Dean Erika H. James welcomed almost 900 alumni and guests to the first Wharton Global Forum to be held in three years. The event, which highlighted the insights of worldwide business and thought leaders, convened in Singapore.

James — who has recently been on the road meeting with alumni, and various civic and political leaders in cities from Tokyo to Dubai and Tel Aviv to Mumbai — said wherever she goes the message is always the same. “Our world has global problems to solve,” she said. James believes that the Wharton School can stand at the forefront of breaking down existing barriers to progress.

“We have workforces in need of addressing gender imbalance and biases,” James said. “We have countries underprepared to respond to health and infrastructure crises. We have political discourse that suffers from a lack of balance and respect. And though these global issues have differing localized causes and symptoms, they share a common cure — organizations willing to work beyond boundaries to discover holistic solutions.”

James is proposing a shared commitment to conversations that facilitate a perpetual exchange of ideas that will move the world forward.

“We [must] gather the best and brightest minds together to reimagine how we reach collective goals,” she said. “And to this cause, I pledge to offer Wharton’s insights and our leaders, but also to push for the needed exchange of thoughts and engagement of thinkers from outside of academia because their intellect is necessary for advancement.”

The next Wharton Global Forum will be held in 2024 in São Paulo, Brazil.