Global Business Leaders Tackle the Priorities That Will Accelerate Economic Growth at B20 Summit

How can the global business community unlock the next era of global growth?

That question is at the center of today’s conversations at the B20 USA Summit in Washington, DC, where some of the world’s most influential business executives and policymakers are examining the opportunities and challenges shaping the global economy.

As the first B20 Summit hosted in the United States, the gathering is bringing together leaders from across industries and international markets to advance practical solutions, encourage investment, and strengthen the conditions for businesses to grow and compete.

Today’s plenary sessions will explore the forces driving global economic growth, from investment and energy security to technological innovation, financial markets and the global business environment.

Suzanne Clark: Growth is a Choice

During keynote remarks, U.S. Chamber CEO Suzanne Clark framed stronger growth as a responsibility to the next generation. She called on global business leaders to raise their ambitions and work with governments to create a future where young people have the opportunity to succeed.

"As we look to give hope to the next generation, growth is an imperative. And it is a choice," Clark said.

Clark illustrated the stakes through the future of a young girl in Argentina, where she said reforms to regulation, taxes, and trade have sharply cut inflation and poverty. While work remains, she argued continued growth gives that child opportunities that once seemed out of reach.

"The choices are ours to make—we have to work with our governments, but we never forget that it’s business’s job to deliver," Clark said.

Clark pointed to the four-pillars of the B20 Leader's Statement: economic growth, innovation, trade, and energy, as a practical roadmap for countries to unleash markets and improve lives. She emphasized that these priorities reinforce one another: growth from AI needs energy and skilled people, while business expansion depends on access to markets and the freedom to invest.

"One policy that encourages growth isn't enough. We need to help our government partners put the full agenda of our Leaders' Statement into practice,” Clark said.

She emphasized that choosing growth requires unleashing human potential.

“When nations trust their people to start businesses, to invest in goods, ideas, and trade freely with the world, economies grow and people thrive.”

She concluded with three challenges for attendees:

• Find one policy barrier holding back opportunity in their country and work with their government to help remove it.
• Choose an investment or partnership they can move forward.
• Help an employee or customer see what growth means in their own life.

Watch Suzanne Clark's Keynote Address

Setting the Agenda with B20 Sherpa Kevin Brady 

After outlining why growth matters for people around the world, Suzanne Clark sat down with B20 Sherpa Kevin Brady to telegraph what policies will help countries reach their full potential for growth.

Brady explained that the U.S. Chamber took a more streamlined approach to the four task forces—Economic Growth, Trade, Energy, and Innovation—to prioritize the issues with the most direct impact on accelerating global growth.

"If everything's a priority, nothing's a priority," said Chairman Brady.

Brady stressed that durable policy, especially around tax and R&D, matters most for driving business investment, and named modernizing rules-based trade as the recommendation with the biggest potential impact on the global economy.

Chairman Brady emphasized that the business community stands ready to work with government to drive growth and opportunity.

"The great next era of economic growth is within our reach. We have the technology, we have the capital, we have the energy, we have the entrepreneurial talent to make that happen. We just need government to remove some of the barriers that are holding us back there, and we want to be partners to do that," said Chairman Brady.

Welcome from the U.S. Administration

The Deputy Assistant to President Donald J. Trump and Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison Jim Goyer outlined the administration’s economic agenda, investment strategies and shared mission to drive global growth and prosperity.

"It is not the state that should be the sole author of capital or the ultimate driver of decisions," said Goyer. "It's the individuals, provided with liberty, that have the opportunity to build, innovate, run businesses and create jobs, and ultimately lead more meaningful lives."

He continued: "Pursuing policies that promote the private sector and enable growth is tantamount to a flourishing society, and we affirm the private sector's critical role in driving broad-based economic growth."

Growth As a Global Imperative

Jim Fitterling, Executive Chairman of Dow and Carol B. Tomé, CEO of UPS discussed what it takes to unlock faster, more durable growth and the investment, energy and supply chains that power it.

“The patterns of growth are changing. Our customers are changing where they manufacture, where they source, and where they sell,” Tomé said. “Supply chains are diversifying. Supply chains are regionalizing. And the growth is being driving by high-value sectors of the economy around the world be it health care, high tech, automation with manufacturing, and automotive.”

Tomé further shared how health care logistics is experiencing significant growth thanks to clinical trials and GLP-1s, estimating the market to be north of $91 billion around the world. “We’ve been leaning into this…It’s a real growth opportunity around the world.”

Session moderator Morgan Brennan, Anchor of Morning Call, CNBC noted a recent energy historic first: federal regulators approved the ability of small modular reactors at a Dow site in Texas. Fitterling called the news a breakthrough.

“In my 40-year career I’ve seen the nuclear industry after Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl almost go extinct, and now we’re back realizing that low-carbon power and reliable 24-7 power nuclear plays a significant role in. And to be able to do this with a safer technology that can deliver that power at the same cost as a gigawatt scale light-water reactor—to do that with a safer technology at 340 megawatts is fantastic.” he said. And I think for behind-the-meter power—power and steam like an industrial user would need or like a hyperscaler would need to power a data center—this is going to be a breakthrough.”

Read Day 1 Highlights

B20 Summit Opens in Washington, Bringing Global Business Leaders to Accelerate Growth

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Driving Foreign Direct Investment

Maryland Governor Wes Moore and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt shared how states win foreign investment, what international companies need to choose America, and how states and Washington can work together to keep the U.S. the world's top destination for investment.

The governors also discussed the outcomes of the recent midterm elections and how the free enterprise system can be a source of growth and innovation in states and local communities.

“People believe we should have an economy that works for everybody. I believe deeply in the promise of capitalism. I am a capitalist. I think that capitalism has been the engine that has been able to drive both innovation and wealth creation,” Moore said. “The best way for us to fight for capitalism is to make sure that we’re building a system that everyone can the see benefits of.”

“We’re not going to pick and choose—and I think that’s the bad part. We can’t as a government say: We don’t like this, we don’t like that. We need to get government out of our lives and let the free market work,” Stitt said. “You want to talk about what inflationary pressures is? And why gas prices are more expensive? It’s because of the over-permitting and the pendulum swings…We’ve got to get government out of our lives, stop picking winners and losers—it never works.”

Shifting Global Markets

Éric Martel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bombardier discussed what the global business aviation leader sees in customer demand, how trade policy is reshaping integrated North American supply chains, and where the next growth will come from.

"The supply chain has been the biggest pacer for our industry... we produced 160 jets this year. We could produce 200 jets a year and the market would take it, but we've been slowed down by the supply chain."

In regard to tariffs, he continued: "I remain very optimistic about aerospace staying the same... Aerospace has always been preserved not to have tariffs, which is the right thing, because the consequences of a tariff would be significant for the industry, an industry that already has a lot of tension on the supply chain already."

Future investments and innovation for Bombardier include exploring strategic merger and acquisition opportunities within the defense and service sectors, and R&D efforts like the "EcoJet" project, which utilizes a new wing body shape designed to reduce fuel consumption by 20%.

Opportunity in the Age of Uncertainty

At the B20 USA Summit, a panel of business leaders including Campbell Brown, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Forum AI, Eduardo Coello, Chairman, Visa Latin America and the Caribbean, Bijoy Sagar, Executive Vice President, Chief Information and Digital Officer, Bayer, and Allan Thygesen, Chief Executive Officer, Docusign examined how businesses should handle AI amid uncertainty and trust.

The panelists agreed AI is already changing how their companies work. They also agreed that people still need to own final decisions, relationships, and high-stakes calls, and that trust in AI must be earned step by step.

“I think the answers from the panel made it clear that trust is kind of the bottleneck today to deployment at a wider scale. What my company does is simple. We test AI to see if it does what it’s supposed to do,” said Campbell.

Coello said consumers are comfortable letting AI help them shop but still want a trusted brand handling their money.

“Our consumer research… tells us that about 78-80% of people have already used an AI agent to look for what to buy… But when it comes to the payment moment, only 23% of the people will trust an agent to complete the transaction,” he said.

On regulation, the panel largely agreed that bad rules could do more harm than help.

“What I worry [about] sometimes [is] preemptive regulation. You might think AI could do something in the future, so you start building safeguards against it, as opposed to staying current with what it’s capable of doing,” said Sagar

They warned against overly broad rules, rules written in anticipation of future risks, and a fragmented patchwork of state and national laws. They instead pushed for outcome-based standards developed jointly by industry and government.

“If you introduce 50 different state frameworks in the U.S. and separate laws for every country in the EU… in essence, the only people who can comply with those regulatory frameworks are the very largest companies. And I think that’s a very, very significant risk that we’re running right now,” said Thygesen.

The Trust Imperative

Trust is of vital importance in helping ensure a society continues to function smoothly. But today, it’s often easier to find negativity and distrust not only online, but in the real world.

“We’re awash in a sea of negativity today. There’s way too many thumbs down,” Tom Wilson, Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Allstate, said. “If you don’t trust other people—you’re not going to get stuff done.”

Wilson also shared what his company is doing to help rebuild trust not only in the business world, but in local communities. He said that relationships and storytelling can help rebuild trust.

“Finding ways to build relationships with people who aren’t t like you helps build trust in society because we realize relationships are what we all have in common,” Wilson said. “Finding ways to be positive storytellers—everybody can do that!”

The Power to Accelerate Global Growth

In an interview with Joseph Schatz, POLITICO Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova looked at how to power global growth.

“The world needs more energy and a large proportion of its energy to be electric power,” Strazik said. A variety of sources can accomplish that: “Economics should carry the day, and the best way to ensure that is applying the right technologies where the most competitive economic resources exist.”

When asked about permitting reform, Strazik said, “The country needs a substantial amount of infrastructure to be built,” but “right now too many good projects are getting stalled for too long.” He added that the work happening in Congress is “an important step forward for the country.”

Looking ahead, Strazik noted that currently electricity is only supplying 20% of the world’s energy. “As industry electrifies, we will be de-carbonizing the world,” he said.

Energy, Security and Growth

CNBC’s Morgan Brennan led a discussion among energy leaders about how energy abundance underpins economic growth and national security. Jeff Miller Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, Halliburton, Colette Hirstius, President, Shell USA, Inc., and Emilie Bodoin, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pure Lithium agreed that the U.S. is in a strong position, thanks to plentiful domestic oil and natural gas and a growing role supplying LNG to a world unsettled by conflict. They also agreed the country can’t afford to depend on a single foreign supplier for critical materials, especially batteries.

“We’re very good at innovating here. We invented the battery that everyone is using, and we don’t produce them here. So, we have a challenge, and it’s a great challenge, but our entire U.S. military relies on China for batteries, and that’s really an unwise idea, especially in today’s geopolitical environment. There’s no reason America cannot make batteries. We just really need to have the will to do it,” said Bodoin.

The oil and gas leaders said innovation is enabling them to produce more energy with fewer emissions, not as a cost but as a byproduct of operating more efficiently.

“If we go back 10 years ago, it took 2,000 rigs in North America to make 8 million barrels of oil. And today, with less than 500 rigs, we make 14. And so that is a dramatic increase in efficiency, but also an equally dramatic reduction in emissions,” said Miller.

The panel named infrastructure and permitting as the biggest bottlenecks. They pointed to the Senate’s bipartisan permitting reform bill as an important step toward getting energy where it’s needed.

“One of the things that I’m very hopeful that [permitting reform] will enable is a better distribution of energy types across our country,” said Hirstius. ”So permitting reform is one of the things that removes an obstacle to really making sure that our country has access, across the entirety of the country, to the forms of energy that are best suited to the use.”

The Next Drivers of Growth

The drivers of international growth are constantly changing. During a B20 panel, international business leaders shared their insights about where the next drivers of global growth will come from and how they are handling a time of global uncertainty.

“There has been so much uncertainty and volatility in the geopolitical environment, but it doesn’t actually make people retrench and pull away from markets. Instead, we’re seeing just how connected everything is,” said Mandy DeFilippo, Chief Executive Officer, U.S. and Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Pakistan, Standard Chartered. “Our clients have been asking: ‘Can I do my business, can I continue to grow, can I continue to invest?’ And they’re still super interested in the U.S. market.”

Scott Thomson, President and Chief Executive Officer, Scotiabank, agreed that his clients are very keen to continue investing in America.

“Clients want to be in the U.S., they want to grow in the U.S. They see the U.S. as a big, dynamic, innovative market. That’s not going to change,” Thomson said. “The biggest impediment to accelerating global growth is certainty…If we can get to a point where there is certainty and we know the rules of the game—you’ll see people deploy capital and you’ll see growth.”

Ambassador Richard Verma, Chief Administrative Officer, Mastercard, added that now it’s more important than ever to be there for customers.

“During times like this, it’s time to be with small business, to be with consumers, to lift people up,” Verma said. “That’s what we can do during a period of incredible volatility…We’re not going anywhere—we’re going to be there for people especially when times are tough.”

The Global Business of Sport

Leaders in the sports industry joined Eamon Javers, Senior Correspondent at CNBC for a conversation about the economic impact of sports, the grassroots energy at the local level, and the increasing globalization of sport.

The conversation started with a focus on ensuring sports remains accessible for people of all economic backgrounds. Isiah Thomas, Chairman and CEO of Isiah Enterprises, cautioned against a pay to play environment at the local level.

Jonathan Fascitelli, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Serregh, pointed to his company's focus on how their stadiums uplift the communities they are in.

"The stadium and the sporting event, the concert, creates a fanbase that comes early and stays late and that's a real driver for everything around it,” he said. “And that can support an ecosystem where you can build housing, office, retail, and you can with that create significant economic output, significant jobs, and really have a strong impact on the wellbeing of the community going forward.”

A theme that emerged was the growing popularity of women's sports globally. “It’s a huge economic platform. It has tons of cultural impact,” Max Siegel, CEO of USA Track & Field said. “It’s global, and we see it as a tremendous opportunity”

Panelists also spoke to the increasingly global nature of sports. Zachary Leonsis, President and Vice Chairman of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, pointed to Washington's unique location as a global city for attracting fans from around the world.

"Our positioning here in Washington, DC is particularly unique because we're an international center. The most powerful city in the world, this is where the globe meets, this is where this audience has convened today for this conference, it's a unique asset that we have in Washington, DC," he said.

"When the NBA thinks about who it wants to emulate and be like, they actually don't look at the NFL, they look at the Premier League and the relevance of some of those European football clubs on a global basis. That's how we want our NBA team brands to be," Leonsis added.

Global Markets: Charting the Next Chapter

Gary Cohn, Vice Chairman at IBM and former director of the U.S. National Economic Council, talked to POLITICO Playbook Co-Author Dasha Burns, about the economy and the impacts facing American families.

The economy played a major role in recent U.S. elections with Cohn pointing out, “The U.S. consumer voted their financial well-being.”

Some of that impact stems from increased costs due to higher tariffs. “Tariffs are a consumption tax on the U.S. consumer… The producers and the importers don’t pay the tariff,” Cohn said. He used aluminum tariffs as an example: “You and I, if we’re buying a new car, we are eating that cost.”

As for calls for socialism to replace free enterprise, Cohn disagreed, saying socialism “is not fundamental to how this country works.”

B20 Plenary Concluding Remarks

Wrapping up the morning’s plenary session, Jill Wyant, Vice Chair of the Board, U.S. Chamber of Commerce. President and Chief Executive Officer, Madison Air, thanked attendees for coming to the plenary session.

“When people, ideas, and businesses connect across borders, all of us benefit,” Wyant said. “That’s what brings us together here at B20. Business leaders from many countries… united by a shared commitment to creating opportunity and solving challenges together.”

District Pier Stage

Powering Tomorrow

On the Pier Stage, the Powering Tomorrow panelists discussed who will finance and build the generation, grids and equipment the next economy needs, and how Europe, Japan and the United States can work together to deliver power that is reliable, affordable and secure.

Maurice Berns, Managing Director and Senior Partner with the Boston Consulting Group laid out three themes around energy’s critical role in accelerating economic growth: how to meet growing electricity demand; ensuring affordability; and strengthening energy security.

To meet growing demand and addressing affordability, Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, Chairman of the Board of ENGIE, discussed building more generation capacity, including wind, solar, and batteries, as well as partnering with industry to help them manage power demand. He added that he did not want to see “governments messing with price signals” like putting caps on prices, because that would send the wrong message to those making energy investments.

Nicola Monti, CEO of Edison SpA, addressed energy security: “We need to build a more diversified mix” of natural gas in Italy. He also mentioned that more nuclear power must be considered, because the Italian government expects electricity demand to almost double by 2025.

Clamadieu and Monti uttered a similar refrain for what can be done on the policy front. Both urge that permitting for infrastructure be done in a reasonable time frame, and that there be regulatory predictability. “We need to be able to build assets quickly,” said Clamadieu. “We need predictability to plan investments,” added Monti.

The International Business of Sport

Moderated by the U.S. Chamber’s Rick Wade, the conversation looked at why sports have become such a powerful global asset. Isiah Thomas, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Isiah Enterprises, and Jonathan Fascitelli, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Seregh, agreed that sport’s value comes from its rare ability to bring people together across race, nationality, politics and class. They argued that this need for community will only grow as AI reshapes work.

Fascitelli described stadiums as the hub of year-round, mixed-use communities and called “social infrastructure” a major global investment category alongside power and AI.

“When you look at communities that have live, work and play components, when there’s a higher index on play, the live and work communities [do] better… Around stadiums, you can build more, you can do more, you can invest more… Think bigger. Leverage the asset and the team to really, truly reimagine how much you can develop around it, to create a better environment for the next century,” he said.

Thomas welcomed the flow of new capital into sports, as long as it is the “right kind” that expands access and doesn’t price out underserved communities. He also explained how lessons from basketball carried over to running a business.

“I think the flow of capital enhances what we’re doing. Not only does it enhance sport, but it also gives that underserved community a chance to continue to participate in sport, where they’re not priced out… When new capital comes in, if it’s the right kind of capital, it comes in with community thought, in terms of: How do we improve the community? How do we make it better? And, key word, how do we give access to more people who want to play and benefit from our sport?” he said.

Building the Next Economy 

Global business has a key role to play in development, economic growth, and the daily life of communities. The panelists on the “Building the Next Economy” panel shared their thoughts on how the economy—and people’s interaction with it is changing.

HRH Princess Dr. Maha bint Mishari bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Chief Executive Officer of the Future Investment Initiative Institute, said affordability wasn’t just an American fixation.

“For the fifth year, the cost of living is the number one priority for people around the world—it doesn’t matter which demographic,” Al Saud said. “People want an economy that can give them a better future and opportunity.”

H.E. Laziz Kudratov, Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade, Republic of Uzbekistan, said his country has recently generated more interest from companies abroad wanting to invest and that Uzbekistan has a long tradition of welcoming international trade.

“Investors are not looking for a cheap labor force or the availability of natural resources. What’s matters for an investor is confidence in a market and trust,” Kudratov said. “We make the economic agenda the priority when we interact with foreign partners. This is a model which has been with us for centuries—if you’ve heard about the ancient Silk Road.”

Nathan Ohle, President and Chief Executive Officer, International Economic Development Council (IEDC), urged local leaders to engage with companies wanting to site large infrastructure projects in their communities to learn what the scope of the project is and the total economic impact it could bring.

“Making sure leaders at every level are in alignment is really critical,” Ohle said. “It’s not just data centers, it’s advanced manufacturing and other large projects…You have to understand what the opportunity is and what it unlocks for your community and your economy…You have to be working with your utilities and data center companies and be clear about what your community needs. It’s not just power generation, but how can they contribute to other parts of the community, whether it’s school systems or housing?”

Check back for more B20 highlights throughout the day.