On September 14th, Milena Rodban, a fellow at the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, and Michelle Watson, Vice President of Corporate Relations at IWP, gave a lecture about the challenges companies face in unstable operating environments. Political risk is an underappreciated, segmented, and opaque field to most business leaders today. Ms. Rodban further argued that many companies overlook opportunities arising from politically fluid situations–such as when business-friendly legislation comes up for debate in national legislatures. Ms. Watson complemented her counterpart’s views with her own experience in business. When the Soviet Union collapsed there were expectations for rapid development in Eastern Europe. But numerous political obstacles hindered this sought after progress. Business leaders lost millions because they could not adequately gauge the impact of political conditions on business operations.
A video of this lecture can be found here