Goldman Sachs · Outpacing Uncertainty

Moderator Prep

Opening Remarks

~45 seconds — after John Waldron hands off to you

Script Deliver conversationally — feel free to riff

The title of today’s conversation is “Outpacing Uncertainty” — and I want to sit with that word for just a second, because I think we can be honest in this room: for most of the companies represented here, the uncertainty isn’t abstract. [beat]

            We have people here making billion-dollar capital allocation decisions — John, Henry, Patrick, Jenny, George — trying to price risk in an environment that keeps repricing itself.
          

            We have companies squarely in the crosshairs of tariffs and trade policy: José just committed $21 billion to US manufacturing at Hyundai; Pedro has billions committed to clean energy infrastructure in this country; Scott is trying to build enough power generation to keep up with exploding demand — and the rules keep changing.
          

We have healthcare and pharma — Dan O’Day and Emma — navigating drug pricing, AI in medicine, and a new administration’s FDA priorities all at once.

And we have two people who’ve had front-row seats to Washington in very different ways: Kellyanne, who helped build the political coalition that is now making the policies this room has to plan around; and Hank, who was at Treasury the last time global financial architecture was under this kind of stress. [beat]

So: a lot of ground to cover, a lot of perspectives. Let’s dig in.

Tip: the [beat] pauses land well when you make eye contact around the table — let the room feel the weight of the setup before you move into Q1.

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By Sector

Capital Allocators & Financial Services

Waldron (Goldman Sachs) · Kravis (KKR) · Healy (Hellman & Friedman) · Johnson (Franklin Templeton) · Walker (Neuberger Berman) · Lemann (3G Capital / LTS)

Energy & Power

Azagra (Iberdrola) · Strazik (GE Vernova) — notably: Iberdrola buys the turbines GE Vernova makes. They’re on opposite sides of the same supply chain.

Healthcare & Pharma

O’Day (Gilead Sciences) · Walmsley (former GSK CEO, now Microsoft board)

Consumer & Retail Brands

Louvet (Ralph Lauren) · Olczak (PMI) · Lazarus (Versant — USA, CNBC, E!)

Industrial / Automotive / Hardware

Muñoz (Hyundai) · Gecht (Logitech)

Policy & Government Lens

Conway (former WH Senior Counselor, current admin) · Paulson (former Treasury Secretary)

Telecom & Advisory

Schulman (Verizon, former PayPal) · Barton (BCG)

By Relationship to Uncertainty

Most Exposed to Tariffs & Trade Policy

Muñoz ($21B US manufacturing commitment) · Azagra (billions in US clean energy infrastructure) · Gecht (Asian supply chains, hardware) · Louvet (global apparel supply chain) · O’Day (pharma import tariff risk)

Potential Policy Tailwind

Strazik (GE Vernova — power demand explosion from AI data centers) · Schulman (Verizon — telecom as national security infrastructure)

Non-American Vantage Points

Azagra (Spain) · Lemann (Brazil/Switzerland) · Muñoz (Spain, leading Korean company) · Louvet (France) · Olczak (Poland) · Walmsley (UK) · Gecht (Israel)

Interesting Pairings & Tensions

Conway ↔ Paulson

She helped build the current political coalition; he was at Treasury the last time global financial architecture was under this kind of stress — and has been publicly critical of trade policy. Very different reads on Washington.

Azagra (Iberdrola) ↔ Strazik (GE Vernova)

Iberdrola buys GE Vernova’s wind turbines. They’re on opposite sides of the same supply chain, both trying to outpace the same uncertainty.

Kravis ↔ Healy

Kravis invented private equity; Healy represents its current practice. Different generational reads on whether this environment is a buying opportunity or a structural shift.

O’Day ↔ Walmsley

Both ran major pharma companies; Walmsley just stepped down from GSK. Interesting to play them off each other on AI in drug discovery and where the industry is actually headed.

Muñoz ↔ Gecht

Both running companies with serious tariff exposure, but very different scales and options. Muñoz can build a factory in Georgia; Gecht’s Logitech can’t easily reshoring hardware manufacturing at margins that work.

Johnson ↔ Walker

Both running large asset managers ($1.6T vs $558B AUM), different ownership structures (Franklin publicly traded, Neuberger employee-owned). Will read the macro environment slightly differently.

Lemann ↔ Everyone else

Built 3G Capital on zero-based budgeting and ruthless efficiency — the opposite of the redundancy and resilience-building the current environment seems to demand. Worth surfacing directly.

Option A: “The Three Pressures”

Move through technology, policy, and geopolitics in sequence — use the guidepost questions as the spine.

Opening · 12:00–12:15 · Framing: which pressure is biggest?

Waldron frames the moment from Goldman’s seat → Open to the room: tech disruption, policy shifts, or geopolitical risk — which is most consequential for your business right now? Pull in Paulson (systemic lens), Conway (policy read), and one industrial CEO (Muñoz or Azagra) to get three different answers fast.

Act II · 12:15–12:35 · Technology as both threat and opportunity

Walmsley (AI + healthcare/biotech) → Lazarus (media disruption: streaming + AI simultaneously) → Schulman (connectivity as infrastructure) → Gecht (hardware at the AI interface) → Barton: what does BCG’s data say about which sectors are actually capturing AI value vs. just talking about it?

Act III · 12:35–12:50 · The cost of resilience

Muñoz and Azagra: capital bets made before rules changed → Strazik: supply-side constraints (can power generation keep up?) → O’Day and Olczak: regulated industries navigating simultaneous pressures → Lemann: does the 3G efficiency model need to change? → Capital allocators close: Kravis, Healy, Johnson, Walker — where is real opportunity being priced in right now?

Option B: “From Exposure to Response”

Start with who’s most exposed, move to how companies are actually responding, land on what capital is doing about it.

Opening · 12:00–12:15 · The honest exposure map

Waldron: what Goldman is seeing across clients → Challenge the room: on a scale of 1–10, how much has your actual operating plan changed in the last 90 days? Pull in Muñoz (Hyundai/tariffs), Gecht (hardware supply chains), O’Day (pharma), Azagra (energy infrastructure) — build a real picture of who’s most affected.

Act II · 12:15–12:35 · How are you actually responding?

Not the PR answer — what have you actually changed? Louvet (supply chain + brand); Strazik (power supply buildout); Olczak (PMI’s model for navigating hostile regulation everywhere); Schulman (Verizon as national security infrastructure); Conway: what does the White House think it’s accomplishing — and is it working?

Act III · 12:35–12:50 · Where capital is going

Kravis, Healy, Johnson, Walker, Lemann — what does uncertainty mean for capital deployment? Is this a buying environment or a waiting one? → Paulson: geopolitical read — US-China decoupling, is it real and what does it mean for these companies? → Walmsley close: leadership — what does this environment specifically demand of CEOs that a stable one doesn’t?

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