Barry Salzberg: Resilient podcast

Barry Salzberg, former Deloitte Global CEO, on the upsides of downturns

During the 2008 recession, very few companies were taking big risks. But that’s when Barry Salzberg, the former Global CEO of Deloitte, chose to move forward with two of the largest investments in company history. The first was Deloitte’s multi-million dollar learning facility, Deloitte University. The second was the acquisition of BearingPoint. Barry joined Deloitte Risk and Financial Advisory’s Mike Kearney to discuss smart risk taking during a recession.

There are always going to be investable opportunities during a downturn.

Many people shy away from large investments during financial downturns. But “if you can create an opportunity that matches the strategic imperative of your organization, it’s a pretty good time to make an investment,” said Salzberg.

His advice for executives:

• Now is the time to start planning
• You can’t just tell people what to do—you have to take them on a journey
• Even in a downturn, you can’t treat all businesses the same
• You need to have data to back up your risky decisions

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Resilient is an award-winning podcast series that features authentic, engaging, and thought-provoking conversations with leaders. Hear interviews and personal stories about how CEOs, senior executives, government officials, board members, and people outside of the business world embrace complexity to lead, navigate, and disrupt to accelerate performance. And discover what they learned about resilience amid risk, crisis, and disruption.

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