Podcasts about ey global

Kapish Vanvaria, EY Global and Americas Risk Consulting Leader, caught up with Emma Carroll, Head of Content at Source, on the latest episode of our The Future of the Firm podcast.   Kapish shared his insights on the following matters and more:     There have been some big changes in risk services in recent years, including technology innovation, the impact of regulatory changes, and an evolution of client expectations—in particular, clients wanting more sector-specific and personalised solutions.   The sweet spot for risk experts lies in offering strong domain expertise—for instance, top tier talent in regulatory compliance—and marrying that up with deep sector knowledge, while supporting this with insights from other industries as well.   To really solve business problems for clients, it often involves more than just consulting. Audit, legal, industry experts, and technology experts all need to have a seat at the table, and firms should look at creating shared KPIs to encourage this collaboration.   When bringing solutions to clients, firms should be using themselves as client zero, and working on the concept of ‘proof, not promises'. Testing solutions within the firm itself and showing its successes brings credibility to the offering.   When choosing which firms to shortlist, clients are most concerned about expertise, but an ability to implement is close behind. Firms can translate their expertise into implementation by never being afraid to fail and by going through the iterative process of finding what doesn't work to lead you to what does.   Firms are starting to supplement their workforce with digital FTEs. Beyond improving quality and reducing costs, this also allows work for be carried out more quickly. People become reviewers rather than doers and have more time to thrive as individuals.    If you enjoyed this conversation, don't miss our sister podcast, Business Leader's Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Francine Bennett, Board Member at the Ada Lovelace Institute, about solving business problems with AI.

In this episode, panelists discuss tax policy developments around the world. 

In this episode of the GRU Podcast, we host three EY financial practice leaders to discuss findings from the 14th Annual IIF/EY Global Bank Risk Management Survey, entitled "Agility in Volatility: Rebalancing CRO Priorities in a Shifting Risk Landscape." We are delighted to be joined by EY's Tom Campanile, the Global and Americas Financial Services Risk Consulting leader, Joe Mezzadri, a Financial Services Risk Consulting Leader, and Chris Woolard, Chair of EY's Global Regulatory Network to discuss the findings of this edition of the survey. The discussion on the survey's findings focuses on underlying themes - such as increased volatility, widespread uncertainty, and a broadening range of risks - that Chief Risk Officers (CROs) face, the shifting risk landscape and how CROs navigate emerging challenges, how innovative technologies, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, factor into risk analysis and strategies, how risk management teams are evolving through partnerships and talent acquisition, how organizations can proactively combat risk and much more. The full survey in its entirety can be found on the IIF website and on the EY website.

The final episode of thinkenergy in 2024 unwraps on the year's biggest topic: the energy transition. Learn how it's shaped discussions and actions across the energy sector, as we revisit the most insightful moments from past episodes, including expert insights on sustainable practices, investments needed for future transformations, and the impacts on rural, remote, and urban communities. Tune in for a holiday rewind of how the energy transition affects Canadian consumers, businesses, and the environment.   Related links   ●       Episode 144 (The what, where, when, and how of Canada's energy transition): https://thinkenergypodcast.com/episodes/the-what-where-when-and-how-of-canadas-energy-transition/ ●       Episode 140 (Current affairs with Francis Bradley, Electricity Canada's President and CEO): https://thinkenergypodcast.com/episodes/current-affairs-with-francis-bradley-electricity-canadas-president-and-ceo/ ●       Episode 141 (Decarbonizing and electrifying your home, with Sarah Grant of Goldfinch Energy): https://thinkenergypodcast.com/episodes/decarbonizing-and-electrifying-your-home-with-sarah-grant-of-goldfinch-energy/ ●       Episode 142 (Electrifying Canada's remote communities with QUEST Canada): https://thinkenergypodcast.com/episodes/electrifying-canadas-remote-communities-with-quest-canada/ ●       Episode 142 (Turning energy consumer interest into action with EY Global): https://thinkenergypodcast.com/episodes/turning-energy-consumer-interest-into-action-with-ey-global/ ●       Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-cem-leed-ap-8b612114/ ●       Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en    To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod   Transcript: Trevor Freeman  00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at thinkenergy@hydrottawa.com. Hey everyone and welcome back. Well, we find ourselves here at the tail end of 2024 about to wrap up the year. Hopefully you are all looking at some restful holiday plans, a chance to sort of unwind and decompress after what seems to be the same every year, kind of a busy year. There's always lots going on, but hopefully you're looking forward to some downtime over the holidays. I know I certainly am, as is normal, at the end of the year, we are looking back on the year that was the year that we've just gone through. And I'll say right off the bat that I'm really grateful for this year and this chance to step into the host role of the think energy podcast earlier this year, I took over in March of this year, when the previous host, Dan Seguin, retired, so I'll express my gratitude right off the bat to Dan and team for sort of pioneering this podcast over the previous years and then trusting me to take over the host chair. It's been a really fun journey and fun to kind of engage with our guests on different topics that I'm really passionate about you guys know from listening to this that I really like talking about climate change and energy and the energy transition, and this is a really cool and neat platform to be able to do that. So, thanks to the team for trusting me with that role. One thing we've been doing, as we've been looking back, is trying to figure out, you know, what is the main theme of this podcast here? What do we actually talk about? In our last episode you know that we did a bit of a summary of some of the top episodes from the year, in terms of, you know, interest from you the listener. For this one, what we wanted to do is really embody the theme of the year, and I think it should be no surprise that the theme is the energy transition. I mean, that's kind of the theme of the podcast. I know we touch on other aspects of working in the energy sector, but the energy transition is really the all-encompassing theme or thing that we talk about, and we spend a lot of time on here in this podcast, and so we wanted to bring you some of the episodes that really talk through what that energy transition is, and what does it mean for us. What does it mean for us as energy consumers, as homeowners and people that work and own and run businesses, as people that work in the utility industry and are making decisions about the future of energy? So, we've picked a few clips from the year that we think really embody that. So, get comfy, hopefully you're warm inside, as it's maybe snowy out where you are, maybe not, maybe you're listening from somewhere warm. But get comfy and have a listen to what we think are some of the clips that really embody what this year was about when it comes to the energy transition.  To start things off, I think it would be good to and unfortunately, you're going to have to listen to my voice for another little bit longer. It'll be good to start with an episode I did not too long ago, which was really a primer on the energy transition, which really focused on helping everybody wrap their heads around what exactly is this thing that we talk about called the energy transition. So have a listen to this clip from that. And if you're interested, go back and listen to the whole episode. When we think about the energy transition, we probably mostly think of this ongoing shift to cleaner emissions free energy. So EVs over gas cars, heat pumps over gas furnaces, etc. That is definitely part of it. In fact, that's a major part of it. But like most things in life, it's never just as simple as that. The energy transition is a truly fundamental shift in our global relationship with energy, which includes not just what makes our cars go, but everything from how, where and when we generate energy, how, where and when we store and use energy, how we pay for the energy we use, how we finance and pay for energy projects and the systems that we need to do all the things I just mentioned. It will include a shift in what policies and regulatory guidelines and barriers we put in place to protect the public, but that also encourage change that we want to see happen to allow for innovation and advancement. It isn't completely throwing out everything we have and starting from scratch, although some things will disappear, like coal fired electricity generation, for example, but in a lot of areas, it is building on what we've already got at a pace that we haven't seen before, or at least in a very long time. I think that's a key point here. One of the things that makes the energy transition, a change worth noting is the pace of change that we will see. Things have never really been static in the world of energy, from that time when our earliest ancestors first sparked that fire, this is the poetic part that I mentioned earlier, our relationship to energy has never really stood still, but other than a few significant events, the upward trend in sophistication and growth and scope has been fairly linear, gradual, one step after the other, et cetera. It's those exceptions, though, those things that are different from that gradual, linear growth that probably most closely resemble this period of change that has started that we're calling the energy transition. Take the Industrial Revolution, for example. For decades and centuries prior, there had been gradual improvements in how we got around or how we work the fields. Let's say, you know, first by hand, then with tools, maybe a better plow came along. We started using a horse or an oxen to pull that plow, etc. That along comes the steam engine, and all of a sudden, things take off like never before. It wasn't just a matter of swapping out a horse for an engine. It may have started there, but entire economies and aspects of society changed or sprang up where they didn't exist before one change rolls into another and another in quick succession, and before too long, things that couldn't be imagined only decades before are suddenly a reality to a degree, that's what we're looking at today with the energy transition. How far that change goes remains to be seen, but it's pretty clear that we have begun one of those disruptive periods of change that will be looked back on as a major turning point. So yes, the energy transition is about shifting away from greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels, coal, oil, natural gas, et cetera, to renewable, non-emitting energy sources, solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, etc. But it's also so much more. Even without climate change, our need for energy is growing at an exponential pace. In Canada, we're fortunate in that we have a strong foundation with a relatively decarbonized grid already, so about 80% carbon free nationally, and a diverse mix of hydro, nuclear and renewables like wind and solar. But it's still going to take quite a lot of effort to decarbonize that remaining 20% at a time when, as I keep mentioning, demand is increasing rapidly. In Ontario, our electricity system operator, the ieso, just updated their future demand projections to show that provincial demand will be 75% more or less high by 2050 than it is today. This means we also need to invest in our grid infrastructure to ensure it can handle the increased load, as well as utilizing things like decentralized generation and storage to ensure we don't over build not to mention making sure we can handle more extreme weather.  So, I think that's a good place to set the stage for us. But now let's get into some of the real experts on this. And we'll go next to a conversation that I had with Francis Bradley, who's the president and CEO of electricity Canada. Electricity Canada is the sort of national voice of sustainable electricity. Here in Canada, they represent 40 of the largest utility companies. So that's companies that generate, transmit and distribute electricity from coast to coast all across Canada. And Francis and I talked about what level of investment is going to be required in order to accomplish some of those aspects of the energy transition that we talk about. So, here's what Francis had to say about that.   Francis Bradley  09:02 I mean, these are, these are great questions in terms of what the investments are going to look like. And so, you know, we're looking at, as I said earlier, doubling the doubling the grid, we're going to need at least two times more kilowatt hours when we get to the future. So, you know, that's the level of investment that we need to be thinking about. There have been different organizations that have tried to kind of get a scope and scale of what that actually looks like. Again, I mentioned the RBC climate Institute last year. It had a study that came out, and I believe they, they peg this at, I think was $2 trillion was the was the amount that they expected this to cost? Where's the money coming from? Well, you know, that's a really good question, and it's one that we've been engaging in for a number of years now. And I'll try not to be, like, totally pedantic on this, but you know, if you can consider from a public policy standpoint, if we believe that expanding the electricity system is necessary to decarbonize the Canadian economy, then essentially, what you're saying is that expanding the electricity system is a public good from, you know, from an economic theory standpoint, if it's a public good, well, then it is something that should be borne by that taxpayer, not the ratepayer, right? And so, you know, part of this discussion is, who needs to bear the costs for building out a clean, non-emitting electricity system so that the rest of the economy can decarbonize. Should it be the electricity customer, or are there parts of this, this core infrastructure, that that are regarded as a public good, and it's something that this paid for by the taxpayer, you know, and we see this in other sectors, other sectors as well, where, you know, certain things are perceived to be public good and their taxpayers supported. And we saw a bit of a recognition and a realization that this made sense to a degree in the federal government's budget in 2023 where, you know, they essentially pledged one in every $8 in new spending was going to clean electricity projects through a variety of needs. You know, the investment tax credits, the Canada infrastructure bank, a number of funding mechanisms. So, I mean that those kinds of dollars from the federal government was a commitment to building infrastructure that really is unheard of at a national level since the Second World War. So, you know, it really kind of moved clean energy and electrification into the category of, well, I guess it's a public good. Because, you know, there's a recognition that if the federal government wants to achieve these policy objectives, it needs to put some federal dollars in. So, you know that determination is and whether it's a public good or not, has been made in favor of the taxpayer versus the rate there. Now, again, you know, you could easily say, well, hang on a second, the rate payer and the taxpayer the same person, except that it doesn't quite work the same way. You know, do we want to attach to the customers' bills, every single customer, the cost of you knows, this, this expansion of our infrastructure or not. And you know, electricity bills are not something that fall, as taxes do disproportionately on those that are wealthier, right? And so, it is a little fairer. Now, you know, in terms of the specific investments, you know, I think exactly how this is going to happen and how it's going to roll out. Those details are still being worked out by some of our members. But I do want to highlight that, you know, the approach here that we're seeing from the government, which we appreciate, is, you know, a one that is so far technology and agnostic, which we think is the right way to go. So, you know, we there isn't, like, a right way or a wrong way to generate electricity. So, you know, the future that we see is going to be an all of the above future that will encompass wind and solar and nuclear and traditional hydro and and hydrogen and carbon capture and storage and more. Not only does that give us, you know, the greatest flexibility, and gives us the ability to balance different types of generation, dispatchable versus non dispatchable. But it also gives us, you know, overall, a far more flexible system. So, you know, that's the what the future is going to look like. So, to, you know, to give you the short answer, it'll be all of the above, and it'll be probably $2 trillion. You know, I kind of touched on this a couple of times, but No, first and foremost, the energy transition, if you will, as I noted earlier, can't be paid exclusively by the ratepayers, right? You know, this is an overall objective that we have. And so, you know, the infrastructure build is so large that that it needs to be, certainly, parts of it need to be paid through the tax system, and that that is progressive in a way that rates are not progressive to begin with. Now, you know, but boy, addressing vulnerable customers absolutely critical. Now there's a variety of things that that could be tried. You know, in the United States that there's a Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program that it helps keep families safe and healthy through initiatives that assist families with energy costs this, I think they call it the LIHEAP provides federally funded assistance to reduce the costs associated with home energy bills, energy crises, weatherization and minor energy related home repairs. So you know, a similar initiative in Canada could be there to assist the but the most vulnerable, you know, as you're aware, you know, your most vulnerable customers are the ones that have the least capacity to do things like weatherization, and so, you know, there's an example of a national program that we could look at as a model.   Trevor Freeman  15:16 Francis is spot on there when he talks about not only the energy transitions potential impact on our most vulnerable. So those living in energy poverty areas are struggling with energy affordability, but also everybody who's looking to make improvements to their homes where they live in order to reduce costs and participate in the energy transition. That brings us to my next clip that I'd like to share with you, and that's a conversation I had with Sarah Grant. Sarah Grant's a good friend of mine who also happens to be an expert in her field, which is helping everyday Canadians on their journey to decarbonizing their homes so that they can contribute to Canada's energy transition. Looking at, what are the things you do in a home to decarbonize. How do you go about that? That process, Sarah and her company, Goldfinch energy are based out of Toronto, and I was really great to hear what she had to say about what it takes to decarbonize a home.   Sarah Grant  16:18 Okay, going from large to small so the largest source of emissions in a home is your space heating. Typically, the emissions are about the same as driving a sort of a mid to large sized car. You know, most people drive, on average, 15,000 kilometers a year. The emissions are going to be about the same so that's going to be the biggest one, if someone is looking and they're a little bit overwhelmed, and the best alternative is a heat pump. So these are they come in many different forms, but the most common, and I think the most common scenario for most homes, is if you have forced air, so ductwork and these kind of heat pumps can extract heat from the air outside. A lot of them can work up to minus 30 degrees. So even up to minus 30, they're able to grab latent heat in the air and pump it inside, and then it gets pumped around your house. The cool thing about them is that they can also work in reverse. So in the summer, they act just like an air conditioner. In fact, the technology is very much the same as an air conditioner, just that they work in reverse in the winter too, so they can also cool. So these are called Air source heat pumps. And yeah, if someone has forced air and they have a gas furnace or an air conditioner or both that need to be replaced, an air source heat pump is, a great option. A lot of the folks that we've worked with that have switched we talked about comfort, sort of, some of the side benefits, I would say, of a heat pump is they're typically quieter, if designed and sized and installed properly, they're quieter both the outside and the inside aspects of a heat pump, and the air from the vents is a lot more comfortable. So, we got a heat pump about three years ago, and the first winter we had it installed, my father-in-law came over for dinner one night and just stood in front of the vent, kind of like a cat basking in that warmth, and said, Oh my gosh, this is way more comfortable. It's not that dry, scorched air that a lot of people associate with, with four stairs. So that's, that's an air source heat pump. You can also, there are also ground source heat pumps, but for a lot of you know urban areas, these ground source heat pumps involve drilling into the ground, either horizontally or vertically, to extract heat from the ground. They, they, I have worked with a few homes in sort of more rural areas where it does make sense, but the costs associated with them are, are really high, and often there's not enough space in urban areas, so they're not quite as common. And I'd say, sort of, just to kind of close the conversation on, we'll conclude it on the on the heating side of things, if you do have another source of like heat, maybe it's maybe it's cast-iron radiators or baseboards, there are also heat pumps that can help you as well. So, with cast iron radiators, they're what's called air to water heat pumps. So, they'll the outdoor unit will look similar to someone who has forced air. So, it's an it's going to extract heat from the outside air, and it'll transfer it to water now that can then go through your cast iron radiators, or maybe have in floor heating or what have you. They're not as common, but the technology has existed for a long time in Europe, and there are more products and contractors that I'm working with that are becoming more comfortable with installing this technology. And last there are called ductless heat pumps. So if you don't have ductwork or cast iron radiators, or maybe have baseboards, or maybe there's a space where you know the ductwork just isn't sufficient, these ductless heat pumps can be installed. They can either go on the wall, on sort of these big white boxes. If you've been to Asia, you're probably familiar with them because they exist there, either in the form of heat pumps or or air conditioners, or you can have little floor mounted ones as well, which look a little bit slicker, I suppose, but they do cost a little bit more. So that's heating for hot water. There are kind of two main options if you want to get off of fossil fuels. Usually that's, yeah, um, for most of us, that's with the gas, but there could be propane as well. So, if you want to get off of fossil fuels with your hot water, the heat pump technology exists with hot water as well. Heat Pump hot water tanks is what they're called. Are actually confusingly, sometimes hybrid tanks, because they use heat pump technology, but then also have an electric coil so they operate. They can operate like a simple electric tank if, if needed. And they come with a little like Wi Fi app too. So, they are, like, four times more efficient than a gas hot water tank. So, you will save a little bit by switching to them. But the way they work is they'll extract heat from your basement, actually, so from your basement air and transfer that to the water. So I would say about half the people I work with end up going with them because they have a space where it makes sense. Maybe their basement is large and they can put it kind of in the corner and a big mechanical room or a workshop where they're not going to go into it. So if it, if that heat pump reduces the temperature by two degrees or so, it's not a big deal. But for me, my home is pretty tiny, and we're using every nook and cranny with five of us in it. So we opted for an electric tank and then paired it with a timer so that it only reheats the water overnight when electricity, if you're on time of use, is cheapest, and that's also when our Ontario grid is using the non-fossil fuel related forms of power production, like nuclear and water, so that can work, if you're really lucky, and you have an open an unfinished basement and a good space to install what's called a drain water heat recovery system. These are super cool, very simple technologies that can transfer the heat from any water that you've already used, like from your shower, and transfer it to the fresh water before that fresh water then goes into whatever heating mechanism you have, so they can work with anything, even if you have a gas hot water tank, a drain water heat recovery system is a good way to kind of preheat the water by extracting the heat from the hot water you've already used. A lot of hospitals I know in Toronto are starting to use these kinds of systems as well. So two main options, electric tank, you pump out water tank, and then those drain water heat recovery systems as well, and hot water. So, you know, I said you're heating, heating your house. It's usually about kind of 8080, or so percent of a home emission, home emissions hot water is, is around 15 to 20% just to give an idea of sort of how it fits into the relative picture. But ultimately, I wouldn't say, you know, do one over the other, unless you know, if you have, if you have a hot water tank that's broken, replace that with a with an electric tank or heat pump, hot water tank. Don't, don't just say, Oh, it's only 20% I shouldn't do that one. It's still worth it. Every little appliance that you can get off of fossil fuels is one step closer to then being able to disconnect from the gas utility or what have you, and sets you up for, ultimately, like, a little bit of savings too, because you're no longer paying for that delivery fee to have access to that fossil fuel in your house. So cooking, cooking is cooking is probably, to be honest, like, the most fun of all of these just because, you know, it impacts your daily life. If, like, hot water and heating and cooling are one of those things where you don't like, I don't think about my heat pump unless it's not working properly, which we haven't had an issue with. But, you know, it just sits there and it does, it does its thing, and I'm happy to have it off of fossil fuels. But for cooking, switching, for us switching. We switched from a gas stove to an induction stove about a year ago, and it's amazing. Like, I've got little kids, and I love that. I feel comfortable teaching them how to cook on this stove just because of the way the induction stove works. You're not the whole cooktop doesn't get heated up in the same way you accidentally leave, like a rag or a paper towel on the stove, not going to catch on fire. We did have a few of those incidences with our former gas stove and like, it's really quick. I know that there's a lot of stats and data about how quick you can heat up water, but it's one of those things that you don't believe it until you sort of experience it yourself. So yeah, so we got, we got a nice slick induction stove, because our gas stove was kind of reaching its end of life, and we are starting to smell some of the gas as well, even when it wasn't on, which I know is an issue, that's, that's, you know, something that's, that's hazardous for our help. And you know, there's a lot of research and evidence out there related to like respiratory issues and gas related cooking. So if you do have a gas stove and aren't able to afford to switch now, make sure you're using your exhaust, like your range hood properly, not just when you're using the top, but when you're cooking in the oven too. But yeah, if you're able to switch it out, then you can just really leave here knowing that you're not, you're not using some sort of like fossil fuel to cook with. And so your house is cleaner, and you're making the planet a bit cleaner as well.   Trevor Freeman  25:56 So with that clip, we can all kind of plan out our projects for 2025 and beyond, if we haven't already great to hear that from Sarah again, those are some real, tangible actions that we can take, or we can plan to take in the near future. So the conversation that you just heard with Sarah is really focused around homeowners, but in the context of a kind of an urban setting, you know, you've got access to contractors, you've got access to expertise, you've got access to supply chains. But there are a whole host of people, our neighbors, in our fellow country, people living in remote communities that are just not connected to a national grid or a provincial grid, or even to a natural gas grid. In some cases, I had a really great chat with Gemma Pinchin from Quest Canada, who is leading some research on how rural and remote communities, including many indigenous areas, can engage in the energy transition equitably and sustainably. And we talked about some of the challenges that those areas and communities face. So have a listen to this chat with Gemma Pinchin.   Gemma Pinchin  27:09 Through quest projects, particularly the net zero community accelerator, which works with communities to the end goal is to create community energy and emissions plan we saw, and also through policy work and those kinds of pieces, we saw that there was the net zero transition is sort of chugging along, but there's kind of been a gap. The Transition tends to focus more on the urban context. You know, urban population centers, the big cities, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, those kinds of places, and that we saw as leaving out a really big chunk of Canadians. I think the statistic off the top of my head is 1/5 of Canadians live in rural and remote places. So it's not a small statistic. So we wanted to make sure that, as the net zero transition was moving along and progressing, that this large group of Canadians weren't forgotten about, and the net zero transition is going to rely, and has been relying, on rural land, rural populations, you know, to house Renewable Energy for Food production as well as carbon sequestration. So leaving this big group of people out is just kind of inconceivable, I guess. And what quests saw was that this was happening. So we started this research project to sort of make sure that those voices were being heard and considered as Canada moves through the net zero transition. So I think there's this idea that a one size fits all solution for every community, and that solutions that work in urban centers will work in rural centers, and that's just not the case. For example, something obvious like transportation, and my literature review highlighted that within urban centers, the most sustainable option would obviously be public transport. But if you apply that same lens to a rural community. You know, cars are bad, and we shouldn't be using them. Rural communities, it's almost impossible to be sustainable in net zero because they don't have the public transport option. So in that context, looking at it with a different lens, looking at it with a rural lens, you would look at sort of like consolidating car trips or making sure that services like health care and groceries and you know, the things that we take for granted in urban centers, making sure those are close, like they're kept in communities, like a lot of services are kind of moving out of rural communities. And that doesn't necessarily seem like a net zero issue, but when people in those communities have to drive, like, three times as long to get to their doctor, that's a huge, you know, emissions issue, you know. And it's just it was an interesting look at the way that we're even myself, before I was doing this, I was like, well, cars are bad, like, you know, like, gas, cars aren't great for emissions, but the reality is, for rural communities, they need this transportation that there's no there's no other way for them to get around, and it would be incredibly isolating, and you can't function as a society if you're just stuck in your house, you know, so having that different lens, and looking at it in a different context, I think that's really, really important as we move rural communities through this net zero transition. Well, in those communities that aren't connected to, you know, natural gas or the electricity grid, diesel used to be their only option. You know, modern life, we need electricity power like we need to power modern life. You can't have a modern existence without some form of power. So, you know, diesel, they are completely reliant on diesel, the ones that aren't connected. I mean, it's frustrating because there's these communities do tend to be quite far away from the power grid infrastructure. So, it's usually considered economically non-viable to connect those remote communities to the provincial power grids, because these communities are also very small. So it's a small number of people that you would have to spend all this money for the infrastructure to get, you know, the power lines to them and Canada, Ontario, Canada, both of them are very big, so there's many communities that exist quite far away from power lines or existing grid infrastructure. So yeah,diesel just it's kind of been their only option for power to have a modern existence up until, I would say, Now, well, recently. So I think in terms of, I mean, for rural and indigenous communities, I definitely think we need more research like what I'm doing, I think these are voices that haven't necessarily been heard, and if we're going to have an energy transition, we need to include these voices. And I think the best way to do that is to sort of do research like mine and figure out what, what their needs are, and how we can, how we can progress to that next step, there's, I mean, there's some amazing thinking, specifically of like, indigenous organizations that are already doing great work in this, this space, like indigenous clean energy and the Center for Indigenous Environmental Research. So they're, they're already doing this, but just consolidating all of that, that, and having people governments actually listen, I think is really, really important. I think, yeah, those voices just need to be heard and listened to. Otherwise, we're not going to get anywhere. It'll be like you said, like we just putting in technology and then just kind of, like leaving it there, and that's not, it's not going to that's not going to work. We're not going to get anywhere with that, that sort of approach. So making sure you know, local context is understood and local voices are heard.   33:33 And finally, to wrap up this episode, I wanted to share a clip of a conversation that I had with two really brilliant folks from EY Global, Greg Guthridge and Nicholas Hancock. I talked to Greg and Nicholas about the fact that, in the end, we are all end users of energy. It doesn't matter what your role is in the energy transition. It doesn't matter where you live, where you work. We're all consumers of energy, and we all need to live in homes that have heat and cooling in some places of world. We work in buildings that are like that. We need to get around and charge our devices and cook and so we all have a stake in this. We all have a role in this. And my conversation with Greg and Nicholas really talked about their work in helping industry and businesses navigate this energy transition and inspire and influence action amongst all kinds of consumers, because not everybody approaches the energy transition in the same way. And it was really great to chat with Nicholas and Greg about how they see the approach to the energy transition with consumers.   Greg Guthridge  34:41 Yeah, Trevor, I'm glad you brought up the word customer, because we use that word as kind of an overarching term. And let me maybe, if you don't mind, I'll dive in a little bit more on that, because customer is actually, you know, I'll use it on occasion, but it's actually a bit of an old fashioned. And believe it or not, it's that we try to use the term consumer, or, even better, omisumer, when we talk about the participants in the energy experience moving forward. And we're picking these words carefully, because customer kind of implies a one way interaction. Consumer implies that you're dealing with a customer or a participant that's, that's two way that's engaging, you know, in a much more active capacity. And then you get into omnisumer, which is the, what we believe, really the consumer of the future. These are participants that are, you know, multi channel, Multi Product, multi provider, a many to many kind of experience. So you'll hear me use them all interchangeably. But really, what we're trying to convey is that, you know, the good old days of somebody at the end of the value chain just receiving a bill for our energy that they take for granted is disappearing. Now to your actual question, you know, around, you know, the different strata of consumers. We do think of it in terms of, there's residential customers, you know, the mass market, the people at home, and then we have a number of other sort of major categories that, that we think about. There's small and medium businesses, large, commercial and industrial. There's a category which we call mush, which is municipal and universities and schools and hospitals. And then there's a, you know, kind of new categories of consumers that are forming a peer to peer and prosumer, type of consumers that that are trading energy, you know, they've got, they might have electric vehicles or solar or storage, and they're not just consuming electricity for their own benefit. They're actually selling it back into the grid or to others, and, you know, becoming more of a business partner along the way. So the takeaway here is that what used to be a passive, one way customer experience is now leaning into a much more two way, engaged and much more complex consumer experience between the energy provider and their participants. Trevor, I'm going to start the response to this, and then I'm going to hand it over to Nicholas Hancock, who leads our research, to give a bit more of a some color commentary on how we structured our research, but to start up with we, we really, you know, make about four or five years ago, we started to really think about the supply and demand of the energy transition, and a lot of focus around the world is on the supply side, building the infrastructure, building in New, renewable and green and sustainable sources, getting all of the technology to get, you know, cleaner power from one place to another, from an engineering perspective, and what we really started to realize is that as part of the energy transition, if you think about it, we're trying to do a generation of change in just a couple of decades. And on the demand side of this equation, we've got a bunch of very complex consumers, consumers that you know interact and behave irrationally with different behaviors. Some will be very excited about the energy transition. Others will be very reticent, and everything in between. And so in order for the energy transition to accelerate and to achieve the benefits that we're all looking for, we need to find a way to engage the consumer in ways which, frankly, are going to really push the envelope with consumers. So we started our research program, and Nicholas Hancock, who's on, has been leading the charge. And I think Nick, if you don't mind, can you give us a quick overview on the global nature of the research and how we've approached it?   Nicholas Handcock  39:00 Yeah, absolutely. So we started our research program about three years ago, really trying to take a global view mixing regions that are both, some of them really leading out there on the front edges of the energy transition. So we've got countries, for example, like Sweden, that are, you know, kind of further down the path as well as, you know, North America, which is, I would say, a little bit more in the middle. And then we've got some countries that are maybe lagging or taking their own paths in the energy transition, we've included countries like China, Singapore. We included Indonesia last year. So really, a global view of what are consumers kind of thinking in terms of how they approach the energy transition, what sort of products and services are they interested in, and what are the values and preferences that they bring to it when it comes to their energy providers, but also a broader ecosystem of providers that we see emerging out there, you know, who are they really interested in turning to when it comes to advice, when it comes to learning about solutions, purchasing them, and even things like, for example, control over solutions in the home, which when it comes to energy flexibility in the future is really important. We've been exploring how to different consumers approach and feel about this. And so what we did is we developed a survey. We're entering our fourth year of doing that. Now we work with a third party to do those surveys online across the globe. So it is sort of an independent third party that helps us to perform those and then we take those results back and take a look at what we see. And to your point, Trevor around, sort of the voices of the transition we've been looking at, how do some of those different groups break out? What are the different values of different aspects of those consumers out there? Because even sitting around the dinner table, I'm sure everybody can feel we don't all have the same opinions when it comes to energy, and even more so, when it starts to come to things like changes to your home or changes to your vehicles. So that's really what we've been exploring for the last number of years.  You know, what we did is, having looked at all these different markets, we found some pretty interesting similarities and the percentages of the population that fit into these five categories. It varies quite significantly, market by market, country by country, geography by geography, but there is some there's a way for us to more simply think about a incredibly complex, fragmented, distributed customer base, residential, mass market customer base into what we think are really simply five different categories. And we the organization of these five categories. We've thought about them from a behavioral perspective, from a value from you know, what's their interests and how do they plan to engage? And sort of in sequence here, I'll talk about the five, and I'll put them in the order of from most active to least active. I'll describe each of these. And the key thing here to keep in mind is that there's no wrong place to be as a residential customer, and you can actually flip around. You can move from one place to another almost overnight. So it's quite a fluid approach here. But the first category is what we call the energy champions. They're the savvy customers. They're actually the customers that have been the first to move and the ones that we see in the news already, they're probably already using new energy products and services in their home. They might have solar on the roof. They could potentially have storage. They might already be using an electric vehicle. We make fun of this category a little bit. They're usually the ones that pre order their iPhone. They might already have a have a have an interest in the new Tesla truck or some other, you know, device. They're absolutely the innovators. They're the early movers, and they're interested in spending time researching. They're going to pay attention to where their energy source is coming from, and they're going to be quite active. So those are the energy champions, the next category is what we call the energy enthusiasts, and this is actually the one that that we have to pay the most attention to. They're the fast followers. They're the energy conscious category. And when they when they observe what the champions are doing, and when they get a bit more comfortable and they start to move, a actually will influence the whole market, and as the enthusiasts maybe slightly a little more cautious, but they're also, you know, the fast followers. So once they can see the value proposition, once they're convinced that the technologies and capabilities are for real, then they're going to move. They may not pre order their iPhone, but they're probably pretty close in terms of thinking about how they're going to advance into the energy market. The next category is the novice category, or the agnostics. And what's interesting about these this category is this segment of customers or consumers. They they're actually, you know, pretty passive. They can see the value proposition. They can see that there's, there's a lot of people taking interest in it. But for a number of different reasons, they're not moving. They're very novice, they're very they're very agnostic, and it's because they're starting to think about other things like, well, all right, I can see that I can save money, or I can do something that will improve the environment, but it's just going to take too much time, or I have other priorities or whatever. So as a as an industry, we need to find a way to kind of activate and excite. We need to make it as effortless and frictionless as possible for this category of consumers to move, and they will move, and they will do things, but they're just influenced by a whole lot of other variables that, that you know, that, that they believe are a higher priority. The fourth category is what we call the bystanders, or the skeptics, and they are the ones that are a little bit they're not, they're bit mistrusting, frankly, of the messaging around the energy transition, around sustainability or environmental and they're probably going to take a fairly skeptic approach to, is this for real? Is it really going to provide me benefit? Is it really going to, you know, advance my personal capabilities. And so what's interesting about this group is they're, they're actually very interested in new energy products and services, but for different reasons. So they're going to want, you know, more control. They're going to want, maybe, off grid capabilities. And so they they're actually as interested as the others, but the way you approach them is going to be very, very different. And the final category are the allies. And this is a, you know, energy is a household necessity, and this category is very dependent. There they might have, you know, income challenges. They might have other challenges that that that we have to look after. It is a critical household service that we provide, and we need to make sure that we look after, you know, the low income, the vulnerable, the medical dependencies that you find in the allies or the dependent category. So the range of consumers across these five will vary. We've got a great little quiz that you can take out there on ey.com or you can go out and answer some questions, and it'll tell you which kind of consumer you are today. But it's yeah, we see that most consumers will fit into one of these five categories and then move from there, depending on what's happening in their life experiences.   Trevor Freeman  46:49 Okay, well, there you have it. I hope that those clips give you a sense of some of the different aspects of the energy transition, what it is and how it impacts all of us. I really encourage you, if you haven't already listened to those, to go back and have a listen to those and other episodes from this year. I think it's been a great year of great conversations, and what I hope comes through, not just the conversations you've heard today, but all the episodes that we have is this idea that there is hope, and that may be kind of a funny thing to hear, but oftentimes, when we're hearing about climate change and the energy transition and the challenges that we face, it can be discouraging, but there's some really great and interesting things happening and some innovation that's happening. And as someone that works in this space, I think it's really important to be aware of the context that we work in, but also be optimistic and to focus on the really cool and great things that we're doing. And I think that that goes across most, if not all, of the guests that I've had on the show this year, really hearing their passion and their hope for what is to come. So have a listen. Take some hope from that as you relax over the holidays, as we round out this year. So as we round out this episode, I do want to give another thanks to all the guests that we've had on the show this year. We certainly couldn't do this without the fantastic and amazing people that we bring on to chat with. Goodness knows, you don't want to just hear me ramble on episode after episode. So really appreciate people taking the time to come and share their thoughts and insights with us. I also want to say a huge thank you to the team that is behind pulling these episodes together. This is a multi person contribution with folks across Hydro Ottawa and our partners that help us pull this together. And I want to especially call out Morgan Barnes for his help and really pulling the content and the feel and the texts together behind these episodes. It's me rambling here behind the microphone, but really Morgan and I work together to pull together what the theme and the thread of these episodes are so big. Thanks to Morgan for his thought leadership in this and his dedication and hard work and helping pull these things together. Morgan, you're the best. Okay, so with that, my team is always kind of after me to answer these rapid fire questions that you often hear at the end of episodes, but they also gave me an out because, because I don't intend to do that. So the out is what is one of my favorite holiday traditions. So I'm going to, I'm gonna pivot and pull that one as we go into the holiday season here. And I think I was reflecting on this, I think one of my favorite holiday traditions, at least in the last little while, as I've kind of built a family and have a growing family, is going and getting that Christmas tree. And a number of years ago now, we moved houses, and it's not a big house. It's a house in Ottawa here, but we have this small part of the back of our house that has a really high ceiling. And so as we were out the first year, we always go to one of those, cut your own cut your own tree farms and cut our tree down, and I had this idea that, Oh, we've got a really high ceiling, so we've got to get a really tall tree. And that kind of started a bit of a precedent now, where I can't go out and get just a little tree anymore. The kids want, well, I say the kids, it's probably more me, but the kids and I both want the that tall tree that kind of scrapes the ceiling as we put it up. So that's always fun trying to find that right tree, the perfect shape to cut it down, to haul it back to the car, and try not to pull too many muscles doing it. So I'd say that's one of my favorite holiday traditions, and then to sit in the house and have that nice, fresh smelling Christmas tree for at least a few weeks. So, that's my favorite holiday tradition. Thanks for joining us in 2024 we really appreciate you listening. We appreciate the conversations. As always, don't hesitate to reach out to us, Thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com Is our email address. We would love to hear from you, love to hear your ideas and thoughts on topics and guests. So there we are at the end of the year, and we look forward to connecting with you again in 2025 where we will be back with more episodes, more guests, more conversations about energy in the energy transition. Thanks so much for listening.  Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Thinkenergy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word. As always, we would love to hear from you, whether it's feedback comments or an idea for a show or a guest. You can always reach us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com  

In this episode, panelists discuss the latest global tax developments and issues to consider by year-end.

In this episode, David McClelland is joined by Myles Corson, EY Global and Americas Strategy and Markets Leader, Financial Accounting Advisory Services and host of the Better Finance Podcast, to discuss the evolving landscape for finance leaders amidst uncertainty and instability, termed the 'polycrisis'. As we navigate a complex global landscape, marked by geopolitical tensions, inflation uncertainties, environmental changes leading to pressure on supply chains, and technological uncertainties, Myles explains how finance leaders can evolve from their traditional roles to become indispensable strategic partners within their organisations. Amidst a world of rapid change and the relentless news cycles that shape our perceptions, we examine the role of technology in both contributing to and alleviating uncertainty. The rise of AI and digital transformation presents not just challenges but also unprecedented opportunities to redefine the role of finance. Hear how CFOs can balance short-term performance with long-term strategic investments, embracing innovation while managing risk. As finance leaders become the compasses guiding their organisations, the importance of setting a clear direction and empowering teams with data-driven insights takes centre stage. Myles underscores the need for agile mindsets and strategic alignment to navigate this complex landscape, ultimately adding unparalleled value to organisations. For more information about the challenges facing CFOs, read Myles' DNA of the CFO report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, panelists discuss anti-hybrid mismatch provisions and perspectives from across the world. 

Who is impacted by energy? We all are. Regardless of our roles, whether we work in the industry or not, we all use energy in some form or another. And we use it everyday. So, when it comes to energy transition, industry leaders must consider the end user. In episode 142 of thinkenergy, Greg Guthridge and Nicholas Handcock of EY Global share how stakeholders and utilities can better understand the consumer energy experience—and, ultimately, how to develop more informed strategies to the energy transition. Related links   EY Global: https://www.ey.com/en_gl  EY Global ecoEnergy Profile quiz: https://www.ey.com/en_gl/ecoenergy-profile  EY Global on X: https://twitter.com/EYnews  EY Global on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ernstyoung  Greg Guthridge on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregguthridge/  Nicholas Handcock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholashandcock/  Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-cem-leed-ap-8b612114/  Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en     To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod Transcript: Music. Hi. Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com, Hi everyone. Welcome back. Something I try to do on this show is to make sure that we're looking at the energy transition from a number of different perspectives. So, we obviously touch on the technologies that will be part of that transition, whether that's heat pumps or EVs or some of the grid technology that utilities like hydro Ottawa are beginning to roll out to modernize our grid. We also look at the overall governance and policy structure that guides our you know, societal energy decisions, how we choose to go about using energy, making energy, etc., in our society, the role of the various stakeholders on the grid gets touched on understanding kind of who the players are. There's a bit of an education piece here of knowing who all the complex players are in this, in this kind of system. And one thing that we've touched on before that I think is really important to keep bringing to the forefront is the end users of energy. And frankly, that's all of us, no matter what other roles in the transition we might play. We're all end users. We all need to heat our homes and workplaces. We all need to move around in some manner. We need lights, we need to cook, we need to charge our devices. And we don't really want to have to worry about those things. We want that to be smooth and easy and how we as end users of energy are experiencing and interacting with and in some cases, taking a leadership role in the energy transition. That's really important, because we need all those things, and we want all those things to be smooth. It's important for our utility companies to understand and to take that into account when we're planning our and I'm speaking as a member of utility. Now, when we're planning our strategies and programs and products, we need to take into account, how does this impact our end users of energy? How are they going to experience this? So, my talk today is with Greg Guthridge and Nicholas Hancock of EY global. Greg is EY Global's powering utilities customer experience transformation leader and Nicholas leads EY research program that's called navigating the energy transition. Both of them ultimately help various stakeholders, including utilities, better understand consumer values, their preferences and their aspirations for their energy experience, which ideally will lead to more informed strategies and approaches to the energy transition for those decision makers, whether that's at the policy or the regulatory or the kind of utility implementation level. So, I'm really excited to talk to Greg and Nicholas today and hear their insight into the work that they've been doing. Greg and Nicholas, welcome to the show. Thanks, Trevor, great to be here. Thanks for the invitation to share our perspectives today. Sure. So, I always like to start getting to know a little bit from our guests of how they got into the energy space. And Greg not to kind of put you on the spot or embarrass you, but you've been named as one of consulting magazine's 25 consultants for excellence in energy, which is a rather lofty sounding title. I understand. You have several patents in the US for energy efficiency and demand management analytics. Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you came to be in the energy space. Greg Guthridge  04:00 Yeah. Trevor, it was really interesting my journey. You know, it's, you can think of it a little bit as an accidental process here. I didn't leave college thinking that I would be a consumer person in the energy space. In fact, I also, I thought for a long time that utilities were kind of a boring and dusty part of the energy ecosystem. I wanted to be in marketing or in manufacturing, or someplace, you know, considerably more sexy. But what's interesting is, you know, what an amazing journey into what I believe is kind of the center of the universe. Now, you know, energy is everything for us, and I can't think of a more interesting and dynamic place to be at the moment as we think about how we're going to transition to a cleaner, safer, more secure energy system in the future. So, it's been, it's been fascinating to kind of make my way down this path, but I'm super happy to be right at the center of what I think is one of the most, most critical elements of our society and our economy moving forward. Trevor Freeman  04:00 Absolutely and my goodness, if, if I ever meet that person who you know 20, 30, years into their career, is doing what they thought they would do at the end of college or university, I feel like I'd strike a gold mine. But now let's pivot over to EY global, and the work that EY does in the energy sector, specifically the role when it comes to the energy transition, tell us a little bit about what EY is doing in that space. Greg Guthridge  05:39 Oh, Trevor, it's fascinating. EY has really taken a very progressive approach to helping our clients, a broad swath of clients, from industry to manufacturing to energy to utilities, you name it, across the spectrum. Really imagine you know how their capabilities; their value propositions and their customer experience need to evolve. Of course, I I represent the customer element of the EY practice in utilities and in resources, but we have experts that that can help with everything from infrastructure to generation to renewables, to audit and tax and financial services, and you name it. In the customer space, we're really laser focused on helping our clients think about and imagining. You know that if you think about it, the typical utility to date is, is the is the product of over 100 years' worth of development. Most utilities were formed in the Edison era, many, many years ago, and they have a big challenge on their hands. They've got to find a way to kind of evolve not only their business and operating models, but also their regulatory and their customer experiences to really form fit to the future, and that EY is right at the center of offering a whole gamut of different capabilities across the spectrum, across their value proposition, to help them through that, that transition. Trevor Freeman  07:15 Now you use the word customer, I assume you're talking about that end user of energy, that end user, of, you know, electricity, in the context of our conversation today is, do you differentiate between sort of that residential user, someone in their home and powering their appliances, versus, you know, medium, commercial business, versus those large, mammoth users at the data center level? Greg Guthridge  07:39 Yeah, Trevor, I'm glad you brought up the word customer, because we use that word as kind of an overarching term. And let me maybe, if you don't mind, I'll, I'll dive in a little bit more on that, because customer is, is actually, you know, I'll use it on occasion, but it's actually a bit of an old-fashioned term, believe it or not, it's, we try to use the term consumer, or, even better, omni-Sumer, when we talk about the participants in the energy experience moving forward, and we're picking these words carefully, because customer kind of implies a one-way interaction. Consumer implies that you're dealing with a customer or a participant that's two way that's engaging, you know, in a much more active capacity. And then you get into omni-Sumer, which is the what we believe, really the consumer of the future. These are participants that are, you know, multi-channel, Multi Product, multi provider, a many to many kinds of experience. So, you'll hear me use them all interchangeably, but really, what we're trying to convey is that, you know, the good old days of somebody at the end of the value chain just receiving a bill for our energy that they take for granted is disappearing. Now, to your actual question, you know, around, you know, the different strata of consumers. We do think of it in terms of, there's residential customers, you know, the mass market, the people at home, and then we have a number of other sorts of major categories that that we think about. There are small and medium businesses, large, commercial and industrial. There's a category which we call mush, which is municipal and universities and schools and hospitals. And then there's a, you know, kind of new categories of consumers that are forming peer to peer, and prosumer, type of consumers that that are trading energy, you know, you know, they've got, they might have electric vehicles or solar or storage, and they're not just consuming electricity for their own benefit, they're actually selling it back into the grid or to others and becoming more of a business partner along the way. So, the takeaway here is that what used to be a passive one way. Customer experience is now leaning into a much more two way engaged and much more complex consumer experience between the energy provider and their and their participants. Trevor Freeman  10:14 Yeah, and I don't want to paint the picture that this is unique to the energy space or the utility space, because so many different industries we hear about it all the time are being disrupted by changing technology, changing customer preferences. But I think it's really true in the utility space that as you described, the customer, or the consumer of even 20, 30, years ago, doesn't really exist anymore. Is fast becoming kind of out of date, and that whole landscape is changing drastically as we move forward. And so, all the things that we're going to talk about next are kind of in the context of we're looking forward, and we don't necessarily have a great model in the past to tell us, what is that relationship with a customer going to be 20 30, years down the road, because it's changing so rapidly, Greg Guthridge  11:02 you betcha, Trevor Freeman  11:04 just to throw one more one more variable at you, it's not just the different types of customers that a company like EY global is dealing with, because you work across the globe in many different jurisdictions, you're also dealing with different regional challenges when it comes to the energy transition. You know, energy typically is a at least partially or fully regulated sector. You're dealing with different regulatory bodies, different governments. Tell us how you approach that difference. And so obviously, as our listeners know, I'm sitting here in Ontario. Has got a pretty complex regulatory environment. How do you tailor your services or your advice to your customers or to your clients in those different areas? Greg Guthridge  11:51 Yeah, fascinating question, Trevor, and you're absolutely right. The regulatory models, the products and services, even the consumer bases, they vary dramatically. You know, market by market, country by country, region by region. At EY, we take a kind of a two-pronged approach. The first is that, you know, there's more similarities than there are differences. When you kind of peel back the curtain and you look at the basics, and the basics are, we have to find a way to provide to help our utility clients provide the most effective, affordable and safe and secure, reliable energy. And from a consumer perspective, that really leans in on a couple of key pillars that don't vary anywhere that affordability, value based, cost effectiveness of operations, revenue growth and along the way. Let's make this as engaging as possible for consumers and employees, so the basic building blocks actually don't vary that much around the world. What does vary is whether you're regulated or not your products and services vast differences in the kinds of products and services that really resonate with consumers. And that doesn't just go for regional differences. It also goes for just variations in demographics and other, you know, social kind of variations that you see with consumers. And in that case, EY takes a very, you know, client centric approach. So, we take our building blocks that we believe are fairly universal, and then how we implement those in a particular region or with a particular utility, that becomes a much more unique and custom process, where we work really closely with the client to be as centric as possible in in thinking about for this particular utility in this particular market, what's going to make the best sense and what's your priority? So, it's a bit of a combination of trying to use standard building blocks, but then apply it in the most customized process imaginable. Trevor Freeman  14:06 Yeah, and then, just speaking from experience, working at the sort of, you know, distribution utility level, right down, I guess you can say on the ground, with the customers. It's then our challenge at the utility to take that insight, to take that learning and figure out how to apply it or how to use it to support our specific customers, consumers, individually. So great, great to break it out like that. Okay, I want to ask you about EY's voices of the energy consumers initiative, and this is some research that you did and trying to help us understand who is out there engaging with energy, and what are they thinking. Trying to profile some of these individuals a little bit. It reminds me of that technology adoption curve that folks may be familiar with, and able to identify where they fall on that curve. So. Tell us about or give us an overview of that, of that initiative, and what you're trying to understand from that. Greg Guthridge  15:07 Trevor, I'm going to start the response to this, and then I'm going to hand it over to Nicholas Hancock, who leads our research. To give a bit more of some color commentary on how we structured our research. But to start up with we really about four or five years ago, we started to really think about the supply and demand of the energy transition. And a lot of focus around the world is on the supply side, building the infrastructure, building in new renewable and green and sustainable sources, getting all of the technology to get cleaner power from one place to another, from an engineering perspective. And what we really started to realize is that as part of the energy transition, if you think about it, we're trying to do a generation of change in just a couple of decades. And on the demand side of this equation, we've got a bunch of very complex consumers, consumers that you know interact and behave irrationally with different behaviors. Some will be very excited about the energy transition. Others will be very reticent, and everything in between, and so in order for the energy transition to accelerate and to achieve the benefits that we're all looking for, we need to find a way to engage the consumer in ways which, frankly, are going to really push the envelope with consumers. So we started our research program, and Nicholas Hancock, who's on, uh, has been leading the charge. And I think Nick, if you don't mind, can you give us a quick overview on the global nature of the research and how we've approached it? Nicholas Handcock  16:52 Yeah, absolutely. So we started our research program about three years ago, really trying to take a global view, mixing regions that are both, some of them really leading out there on the front edges of the energy transition. So, we've got countries, for example, like Sweden, that are, you know, kind of further down the path as well as, you know, North America, which is, I would say, a little bit more in the middle. And then we've got some countries that are maybe lagging or taking their own paths in the energy transition. We've included countries like China, Singapore. We included Indonesia last year. So really a global view of what are consumers kind of thinking in terms of how they approach the energy transition, what sort of products and services are they interested in, and what are the values and preferences that they bring to it when it comes to their energy providers, but also a broader ecosystem of providers that we see emerging out there, who are they really interested in turning to when it comes to advice, when it comes to learning about solutions, purchasing them, and even things like, for example, control over solutions in the home, which, when it comes to, you know, energy, flexibility in the future is really important. We've been exploring how do different consumers approach and feel about this. And so, what we did is we, develop a survey, we're entering our fourth year of doing that. Now we work with a third party to do those surveys online across the globe. So, it is sort of an independent third party that helps us to perform those and then we take those results back and take a look at what we see. And to your point, Trevor around, sort of the voices of the transition we've been looking at, how do some of those different groups break out? What are the different values of different aspects of those consumers out there? Because even sitting around the dinner table, I'm sure everybody can feel we don't all have the same opinions when it comes to energy, and even more so when it starts to come to things like changes to your home or changes to your vehicles. So that's really what we've been exploring for the last number of years. Trevor Freeman  18:41 Yeah, great. So, you've identified five different, let's call them archetypes or types, you know, profiles, if you will. You call them your eco energy profiles. Can you walk us through each of the five and give us a little summary of you know who that person is, or who that individual is that fits within that profile? Greg Guthridge  19:01 Sure. Trevor. You know what we did is, having looked at all these different markets, we found some pretty interesting similarities, and the percentages of the population that fit into these five categories, it varies quite significantly, market by market, country by country, geography by geography, but there is some there's a way for us to more simply think about a incredibly complex, fragmented, distributed customer base, residential mass market customer base, into what we think are really simply five different categories. And we the organization of these five categories. We've thought about them from a behavioral perspective, from a value from you know, what's their interests, and how do they plan to engage? And sort of in sequence here, I'll talk about the five, and I'll put them in the order of from most active to least active.  I'll describe each of these. And the key thing here to keep in mind is that there's no wrong place to be as a residential customer. And you can actually flip around. You can move from one place to another almost overnight. So, it's quite a fluid approach here. But the first category is what we call the energy champions. They're the savvy customers. They're actually the customers that have been the first to move and the ones that we see in the news already. They're probably already using new energy products and services in their home. They might have solar on the roof. They could potentially have storage. They might already be using an electric vehicle. We make fun of this category a little bit. They're usually the ones that pre order their iPhone. They might already have a have a have an interest in the new Tesla truck or some other you know, device. They're absolutely the innovators. They're the early movers, and they're interested in spending time researching. They're going to pay attention to where their energy source is coming from, and they're going to be quite active. So those are the energy champions. The next category is what we call the energy enthusiasts, and this is actually the one that that we have to pay the most attention to. They're the fast followers. They're the energy conscious category. And when they when they observe what the champions are doing, and when they get a bit more comfortable and they start to move, they actually will influence the whole market. And as the enthusiasts maybe slightly a little more cautious, but they're also the fast followers, so once they can see the value proposition, once they're convinced that the technologies and capabilities are for real, then they're going to move. They may not pre order their iPhone, but they're probably pretty close in terms of thinking about how they're going to advance into the energy market. The next category is the novice category, or the agnostics. And what's interesting about these this category is this segment of customers or consumers. They they're actually, you know, pretty passive. They can see the value proposition. They can see that there's, there's a lot of people taking interest in it, but for a number of different reasons, they're not moving. They're very novice, they're very they're very agnostic, and it's because they're starting to think about other things, like, well, all right, I can see that I can save money, or I can do something that will improve the environment, but it's just going to take too much time, or I have other priorities or whatever. So as a as an industry, we need to find a way to kind of activate and excite. We need to make it as effortless and frictionless as possible for this category of consumers to move, and they will move, and they will do things, but they're, they're just influenced by a whole lot of other variables that, that you know, that that they believe, are a higher priority. The fourth category is what we call the bystanders, or the skeptics, and they are the ones that are a little bit they're not, they're a bit mistrusting, frankly, of the messaging around the energy transition, around sustainability or environmental and they're probably going to take a fairly skeptic approach to is this for real? Is it really going to provide me benefit? Is it really going to, you know, advance my personal capabilities? And so, what's interesting about this group is they're, they're actually very interested in new energy products and services, but for different reasons. So, they're going to want, you know, more control. They're going to want, maybe, off grid capabilities. And so, they, they're actually as interested as the others, but the way you approach them is going to be very, very different. And the final category are the allies. And this is a, you know, energy is a household necessity. And this category is very dependent. There they might have, you know, income challenges. They might have other challenges that that that we have to look after. It is a critical household service that we provide, and we need to make sure that we look after, you know, the low income, the vulnerable, the medical dependencies that you find in the allies or the dependent category. So, the range of consumers across these five will vary. We've got a great little quiz that you can take out there on ey.com or you can go out and answer some questions, and it'll tell you which kind of consumer you are today. But it's yeah, we see that most consumers will fit into one of these five categories and then move from there, depending on what's happening in their life. Experiences. Trevor Freeman  25:02 I agree. I'm glad you brought up that quiz, because I know I spent a bit of time going through it and just reading the descriptions. I was pretty sure I knew where I fit in that, and the quiz kind of made me realize, yeah, it can change from time to time. It can change from answer to answer, and depending on what it is. So, it's interesting. And for our listeners, if you have a chance, check it out. You can just, I don't know, Google EY eco energy profiles, and it'll come up, I'm sure. Thanks for explaining that, Greg. And my next question is, why? Why does it help us to have these profiles in mind as we approach the energy transition as the utility industry, as energy providers out there in the sector? Greg Guthridge  25:44 Oh, good question. Trevor, yeah. What's the point of all of this? Why? What are we trying to do? And here's the thing, we can't approach the consumer base as one homogenous group of people. That's insane, if you think about it. No other industry would do that there that you have, we have to target our messaging, our value propositions, even our customer interaction channels, so that we can appeal to the lifestyles and the interests and the behaviors and the overall approach for each of these different customers. So, a spray and pray one size all approach won't work. What we need to do instead is be as tailored as we can. And what we're suggesting is we don't have to we don't have to go crazy here. We don't have to have hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of customer segments. We can really gravitate around five that really cover 80% of the customer base very, very well, and this will help the utility in many ways. It will help them think about and target their programs, their products, their services, so that they're not wasting a lot of time and effort promoting to one customer base or one segment something that just isn't going to resonate, they can start to vary their propositions and their interactions for products, programs and services accordingly. We think it'll help save money, and it will help the effectiveness of the targeting with these customer bases in a much more thoughtful manner. Trevor Freeman  27:21 Great during your research. Did anything really jump out at you as notable or surprising, you know, unexpected when it comes to those, those beliefs or that, those values that people hold when it comes to energy? Did anything really stick out, as you know, worth noting? Greg Guthridge  27:39 Great question, and there's a couple of observations that we've had in the research that that sort of drift to the top fairly quickly. The first is that sustainability and environmental messaging only really applies to a third of consumers. The majority of consumers are actually much more motivated by other creature comforts when they're when they're buying products and services. And so, while it's an it's important for us to, for us, for the industry, to share environmental and sustainable products and services and the benefits of those we also need to augment that with other buyer values that the actually the majority of customers still prioritize. And this is, you know, convenience, comfort, control, price, affordability, reliability, those are the bedrocks. And what we found is just leading, just leading with a sustainable message probably is limiting the appeal of the products and services. And so, if we can make sure that we always really kind of tailor our messaging with a broad swath of buyer values, we're probably going to appeal to more consumers. So that's the first thing that we found relatively surprising, and it doesn't, it's not actually surprising, if you think about it, because, you know, environmental and sustainable messages is really kind of an intangible benefit for most people. It's and what we need to do is really find ways to be much more concrete and tangible and real around benefits that customers can touch and feel and smell immediately in that as they make their investments in their energy experience. That's the first thing. The second is that when we look at the consumer base, we need to remind ourselves that the old guard, the you know, the Generation X and the generation Ys are now being replaced with the millennials and generation zeds, and they want something different from their energy provider. They're not particularly in the space where they're going to benefit from the same things that the generations previous to them. And they're going to want more subscription based pre pavement pay as you go, kind of capabilities. They're going to be much more digital in their interactions. And they're, you know, we need to make sure that we're designing the energy experience of the future for the future, and not for the traditional segments of or, you know, age stratification that we've got in the past. So, we need to hand the baton over to the millennials and the generations that who will ultimately decide the success of the energy transition. Trevor Freeman  30:33 Yeah, I think it really does highlight the need, you know, both of those kinds of last two explanations, the need for us and the utility sector to really be empathetic to who our customers are and to what they're thinking and how they approach things. And we've talked before on this show about not just holding our own values and approaching things with our own values, but understanding what our customers values are and kind of meeting them where they're at. And I think your research just highlights the importance of that as well. You also wrote an article where you noted that most energy consumers kind of feel like they're already doing everything they can to shift their behaviors and habits when it comes to energy consumption. And that's not to say that they don't recognize there's more that can be done, but they feel like they are giving it their all. You know, they can't afford to do more, or they don't have the time to do more that they're kind of maxed out. You know, 70% of, I think, respondents to your to your survey, said that they're not willing to spend any more time or money to do more. And you've come up with these three A's of energy, and I'd like you to talk us through what those three A's are? Greg Guthridge  31:43 Sure. Trevor, yeah, definitely. We it's consumers are telling us that. You know, based on their current environment, their current economics, their household experience, that they're pretty much doing everything they can. If you take that eco score, you'll find out pretty quickly that there's all kinds of things that we're expecting consumers to do. Consumers really do. Need to change their lifestyle. Businesses need to change their business practices in ways that are really going to push the envelope beyond most people's comfort zone. So we've got a bit of a challenge here, which is the research is clear. Consumers are saying we're already doing everything we can, and we can see that there's all kinds of things that that we still need to do up and down the value chain. I'm going to hand this back over to Nicholas to give us a little bit more of an overview of the three A's and how we use the three A's and thinking about how we're going to appeal to consumers in a much more thoughtful way. So over to you. Nicholas, Nicholas Handcock  32:45 Thanks, Greg. Yeah, the three A's is something that is really what's the foundation of the energy experience to really bring along everybody. And I think one of the key ones we mentioned a little bit here is affordability, and it's come up in our survey. Is increasingly important in the last couple of years, as we've seen practically across the globe. Prices of everything have gone up, but at prices of energy have also gone up, and we see a lot of consumers saying that they're feeling quite stretched when it comes to their home bills and their energy bills. And in fact, most people say they can't even absorb a 10% increase in their energy costs. And so affordability is kind of on edge and on top of people's minds. But then we also see consumers really interested in things like prepaid energy or more subscription based energy type services. So I think you know, when it comes to affordability, we're not always able to lower the prices that there is a fact that energy requires an investment, but there are maybe more innovative and creative ways that we can work with consumers to help them manage that affordability. And that's one of the key points, is, how do we think about that in new and different ways and get more creative and work with our regulators to really to do that? The second piece of the second A is access. And, you know, access to the products and services, access to the benefits of the energy transition, have been maybe rather narrow. To date, there's been a smaller group of folks who have been able to afford an electric vehicle or afford to put solar or battery storage on their homes or install a heat pump, and start to see some of the savings. And what we see is a lot of consumers are starting to say that they're feeling a bit left behind by the solutions that are out there today in the energy transition. So when it comes to access, there's an idea of kind of equity, and how do we make this a bit more equitable and have solutions available to all? And again, I think it requires a bit more creativity. Some of some things like community solar or even community wind farms that we see popping up in the UK, are interesting solutions to help more people come along, and then you've got a lot of subsidies or rebates and things available, but not everybody knows about those so there's a role to play to help educate consumers, make sure they're aware of it, but also just make it an easy experience for them to access those things, because we see that that can often be a challenging experience. And then the final one, Greg, you mentioned appeal. That's our final A which is, how do we actually these different kinds of consumers out there that we've. On the residential side, but we've also got small, medium businesses, which are very diverse across different sectors, and then on the commercial, industrial side, different types of companies looking for really different kinds of solutions to achieve their goals. And how do we actually appeal to all of these different organizations and customers? And you know what it is that's important, is that, and you said it, Trevor, how do we appeal to the values that they've got to really what they're looking for in terms of outcomes, and it's going to be different for everybody. So it requires a much more targeted and tailored approach to thinking about consumers and that empathy to really understand what's important to them, what's important to their business, and what's important to kind of the bottom line for those large business customers as well, and make it really you know, appealing energy can be fun. We see it in some other markets that you know, for example, power shop in New Zealand's always one of my favorites. They're really a fun brand that's all about prepay energy and a digital customer experience with really fun social media. How do we start to make it fun, for example, for consumers who do want to engage, and how do we make it just dead simple and set and forget for consumers that want it that way as well. So that's really the three A's that we see as the foundation of this future energy experience. Trevor Freeman  36:07 Thanks for that, Nicholas, I appreciate it, and I think that it kind of leads into the next question that I have. You've already addressed it a little bit, but you also talk about how energy providers are really good at investing in technology. We're good at knowing kind of, let's call it the nuts and bolts, or the poles and wires of energy. We know how to get those electrons, in the case of electricity, out to our consumers. And as we look at the energy transition, there's almost this, like knee jerk reaction to say, Yeah, okay, well, more poles, more wires, more transformers. But there's this whole human element of the energy transition that also needs attention and needs to be invested in. Can you expand a little bit on that human element, and how utilities and energy stakeholders can kind of lean into that to help address some of these challenges? Greg Guthridge  37:00 Oh, Trevor, great question. And you know, if you think about it, energy is, is it's taken for granted, for by most people, it's, it's, it's just there. And when it's not there, you become incredibly irrational. So you switch from being rational to irrational in record time at the very moment, but your power's out. And there is another interesting element to energy it. If you think about if you look at customer interactions, 70% of customer interactions are actually negative with their utility. And it's not, it's not the utility's fault. Usually, it's just a negative experience. My power is out. I can't pay my bill. I'm moving house, which is one of the top 10 most stressful events in people's lives. All of these thing's kind of add up to, you know, a negative and irrational interaction around energy. It's when it's on and it's working and it's affordable, great, no problem. But when anything goes wrong, you see consumers kind of switch to being quite irrational, very, very quickly. And what's interesting is, if you think about the customer experience, and I don't you know, historically, it's we've designed this, you know, with engineers and financiers involved in the process. And it's, it is, it's very methodical, and it's, it's very logical, but is it really suited for irrational consumer behavior? Maybe, maybe not, especially when we start to think about the new distributed energy and all these new kinds of products and services that are coming down the path. This leans us into the kind of so what which is we probably would benefit as an industry if, if every utility and every organization hired a behavioral scientist, somebody who's really, you know, very savvy and in these, in these different kinds of customer segments or profiles, and how and what those customers really value, and how they're going to interact. And start to tailor as best we can. We don't want to overdo it, but we, you know, tailor and form our product services and interaction channels for these different consumer bases, that would be a, you know, that will be necessary, and we see that we're inspired by what's helped happen in telecommunications and cable and some of the other service home service providers, how they have really leaned in on A much more behavioral approach to their consumer base. Trevor Freeman  39:42 Yeah, and, I mean, I guess, keeping with the theme of three chunks of threes, you kind of expand and you take that into these three areas of action that energy providers can take to help their consumers on that journey, as we talked about and you even make the note of saying the companies, energy companies, have to do everything all at once quickly. We can't sort of pick and choose when it comes to rethinking the way we're engaging with our customers, our consumers. So help me understand these three areas of actions that that are so critical for energy companies? Greg Guthridge  40:20 Yeah, again, I'm going to hand this over to Nicholas in a moment. The you know, the message is that, again, we are we're trying to accelerate an energy transition measured in decades rather than in generations, and so we've got to walk and chew gum at the same time. And that utilities are immensely complex organizations that are already doing that, obviously. I mean, we're the infrastructure and the complexity to deliver, you know, electricity and natural gas to consumers is an Herculean activity already, and what we're suggesting is it's going to be even more complex now as we try to engage consumers in in, you know, these three key areas. So Nicholas, over to you, just to give a quick overview on what some of those key priorities are that we all have to juggle simultaneously. Nicholas Handcock  41:12 Yeah, you bet. And it's, you know, it's probably overly simplified, but to get it down to threes, I think the first one that we talked about is really thinking about reinventing the basics. And I know, Greg, it's one of your favorite things to talk about, spring cleaning that you know, a lot of utilities are really the product of, you know, 100 years of history and of built-up complexity and taking a step back and saying, how do we really simplify a lot of our internal processes? How do we simplify and automate things to help the employee experience, but also flip that lens to the customer side? How do we make things as effortless and easy as possible for customers, really, across every kind of interaction that we could be having with them? You know, focusing on like one and done, we really finished. Finished, start, finish. What we start when it comes to customer experience, so that reinventing of the basics and that comes also to areas like outage and reliability, where we see that being more and more important in a lot of places. How do we think back to that experience and make it really the best that it can be? I think the second area, we call it onboarding of the new which is, how do we make you know, consumers? How do we go and engage them and really more of a personalized way? How do we tailor things to the best that we can in a cost effective manner, and really start to bring in those new programs and products and services that we want to take to customers and have that new messaging for them, and build a new kind of relationship, as Greg said, meeting customers where they are, and creating a new kind of connection point with customers when it comes to energy. And the final thing is really thinking about scaling for the outcomes that we're trying to achieve. And there's a lot of things to focus on here. I think a lot of utilities have gotten stuck in pilot mode when it comes to a number of things, whether it be new programs or new products and services or things like new technology, like artificial intelligence. And what we see is that the time for sort of pilots and testing is really over. Consumers and the energy transition are moving forward very quickly, and it's time to really reach for scale when it comes to things like introducing new technologies to make experiences better, to simplify, but also scaling those new products and services in a way that's going to be effective for a future that has sort of mass adoption. We're moving beyond the early adopters. And now we need to think about moving from pilots to scale. And so that scaling for outcomes is really the third place to focus on. Trevor Freeman  43:29 Yeah, and that's a great I like kind of ending up there that looking at, what does this look like when we move past that pilot stage, past that Imagineering stage, if you will. And that's kind of where I want to wrap things up today with my last question. And I'm going to put you guys on the spot a little bit here and ask you to, you know, think about those stakeholders in the energy sector that you're working with. You know, knowing your reach is global, who are doing a really good job of this, who are further down this path towards the transition than others are, and what does it look like, both for that, both for that kind of utility actor, as well as the consumer, when you've got an energy sector, when you've got an energy system that is closer to where it will be in this future that we've been talking about than where we are today, with maybe some of those lagging actors. What does that look like? What is it like to have an energy sector that's really through the transition, if you will, or close to that? Greg Guthridge  44:33 Oh, Trevor, yeah, let's, let's pull out our, our, our little crystal ball, and see what the future is here. The future is ubiquitous energy. The future is consumers who are multi product, multi-channel and multi provider, and who have a connected ecosystem of energy devices that they can override and control, but are also. So simple and automated in many ways, they we have simple, clear too easy to understand billing and payment capability that's fully integrated, and we're providing a convenient, effortless and frictionless experience, both for residential customers, for the mass market, as well as for businesses, we're leaning in on new energy load growth, whether that's, you know, data centers and any number of other things, and we're leaning in on this convergence of the home and the automobile, which is going to be a fascinating transition in the future. So how and what that is going to look like in the future is going to vary dramatically for different utilities, and the duration that it will take will also vary dramatically. That's really where we're headed, and it's super exciting to see this, this unfolds across the globe. Trevor Freeman  46:04 I think it's helpful to try and get in that headspace from time to time, because we spend a lot of time talking about where we are now and the challenges we face and the big things that have to happen, and we talk about the solutions as these kind of nebulous things, but really thinking of what's the day to day, like when we get through this energy transition, or when we move further than we are today, I think is helpful to give us that I don't know, call it hope for where we want to be in the energy sector. So to wrap up our conversation today, I always ask our guests a series of questions, just to help kind of get to know you and get out of this space for a little bit. So given that there's two of you, I'll just throw the questions out there, and either one of you can answer. You can fight over who gets to answer or who has to answer. I'll leave that up to you. So, to start us off, what is a book that you've read that you think everyone should read? Greg Guthridge  46:56 Oh, what an interesting question. And it's interesting. We have a we actually have a book club at EY, a monthly book club, and we've covered, I very kind of different book. And what's fascinating is, after two or three years of having a an internal book club at EY, my favorite book isn't even on the list yet, and it's actually called the future we choose. And the author is Christine Figuerellis. I think I might have heard her last name, but the future we choose, and it's a really optimistic book on the future of how we can navigate. It presents the challenge ahead, but also gives us hope and optimism in how we're going to navigate that that transition. So great, great little book, a good read, nonfiction to some extent, and worth a quick, worth a quick read. Nicholas Handcock  47:58 I'm surprised you didn't, didn't pick it, Greg, because I know this is one of your favorites, but I thought I'd thrown out as one that I think everyone should read is that it's a bit of an older book, The Effortless Experience, by Matt Dyson, and it's, you know, it's all about customer experience and how most customers really just want the simplest customer experience possible. And that's really what moves the needle, is making it easy and effortless for people, and even proactively making it so they don't have to connect and contact us. And I think as utilities, it's a good one to think about. As the experience gets more and more complicated, how do we actually make it simpler? Greg Guthridge  48:30 Yeah. Nicholas, you named it that's, that's, that's, you know, for years, that's been one of my favorite books. So yeah, the effort listed customer experience. Matt Dyson, great book. Trevor Freeman  48:42 Both of those are great I love the idea of holding on to that hope and optimism and then that sort of practical look at, how do we how do we let customers have the easiest experience with us as possible? Both of those are great choices. So, the next question is kind of the same, but for a movie or show what's a movie or show that you think everyone should have a look at? Greg Guthridge  49:04 Oh, yeah, Trevor, we've all, you know, we all survived the pandemic with all kinds of different media options here. And, you know, actually, during covid, one of the movies that resonated with me was this was a book or was a movie called The biggest little farm. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a it's a fascinating sort of journey around sustainability. And you know the creativity that those residential customers can take. It's, it's fun, it's light, it's a good Friday evening kind of movie, if you know what I mean. So have a chance. Check it out. I think it's four or five years old now, but it's called the biggest little farm, Trevor Freeman  49:52 Perfect. My next question is, now, now both of you guys' travel, I think, a fair amount, so this is either going to be an easier or harder question for you to answer, but if someone gave you a free round-trip flight anywhere in the world, where would you go? Greg Guthridge  50:07 Well, that's easy for me. I'd probably go to either New Zealand or Italy. New Zealand because of the amazing environment and landscape, and it's just it's such a beautiful part of little pocket of the world, and Italy for its food, that would be easy. Nicholas? Nicholas Handcock  50:24 I think I would jump on a plane to Japan. Greg and I both spent some time working there as the market and energy was liberalizing. And it's such a unique and interesting place that I just absolutely love and sort of on the nerdy side, from the energy side of things, it's very interesting where you've got, you know, subway companies and things selling electricity in Japan, which is, you know, different and unique from a lot of places in the world. Trevor Freeman  50:48 So cool. I mean, I've done a bit of traveling as well, and I think those, those things that you guys both highlighted. I mean, food, for sure, is phenomenal to go somewhere else and experience different food. And nothing really beats good Italian food in Italy, but also those examples that you brought up Nicholas, of just different ways of doing things that we don't consider or don't seem to fit within our culture here, that maybe we should be looking at. And yeah, I love kind of seeing those examples and hearing about those examples. So, both great, great answers. Okay, so to wrap it up, then, what is something about the energy sector or its future that really excites you, that you're really pumped about Greg Guthridge  51:27 I'm excited that we are approaching the energy experience from a technology and operations, a consumer lens, and you can see a future, an Ubiquitous Energy Future, where consumers are much more active in their experience. They're benefiting from that experience. We don't we can do this. We can make it affordable, we can make it reliable, and we can make it much more convenient for consumers in the future. So it's just going to be fascinating to see this convergence of technology, of societal along with all these new products and services kind of converging together. And you know, there's a lot of other industries and sectors, from, you know, manufacturing to industrials to automotive that that will play an increasingly interesting role as this convergence occurs in the marketplace. So it's just going to be fascinating to be a part of. Nicholas Handcock  52:33 Yeah, and I think piling, piling onto that, Greg, I think it's really exciting that the spotlight is on the energy sector. You know, it's in the headlines in the news. My family and my friends asked me about it and asked me about topics that are related to my work, which probably five years ago they thought was very boring, and now it's getting exciting. I think it's also really exciting when it comes to thinking about the talents, the investment, the innovation that we can attract to the sector. We're already starting to see it startups and things having really creative new solutions coming to the energy sector that maybe used to focus elsewhere. So I think there's just so much innovation and change coming. It is really, really exciting for the future. Trevor Freeman  53:12 Great. Well, I think that's a pretty phenomenal place to wrap up with, with that little pump of optimism. Nicholas and Greg, I really appreciate your time, and this was a great conversation. Thanks for sharing your insights, and appreciate you coming on the show. Greg Guthridge  53:24 Trevor, thank you very much. Appreciate your time today. Nicholas Handcock  53:27 Yes, thanks, Trevor. Trevor Freeman  53:29 Great. Take care, guys. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the think energy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word as always, we would love to hear from you, whether it's feedback comments or an idea for a show or a guest. You can always reach us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com

Ever since Singapore introduced congestion charges in the 1970s, other cities have tried to emulate its success. Wellington is the latest major New Zealand city to look at introducing congestion charges as a means of reducing traffic and improving public transport? Tony Canavan, EY's Global Transport Leader for the Government and Public Sector, explains how the right projects can boost a city's growth - and gave examples from across the world. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ep. 185: Baseball shaped this leader originally from Italy, who manages a global workforce of 400,000 team members serving clients in 150 countries and generated an impressive $50 billion in revenue last year. You will learn lessons in: Turning mentorship into an expectation in your organization's promotion structure. Using onboarding to hire employees who demonstrate a high probability of cultural fit. Our BONUS RESOURCE for this episode includes Don's favorite quotes from today's episode and a reflection question so you can apply Carmine's insights.  Looking for a speaker for your next event? From more than 30 years of interviewing and studying the greatest winners of all time Don offers these live and virtual presentations built to inspire your team towards personal and professional greatness.  Special thanks to Libby Klemeyer and Arianna Aly for making this episode possible.  

In this episode, panelists discuss regional and local-country tax implications of post-merger integrations carried out by US multinational entities.

In this episode of the IIF Global Regulatory Update podcast, we host Stuart Doyle, Principal, Global Financial Services at EY, to discuss findings from the inaugural IIF/EY Global Insurance Risk Management Survey. The discussion centers around the five major takeaways from the survey, which included nearly 70 institutions in the insurance sector: • What Chief Risk Officers (CROs) can do to engage in transformation and enable responsible risk-taking • How strong risk management can set the foundation for advanced capabilities • Strategic investment in tech and talent top the investment agenda when resources are tight • What CROs can do to prepare for the full impact of AI - both across the insurance business and within their own operations • How the CRO role is evolving alongside the changing insurance business model and risk landscape The podcast discussions also spans a number of other topics from the survey findings, including the importance of the CRO role in the C-suite; how to foster innovation while ensuring data security; approaches to combatting third-party risk; reflections on the findings from the inaugural Global Insurance Risk Management Survey compared to the Global Bank Risk Management Survey – another annual collaboration between the IIF and EY; potential blind spots in the industry, and more. The full IIF/EY Global Insurance Risk Management Survey can be found here.

Interview with Jay Persaud, EY Global Emerging Technology Ecosystem Leader

In this episode, panelists discuss developments affecting cross-border intercompany cash repatriation and financing.

In this episode of the GRU, we host three EY financial practice leaders to discuss findings from the 13th Annual IIF/EY Global Bank Risk Management Survey. We are pleased to be joined by Jan Bellens, Global Banking & Capital Markets Sector Leader, Tom Campanile, Americas Financial Services Risk Consulting Leader and Peter Davis, Americas Financial Services Markets & Solutions Leader. Discussion on the survey's findings include leading risks such as cybersecurity, geopolitics, and climate risk, as well as the role of a Chief Risk Officer (CRO) in navigating volatility, the impacts on the risk management function, including challenges around talent acquisition, recommendations for how to support and improve organizational and operational resiliency, and much more. The survey in its entirety can be found on both the IIF website and EY website.

The one and only Kristina Rogers, Global EY Consumer Chairwoman, is back on the podcast with the latest powerful insights from her 13th Future Consumer Index report. Climate change is becoming a growing reality for people worldwide and Canada, disrupting ingrained consumption habits. If you think COVID-19 shocked consumer behaviour, brace yourself for what happens next.  About KristinaAs EY Global Consumer Leader, Kristina is responsible for defining and implementing the EY strategy for consumer products companies and retailers. She ensures that EY's global clients are well served across geographies, leading over 30,000 EY professionals worldwide. Kristina works directly with clients on the strategic issues they face as they pursue their rapid global expansion and is the Global Client Service Partner for a major consumer products company.Prior to her current role, she served as Emerging Markets Leader for Consumer Products & Retail. Before joining EY, she was a senior partner at a global strategy consulting firm.Kristina has lived and worked in more than 20 countries. Over the course of her career, she has built long-term client relationships with some of the world's largest global consumer products companies, helping them solve some of their most complex strategic marketing issues across geographies.How Kristina is building a better working world“I am currently a member of the Financial Times' ‘Global Board-Ready' Women group and was selected as one of 40 women by Forbes to join ‘More Women on Boards' in Turkey.” About MichaelMichael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada and the Bank of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, Today's Shopping Choice and Pandora Jewellery. Michael has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. ReThink Retail has added Michael to their prestigious Top Retail Experts list for 2024 for the third year in a row.Michael is also the president of Maven Media, producing a network of leading trade podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail. He produces and co-hosts Remarkable Retail with best-selling author Steve Dennis, now ranked one of the top retail podcasts in the world. Based in San Francisco, Global eCommerce Leaders podcast explores global cross-border issues and opportunities for eCommerce brands and retailers. Last but not least, Michael is the producer and host of the "Last Request Barbeque" channel on YouTube, where he cooks meals to die for - and collaborates with top brands as a food and product influencer across North America.

Chris Bishop's latest Quantum Tech Pod with Kristin M. Gilkes, Ph.D., Global Quantum Leader at EY, is live! Kristin has a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences and a graduate diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Oxford. She also has an MBA from the University of Colorado and a BBA in computer science from Texas A&M University. She and her team at EY have built a quantum center of excellence to help governments and institutions worldwide design their quantum strategy without having to build their quantum ecosystem.  While EY partners with big tech, small tech, academia, and public sector organizations to formulate the best-in-class access to both quantum computing and quantum sensing, their major quantum alliance is with IBM. In fact, Kristen spoke earlier this week at the IBM Quantum Summit in NYC.  She also runs the Financial Services Women in Technology Group. Her advice to women interested in getting involved in quantum? “Lean in and accelerate! Women are more empowered to drive their careers than sometimes they think.”  Check out Chris's conversation with Kristin! #quantumcomputing #quantumtechnology #EY #quantumconsulting Inside Quantum Technology The "Quantum Tech Pod" podcast, hosted by Christopher Bishop from Inside Quantum Technology, offers a deep dive into the rapidly evolving world of quantum technology. Christopher, an industry expert, engages with leading figures in the field, discussing the latest developments, breakthroughs, and challenges in quantum computing, communication, sensing and cryptography. The podcast is an informative platform for experts and enthusiasts, providing insights into how quantum technology is shaping the future and its implications across various industries. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just curious about quantum technology, "Quantum Tech Pod" delivers engaging conversations illuminating this cutting-edge field.

Matthew is Global Climate Change and Sustainability Services Leader Leader at EY, the professional services company.  He has a background in government climate and energy policy, and science. Matt has more than 20 years' experience supporting organizational transformation toward a more sustainable path. Working across the public and private sectors, Matt leads teams of specialists across environment, health and safety; sustainability strategy and advice; non-financial reporting and assurance; impact investment and outcome measurement; human rights; and climate change and energy.

In this episode, Marna Ricker, Global Vice Chair -- Tax at EY joins us from the Milken Institute Global Conference 2003 to discuss the global tax landscape. We get Marna's perspective on the OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, the TCJA, and how AI might affect the world of tax practice.

As EY Global Retail Leader, Thomas Harms is responsible for defining and implementing the EY strategy for the retail industry. He helps ensure that EY retail clients are well served across geographies, leading over 20,000 EY professionals worldwide.  After more than 20 years advising national and international companies, Thomas is just as curious about new developments as he was at the beginning of his career.  Early on, he specialized in consumer goods and retail culminating in Thomas creating and leading the Consumer industry practice across Germany, Switzerland and Austria for 18 years. He knows the industry like no other and has supported retailers as they face complex and strategic challenges driven by empowered consumers.  Thomas' long-term industry relationships and strong, cross-industry network are the cornerstone of successful collaborations and creative solutions.    Interviewed by Mortimer Singer.

Jeff Wong, EY's Global Chief Innovation Officer.

The podcast by project managers for project managers. As a project professional, are you creating an inclusive, high-performing team that builds on each individual's strengths? Hiren Shukla, the founder of Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence at Ernst & Young Global, talks to us about how to support neurodiversity on project team. Hiren shares the remarkable impact of this innovation at EY as they are tapping into the significant skills of the neurodiverse community. Table of Contents 02:07 … Defining Neurodiversity03:40 … What Inspired Hiren?05:17 … Recruiting Neurodiverse Talent at EY07:30 … Training for All Team Members11:38 … Reconfiguring Hiring Processes13:14 … Creating a Stronger Team14:36 … Masking Neurodiversity17:41 … Awareness in Education20:59 … Psychological Safety24:51 … Disclosing Neurodiversity to an Employer27:58 … Improving Morale30:11 … Kevin and Kyle31:52 … Interview Process Accommodations36:13 … Source, Skill and Support42:04 … Find out More43:51 … Closing HIREN SHUKLA: And when one of our team members said to us, and we had hired her, and she said, “When I'm at work, I feel comfortable because I can take the mask off.  I can just be myself.”  Well, this was really powerful.  And we know when people feel comfortable; these are when the most innovative, transformative ideas and solutions come to bear.  And so literally this is creating and unlocking innovation capacity that already exists in our organization, in our communities. WENDY GROUNDS:  You're listening to Manage This.  My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  This is the podcast about project management.  If you like what you hear, we'd love to hear from you.  You can leave us a comment on our website, Velociteach.com, or on social media, or whichever podcast listening app you use.  That really helps us out. Today we're talking with Hiren Shukla.  Hiren's experience spans more than 20 years across accounting, strategy, automation, innovation, and change management.  He currently leads internal automation and innovation efforts at Ernst & Young and is the founder of the Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence at EY Global.  As a project professional, are you creating an inclusive team that builds on each other's strengths to create the most successful high-performing project teams?  That's something that we're looking to answer today. BILL YATES:  That's so true.  And Hiren, of course he works with E&Y, and possibly no company in the world is doing a better job at attracting neurodivergent talent to drive innovation than Ernst & Young.  Hiren is an expert in neurodiversity.  And as he describes, he didn't think this was where he was headed in his career, but that's where he ended up. WENDY GROUNDS:  And he's very passionate, and we think he has some really good advice.  Whether you are neurotypical or neurodiverse, this is definitely a podcast for you.  Hi, Hiren.  Welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for joining us. HIREN SHUKLA:  I'm so excited to be here today, Wendy. Defining Neurodiversity WENDY GROUNDS:  We're looking forward to digging in to talking about neurodiversity, but I just want to ask if you could start out by explaining what the term means, neurodiversity, and what that encompasses. HIREN SHUKLA:  Thank you for asking that.  I know definitions are really important.  And let me describe it this way.  Neurodiversity is like biodiversity.  It represents, though, the realm of cognitive differences in the world.  So neurodiversity effectively is all of us, and under that umbrella there's really two main portions of society.  Probably 80-85% of the world are neurotypicals, individuals like myself.  We converge in our social thinking and communication style. About 15-20% of the world's population would be considered neurodivergent or neurodistinct.  These terms are interchangeable.  These are individuals that, as you can hear, do not converge necessarily in social thinking ...

London-based EY, the third-largest of the Big Four accounting firms, has said it is moving ahead with plans to break the firm into two companies. This will create an $18-billion revenue audit firm and a separate but larger and faster- growing $24 billion consulting arm. The audit business will retain the EY name, while the advisory firm will don a new brand identity.  The firm's 13,000 partners across 140 countries, including 550 in India, will vote on the proposal later this year. EY Global said leaders at its 15 largest member firms accounting for 80% of total revenues have unanimously supported the strategy. EY's Greater China members have refused to come on board.   If successful, the move would mark the biggest shake-up in the sector since the collapse of auditor Arthur Anderson in 2002 because of the Enron accounting scandal. It reduced the ‘Big Five' to ‘Big Four'.  Accenture, which was split off from Arthur Andersen and listed in 2001, is now worth $183 billion, up from $6 billion at the time of its IPO.  A split of EY would result in multi-million dollar cash payouts to audit partners by the newly created consulting unit and share awards to consultant partners who move out. Reports said the consulting business will go for an IPO, with plans to raise about $10 billion dollars by selling a 15% stake. It will reportedly borrow another $17 billion, much of which would be used to pay off the partners at EY's traditional auditing business. The breakup will ease pressure from regulators to avoid conflicts of interest arising from EY providing non-audit services to audit clients.  EY's Big Four rivals have also been facing the pressure to break up their audit and consulting practices. Dinesh Kanabar, CEO, Dhruva Advisors LLP says regulators may push others to follow EY's example. The likes of BCG and McKinsey will face stiffer competition. Tax compliance and advisory may face challenges.  EY Global CEO Carmine di Sibio said The separation can bring in an additional $10 billion a year for the advisory business in consultancy fees from big tech companies, as the business will be freed from conflicts that bar it from winning work with EY's large audit clients.   Mukesh Butani, Managing Partner, BMR Legal says EY's move will address conflict of interest. The split will allow raising of growth capital for non-audit arm. EY's decision clearly has advantages, he believes.  EY CEO Di Sibio said conflicts become harder to manage as firms get bigger. He believes, other Big Four firms like Deloitte, KMPG and PwC will have to split their businesses eventually. However, the other three have refused to follow EY's lead in breaking up their businesses and indicated continuity with their current business models of providing a mix of audit, tax, advisory, legal and other professional services under one roof.   Once brought into effect, EY's decision may lead to sweeping changes in the audit and advisory sectors. While it may prove to be a value-unlocking exercise for some, others may face enhanced competition. It remains to be seen whether the other Big Four firms will change their stance anytime soon or not.   

Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.Kristina Rogers, Global Consumer Industries Leader, Retail for EY, is back on the podcast with an update from their Future Consumer Index looking at the quasi-post-COVID, inflation battered but more resilient and agile customer retailers face for the back half of 2022 and beyond.Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail.  If you haven't already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast.  Last but not least, if you are into BBQ, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you're looking for more content, or want to chat  follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!  Have a safe week everyone!I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you're looking for more content, or want to chat  follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!  Have a safe week everyone! About KristinaGlobal leader for consumer industries. Marketing strategist. Worked in 20 countries. Harvard MBA. Photographer. Scuba diver. Canadian fiction reader. Mother of two.As EY Global Consumer Leader, Kristina is responsible for defining and implementing the EY strategy for consumer products companies and retailers. She ensures that EY's global clients are well served across geographies, leading over 30,000 EY professionals worldwide. Kristina works directly with clients on the strategic issues they face as they pursue their rapid global expansion and is the Global Client Service Partner for a major consumer products company.Prior to her current role, she served as Emerging Markets Leader for Consumer Products & Retail. Before joining EY, she was a senior partner at a global strategy consulting firm.Kristina has lived and worked in more than 20 countries. Over the course of her career, she has built long-term client relationships with some of the world's largest global consumer products companies, helping them solve some of their most complex strategic marketing issues across geographies. About MichaelMichael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide.  Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail's prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in  2022. Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.  Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms.   Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.

In this episode, Kenny O'Neill, partner, and principal of Digital Strategy, Transformation, and Innovation at EY Global, talks about human-centered design, how it then evolves into systems thinking, and its applicability. Kenny starts by talking about his experience as a pilot and the similarities between what he sees in healthcare and a plane cockpit when it comes to information being displayed to users. He then explains how human-centered design is building things for specific users, integrating the information into the system so that it can work effectively for the said user. This type of design requires engaging and empathizing with them, prototyping continuously, and always aiming toward extreme users to get the best possible performance for everyone.  Kenny goes into systems thinking at scale within healthcare. He argues it's about thinking about how human-centric design and technology connect to the broader, interconnected system. It's innovating in the digital space and using platforms to aggregate and translate data that can better enable AI, machine learning, and robotics. He also speaks of taking behavioral and social ecosystems into account and the use of digital hospital practices, consultations, and primary care from smart homes. Kenny then foresees 15 years forward to envision healthcare's future. He predicts out-of-hospital precision medicine facilities, more digital tools integrated into hospitals, and different bundled or episodic payment models. Listen to Kenny O'Neill talk about human-centered design in the future of healthcare. Learn about how it can evolve into systems thinking and how it can be applied for the better!

I sit down today with a former competitive equestrian athlete who completed the Goggins challenge, has a degree in behavioral psychology, and, now, is the EY Global lead in their Athlete Programs in Women Athletes Business Network, Kristy Ingram. Horseback riding, based on my personal experience, is really a great thing to do and Kristy gives us more details on what it's like being an equestrian and how to gain a good bond with a horse to have a wonderful ride. Some of you, just like me, may wonder why she joined the Goggins challenge so I ask Kristy what made her transition to another sport. She then tells me the different skills she had (including the skill she had her whole life) and how she managed her sleep, nutrition, and hydration when doing the Goggins challenge. We also touch on talking about their organization, EY, and she shares what they do, who are they, why they are connected with the athletes, and how they unite business and sports. She also mentions the three important things they seek from athletes to make a successful team and successful business. Watch the full video and learn what other programs their organization does for athletes. Connect with Kristy on: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kringram/ https://twitter.com/kristypingram Visit their organization's website: https://www.ey.com/en_us

Join us as we discuss capital operations and the imperatives for TMT companies as they continue to recover from the pandemic. Never has capital investment been more significant, and a robust approach to capital planning and deployment can translate into a significant competitive advantage. A recent EY survey of global TMT executives revealed that 87% of respondents said the success of their recovery depends on maintaining certain levels of capital investment. But, perhaps surprisingly, 70% of those TMT leaders said they struggle to demonstrate the value of their capital investments. We hear from EY TMT leaders Loren Garruto and Daniel Theander as they discuss why TMT companies often struggle to hit their capital investment objectives and what approaches they can take to overcome this. Insights from: Daniel Theander, EY US-Central Region Technology, Media & Entertainment and Telecommunications (TMT) Consulting Leader, Ernst & Young LLP Loren Garruto, EY Global and Americas Corporate Finance Leader Along with our EY Tech Connect moderators: Adrian Baschnonga, EY Global Lead Analyst for Telecommunications Christina Winquist, EY TMT go-to-market strategy lead For a transcript of this episode please visit: http://www.ey.com/eytechconnect

With the second week of the conference underway our mini series with a focus on COP26 continues.  For this episode Dr Neil Walker, Head of Infrastructure, Energy and Environment at Ibec meets with Steve Varley, EY Global Vice Chair for Sustainability.  In this episode, recorded in the EY office in Glasgow, Neil and Steve look back on the first week of COP and speak about climate ambition and opportunity. 

Myles Corson is joined by Fulya Kocak, senior vice president of ESG issues for National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (Nareit) and Serena Wolfe, chief financial officer of Annaly Capital Management. Together, they discuss the increasing stakeholder focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues within the real estate investment trusts (REITs) and the broader real estate sector. The conversation starts with a look at how the pandemic has influenced agility within REITs to become ESG change agents for other sectors. The impact of the global pandemic has pushed businesses to adapt and embrace innovative ideas for decision-making processes along with acting as agents for change. While it proved to be an adaptability test for almost all sectors, it was also an opportunity to identify gaps and issues that could be solved with great solutions. For real estate companies, the pandemic led to changes in how they operate including updates to cleaning protocols in anticipation of reopening of workspaces. Additionally, property owners and landlords invested in new technologies for indoor air quality, studied energy consumptions versus occupancy and witnessed an increase in health and wellness rating applications. Annaly Capital Management brought together its infrastructure, IT infrastructure and human capital in ways never considered before, in response to the magnified importance of emergency planning and system resiliency. Given the challenges faced through the pandemic, investors are not only focused on how businesses are responding to COVID, but also the business continuity plan. This shift in focus was also influenced by the acceleration in momentum to implement improved ESG practices and meet the changing expectations of stakeholders. From a CFO standpoint, it's about being proactive and instrumental in helping the company and the executive team define what ESG means for the company and industry. The CFO is now critical in managing change, assessing where their company is today and how to benefit from situations in the future. It's an opportunity to make a long-lasting, meaningful impact in the face of continued uncertainty and disruption.  Episode links: Leading with Purpose: Annaly 2020 Corporate Responsibility Report (July2021) Nareit's 2021 REIT ESG Dashboard The Sustainability Leader in You by Fulya Kocak 2021 Outlook for REITs and Commercial Real Estate: Risk and Resilience http://www.REIT.com/ESG How can the CFO evolve today to reframe finance for tomorrow? | EY - Global  © 2021 Ernst & Young LLP

Episode 6 of EY's FS Risk podcast series reflects on the outcomes of the Institute of International Finance and EY survey. As the pandemic has raised new issues and driven emerging trends, the report is a must read for risk professionals. Moderated by Doug Nixon (Partner, Financial Services), he is joined by Diana Quinn (Partner, Financial Services) and Jolene Morse (Director, Financial Services). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jonathan Webb, CEO of AppHarvest, discusses sustainable infrastructure and controlled environment agriculture, and bringing farming into the 21st century. Bryan Whalen, Group Managing Director of Fixed Income & Portfolio Manager at TCW, discusses bond markets and global investors starved for yield. Everett Millman, precious metals specialist with Gainesville Coins, discusses the outlook for gold and bitcoin, and where the best opportunities are in the precious metals space. Nicola Morini Bianzino, Chief Technical Officer for EY Global, discusses the importance of making cyber security a top priority, and the systemic issues behind the global chip shortage. Hosted by Paul Sweeney and Matt Miller. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

In this episode Richard J. Albert, Ian Craig and Daniela Menon discuss the digitalization and facilitation of the customs environment in Brazil, the beneficiary customs program as well as considerations on managed services in the space of customs as well as Authorized Economic Operator. Richard J. Albert | Partner | Indirect Tax | Global Trade  Ian Craig | Partner | Global Trade Daniela Menon | Manager | Global Trade

In this episode Richard J. Albert and Anh Tuan Thach discuss the customs import process and specifically dealing with customs audits in Vietnam.

In this episode of Global Customs Talks Richard J. Albert is talking to Benno Suter about e-commerce in Switzerland from a VAT and customs perspective. Speaker: Richard J. Albert | Partner | Indirect Tax | Global Trade  Benno Suter | Partner | Indirect Tax Services

Kate Davis speaks with Hiren Shukla, the founder and global leader of Neuro-Diverse Centers of Excellence at EY Global, about how neurodiverse persons are so often marginalized in the workforce. Read more on fastcompany.com: https://www.fastcompany.com/40421510/what-is-neurodiversity-and-why-companies-should-embrace-it https://www.fastcompany.com/90424650/too-often-neurodiverse-hiring-efforts-overlook-female-job-seekers https://www.fastcompany.com/90543909/how-companies-can-support-neurodiverse-employees-who-choose-to-come-out

In this episode of Global Customs Talks Richard J. Albert is talking to Slawomir Czajka about developments in the Polish Excise Tax, namely the new sugar tax. Furthermore, the discussion covers a ruling of Polish Tax authorities putting at risk the VAT exemption for exported goods owned by a non-EU principal. Speakers: Richard J. Albert | Partner | Indirect Tax | Global Trade  Sławomir Czajka | Associate Partner | Indirect Tax | Global Trade 

Kristy Ingram, EY Global Leader Athlete Programs https://www.ey.com/en_us/people/kristy-ingram Kristy leads the development and execution of the EY Athlete Programs, a diverse global Talent program designed to fully realize the collective leadership potential of athletes through advancing thought leadership, promoting athlete dialogue and supporting the transition of athletes into a successful life after sport. As a former competitive equestrian athlete, Kristy has always had a passion for sport which she was able to connect with her career through EY’s Rio 2016 Olympic Program and many of the firms other global sporting ventures Dan Black, EY Global Leader Talent Attraction & Acquisition https://www.ey.com/en_us/people/dan-black As Global Talent Attraction and Acquisition Leader, Dan is responsible for EY’s global recruiting strategy, including sourcing, attracting and hiring people with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Dan leads a team of more than 1,200 recruiters around the world who are responsible for hiring talent at all levels, across all EY’s locations and lines of business --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/executiveathletes/support

In this episode of the EY Global Customs Talks podcast Richard J. Albert chats with Lynlee Brown about US 301 retaliatory tariffs, expectations on change in the space of global trade under the new Biden administration as well as insights into customs audits conducted by US customs authorities. Speakers: Richard J. Albert | Partner | Indirect Tax | Global Trade  Lynlee Brown | Partner | Global Trade

Ep. 28 Purdue basketball shaped this business icon. Beth oversaw public policy for EY's operations in 150 countries. She has been named eleven times to Forbes "World's Most Powerful Women" list and, in 2015, was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. Recently retired, she now devotes herself to numerous boards, including The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the International Women's Forum. Visit Episode 28 of corporatecompetitorpodcast.com for a gift and today's show notes!

EY Global Technology Consulting Leader, Dan Higgins, joins Coruzant Technologies for the Digital Executive podcast. He shares how he is bringing emerging technology forward to help his customers, and how EY is supporting diversity and helping promote women in tech and STEM along the way.

Miguel Armaza sits down with Jan Bellens, Global Head of EY’s Banking & Capital Markets Group. In his role, Jan counsels banks in defining their strategies and supports their implementation with investments, acquisitions, and ambitious organic growth initiatives around the world. He has been supporting banks for the last two decades and has worked with clients in over 20 countries. We talk about: - Jan’s professional journey and what led him to his current role where he oversees 45k people - A few of the trends he’s seeing from banks across different regions - What the impact of COVID really means for banks - The challenges of managing an organization with 45k+ professionals - And much, much more! Jan Bellens As the EY Global Banking & Capital Markets Sector Leader, Jan counsels banks in defining their strategies and supports their implementation with investments, acquisitions and ambitious organic growth initiatives. He has been supporting leading banks’ executive teams with their growth opportunities and multi-year business transformations for the last two decades. He has worked with clients in over 20 countries. Before joining EY, Jan was in management consulting for 17 years. He has an MBA from INSEAD. About EY Banking and Capital Markets EY’s worldwide team of industry-focused assurance, tax, transaction and advisory professionals integrates sector knowledge and technical experience. They work with clients to navigate digital innovation, new business models and ecosystem partnerships, helping banks become the nimble, responsive organizations that customers demand. About EY EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets. Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate. Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today. EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy. EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

Ey has established some new metrics that they measure themself against. These are key metrics that everyone who works at EY or wants to work at EY should learn about. These will also apply to other big 4 firms.  We are covering revenue and growth in this episode.  Support our podcast through the following link https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ZDdaxk7GK make sure to subscribe to our youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/c/TheBig4AccountingFirms Check out our interview course.  https://big-4-accounting-firms.teachable.com/p/big-4-interview To subscribe to our podcast on itunes make sure to visit the following link. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-big-4-accounting-firms-podcast/id1089822233?mt=2 Check out our books on amazon Big 4 Interviews questions https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XK9VZYF Big 4 Accounting Firms Recruiting guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4BUP0N Follow us on social media at https://www.linkedin.com/company/big4accountingfirms https://twitter.com/top4accounting https://www.facebook.com/thebig4accountingfirms/ https://www.instagram.com/big4accounting/

Ey has established some new metrics that they measure themself against. These are key metrics that everyone who works at EY or wants to work at EY should learn about. These will also apply to other big 4 firms.  We are covering the second and third metrics which relate to clients and society.  Support our podcast through the following link https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ZDdaxk7GK make sure to subscribe to our youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/c/TheBig4AccountingFirms Check out our interview course.  https://big-4-accounting-firms.teachable.com/p/big-4-interview To subscribe to our podcast on itunes make sure to visit the following link. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-big-4-accounting-firms-podcast/id1089822233?mt=2 Check out our books on amazon Big 4 Interviews questions https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XK9VZYF Big 4 Accounting Firms Recruiting guide https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4BUP0N Follow us on social media at https://www.linkedin.com/company/big4accountingfirms https://twitter.com/top4accounting https://www.facebook.com/thebig4accountingfirms/ https://www.instagram.com/big4accounting/

In this episode of Asia Pacific Series, hosted by Angela Conroy based in Singapore, Angela talks with Varun Mittal, EY Global’s Emerging Markets FinTech Leader. They cover public-private partnerships in Singapore, FinTech revolution in emerging markets, early days of Singapore FinTech association and his new book, Singapore: The FinTech Nation.

You might have heard about biohacking and thought what the f… is that and how does it apply to me? To answer that I got one of my close friends who is both a TedX speaker and one of the leading biohackers in Denmark to join the podcast. Martin Kremmer and I talked about what is Biohacking and the entry points for people to get them into Biohacking. We discussed the different criteria for deciding what to try first and figure out if it works for you. Martin shares his top 5 biohacks and I am confident that you can implement at least one of them tomorrow. A bit more about Martin Kremmer’s bio: he is the founder of The Danish Biohacker Community. He is arranging the Nordic Biohacking Day in Copenhagen the 20th of September 2020 together with Nickolai Damgaard and I got the pleasure to talk about Habits there. He also runs an online course on Biohacking in Danish together with Nickolai which will start again later this year. Make sure to check it out at www.biohacking.link - Special discount for the listeners with the code “growthisland” (And I don’t get a commission but know it is high quality). Martin also works as a Director at EY Global where he travels 100+ days a year and has found a way to do so without getting jet lag. Show Notes 0:30 Introduction to Martin Kremmer 1:45 What is Biohacking? 4:12 What’s been going on since our last podcast episode? 6:05 What are your criteria on deciding what Biohacks to implement? 10:40 Figuring out your Macro and Micro 13:50 Martin’s top 5 biohacks 17:50 What you get by figuring out your Food as your first biohack? 22:10 Using stress to get stronger 31:10 Having a morning routine as a biohack 34:45 Productivity Biohacks 37:05 Taking naps as a biohack 43:50 Where can people find out more about Martin 45:00 Who are the speakers at the Biohacking Conference? 50:00 Martin’s final advice Connect with Martin Kremmer https://www.martinkremmer.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martinkremmer/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanishBiohackerCommunity/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinkremmer/ Resources Nordic Biohacking Day http://biohacking.live #5: Martin Kremmer – How to use biohacking to avoid jetlag and burnout https://growthisland.io/5-martin-kremmer-how-to-use-biohacking-to-avoid-jetlag-and-burnout/ Martin Kremmer’s TED talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADyCY382lAY Stronger By Stress by Siim Land https://www.amazon.com/Stronger-Stress-Beneficial-Stressors-Strengthen-ebook/dp/B089YTRYT3 Dj Olli Svin on Mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/djOlliSfin/stream/ CONNECT WITH MADS MISIAK FRIIS https://growthisland.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madsmfriis/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madsmf/ You can also watch the video at Youtube Find the episode at:

In this episode of Global Customs Talks Richard J. Albert speaks with Tina GY Zhang from EY Bejing and Lynette Dong from EY Shanghai about China on transfer pricing and customs valuation  and the new export control law in China.

Dmitry Karpov is a cofounder and Chief Innovation Officer of ElectroNeek Robotics, an enterprise automation platform backed by Y Combinator and other Silicon Valley investors. Prior to ElectroNeek, Dmitry created and led EY Momentum, global corporate accelerator of Ernst & Young, based in Palo Alto. At EY, he focused on enabling innovation opportunities for the entire EY Global organization with more than 270k employees, leading annual global innovation challenge and investing in Intelligent Automation.

This episode highlights the work of Mike Mister and Sir Arun Singh OBE and their new book "How To Lead Smart People". The episode is rich in advice and guidance on current and common workplace challenges such as How to lead in an organisation that is rich in jealousy and rivals Managing the Impostor Syndrome & Winning the War on Hidden Talent Communicating with teams working remotely Contending with "Mood Hoovers" by being an "Energy Radiator"! What leaders in politics should be aware of in terms of authenticity and trust Navigating politics / Using Political Intelligence Strategic Alignment when leading Smart People! The book focuses on the rise knowledge workers and experts in the workplace and the challenges leaders face in running this type of organisation (e.g. architecture, lawyers, accountants, professional services). Mike Mister was formerly the Global Director for Executive Development at EY Global and is now based at the Møller Institute at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. He works in supporting the development of leadership and change management capability in large organisations. For over 25 years he has worked in the specialised area of professional services firms. His key areas of expertise and interest are at the intersection of strategy, commercial success and the organisation's people agenda. How to Lead Smart People Website: https://www.howtoleadsmartpeople.com/ Moller Institute website: https://www.mollerinstitute.com/ Mike Mister's own website: https://strategyfour.com/ Publisher website: https://profilebooks.com/ Mike Mister Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-mister-ab0b14/ Arun Singh Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arun-singh-obe-frsa-prof-7b8ba73/ If you enjoyed the podcast please like and share! If you would like to be on the podcast and have great business insights to share get in touch at admin@workplaceevolution. Thank-you for listening! You can find out more about us at the following addresses: Website: www.workplaceevolution.co.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/workplaceevol Michael Costello's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcostellooccpsych1/ The Workplace Evolution podcast is brought to you by Workplace Evolution Ltd - The Natural Selection For Workplace Solutions! Michael Costello is the Managing Director of Workplace Evolution based in Lancaster, UK. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jointheevolution/message

In this episode, Mark Watson and Thomas Campanile of EY sits down with Martin Boer of the IIF to discuss the main findings and strategic implications of the 10th Annual IIF/EY Global Bank Risk Management Survey. For 10 years, the IIF and EY have been observing and reporting on changes in how banks manage risk. This latest survey highlights that risk leaders and their teams have also been pursuing approaches to new, or newly emphasized, nonfinancial risks, including cyber risk, conduct, compliance and fraud, and financial crime and money-laundering. Mark and Martin also discuss how the industry’s transition to more digital strategies, business models and operations is creating new risks and opportunities, such as those associated with industrializing the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence across the enterprise, or using cloud across swaths of bank operations. Beyond all these challenges, several tectonic shifts, such as those associated with climate change and geopolitics, will impact banking far more than they have in the past.

Ashley Chiu is the Strategic Growth and Risk Leader at EY Canada and the Global Cannabis Subject Matter Resource for EY Global, where she serves clients in the cannabis sector and adjacent industries. Her work includes identifying strategic and diversified growth opportunities, and developing new market entry strategies. Ashley also performs valuations in support of adjacent companies in alcohol, tobacco and consumer packaged goods entering the cannabis and hemp industries. She designs SOX programs, including business processes, policies and procedures over significant financial processes – plus governance frameworks for cannabis companies pre- and post-IPO and those listing on the NYSE, NASDAQ and TSX. For more one Ashley and EY's work in the cannabis sector, visit: https://www.ey.com/ca/en/industries/consumer-products/ey-canada-cannabis-lets-be-blunt ***Intro Music: SWEET by Brockhampton***

EY has released its Global Capital Confidence Barometer report. Vikram Chakravarty, EY Asean Managing Partner, Transaction Advisory Services shares the details. 

In this episode, EY’s Roger Park is joined by Amy Brachio, EY Global and Americas Advisory Risk Leader and Cindy Doe, EY Financial Services Advisory Principal, for a discussion on digital risk and how financial services firms can leverage risk to their strategic advantage. Technologies such as advanced analytics and AI, robotic process automation and cloud-driven models have enabled firms to create new products and services, enhance access and experience for customers and strengthen controls and drive down costs. In this transformative age, how risk is managed will become the key to unlocking the strategic upside of disruption.

Martin Kremmer is a biohacker and founder of Biohacker Center Denmark. He works as a Digital Architect at EY Global where he travels 100+ days a year and has found a way to do so without getting jet lag. He shares his story of being close to burnout and how biohacking has gotten him back on a healthy track again. How he uses biohacking to stay at the top of his game and how he mitigate a gene mutation that he and 25% of the world has. Shownotes: - Why Martin got into biohacking. 2:01 - How Martin travels without getting jet lag. 7.00 - Why you should not eat the food in airplanes. 8.16 - What ketosis is. 11.00 - How to sleep better at hotels. 12.32 - How to use CBD for sleep. 16.10 - Grounding and how that is a cancer treatment protocol in Switzerland and Germany 22.02 - The MTHR gene mutation that Martin and around 25% of people have - and how he mitigates it 25.28 - Getting more out of your 23andme test: 30.10 - What in biohacking inspires Martin at the moment. 34.33 - Martins morning routines. 36.35 Links to people mentioned: Henrik Fohns: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrikfohns/ Dave Asprey: https://blog.bulletproof.com/about-dave-asprey/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/asprey/ Links to selected resources: Harddisken podcast: https://player.fm/series/series-2358943 23andme: https://www.23andme.com/en-int/ Strategene: http://go.strategene.org/genetic-analysis Final recommendations from Martin: Pay close attention to your body Be curious and learn how to take control of your own health Links to Martin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinkremmer https://www.instagram.com/martinkremmer/ More info at www.growthisland.io

Welcome to episode #19 of IoT Product Leadership, a podcast featuring in-depth conversations with product leaders on what it takes to build great IoT products. I’m your host, Daniel Elizalde.     I have a very exciting episode for you today. My guest is Keith Strier. Keith is the Global Leader of Artificial Intelligence at EY.    This is the second time I have guest from EY in my show. In episode 16, I interviewed Aleksander Poniewierski, Global Head of IoT for EY, so I’m very excited to have this conversation with Keith to learn how EY balances their IoT and AI practices.     In this episode, Keith shares an introduction to Artificial Intelligence and the impact it is having in many industries around the world. We also discuss how IoT and AI leverage each other to deliver customer value.  And we discuss the concept of Trust in an increasingly automated and intelligent world. This is an episode no Product Leader should miss.     About Keith Strier:  Keith is the EY Global and Americas Advisory Leader for Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Global Digital Leader for EY’s Technology Sector Practice. Keith is the principal author of EY’s Governmental AI, Conversational AI Design and Trusted AI frameworks, as well as a frequent keynote speaker, published blogger and Forbes Contributing Author. Keith is a trusted advisor to public and private sector organizations on a wide variety of emerging and disruptive technologies.   About EY: EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.     Topics we discuss in this episode: Keith shares his background and about EY. How Keith approaches Artificial Intelligence (AI) What AI is, and which disciplines in encompasses. How AI relates to an IoT solution and how it enables the delivery of value to a customer. Where to start when considering implementing AI solutions. Managing trust within intelligent systems, and considering the effects within the real-world. Advice for Product Leaders who are new at developing IoT solutions.   To learn more about Keith and EY: EY EY and Artificial Intelligence Keith on LinkedIn On Twitter @kbsdigital