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As the global economy faces transformative pressures—from shifting geopolitical alliances to escalating climate imperatives—the Milken Institute Global Conference 2025 offers a vital platform for dialogue, innovation, and collaboration. In this exclusive set of interviews, two of the Institute’s leading voices—Matthew Aleshire, Director of Geo-Economics, and John Schellhase, Director of Environmental and Social Innovation—share timely perspectives on navigating global complexity.
From the reconfiguration of investment flows due to BRICS expansion and U.S.-China competition, to the catalytic role of philanthropy in scaling climate solutions, these conversations illuminate the crossroads where markets, policy, and innovation converge.
Interview with Matthew Aleshire on BRICS, Blind Spots, and the New Rules of Financial Diplomacy
How are shifting alliances and economic blocs—like BRICS expansion and U.S.-China competition—reshaping investment flows in 2025?
Both the BRICS expansion and tensions between China and the United States are evidence that the world has moved on from the Post-World War Two international order; if a unipolar moment existed after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it hasn’t for some time now. Setting aside questions of whether it is still accurate to label China as a “developing” nation or a member of the “global south”, China’s reemergence in the late 20th century as a global economic powerhouse after 200+ years of economic stagnation was an impressive feat, undoubtedly attractive to investors. Yet structural challenges, like an aging population, excess manufacturing capacity, and rising labor costs, persist in China and will likely make attaining the previous remarkable levels of economic growth difficult.
Though they may find common ground in their shared opposition to certain aspects of the international order, I’m skeptical of an expanded BRICS finding the substantial common ground needed to offer a credible alternative. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities amongst the BRICS+, particularly in countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Those countries that are able to strengthen their capital markets, steer transnational investment flows toward productive investments, and successfully diversify their economies in terms of both sectors and trading partners will be the long-term winners of the current uncertainty.
So while the narrative on 2025 has been that many investors are taking a cautious, wait and see approach given the uncertainty emanating from tariff-related announcement and related U.S.-China tensions, we may look back in five or ten years and say 2025 was tipping point, when specific countries in the global south joined their “northern” neighbors on the list of preferred destinations for foreign direct investment.
In a fragmented geopolitical landscape, where are the biggest blind spots for multinational investors?
Accurate assessment of geopolitical risk. It isn’t a blind spot for every multinational investor, but dynamic decision making in a fragmented and evolving geopolitical landscape requires the ability to accurately assess risk and the potential for state-led actions that will move markets, particularly via regulatory policies. That requires political intelligence and the ability to move early on geopolitical occurrences, which not everyone has perfected.
Unfortunately, another “blind spot” typically ends up being impactful infrastructure projects in developing countries. Its typically an issue of scale, in which projects don’t meet the threshold at which a multinational investor will consider investing, combined with a risk premium that raises the cost of capital. Consequently, individual investible projects on their own may not be worth the fixed costs associated with due diligence etc. One of our solutions at the Institute has been to help advance the bundling of these deals into investible vehicles that can meet the requirements of some of the largest multinational investors. Whether in a developing country, or emerging market America, this is one of the only feasible paths toward mobilizing private capital at the scale necessary for solving for our infrastructure challenges.
With conflict zones and trade realignments on the rise, what regions are becoming unexpectedly vital to global supply chains?
Every region has become vitally important to global supply chains and prioritization is different for each company. Proximity to existing supply chains, suppliers and customers alike, is the important determining factor for each and every company. Geographically, India and south Asia more broadly, continue to rise in importance. From a geo-economic standpoint, the incentives are in place for renewed push in the strengthening of trade and investment-related ties between India and the United States, the world’s two largest democracies. Tariffs on islands inhabited solely by penguins aside, the polar regions will continue to rise in importance from a transit and critical mineral standpoint.
How can nations build economic resilience without retreating into protectionism?
I think of economic resilience as the ability to withstand exogenous and (to a lesser extent) endogenous shocks, primarily in the context of the supply chains that a nation relies on for manufacturing critical products. Protectionism, usually a mix of policies and instruments, is really about shielding an industry or a specific socio-economic group, from foreign competition during a specific timeframe. While the two are rightfully brought up in the context of trade-related discussions, often it is not a binary choice, nor is one necessarily a stepping-stone to the next. Resilience is the ideal goal, as once it’s achieved, a resilient industry or ecosystem will be able to absorb smaller exogenous shocks and dynamically respond on its own, independent of significant policymaker intervention.
Building economic resilience is a concerted effort that takes time and investment. Nations must accurately assess where they enjoy comparative advantages that overlap with their strategic imperatives. For the United States these industries include biotech, quantum technologies, energy and other advanced manufacturing industries like iron, steel, and shipbuilding.
While carefully applied tariffs can work to advance bilateral negotiations and create an incentive for the onshoring of existing supply chains, limited public expenditure tailored to achieved specific outcomes is often the crucial catalyst for advancing economic resilience. This includes tax incentives for new manufacturing facilities across the supply chain, investing in cutting edge research and development, crafting smarter public procurement policies and ensuring that the workforce not only has the skills needed for the jobs of today but that there is a system in place for evolving workforce needs over time. Beyond expenditures and public policies, enhanced coordination is key to sustained economic resilience. Domestically and internationally, creating the platforms for recurring dynamic dialogue between high-level government, industry, academic, and community leaders long-term viability and cooperation. That something we’ve long been committed to at the Milken Institute.
How do you see financial diplomacy evolving—especially as countries compete to secure access to critical minerals, chips, and data infrastructure?
The private sector and capital markets are integral to geo-economics. In the last 40+ years, we have seen state-based power undergo two significant shifts: power has accrued upwards in the international system to some of the largest countries while simultaneously shifting to away from countries to non-state actors like multinational corporations, financial institutions etc. Successful attempts at crafting and implementing geo-economic strategies don’t just tacitly acknowledge these changes, they harness them to achieve desired outcomes.
Financial diplomacy is an important component in the toolkit of geo-economic strategies. As countries compete, individually or in alliances, the importance of mobilizing investment in specific industries continues to take on heightened importance. The United States is currently experiencing a purposeful change in the tools it has available, with a de-emphasis on aid. An emphasis on equity investments may be next.
Conversely, investment screening will also continue to evolve, not only for incoming investment flows (like CIFIUS) but it may increasingly focus on outgoing flows of investment in important sectors, like chips, data infrastructure and rare earth minerals. This screening by countries, coupled with the threat or imposition of financial sanctions, in contingent on taking advantage of global usage of currency. While we aren’t likely to witness the rapid decline of the primacy of the dollar, the slow return to a multipolar financial system is both likely and carries with it a number of benefits.
What economic trend or region do think is poised to surprise the world by 2030?
I think the speed of the ongoing shift in global demographics and the accompanying potential for a shift in economic dynamism will surprise much of the world. At the risk of oversimplification, countries with declining working age population, high levels of debt, and unsustainable fiscal situations are going to have some difficult choices to make.
On the other hand, much of the world’s population growth is in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. At some point in the next ten to fifteen years, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected pass to India, China, and the United States for percentage of the world’s total population. In order to gain a dividend from this demographic destiny, many investments are needed, foremost being those in human capital.
The opportunity for continued innovation, economic growth, and shared prosperity at a global scale is contingent on managing these divergent demographic trends. The geo-economic uncertainty of today would pale in comparison to the discontent unleashed by the failure to manage these trends in the years ahead.
Interview with John Schellhase: From Risk Capital to Real Impact in Environmental Philanthropy
How can philanthropy play a catalytic role in scaling climate solutions that traditional markets overlook?
Philanthropy has different incentive structures, and so it is able to take risks on ideas that, if proven, the market and sometimes the public sector can scale. This can take many forms, but one way we have seen this work recently has been in the Milken-Motsepe Prize in Green Energy, which challenged teams from around the world to design new scalable solutions for off-grid energy production using green sources.
What are the most effective ways philanthropists can measure impact across complex social and environmental initiatives?
Impact measurement is one of the harder parts of philanthropy, especially when dealing with complex systems. Our advice for philanthropists who are just getting into climate or environmental giving is to, first, break complex issues into more defined addressable targets. Second, we recommend that philanthropists decide up front what KPIs matter to achieving those clearly defined goals.
What bold bet are you making in 2025 that you think others in philanthropy should be paying attention to?
The Milken Institute’s partnership with the Motsepe Foundation in South Africa has been a highlight of our work for the past several years. Together, we run the Milken-Motsepe Prize, a series of global innovation competitions that seek to inspire new innovations for achieving the SDGs. The prize model is about betting on the creativity and intelligence of human beings. Instead of proposing a solution and asking for grant applications, we create a process that invites new solutions and ideas from innovators from across the world. That’s the bold bet: that those as yet uncelebrated innovators will drive future progress.
If the Milken Conference inspires just one big shift in how leaders think about environmental or social innovation—what should it be?
One of the ways the Milken Institute Global Conference has always distinguished itself has been the sense of optimism that drives the discussion. Even in chaotic or uncertain times, this is a place where participants really believe in the power of human ingenuity, especially when empowered by catalytic capital, to solve big problems. In the context of environmental philanthropy, my one big shift would be to see more philanthropists taking that sense of optimism—that sense that we can innovate out of any challenge—back to their organizations, and I’d also hope they’d meet many partners at the Global Conference who could work with them to advance their goals.
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