UVIC 2014
“You pay 10 times more attention to negative news than to positive news. Is this the way the world truly is? I would posit it’s not.”
OPTIMISM ABOUNDS AT THE 7TH ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA INVESTING CONFERENCE Professional investors at the 7th Annual University of Virginia Investing Conference traded in a once dour outlook — spurred by the Great Financial Crisis and Great Recession — for downright optimism. “Close the book on how you look at the world right now. It’s changing,” said Nancy Lazar, who leads Cornerstone Macro’s economic research team. She predicted that the strengthening U.S. economy would drive future global growth. The “Investing in Innovation” conference, hosted by Darden’s Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management 13–14 November, invited leading thinkers to reflect on promising investment opportunities. Innovations in digital health care, exponential growth in information technology, and an energy renaissance emerged as key drivers of future market returns. An energy panel described how new techniques for extracting oil from shale and the discovery of massive natural gas reserves will soon change America’s dependency on foreign energy sources. “We’re not ready to export oil yet because of political issues, but America’s production will change the world’s supply and demand in a fundamental way,” said W. Barnes Hauptfuhrer (MBA/JD ’81), chief executive officer of Chapter IV Investors LLC. A digital health care panel described a world in which technology will capture data that will yield life-changing results for patients. “The return in biology will be phenomenal,” said Bryan Johnson, founder of the OS Fund and Braintree. Also driving exponential change and opportunity is information technology. An IT panel identified several sectors worth watching: the cloud, software as a service and cybersecurity. Charles R. Cory, chair of global technology banking of Morgan Stanley & Co., noted, “CEOs will find funds for security.” Read Dean Bruner’s blog post “Optimistic Investors” for more about UVIC 2014 at darden.virginia.edu/deansblog.
10 • THE DARDEN REPORT
— PETER DIAMANDIS, M.D. (left), chair and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, co-founder and vice chair of Human Longevity Inc. and co-author of the book Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.
BARNES HAUPTFUHRER
PROF. ELENA LOUTSKINA
“Innovation starts with hardware and is complemented by cheaper and faster storage and cheap, ubiquitous connectivity.” —NED HOOPER (MBA ’94) (right), founder and managing partner of Centerview Capital
PROF. KEN EADES AND KYLE BASS
NANCY LAZAR
“Cyber attacks can happen to anyone. An attacker only has to be successful once. The defender has to be successful every time.” — KATHY WARDEN (left), corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Information Systems
The conference included the Darden @ Virginia Investing Challenge, a stock pitch competition of 15 top business schools sponsored by the student club, Darden Capital Management. Columbia Business School won the top prize.