Citi Highlights from the 2017 Milken Institute Global Conference

2017 marked the 20^th Anniversary of the Milken Institute Global Conference. This year's conference theme, "Building Meaningful Lives," prompted panelists to discuss and debate a variety of technical, political and economic solutions that minimize social disruptions and provide people with more purposeful futures. As a strategic sponsor of the Milken Institute, Citi proudly contributed throughout the conference to a wide range of discussions on timely topics including global trade, global M&A, Big Data and Digital Innovation.

Citi CEO Mike Corbat contributed an article to Milken's Power of Ideas series on the importance of global trade. In his piece titled "Why the U.S. and the World need Trade to Prosper," he argues that to preserve the mutual prosperity that trade has brought to the world, we need to get trade reform right and to make trade not just freer but fairer than it is now. "We need to practically—and not just rhetorically—address the unfortunate fact that our global society has fallen short in providing the necessary tools and support to people and businesses adversely affected by technological change and globalization."

Don Callahan, Global Head of Operations and Technology, contributed to Milken's series on LinkedIn on the topic of technological disruption. In his article, he discusses a few of the ways that large financial institutions – including Citi – are embracing self-disruption and innovation as a way of both competing and collaborating with new entrants to the Fintech space.

Chairman of Citi's Institutional Clients Group Leon Kalvaria participated in a panel discussion on the Global M&A Outlook. In his remarks, he discussed global M & A trends in a number of sectors, including technology and healthcare. Panelists also debated the pros and cons of the changing regulatory environment in the U.S., political uncertainty in Europe, pending tax reforms in the U.S. and Europe, cross-border trends and the relationship between economic growth and M&A activity. Watch the full panel session here.

During a panel on Shaping the Digital Future, Julie Monaco, Global Head of Citi's Public Sector Group, provided Citi Velocity, Citi's leading capital markets platform with over 83,000 institutional client users, as an example of how digital technology is improving the dialogue with clients. Panelists also discussed the potential and importance of Blockchain, Machine Learning and Cyber Security. Ms. Monaco also described the increasing value of machine learning, particularly in the context of global payment transactions, including Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance.

As organizations grow, the data that is central to their value propositions often becomes fragmented and difficult to govern. A panel on Big Data and the Pathways to Disruptive Technology Breakthroughs examined and explored the growing benefits of strong data governance and how Big Data can support innovation and disruption. Head of Citi Ventures and Chief Innovation Officer Vanessa Colella emphasized the importance of data governance and privacy in a 200-year-old global organization like Citi, and its relevance to fraud protection, consumer marketing, risk management and automation. She further contended that over time, organizations will come to recognize the importance of data in every aspect of their organization.