it's time to stop being quiet and stand up and getting my opinions out there and hopefully change the minds before things go completely insane. so that's my goal here. i want i want to you know, i want to i'm going to speak up. you got to speak up. you cannot shut down. regardless of what may come our way, you have to stand up for what you believe in at some point in your life. otherwise, you may just -- you may as well just lay down and die. >> for more this conversation, go to booktv.org. search for pat and dave brown or the title of their book, "black-and-white." >> every saturday on c-span2,

find -- on sundays, buttv brings you the latest -- booktv brings you the latest books and authors. look, learn, on c-span2. >> next on book tv's "after words," economist dambisa moyo offers an insider's view on how corporate boards operate. she is interviewed by emily glazer. "after words" is an interview program with relevant guest hosts interviewing nonfiction authors about their latest work. emily: thank you so much for joining us, dr. dambisa moyo,

and congratulations on your book, "how boards work." you wear a number of hats, a global economist, corporate board director, and of course now, and this is not your first book, author. you have learned a lot in your more than a decade on different corporate boards across industries. in many ways, this is a playbook for how boards work, how they are evolving, and how they can adapt in the future. i actually want to go back to when you were 39 years old. that was when you joined your first board, sab miller, and you your writing on emerging markets and international issues really set you apart from others who had come up from corporate america with your writing. how did you learn how to be a good board member? dambisa: so thank you so much for the opportunity to be here and to talk to you about my book, "how boards work," but also to give you a little bit of an insight into the challenges and the opportunities for not just boards but the corporations that they lead. your question is interesting, because i do worry sometimes that writing this kind of book gives the impression that it was always meant to be and was easy and straightforward, and the reality is i actually tried for more than half a decade to get

on boards unsuccessfully. and as you rightly point out, in terms of global, large, complex organizations, my first board was indeed sab miller, and the real opportunity arose in many ways surprisingly, because i am not and was not a conventional board member, as you point out, i was 39, black, a woman born and raised in africa. also, i did not come through the c-suite, a traditional pool for board candidates. what set me apart was the perspective of a much more global purview. i had traveled to a very fortuitously, to over 80 countries around the world, and having that perspective of developed versus developing, democratic versus nondemocratic economies, etc., was particularly important.

but what have i learned? i think a number of key takeaways that i hope are clearly outlined in the book. first of all, by the time you are on a board, the reality is these are very complex organizations. the board of barclays where i served was a company that has been around for 360 years. and if you take a step back and think about the historical context of many of these corporations, they have gone through wars, pandemics, good times and bad, but somehow managed to stay afloat. that requires a lot of open-mindedness, good judgment in the face of complex issues in order to steady the ship, and really do the job as a fiduciary but also custodian of these very important organizations. so listening more than speaking is a key take away. but also really appreciating, by the time something appears on

the board agenda, it means it is extremely difficult. to quote president obama, if it was easy, somebody else would have solved it. therefore, we need to think about these issues and the more broad perspective and not just in a sort of ideological, there is only one answer, kind of way. those are some of the things i have learned. emily: your book breaks down a couple of really big issues, what boards are and how they operate, the risks for the future, and of course, a lot of the big issues playing out now. i want to first look at one point you made. i am going to read from your book -- "the changing times have made boards more indispensable than ever." so how has that changed in the last year? we are in this global pandemic. i would love to hear what this

last year and change has meant as a board member. dambisa: yes, it has been phenomenal in many respects, but it is important to put these things in context. in my book, i talk about the first board really being established, or at least recorded, in the 1600's, and in many ways, if you look back over several centuries, the fundamental mandate of the board has not really changed much. i would say that traditionally, boards have had two responsibilities. one is providing oversight on strategy. and number two is hiring, and in some instances firing the ceo. but really, over the last half decade, there has been a material shift towards the need for corporations to take on a much more social and cultural responsibility and be good citizens, if you will. and that obviously was really a counterforce to milton friedman's 1970 article in which he basically planted a flag in

the sand, essentially suggesting that the financial privacy, shareholders and financial privacy, were really the key and important role that corporations play. emily: shareholder versus stakeholder privacy. you cannot talk about it without saying how milton freeman is maybe not in the modern times we are in right now. dambisa: frankly, i do think that he has been misquoted somewhat, and he was very clear in that article that the nature of how corporations participate in the global economy and in society were very much driven by social and cultural contexts. i think that gives enough degrees of freedom to think more broadly about what the mission and role of corporations are. of course, in the 140 character world, we have basically blamed him for the financial privacy

argument. but that changed with the business roundtable articulating a very clear, broader -- i should say, widening aperture with respect to the responsibility of corporations to incorporate, not just financial shareholders, but the whole range of shareholders, such as communities, employees, regulators, and society at large. to come back to your specific question, what does this mean about the changing role? there is a whole sort of proliferation around areas such as environmental, social, and governance questions, esg, which, according to j.p. morgan, now represents trillions of dollars under asset management. everything from climate change, racial and gender justice, concerns about worker advocacy, data privacy, voter rights, gun control -- i mean, it has really opened up a wide sort of array

of issues, notwithstanding the fact that board members are not elected. but at the same time, i think the last year has reminded us that we do not only have a strategic role thinking about how companies will evolve over time, we have to block and tackle in the here and now to be able to adapt to, in a more tactical way, to when things go awry, whether it is a pandemic or financial crisis. i will not belabor the point, but i did publish an article in the harvard business review around march or april of 2020 in which i basically talk about how, as a board member, we were initially incredibly concerned about operations. are people safe? are people able to log into computers? do they have access to health

care? we then start to think about the financial health of the company -- can this company run? do they have a lot of debt? are they able to use the cash flows to cover their responsibilities? then you start to think about other considerations, such as the broader marketplace and how we can step up in a world that is incredibly challenged. if you remember, also with very little information. that is how it has changed from a broader strategic role to a much more tactical role, and that is part and parcel of being a good board member. emily: absolutely, and you write about how many people think the buck stops with the ceo, but there are all these risks board never stayed on, given strategy around the company and operations and not just short-term thinking. a big part of board members' role, as you write, is ceo's. we know now that ceo's and what is expected of them has really expanded quite a bit.

can you tell us a little bit about how you have been involved in ceo succession in the past and if there are different questions you are asking these days that fit into what is expected of business leadership? dambisa: yes, you know, the truth is that i think it is really important that we all understand that, in essence, corporations are living organisms, basically a collection of human beings, and human beings change, context change. i was reminded recently by a board colleague from a company i served on a while ago, and he said, the only thing i can guarantee you is that you are always going to be surprised, be it pandemic, financial crisis, the rise of china, could be any manner of geopolitical risks, brexit, america first strategy, etc. there will always be surprise, and that is an important frame when thinking about how organizations run, but also about the selection of the ceo.

traditionally, boards, and i have been involved in both hiring and in some instance, i am afraid, firing -- emily: all part of the job. dambisa: yes, an unpleasant part of the job, but it is part of the job nevertheless. but we have traditionally looked at a ceo candidate's financial acumen and operational experiences, how they managed teams, their leadership style, how their leadership style marries with where company is. if the company needs to restructure and reduce costs, is this a ceo that can lead the charge during a difficult time? how do they think about strategic opportunities? so that is how we traditionally approach this. i think there has been a big area missing, which is about

probing the sort of ethical compass and moral compass of candidates. how have we done that? we have, and we relied very heavily on references, but obviously, when you are living in a world where, in just 18 months, over 400 ceo's and business leaders lost their jobs because of #metoo, it does sort of really bring much more of a stark relief, the importance of ethics. that is one of the discussions in the book that i try to emphasize, that that is a muscle that organizations are going to have to really strengthen, not just for selecting the ceo but also for selecting board members, thinking about the organization more generally, as well. the ethical question is going to move us from just thinking about opportunities and if it is profitable and legal into the realm of, is it also ethical? does this contort with how we want our brand to be seen and the organization to be viewed?

emily: absolutely, and you cannot just say to someone, are you ethical, are you moral? it is not that simple. i believe there is a question you said you like to ask. i think it was, what is the worst thing you have done to somebody else? is that right? dambisa: the question is, what is the worst thing you have done to another human being? i was actually joking with my siblings and friends and saying i think this a great date question, as well. emily: [laughs] dambisa: but the truth is, these are not gotcha questions. there is not necessarily a right or wrong answer. it is really trying to get at this challenge of the complexity of the issues that boards have to deal with. we are not looking for a box ticked yes, this is the right answer. it cannot possibly be the case that there is always a right or wrong answer. because we are operating in different cultures, different ideological societies, different jurisdictions legally and regulatory, it means that we

always have to be very open-minded and judicious with our sort of opinions and ideologies. emily: absolutely. when i read that question, i really had to think, what is the worst thing i have done to another human being? what would i feel comfortable saying? you know, is it something when you were 10 years old? it really makes you think a lot. another really big part of being a board member is helping to develop company strategy, direction, and you write a lot about assessing business units and how you need a mix of data analysis, market contacts, and other measures. you were cautioned by an external auditor to not fall into a trap when evaluating business units. can you tell us more about that? dambisa: yes, this was very early in my board career. it was an external auditor who said people tend to be very focused on businesses that look like they might cause trouble, and he cautioned me and said, you know, you should also be as vigilant in reviewing and

assessing the performance of businesses that seem to be doing too well. we tend to think, oh, that is brilliant, this business unit is doing so wonderfully, we do not need to worry about that. but actually, that is exactly when you should probe. you know, what kind of a market allows a business to thrive? is this a monopoly? what does this mean from a regulatory perspective and competition perspective? there are questions that should emerge, make sure we are not doing things that are an ethical or, of course, illegal, or dare i say it, corrupt? so i thought that was a tremendously important piece of advice in a world that is incredibly complex and chaotic, in the sense that we have risk of deglobalization, lots of issues with respect to technology and disruption and what that might lead to. i think it is really important for us to be vigilant, not just on the downside, but also on the

upside opportunities when we see them. emily: indeed. i want to talk about some specific instances and anecdotes you mentioned about your own board experience and how it helped you learn more from those experiences. you mentioned how there are all these things you just cannot plan for, and sometimes you just cannot anticipate it. a share price swung from seven dollars to $53 while you were on the board. wow. what is that like as a director to have that kind of fluctuation? dambisa: for someone like myself who is relatively new as a board member, in general, and in the corporate governance, it was quite traumatic. this is why you want people who have knowledge and savvy and have been able to navigate companies through challenging times. the thing about barron gold in particular is that it is a price taker, they are a company that relies on mining mineral such as

gold and copper that are actually not priced by barrick, they are priced by the market. so there are many global events that can heavily influence not just your performance in terms of your operations, but also the share price, as it did. the good news, we should not forget, barrick today is trading above $20, so it bounced back. emily: very good point. dambisa: so for the board and the company to be able to turn that kind of a challenging environment around. emily: indeed, and it is not just market fluctuation. you were on the board of sab miller, going back as your first msi director, when it was bought for 100 billion dollars in 2016, i believe you said the largest m&a deal that year. the board initially did not think the company would be bought. what was going on back then? dambisa: look, i think this is

another reason why, in the book, i suggest that hubris is a very good thing to avoid. anything can happen. anything can happen. aside from that transaction, i have been on boards over a decade now, just over 10 years of serving on boards, and have had a chairman die in office, i have had activists, expropriated assets, regulatory crimes into the billions, a company trading in negative retained earnings, which is quite shocking.

emily: wow. dambisa: a share price as high as $53 and as low as seven dollars and what that might mean. i do think in terms of that transaction in particular, the board made a number of assumptions. we were the second largest beverage company, obviously, in the world, and we thought, gosh, the notion that the number one company would swallow the number two company seemed so distant, partly because we were competing in the same areas and there was also going to be regulatory antitrust issues, and we thought it would be hard to work through. we totally misjudged the fact that in order to buy us, this number one company, anheuser-busch, had to do the largest bond transaction ever, $40 billion, and we thought it was just so implausible, they surely would not do that. again, boy, were we wrong. to add to that, i was the chairman of the risk committee at the time, and not only had we assumed the brexit vote would not happen in 2016, but we thought if it were to, there is no way people would vote brexit, and that had material consequences for the valuation of the company and really increasing or altering the probabilities of the transaction getting done. but the transaction did get done, and i think that that is a lesson there that anything can happen.

i also wrote in the book that there's no company that is too big, too regulated, too powerful, that could not be visited upon by an activist. it is the same kind of attitude -- i have been on a number of boards were an activist shareholder comes into the stark, and you think, how is this possible? but anything can happen. emily: fascinating to hear about it in retrospect and all those things that needed to happen, all the stars to align, and sometimes they do. you mentioned brexit, geopolitical changes are something that are so big, and we will get more into that later. one more quick anecdote from your experience, you were on the barclays board as it considered withdrawing from africa. what was that like? dambisa: you know, for me personally, quite traumatic. i was born and raised in africa. my first bank account was in an

african branch of barclays bank. emily: wow. dambisa: at the time i was serving on the board, it had been in africa more than 100 years. i had to separate the emotional personal me, someone born in africa, someone committed to africa's progress, ongoing progress in society and the world, from the sort of job of being a fiduciary and custodian of an organization to make sure it can survive and thrive over the long-term. it was a very hard decision. i wanted barclays to stay in africa. but at the same time, the regulatory environment post the 2008 financial crisis and barclays is a globally significant and systemically important company, and on that basis, the regulators had increased some of the capital requirements. that made it very challenging to stay in the countries in the manner that we were.

so very tough, but it sort of underscores this challenge of having to do things that are perhaps antithetical to what you would like to see happen in the interest of making sure that you're doing a fiduciary duty but also making sure that, over time, as a custodian, this company continues to survive and thrive. i'm happy to see barclays is also very much alive and kicking. emily: as a former banking reporter for five years, that shook me a little bit. i had not heard that one in a while. i want to go a little broader for a moment. you write a lot about board make it, how someone even gets to be on a board and the whole power structure within a board. to go really high level for a moment, board makeup has been a topic of debate recently. i am curious, should employees sit on a board, something senator elizabeth warren has

called for and, as you write, exists in germany? dambisa: let me take a step back and say the following, because i have had the privilege of serving on corporate boards in different jurisdictions, the u.s., the u.k., canada, and also, continental europe, i am constantly thinking about best practices and how to enhance board activity. i do address the question around employees, but in the book, i also talk about ways to really upgrade boards, and i'm sure we will get to that. but to the question about employees, it is really interesting. the board structure in germany, in particular, is slightly different, it is a two-tiered system, so there is the managerial board and supervisory one, it is slightly different from what you might see elsewhere. i will just say before i address the specific question that there is a lot of overlap in terms of

the government's responsibility. these boards have audit committees and compensation committees on these boards, and i think there are very small margins of differences. this one about employees is an important one. i recently wrote an article about the fact that i do believe that -- two things, one, we are more and more in the boardroom able to get the viewpoint of the employee base into the boardroom, in a way that is really important. technology is allowing us now to go beyond the sort of company managed surveys. emily: you write about like glassdoor, blind. so board members are following that? dambisa: absolutely, we want to hear from clients, stakeholders, and employees to make the best decisions.

it is important we are getting that message loud and clear, and there is always scope for improvements as technology evolves. on the other hand, i have written a number of articles, something on bloomberg opinion a few weeks ago, talking about how it is really important for us to make sure that there still is some responsibilities and decision points made at the boardroom or at the managerial level, because the organizational leaders tend to have a much broader purview. so if you run one aspect or business unit of a company, you might have a very different risk tolerance from the way the company, in its entirety, or the enterprise should be viewed when thinking about something like risk. i generally made the point that i think we have to be careful about bringing people or

employees or certain viewpoints into the boardroom, powerful shareholders have to be careful about that. i talk about large, nonindependent boards, strategic stakes, activists onto the board, because you do not want them to bring a view that might be very narrow and maybe does not take into consideration the more fulsome picture. these are evolving debates and discussions that i think the best boards have all the time, because things are changing. we do want to make sure we get that message in from the employees in particular, but also more generally from society at large. emily: in terms of the makeup of the board, it is not just a question about should employees be part of it or not, it really is also about what kind of diversity is on boards. you write about how major institutional shareholders, there is legislation in california, nasdaq proposal recently -- what data do you seek out to track and monitor

when it comes to diversity and inclusion either on boards in general or the employee base, which is something that is definitely at the forefront for many major companies? dambisa: yes, absolutely. look, let's just take a minute to fully appreciate that. as my very good friend melody hopson, now the chairman of starbucks, often says, the numbers don't lie. and we know that the numbers tell us very clearly that more diverse boards, corporations, and c-suites do better. the return on equity is superior to the cost of capital. it is not just surviving but to thrive and compete being enhanced by having more diversity. i cite specific data from mckinsey reports. harvard has done a lot of work in this area. so it is not a matter of window dressing, it is a matter of if you want to compete, you need to

be really hypersensitive to the issue of diversity. diversity of views, of race, gender, backgrounds, i think is absolutely salient for long-term success. having said that, boards have some levers to influence this. fortunately, we have talked about our ability to hire the ceo. that is an opportunity not just to hire diverse candidates, but also to think about whoever is taking that seat can be a standardbearer for understanding and really pushing the agenda around a more diverse society, a more diverse company. also, we do that through compensation, not just diversity issues, but issues around esg broadly are absolutely now part and parcel on a consensus basis, a considerable part about how we

determine compensation, certainly for the ceo as welli e that. notwithstanding what i just said, we don't want to be in a world where we are fighting is coming nation with discrimination. high-performing white guys are absolutely welcome and companies and they should be encouraged to compete and succeed as much as any other group. there are clearly gaps and we have been lagging behind and terms of remedying the shortfall in terms of diversity. the companies i am involved with but more generally, there is a real sense this is not just about employees and boards. it is about subcontractors. people advising us in terms of the external auditors. much more corporations can do.

these companies have large gatherings across the u.s. and world. we want to know more about what these towns and cities have a record in terms of criminal justice and health care. there is a lot more we can do and i think it is an exciting time to thing about diversity beyond just the narrative which sometimes people push. >> someone has described it as a spoken wheel model. it is not just the company itself, it is all the other pieces that come together. despite talking about this and how much progress that has been made, there is a moment you wrote about in your book that made my jaw dropped. going back to may, 2010. you were at a shareholder

meeting. a shareholder said something quite shocking. i would love to hear you tell the story. dambisa: the context was i was on the board of barclays bank and we had an annual general meeting. certainly over 1000 shareholders share up. post financial crisis so a lot of dues he has him. i was the only visible minority, meaning i was the only woman and black person. already standing out. you are right. the shareholders stood up and pointed aggressively and said, i want to know what the credentials are for that woman that she can serve on this board. thankfully, i had spent almost 10 years working at goldman sachs and i had a phd in economics so i felt pretty confident i could justify my existence in the board -- on the

board. but i often say to minority candidates, we should not be in a position where we have to lead where our race or gender. we should be leading the conversation in our abilities. we try to work hard, we want to learn and grow and contribute to . it is not about getting any breaks or favors. we want a fair shot at these opportunities. that was my big take away. when we came off the podium, three of my white male colleagues said, think god they didn't ask me because i don't know what i would have answered. i wouldn't have been able to answer anything credible. the good news is the world is changing. in the u.k., we have about 34% of women represented in the footsie, -- ftse, most important

companies. we all find it a little odd and peculiar if we don't see women or racially. the boards i am in. it is an anathema. it is value add to most importantly. it is value add. emily: thank you for sharing that story. i think it ties into what you are talking about where company culture, do people want to be a part? do people want to stay? you write about how company culture is so important. it is a big part of being a board member. can you describe a little bit more how boards get involved in crafting a company's cultural message? what is that like when you are in the weeds? dambisa: it is a wonderful question because it is

incredibly complex. i would call in at least one occasion, we had a visitor, someone who is a sort of champion. i was struck by something he said. he said, it is in a way easier to influence and change and pivot culture of organizations where there is a risk an employee can died by being on the job. he was talking about having advised the national health service in britain. an energy company where they had an accident. he talked about being advising the culture of an army. people will not go home if they do not subscribe to certain cultural norms. the hard part -- you could work in a bank. the risks are mitigated of dying on the job. the way the board engages,

whether they think more about process versus outcome. if you are trying to produce penicillin, you want as few degrees as possible, degrees of freedom as possible. the tablet i get should be pretty much identical to the one you get. in that sense, the process is critical and everything needs to be the same. that is a very different cultural setting for netflix, for example, where people need to be creative. they have to come up with their ideas, as far-fetched as they may seem. they want to throw it on the wall and see what comes out of it. the degrees of freedom are much broader. the role of the board and how they check and challenge the culture of the company will be

quite different. i will say, how we do it, make sure it is working is an evolving -- it is more of an art than a science. we are interested in thinking about things like nudge. should we just nudge employees to change their behaviors? should we penalize people, dock them of their bonus if they behave badly? there are so many different tools. we are constantly looking at how these tools and efforts within the levers we have and powers we have can be impactful for changing culture. school is not out on this one. i don't think there is an equilibrium point. emily: no more work on culture.

can you just imagine? i think it became even more relevant during this global pandemic. questions about employee well-being and well-being. we have seen this employee activist movement. i want to go back to this one point we looked at earlier. you are saying, you are not just having whatever management is presenting. you are going out to seek it and trying to get information and get the full breadth of how employees are doing. what was that like any pandemic? how are you trying to figure that out -- during the pandemic? dambisa: it is incredibly challenging. you are struggling the line of thinking about the here and now and recognizing these companies have to stand up and continue to operate.

what does that new world look like? you are in the here and now. trying to make sure the company is in a position to compete and make sure people are healthy and safe. it can do that in a safe way. you want to make sure when the company comes out, any changes, we are all talking about worklife ballots. what does an office like? we are trying to telegraph those future scenarios. the deployment of digitization. yes, what does that mean for cyber risk? also, for productivity? i think the best boards, i am proud of the work we have done in our family office but more generally in the boards to steer

that course. at some point, we have to understand how we have to get back to a post-covid environment. that balancing act is critical. emily: absolutely. you talk about not just having short term thinking. think about long-term risks. stakeholders have been demanding companies do more. it is climate change, talking about how companies have to consider obesity. ranging from mental health, gun control.

a lot of people may not realize where corporate boards come into play. dambisa: this is one of those areas that is quickly evolving. i look back on my career, it was something of a ring fenced afterthought. things we called csr. maybe we would have an employee run -- i love running marathons -- and think about how we would raise money for the committees in which we operate. that has changed dramatically. we've gone through the narrative of thinking about risk negation, greenhouse gases, issues of co2 which continue to be critically important, but we are moving into a world where this is good business. this is about integrated and integrating these aspects into how we operate on a regular basis. 10 years ago, i was the only woman on my board and the only

black person. that would be insane in 2021. i can't imagine that i even lived in that type of environment. there is no doubt about it, these things are complicated and there is no answer. six months ago or certainly before the tragic death and murder of george floyd, i did not think that boards would have to opine on racial dynamics to the extent that we had to do. i did not have to think about voting rights, but we did, do, and have to. there is no compass to say that when this happens this is what you need to do. and very much the environment we are in now i have to think about in six months what might it be. and so, i am very interested and in the book i tried to push for the thinking and efforts around these issues to make sure that we are very transparent so that we do not end up with a situation where asian employees

say we have violence against asian employees you are so enthusiastic and outwardly spoken about black lives matter . why are we not talking about that with asians? we want it to be sustainable, so whatever it is you want to have teeth longer-term and we want it to be innovative. we want solutions now, and so many other aspects have to be considerate of different cultures. i was just asked not to long ago by a gentleman who said he identified himself as being very conservative, religious, and white and said what is the board doing for me, i do not hear any consideration of my views and i was struck by that. it is about all of these things that bring all of these voices in, but most of all, really understanding that we try really

hard to reduce the amount to the degree of the trade-offs. we do not want to leave anybody behind, and so thinking about things, i talked about racial discrimination, not fighting discrimination with discrimination and making sure that everybody feels like they have an opportunity in the organization, but things like climate change and making sure that we are not just racing towards solutions that ignore the fact that 1.5 billion people around the world have no access to sustainable, cost-effective, and reliable energy. we have to come up with scalable solutions that make sure that people are not ending up and more dire straits. one last thing i will say about this, i think that also, boards have to be highly attuned to second-order effects. and so when people, for example,

put pressure on investors to defund an energy company, we need to understand what that means and the knock on effects for not only impoverishing people around the world, but changing and altering the trajectory of people ability, especially people like myself from the developing world to get access to health and live a decent life. there are second-order effects. you look at the second border of the united states and all of those challenges, they must be thought about in a sensible and considered way, and this is not all to dismiss the urgency and importance of getting to real solutions. but, i think there is a nuance that needs to be appreciated as we delve through and go through these challenges. emily: absolutely, we mentioned some of your time on prior boards and i should note that you were on the boards of chevron and 3m, especially since

we talked about private ash prior stories. i want to talk about a piece of the book where you talk about forward-looking challenges and especially deglobalization. you wrote about how companies have to weigh things around supply chain, immigration, regulation, and much more. could you say what de globalization means for companies and how you are thinking about that? dambisa: one of the challenges is that we have had a phenomenal period of growth and success. the period between 1950 and 2008 mirrors the gilded age. there was a lot of economic growth, globalization in terms of trade and the of people and the movement of capital and cooperation with institutions. we saw the emergence of a lot of

large and important corporations that were driving a lot of the gender in terms of growth and partnership in government. but, that is a world if you take a step back, and think freedom house, their data shows that we have only had liberal democracy and market capitalism for 1% of human history. if i go back and start to think about one of the key responsibilities of a board on a regular basis is to mitigate risks, we need to start thinking that odds are we might be in a world that is much more challenged by this more idealized global environment and we have seen that with respect to trade, we have seen the emergence of bilateral agreements, tpp, nafta, brexit, these are not only affecting trades and services but supply chains.

i serve on the board of 3m, we make masks, and we have been making a lot of the masks, and real issues with the dpa -- it wasn't the persecution agreement. the dpa of which the former president trump put in place, basically restricting the sale of masks outside of the united states during covid. but it is also about capital flow. people like yourself who worked in finance are familiar with the carry trade, you borrow cheaply in new york and london and invest in high risk adjusted returning environments like brazil and argentina and south africa, but that world is very fractured now with investors and capital controls.

you start to think about migration and how much that is a topical issue and people across the world resisting immigration, creating pockets of disorderly immigration. we saw in europe and the southern border of the u.s., that has a lot of implications on how companies hire. how do you higher if you do not have the global talent pool? you think about the splinternet, and the real risk of fracturing around technology and intellectual platforms or there could be one chinese lead and one u.s. led and what that means for how you run a global business, and finally the breakdown of cooperation as we have known it from the bretton woods in 1944, where we actually had a liberal order, the world bank imf, they are being challenged by chinese initiatives such as the rsep and the belt and road.

within the european and american allies, there are real tensions and we have seen that with the rollout of vaccines and the covid response. i have gone through a whole portfolio of issues and the bottom line is that we have to mitigate for the risks. we could wake up in a world which is much more fractured and vulcanized. how do you think about running your business and a world like that is an important question that companies and boards need to think about. that is an important thing. i will also say, if i may, it is also not just about thinking about the risks and downside, but where the opportunities may lie, because as you know and as i mentioned, you cannot shrink your way to growth, you have to think about adding to the company for longer periods.

emily: the glass is half-full, even though those are weighty questions. i'm sure you have been waiting for us to go back to it, because the investor base is dramatically changing. when a new director joins a board i am curious about the advice that you give them with dealing with investors. i am thinking institutional investors demanding more and how they align themselves. and of course activist investors becoming the norm, how do you advise on that front? dambisa: i think the most important thing is to read out the motivations and the angles that the investors may take. we tend to think about large, powerful investors whether they are an activist or passive investor as out there to cause trouble, and i think that sometimes people take that approach, and that is not an ideal approach. we are actually all on the same side, but perhaps there is a

delta or gulf of information as board members and insiders that they may not have. there is a lot of utility in talking to and engaging with the shareholders, but it is important for them to understand that as a fiduciary, it is not just my responsibility to cater to the big and powerful, we need to think about mom and pop who have kept a few shares and have passed it from generation and generation. retail investors should matter equally to the more powerful investors. it is also important to think about the end asset owner, not just asset managers, the owner. because very often they have aligned goals for the long term. they are just not looking for shorter-term returns or the next quarter. they are also interested and we are talking about pension funds

and pensioners and people who invest in these large organizations whose money is being managed. they want to see investments in education and infrastructure. i would hazard a guess that they want us to look through this quarterly machinations and think more strategically about what are we doing for society, how are we helping society to progress and not just thinking about what the returns are? it is a complex web because there are many different types of shareholders and now we have to think about stakeholders and whether we need to prioritize their ranking system, what metrics matter to them. it is a lot of work that the best institutional investors are doing. before what would happen is we would have two people show up, one of them checking in terms of we made esg requirements and others thinking about traditional financial returns. there is a lot of work going on

and i am optimistic, i think we are on the same side for human progress in society, and economic development and a functioning global economy, and world, and in that respect, i think we have more in common than we might want to believe. emily: that is an optimistic note to wrap up on. dr. dambisa moyo, this book lays out what a board member does, how they operate, the focus areas and the broad topics you need to think about and into the nitty-gritty. it was a fascinating read and i appreciate the discussion. >> "after words" is available as a podcast. to listen, visit c-span.org/podcasts. watch this and all other interviews at booktv.org and just click the after words button near the top of the page.

>> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast. every history "american history tv" documents america's story and "book tv" brings you the latest on nonfiction authors. funding comes from these television companies and more. >> the world changed in an instant but mediacom was ready. schools and businesses went virtual and we powered a new reality. at mediacom, we are built to keep you ahead. >> mediacom support c-span2 as a public service. >> the secret service was founded in the aftermath of the assassination of abraham lincoln, but it was not until the death of john f. kennedy that the presidential protection service got closer attention

from the american people. carol leonnig began reporting in 2012. in the prologue of "zero fail" she wrote on the coverage of hooker gate as agents brought hookers to their hotel room. we talked about her in-depth look in her new book. >> carol leonning on this book of book notes+ listen on c-span.org/podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. >> recently the health museum in houston hosted a virtual event with columbia university professor peter hotez on why he believes future pandemics can be prevented by expanding vaccine literacy. >> i started writing this book a year before covid-19 began.

and, i think one of the points of the book was what is happening with covid-19 is not the extraordinary event that many claim it is, but rather a culminating event of a lot of unraveling that has been happening over the last few years. it kind of chronicles the collapse, i do not want to say total collapse, but partial unraveling of global health infrastructure and all of the things that we have put in place, which includes a lot of vaccine diplomacy. by that, i define that broadly as cooperation between nations around global health and vaccines, because vaccines are such powerful tools. the beginning of it actually goes with the beginning of vaccines. when edward jenner developed the first smallpox vaccine in the late 1700s, some say 1798, he

was called upon to mediate prisoner exchanges between the british and the french during the napoleonic wars, and thomas jefferson used his vaccine as a goodwill gesture to send the vaccine with the lewis and clark expedition in their exploration of the wilderness with native american groups. the more modern version began with albert sabin, who not many people realized when he developed the polio vaccine he did it jointly with the soviets at the height of the cold war. he sent polio strains to the ussr and got permission from the state department and his soviet counterpart, whose son works at the fda and is a friend and colleague and got permission to work together. that is where the vaccine was developed and tested on 10 million soviet schoolchildren and ultimately led to the licensure of the polio vaccine

and it happened for smallpox eradication. the soviets found a way to scale up freeze-dried production of the smallpox vaccine which allows you to take that version into tropical areas so it would not be destroyed by heat, and that is what allowed an american to lead the smallpox eradication campaign. the point is that some of our greatest successes in global health around infectious diseases always relied on international cooperation and cooperation between countries which generally did not agree ideologically and they werewilling to put aside their ideologies to work together. this was something that i was so impressed with as a vaccine scientist and i said how can we dust this off and maybe give it a fresh coat of paint and reinvigorate it, and i had that role of u.s. science envoy for the state department in the white house between 2014 and

2016 in the obama white house at a very difficult time in the middle east where the isis occupation was starting. and where we were at the height of the syrian conflict and civil war. it is when the proxy wars between iran and saudi arabia were beginning, so a very awful time looking at how we can cooperate between muslim majority nations for vaccine development, and i made some progress but the point is that this is a time when we need it more than ever, and we can talk about what we are seeing now unraveling with what russia is doing, and what china is doing. and now, as if life is not complicated enough, this anti-science disinformation campaign which is both homegrown in the united states and being launched by russia. how do we walk this back and kind of restore vaccine diplomacy to its rightful place because of its incredible track

record? >> you can find the rest of the program on booktv.org and search for peter hotez or "preventing the next pandemic." >> c-span's book tv continues. next, atlantic staff writer clint smith looks at slavery's legacy in america. and then james patterson and bill clinton discuss their new thriller involving the abduction of the daughter of a former u.s. president by terrorists. later, dambisa moyo offers an insider view on how corporate boards operate. find more information on book tv.org or consult your program guide for full schedule information. nell: hi, everyone. welcome and good evening.