Thomas L. Friedman's theory of a flat world, discussed in his bestselling book, The World is Flat, is challenged by Professor Pankaj Ghemawat, and Infosys CEO, Nandan Nilekani, joins them to debate the shape of our emerging business landscape.

Biographes

Thomas L. Friedman
Journalist, The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer for The New York Times. He became the paper's foreign-affairs columnist in 1995. Previously, he served as chief economic correspondent in the Washington bureau and before that he was the chief White House correspondent. Mr. Friedman's latest book, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, was released in April 2005 and won the inaugural Goldman Sachs/Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. In 2004, he was awarded the Overseas Press Club Award for lifetime achievement and the honorary title, Order of the British Empire (OBE), by Queen Elizabeth.

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Nandan M. Nilekani
CEO, Infosys
Nandan M. Nilekani is one of Infosys Technologies Ltd.'s co-founders and has been a director of the company since July 1981. Mr. Nilekani is currently Infosys Technologies Ltd.'s chief executive officer, president and managing director and chairman of the Infosys Management Council. In January 2006, Nandan became one of the youngest entrepreneurs to join 20 global leaders on the prestigious World Economic Forum (WEF) Foundation Board. He is listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, 2006. Mr. Nilekani received a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay.

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Pankaj Ghemawat
Professor of Global Strategy, IESE Business School, Barcelona, and Professor of Business Administration, Harvard
Pankaj Ghemawat is the Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE Business School and the Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration (on leave) at the Harvard Business School. He received his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University and worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Company in London during 1982 and 1983. He spent 25 years on the full-time faculty at Harvard Business School and, in 1991, was appointed the youngest full professor in the Business School's history. He is currently the Anselmo Rubiralta Professor of Global Strategy at IESE Business School in Barcelona. Professor Ghemawat's publications include Commitment (Free Press, 1991), Games Businesses Play (MIT Press, 1997), Strategy and the Business Landscape (Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), and Strategy and the Business Landscape 2nd Edition (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), as well as several dozen articles and case studies.