Professor Andrew Scott

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Key Points for Professor Andrew Scott

Professor Andrew Scott is a Professor of Economics, London Business School and co-founder The Longevity Forum.
He is the world’s expert on economics of longevity combining first rate academic credentials, senior corporate and government experience combined with breadth, depth, wit and wisdom in his presentation style.
Is the author of global best-seller The 100 Year Life.
An award winning public speaker with vast global experience of speaking to governments, corporations, investors and wider public.
Is an advisor to various governments and international organisations and former NED to financial institutions.

Topics for Professor Andrew Scott

The 100 Year Life
Gains to life expectancy mean that each generation is living around ten years longer than the previous. It is a mistake to think that these have occurred at the end of life - rather middle age has been extended. As a result, just as the twentieth century saw the invention of ‘teenagers’ and ‘pensioners’, so individuals are currently creating a new course of life because these gains in life expectancy aren’t about end of life but all of life.

Based on Andrew’s global best seller The 100 Year Life, described by Niall Ferguson; Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Senior Fellow of the Center for European Studies, Harvard, as “Brilliant, timely, original, well written and utterly terrifying”, this presentation outlines what these life expectancy trends are and what they mean for you, your career, your health, relationships and education. Whatever your age you have more future ahead of you than previous generations of your age. How do you prepare for that future and what should you do?

Understanding this shift in behaviour is crucial not just for us as individuals but also for firms if they are to understand the workforce of the future. Too many corporates make the mistake of thinking about a multi generational workforce. Instead what ties the workforce together is the need to reshape careers in response to longer working lives. As populations age, understanding the consumer and workforce trends will be central for seizing a competitive advantage. Adapting to longer lives requires fundamental social change which in turn means fundamental change to key markets and products.
The Longevity Dividend
The so-called ‘silver economy’ is estimated to be worth $15 trillion globally by 2020 – this makes it the world’s biggest emerging market. However, this market is poorly understood and too often represented by the label ‘65+”. The focus is always on the increase in the number of old people occurring in every nation but something else is also happening – how we are ageing is changing. What people do, what they expect and what they want is shifting. This is a huge and growing market segment of above average wealth consumers who are poorly served by lumping them together as a single ‘silver’ market based on out of date age stereotypes.

Supporting people in realising healthy, fulfilling and productive lives will be a key lucrative global market with the potential to unleash a ‘longevity dividend’ both for the individual and the economy. Expect dramatic growth in longevity markets – from new health and finance products and age-tech through to the rise of a re-creation industry that drives our leisure opportunities. Further due to demographic trends, firms will increasingly be reliant on the skills and engagement of older workers and few have policies in place to support this. A longevity dividend is there to be seized by both individuals and firms but new thinking and new practices need to be introduced if it is to be realised. Based on his research and findings Andrew in this presentation traces out the implications and actions required for us as individuals, investors, companies and nations to seize this longevity dividend.
The New Long Life
Based on Andrew’s eagerly awaited forthcoming 2020 book this presentation asks the question how will technology and longer lives – together and separately – change our world and how we live? How should we respond – as individuals, corporates and society – to prepare ourselves for this future and what steps should we take in order to flourish?

A powerful new technology is rapidly developing but is leading to fears that automation will lead to brutal job losses. An ageing society is leading to fears that we cannot afford to grow old. But surely a super smart new technology and longer healthier lives should be an advantage for us all? Why do we fear these advances? The reason is that given how we currently structure work and life these developments bring about problems. Our existing habits and behaviours are based on assumptions that are no longer valid and that is causing us problems. What is needed is to think about how we restructure our practices so as to benefit from these pathbreaking developments that are set to transform our world. So much of our economic and social life was defined by the Industrial Revolution but this is set to be redefined by pathbreaking developments in technology and longevity.

Analysing what is happening and how it will impact business, the economy and society the presentation concludes by offering steps to take now to prepare yourself for this future. In a world where machines become ever better at being machines the need is for us to realise the opportunities of smart new technologies and longer lives to become more human in all we do. Society faces many challenges from smart new tech and longer lives. It is up to us to find the path that makes us benefit from the wonderful potential these forces offer individually and jointly.
Education, Age and the Machine
Technology and longevity are set to transform what skills we need, when we learn them and who we learn them from. Longer lives will extend our working careers which will become multi staged as each of us experiences more career shifts and different roles with different motivations. At the same time technology will lead to growth in new sectors and change our existing jobs requiring us to develop new skills.

This has fundamental implications for learning. Rather than be front loaded in the first stage of a life sequenced as learn, earn and retire learning will need to be spread out throughout life. This will require a change in what we learn early on but also a growth at scale of adult education that is available to all of society.

The good news for the educational system is that the continued growth it has benefited from over the last 100 years looks set to continue as these forces should raise the return on education. The more challenging news is that this expansion will manifest itself as a shift into new areas which are currently poorly served – adult education, intergenerationally mixed courses, skills and employment based learning and shorter cumulative programs. A transformed educational system will see new players and new products emerge as individuals extend their learning over their life. This represents an issue of first order social importance, a vast investment opportunity and one that will be crucial to each of us individually benefiting from the wonders of new technology.
Financing a Longer Future
One of the industries most affected by increased longevity is the financial sector. The asset management industry, pensions and insurance sector have all been developed around a three stage life of education, work and retirement with clearly defined needs driven by age. However, with life and working careers extending peoples’ financial needs, this will change. Longer lives require more savings but also require new financial products and new patterns of behaviour.

New risks are emerging requiring new insurance needs. Health and finance will become increasingly intertwined and the financial system will need to adapt to a world where individuals are redesigning the life course, doing different things at different ages and needing to shift money in different ways between different periods. With more old people but critically people ageing differently those firms providing the same set of existing products that supported a now out of date map of life will find themselves increasingly struggling. Technology is not the only threat to the financial sector.

As longevity changes how we structure our lives the financial system needs to respond with new products and services to deal with new risks and different ways of shifting assets across time. A financial system needs to develop to support 21st century lives.

Testimonials for Professor Andrew Scott

We were delighted to have Andrew Scott present at our conference last year as a co-author of a bestselling book on longevity. Andrew delivered an engaging and thought provoking presentation to our audience!
Marketing Executive
Citibank

Andrew’s work on longevity and the profound implications of a 100 year life is one of the most thought-provoking topics for us to consider. His presentation to my senior most global leaders brought great insight to us, stimulating a fantastic debate into the implications for us all personally, professionally and for our own business of recruitment. Thoroughly engaging!
CEO
Hays

Fujitsu has really benefited from Professor Andrew Scott’s deep insight into a diverse range of macro-economic topics including Sustainability and the 100 year life. The purpose of the sessions has been to better equip our senior people to be able to have “non-agenda” conversations with key clients to start to unlock and create extra value for our clients – and we are already seeing this investment paying dividends!
Head of Talent, Leadership and Engagement
Fujitsu