta Meszoely, director of the Center for Business Complexity & Global Leadership and associate professor at the Sawyer Business School.
Kathleen Engel, associate dean for Intellectual Life and a professor of Law at Suffolk University.
Business Complexity and Global Leader Conference SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY’S Center for Business Complexity
and Global Leadership hosted a three-day symposium to discuss the unique challenges and advantages of today’s complex business world. Businesses are rapidly evolving into complex networks, where social, economic, and technological systems are interconnected. As their infrastructure expands, organizations change on fundamental levels, and it becomes imperative for business leaders to apply innovative strategies and decision-making processes. “Traditional tools and methodologies are no longer adequate to address today’s business challenges. A new framework of thinking and tools and methodologies that incorporate this perspective are necessary,” said Greta Meszoely, director of the Center for Business Complexity & Global Leadership and associate professor at the Sawyer Business School. The Conference highlighted some of these new tools, which provide insight into how multiple systems interact. Understanding complexity enables business leaders make more-informed decisions that can help them improve returns on investments, optimize efficiency, respond to unexpected changes, test innovations, mitigate risks, and predict cascading effects.
About 150 people attended the second annual “Business Complexity and Global Leader Conference” on October 17-19 at Suffolk University. The conference featured many presenters, including Alessandro Vespignani, professor of informatics and computing at Indiana University; Geoffrey West, a theoretical physicist and former president of the Santa Fe Institute; Kathleen C. Engel, associate dean for Intellectual Life and professor of law at Suffolk University; Ren Y. Cheng, a senior research advisor for Fidelity Management & Research Company (FMRCo); Eric Bonabeau, the founder of Icosystem; and David Lazer, a member of the College of Computer and Information Science and the Department of Political Science at Northeastern University. Last year’s conference was a huge success, attracting more than 100 attendees. The event’s popularity increased awareness about the Center for Business Complexity and Global Leadership and its mission to promote discussions among multidisciplinary thought leaders. “The energy and momentum that emerged from our campus during the proceedings not only continued to grow, but also brought a new interest in our work at Suffolk and the expansion of our current activities,” said Meszoely, who presented at the conference this fall. For more information, visit www.businesscomplexity.com.
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