Syria Trip Notes: A Study in Contrasts

This could easily be mistaken for the Four Seasons in Chicago except it’s Damascus and the man in the gray suit is waving a bomb detector around our taxi before letting us up to the entrance.  The hotel cars are Mercedes, but Chinese made cars are very popular among the local population.

Rich Syrians are driving European cars and consuming European goods.  At Villa Modern, a luxury boutique department store housed in a 450 year old house on Straight St. in the Old City, there is a profusion of labels straight out of any upscale department store in Paris or Milan – Fendi, Ferragamo, Dior.  The chic saleswoman in a white hijab informs me the top seller there by far is Roberto Cavalli, followed by Gucci.  “Arabic women like sexy” she says.

Syrians are overwhelmingly friendly in general and, it seems, very concerned about what Americans think of them.  This despite the fact that real estate costs in Damascus has risen with demand from Iraqi refugees, both rich and poor, that have flooded the city over the years and strained the city’s services and infrastructure.

Also sadly, censorship appears to be very strong, especially on the internet.  Attempts to log onto Facebook, Blogger and the like were blocked by  SCS-Net.  Further investigation reveals SCS stands for Syria Computer Society, a  friendly looking website.

Big Pharma Wants You!

Recessionary blues? Not if you’re Chinese.  Bigwigs from Big Pharmas such as Roche, Lilly, and Johnson & Johnson sent a clear message to a packed auditorium last Saturday at the 17th Annual Sino-American Pharmaceutical Professionals Association Conference ( SAPA)- we are hiring!  we want to add your innovations to our pipelines!  We want to be your partner!  In an industry rife with $1000+ conference fees, SAPA’s ridiculously low budget $25 for an all day conference bought access to some excellent high level speakers and a quick intro to what’s hot in China in research and manufacturing.  J&J’s Jose Sartarelli, Company Group Chairman of Asia-Pacific/Japan/Latin America, Alan Palkowitz, head of Drug Discovery at Eli Lilly, and Richard Tillyer, head of Worldwide Preclinical Development at Merck had similar messages talking about how they are transforming themselves from internal research focus to external partnerships.

Overall a terrific event if you can endure the unmentionable food box lunch and the bevy of relentlessly networking PhDs.  Also the crowd was almost exclusively Chinese speaking Chinese.

rapt attendees in the Robert Wood Johnson School auditorium

Roche’s Nader Fotouhi, VP Pharma Research

Harvard B-school says: Nonprofits need to improve their performance

An energetic Allen Grossman, Ex-CEO of Outward Bound and now professor at the Harvard Business School, blasts the nonprofit sector which he says has vastly underperformed its potential.  Thankfully he goes on to lay out some of the underlying reasons for this assessment.  The audience was a wide range of HBS alumni during reunion weekend who sat in their old classrooms in Aldrich Hall to listen to professors talk about their current research.  The “students” included John Kelefatas of the Edna Clarke McConnell Foundation and Jim Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank, quietly sitting front and center in the worm deck.

Chinese American Conference Honors Kissinger in DC

c100 conference

A stately Dr. Kissinger addresses the black tie crowd of predominantly Chinese Americans at the Committee of 100 dinner.  Present included Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang, new Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, and architect Maya Lin.

Life sciences dealmakers descend on Union Square

Union Square was overrun with suits and ties as the unexpected good weather lured JPMorgan Healthcare conference participants outside.  Despite the overall economic bleakness, the Westin St. Francis was a hub of activity with many familiar faces, as well as refugees from other sectors looking to make the crossover into life sciences.