The Sweeney Agency

About Chandran Nair - Author of Consumptionomics and Speaker on Asia and Globalization:

Keynote speaker Chandran Nair leads what he believes is a first - an organisation focused on the relationship of Asian society and values with those of the rest of the world. He is the founder of the Global Institute for Tomorrow (GIFT), an independent social venture think-tank dedicated to advancing an understanding of the impacts of globalisation through thought leadership and positive action to effect change. Nair is a renowned international speaker, writer and facilitator and leading expert on globalisation and development in Asia.

Since 2004 Chandran has led GIFT to becoming a leading provider of experiential learning for the private, public and academic sectors. His role as Chair of the Asia-Pacific region of Environmental Resource Management Consultancy, a position he held for over a decade, and his reputation as a provocative speaker, has attracted corporations and governments to seek his advice on a variety of leadership and business challenges in Asia. He has addressed many of these issues at forums around the world, and is a popular panelist on economic policy and sustainability platforms in London, New York, Washington, and Sydney, and all of the major Asian capitals.

He is an adjunct professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology where he teaches MBA students and continues to provide strategic management advice and coaching to business leaders. He is also co-founder and Chair of Avantage Ventures, a boutique social investment advisory firm based in Hong Kong and author of Consumptionomics: Asia’s role in reshaping capitalism and saving the planet.

What Chandran Nair Talks About:

Consumptionomics: Asia’s Role in Reshaping Capitalism and Saving the Planet
Consumption has been the fuel that has driven the engine of global capitalism. The recent financial crisis has seen the West’s leading economists and policy makers urging Asia to make a conscious effort to consume more and thereby help save the global economy. This is a view shaped by conventional wisdom which conveniently refuses to acknowledge both the unpleasant effects of consumption and the limits to growth. Consumptionomics argues that this blinkered view needs to be replaced by a more rational approach to the challenges of the 21st century. If Asians aspire to consumption levels taken for granted in the West the results will be environmentally catastrophic across the globe. Needless to say it will also have significant geopolitical impacts as nations scramble for diminishing resources.