NEW YORK – The 14th Concordia Annual Summit concluded with an impressive array of insights from dynamic speakers, including the 2024 Concordia Leadership Award honoree Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla on September 25 at the Sheraton Times Square Hotel in New York City.

On September 24, the second day of the Summit, John Koudounis, President and CEO of Calamos Investments and member of Concordia’s Leadership Council, shared his insights in a conversation with Laila Maidan, Business Insider Investing Correspondent, about U.S. markets, investments, and the current state of affairs of the global economy. He spoke about Calamos Investments and founder John Calamos, noting that it “is an incredible firm, it has an incredible foundation, our founder John Calamos.”

“The firm is based on innovation and risk management and John was a former Air Force pilot and he’d always say you need to figure out what you’re going to do before you get in the air because when you’re getting shot at in the air you better have a plan, and so he’s been known to mitigate risk… he’s considered one of the founders of convertible bonds, he’s written a couple books about them several years ago and so everything we do, of course, we’re client-centric, we try to be extremely innovative,” Koudounis said.

He also spoke about launching a fund with NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, noting how he met with Giannis in Milwaukee, describing him as “a very, very special person, besides being a phenomenal, world-class athlete.”

“He comes from very humble beginnings and I saw that we shared a lot of values together… he’s very respectful respectful of the environment and sustainability… and I said you know what, why don’t we do a fund together with Giannis, being that we have shared values in sustainability, and that’s how we launched about a year ago,” Koudounis said.

Laura Evans Manatos, President and CEO of Laura Evans Media, provided opening remarks on the West Stage and served as the Master of Ceremonies on Day 3 of the Concordia Annual Summit West Stage programming, guiding the audience through polling and Q&A sessions. Her husband, Mike Manatos, Washington OXI Day Foundation Executive Director, was among those present at the informative and thought-provoking Concordia Summit.

Dr. Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group and GZero Media presented the 2024 Concordia Leadership Award to Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla. The Award recognizes global leaders within the public, private, and nonprofit sectors who inspire others through their ability to turn vision into impact. In their discussion, Dr. Bremmer asked Dr. Bourla about what surprised him most when he took the reins at Pfizer. “I think it was more the work of my predecessor rather than than my achievements that allowed me to take some bold steps,” Dr, Bourla noted. “I felt when I took the helm that during his tenure Pfizer had fixed the innovative core, so I felt that now I can bet on the innovation and science rather than what Pfizer used to be at the time, a conglomerate of many businesses, so because of that I took the courage to divest 25% of our revenues within a year and we created two joint ventures, one with consumer healthcare, one with generics so that we stayed only with the scientific core of the company. The second thing, of course, was that I had to change the money and how they are allocated and I put a lot of investments in research and digital at the expense of administration but you cannot change a company just by changing the portfolio of businesses or the capital allocation, the fundamental what you need to change is culture and the culture of a holding company is very different than the culture of an innovative company and I think that is the thing that surprises me the most, it is how much culture, doing right or wrong, can play a huge role in what you want to achieve.”

When asked how he did it, Dr. Bourla said: “I’m 31 years with Pfizer, when I took the helm, I was 26 years with Pfizer, so I knew what needs to be done, I was part of my predecessor’s leadership team… and I went through a very big process that the board forces us to go those where candidates had to articulate a vision and that was my vision… so the day I took the helm, I knew exactly what I needed to do.”

He continued: “Remember our culture was articulated in four values, four words, courage, if you want innovation you need to think big, you need to be decisive right, excellence, if you want to be successful with innovation you need to focus on what matters, equity, because if you want your innovation to reach everyone and to have a good reputation you must have it in your DNA, the equity, and joy which is something that was a little bit different.”

When asked about his failings, Dr. Bourla said: “There are people that are more on the optimistic side of things and people that are more on the pessimistic side, I’m way into the optimistic side… thinking that nothing is impossible, that we can make it happen and we can deliver and I think that was a very big part of my success, but also can become a reason of some big failures, so I surround myself with a lot of pessimists.”

Also on Day 3 of the Summit, Nicholas Logothetis, Concordia Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board, and Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, Prime Minister of the Republic of Iraq, discussed the situation in the Middle East and Iraq’s progress, the economy and domestic policy for attracting investment.

Cypriot Panos A. Panay, President of the Recording Academy which awards the Grammys each year, Playing for Change Foundation CEO Jake Groshong, and singer/songwriter Aloe Blacc discussed the power of music and culture in social change and diplomacy. Panay shared his personal story to open the conversation: “I grew up in a small country called Cyprus and you know at the time frankly the notion that I’d be doing the gig that I’m doing right now would have been about as close as me going to the moon, so music even for me growing up was a means to imagining and aspiring to a different future and I learned English listening to music, I mean I still have word associations with specific songs, but even more importantly throughout my career, I was a talent agent, I was an entrepreneur… I ran and started one of the early online platforms of music and then I was at Berkeley College of Music in charge of expanding the school globally and now the Recording Academy, I’ve just seen how music is this magical key that unlocks all kinds of doors and opens minds and opens hearts and creates the kinds of connections that frankly no other art form has the ability to do.”

The Concordia Summit discussions are all available on YouTube: https://shorturl.at/9h7LD.