"A new leadership to cope with the uncertainties in today's environment is more important than ever before."

In a speech delivered to the 2002 World Knowledge Forum (organized by Maeil Economic Daily), Orit Gadiesh, Chairman of Bain & Company which is one of the top three consulting firms in the world, characterized today's management environment as "uncertain". In this knowledge era that is moving at the speed of light, the management environment is increasingly becoming more uncertain.

Gadiesh is a business mogul, selected on several occasions by magazines such as Fortune as one of the 50 women moving the world. Participating as a panelist at the Forum held at Grand Hilton Hotel in Seoul, she noted that "a new kind of leadership that is different from those required during times of crisis is called for". She shared her experience and insights of how she rose to the chairman position.

She compared a company faced with a crisis as having an 'acute illness' and uncertainty as 'chronic illness'. "Korea was fast in coping with the foreign exchange crisis of 1997 and succeeded in returning the economy back on track," she said. "However, long-term challenges continue to rise such as the KOSDAQ hitting the bottom and China surpassing Korea in the area of technology," she added.

She emphasized that bringing out the strengths of talented people and taking bold actions to remove weakness so as to focus on the core competency is the prerequisite to being a CEO that is sought after today. Just like an aircraft that is used to measure the strength of a hurricane only keeps the best engine and discards all other parts, you need to keep the best weapon with which you can fight the best in business.

Gadiesh joined the Israeli military at the age of seventeen and worked for the office of the Chief of the General staff. She graduated from Israel Hebrew University majoring in psychology and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School with a summa cum laude. She joined Bain & Company in 1977. She became chairman in 1993, sixteen years after having joined the firm.