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FERD's List 2020: How can we foster more entrepreneurs and boost our economic recovery?

The second webinar to celebrate the FERD's List 2020 on 5 November featured another three inspirational JA Alumni: Jennifer Crawley, UK Head of Business Management for Small Business Banking of HSBC UK; Karoli Hindriks, CEO & Founder of Jobbatical; and Charles Kim, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Alpine Global. Moderated by Johan Andresen, Owner & Chairman FERD and Salvatore Nigro, CEO JA Europe, they discussed about the critical role of entrepreneurs in economic growth and development. Andrzej Truszczynski, CEO of TKHolding and 2019 FERD’s List Honouree also participated in the discussion.

Jennifer Crawley commented on the current economic situation and the experience from the previous financial crisis in 2008 in developing online business and banking for instance. Furthermore, the fact that the crisis has created more opportunities for remote working will benefit women and other employees who need more flexibility.

Karoli Hindriks said that talent today is much more entrepreneurial than before, as it has become fashionable to start up a business. In this respect, it is a great time to be an entrepreneur and change the world with innovative ideas. In the current context, non-essential travel such as tourism is restricted but there has been little impact on international job location services. After this pandemic, she predicts that there will be an explosion of digital nomads.

Charles Kim praised the role of his entrepreneurial experience through the JA Company Programme that encouraged him to start his own company. Right now, Junior Achievement programmes online are really taking off in the US Virgin Islands, and he believes they can help bridge the gap in digital education across different disciplines and subjets.

Business successes of the last crisis in 2008 shows that such a moment is key for finding new solutions and innovation across sectors, said Andrew Truszczynski. The last crisis gave his company a huge occasion to create futuristic buildings as well as digitization in architecture. Karoli also called for the public sector to become more efficient as result of the current pandemic, following the example of Estonia that has a very well-functioning digital state including all the services for entrepreneurs and SMEs.

In case you missed it, watch the full webinar here!