Vikram Mansharamani

Keyntoe speaker Vikram Mansharamani is an experienced global equity investor and Lecturer at Yale University. Dr. Mansharamani teaches the seminar “Financial Booms & Busts” to Yale College undergraduates, an extremely popular course as indicated by student reviews and enrollment. He is also the author of BOOMBUSTOLOGY: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before They Burst and is a regular commentator in the financial media, having contributed to Bloomberg, MarketWatch, CNBC, Forbes, Fortune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yale Global, The South China Morning Post, The Korea Times, The Khaleej Times, and The Daily Beast, among others.

Dr. Mansharamani has been an active participant in the financial markets for the last 20 years. His Experience includes positions in management consulting, investment banking, and asset management. Analysis has been the focus of his professional endeavors and his current research interests include bubbles in both financial and non-financial markets, the unsustainable dynamics of food and fuel, and the relative value of experts and generalists in understanding complex problems.

As a speaker Vikram Mansharamani speaks on a broad range of topics that help people plan for the future. He applies the analytical power of a multi-disciplinary approach (microeconomics, marcoeconomics, psychology, politics and biology) to topics not generally thought to be in the investment domain – though potentially with significant investment implications. Dr. Mansharamani tailors each presentation to meet the specific need. Listed below are some example speech titles.

The Generalist Advantage: Going Beyond Expertise

Blinded by expertise and single-minded focus?  It happens. But in a fast-paced world driven by complex and diverse factors, connecting the dots is often more important than developing the dots.  Vikram Mansharamani shows why generalists are better-suited to navigating uncertainty in this environment than specialists; he provides audiences with real tools to help them avoid tunnel vision and think beyond their area of expertise.  The talk is based on Mansharamani’s much-discussed HBR blog post, All Hail the Generalist, one of the site’s most-read in 2012.

Entertaining and empowering, with examples drawn from finance, politics, agriculture, medicine, and education, Mansharamani helps people manage risk and anticipate the future with intriguing specifics to convince the audience of his generalist approach.

Global Prosperity – Why Everything is About to Change

As the middle-class booms in emerging nations, a global consumption boom is likely to have an unprecedented impact on a wide range of commodities – food, fuel, precious metals – that will impact the global standard of living.  The result will be geopolitical and economic uncertainty.  Vikram Mansharamani untangles these dynamics through easy-to-understand, entertaining, and engaging analysis that evaluates the effect of a ballooning middle-class on an unlikely collection of industries — from education and entertainment to defense, finance and healthcare.  Mansharamani’s insights help audiences look differently at the nature of global prosperity and how it may shape their business and their future.

The End of Cheap Food – A Global Forecast

Food is emerging as one of the future’s most volatile assets.  Shifting political, economic, climatic and societal change all factor into the equation.  Vikram Mansharamani applies his multi-lens bubble-spotting approach to the key drivers of food prices in a global marketplace.  He suggests that the era of cheap food is over and describes the geo-political and geo-economic ramifications of such developments – from Wall Street to Pudong.  Audiences will leave with an understanding of the dynamics of land grabs, water scarcity, and the implications of food (in)security for national defense.

The Global Economy – An Unconventional Look

Europe falling apart?  China collapsing?  Treasury bubble popping?  Japan economic implosion? Social networking bubble?  Alternative energy dynamics creating geopolitical unrest?  Vikram Mansharamani applies a unique combination of practitioner experience and academic perspective to help audiences navigate the seemingly unending cross-currents of global economic, financial and political developments.  While audiences often find themselves agreeing with Mansharamani each step of the way, they’re frequently surprised by what turn out to be unconventional conclusions.

Spotting Bubbles Before They Burst

In a globally dynamic environment, boom and bust cycles are more frequent than in the past.  It seems there’s always something that has reached unsustainable levels.  The trick, of course, is recognizing it and taking action before the bubble bursts.   In direct contrast to the views espoused by most academics, Vikram Mansharamani makes a persuasive case that it is possible to identify financial (and other) bubbles before they burst.  He draws on entertaining and engaging examples from art markets, architecture, and popular culture – as well as economics and politics – and powerfully demonstrates that you do not need to be an expert to effectively anticipate the future.  Audiences walk away empowered to think independently and to connect obvious dots to generate not-so-obvious conclusions.