Baybars Altuntas, the Turkish entrepreneur, speaker, author, and Angel Investor, has had many high accolades throughout his distinguished, illustrious career. Last week he reaches another highpoint, by being the first man to be featured on our WinTrade Global Talks.
Born and based in Turkey’s economic, cultural, and historic centre, Istanbul, Baybars is a man with a mission. Formerly a Senior Advisor to the London Stock Exchange, President of the Business Angels Association of Turkey and the current Executive Chairman of the World Business Angels Investment Forum, he understands a thing or two about business. More pertinent to our conversation on WinTrade Global Talks, he is the man with his finger on the pulse concerning the implications for business as a direct result of the pandemic, COVID-19.
In his WinTrade Global Talk, ‘‘Towards a hyperconnected digital world’ he will start by warning us that the world is on the verge of a great depression. He cites from the latest IMF Global Financial Report that there will be “high market volatility, a collapse in risk asset prices, a reversal of portfolios and a deterioration of market liquidity”. Baybars goes onto cite that the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has seen, “Every country, every society and every economy in the world adversely affected in key areas such as health, employment, finance, trade and business…”
With the World Bank predicting that the global GDP will shrink by 5.2% this year; the worst scenario since the Second World War, business leaders and entrepreneurs would be forgiven if they hid under the proverbial blanket for the next two years. Yet, through Baybars’s WinTrade Global Talk he opines there is room for cautious optimism for a new breed of business start-ups, scale-ups, entrepreneurs, SME’s and investors in the ‘new normal’ post-COVID-19.
If you would also like to watch it again, join the Wintrade Global Membership, where you can see his webinar and many more like it, in addition to a wealth of resources, training and support for women in business.