Latest news with #PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
InPlay Oil Corp. Announces Annual Meeting Voting Results for Election of Directors
CALGARY, AB , June 25, 2025 /CNW/ - InPlay Oil Corp. (TSX: IPO) (OTCQX: IPOOF) ("InPlay" or the "Company") announced today the voting results for the election of directors at its annual meeting of shareholders held on June 25, 2025 (the "Meeting"). The following eight nominees were elected as directors of InPlay to serve until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed, with common shares represented at the Meeting voting in favour of individual nominees as follows: DirectorPercentage ApprovalPercentage Withheld Douglas Bartole99.73 %0.27 % Regan Davis99.64 %0.36 % Joan Dunne94.73 %5.27 % Craig Golinowski99.70 %0.30 % Stephen Loukas92.94 %7.06 % Stephen Nikiforuk94.71 %5.29 % Peter Scott99.86 %0.14 % Dale Shwed99.66 %0.34 % In addition, all other resolutions presented at the Meeting were approved by InPlay's shareholders, including the appointment of PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP as auditors, InPlay's restricted and performance award incentive plan and the settlement from treasury of incentive awards previously granted thereunder and the approval the unallocated options issuable under InPlay's share option plan. For complete voting results, please see our Report of Voting Results which is available through SEDAR+ at InPlay is based in Calgary, Alberta and the common shares of InPlay are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "IPO". For further information about InPlay, please visit our website at SOURCE InPlay Oil Corp. View original content to download multimedia:
Mint
25-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Still afloat: The anti-DEI wave hasn't swept women CEOs aside
Gift this article Progress for female executives has always been so slow and plodding that every milestone, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, gets celebrated. But recently, sounding the alarm for women in corporate America has supplanted cheering the wins. And no wonder —a growing list of data points signal that the right's attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is chipping away at women's progress toward the boardroom and corner office: Progress for female executives has always been so slow and plodding that every milestone, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, gets celebrated. But recently, sounding the alarm for women in corporate America has supplanted cheering the wins. And no wonder —a growing list of data points signal that the right's attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is chipping away at women's progress toward the boardroom and corner office: The proportion of women being appointed to boards has declined for the last two years. It will now take even longer for women to reach parity in the C-suite than was previously estimated. Boards increasingly want a female executive who has taken the extra step of serving as president on their way to becoming chief executive officer—something they're less likely to be required of male leaders. Or they're no longer interested in considering a diverse slate of candidates when filling the top job. As one headline warned, 'The job market is brutal for women executives." I've been one of those doom-and-gloom trackers myself. Last year, I wrote about how corporate women's gains were falling victim to an anti-woke backlash. There is a direct line between the progress women have seen over the past half-decade and the ways in which DEI has moved into the business mainstream. I was worried about what was happening to women in the workplace as those efforts were dismantled. I am still worried. But there are also some green shoots that have made me more hopeful that some of the gains are enduring. For one, the percentage of women running Fortune 500 companies hit a new high earlier this year and now sits at 11%. It is a paltry record, but it comes after two back-to-back years of 10.4%. The numbers are generally pointing in the right direction, so I'll take it. Driving the uptick were the eight women who were appointed CEO of a Fortune 500 company in the last year. They were all internal promotions. About a decade ago, the reverse was true, as most female CEOs at large companies were external hires. The about-face has some fretting that one pathway to the top job for women is closing. But there is a flip-side. The outside-hire route to the corner office has not always been a boon for women's careers, even if it helped juice the overall numbers. A 2016 study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that outsider CEOs are more likely to be forced out—and because most big company female CEOs at that time were outsiders, they tended to be ousted at a higher rate than men. It's not a terrible thing that women are now more often climbing the ranks from inside rather than being tapped to come fix a troubled company. Maybe it will leave fewer stranded on the glass cliff and set up for failure. The most promising shift, however, is the composition of corporate boards. Last month, data complied by ISS-Corporate for Bloomberg News found that as of 2024, Caucasian men no longer held the majority of board seats at S&P 500 companies. Women and non-Caucasian men now comprise 50.2% of those seats. This is a profound change. Just half a decade ago, Caucasian men held about 60%. The data also showed that Caucasian men are in the minority among chairs of crucial board committees that choose new directors and CEOs. How could such a thing happen in the midst of the DEI backlash? Changes inside the boardroom have made the shift toward more diverse directors stickier than the anti-woke crowd would like. Boards often want to add members to the mix who have prior experience—requirements that once narrowed candidates to primarily Caucasian men. But the pool of women who now have that box checked is growing. And as companies grapple with developing technologies, their boards are increasingly willing to overlook a lack of board or C-suite experience for a director who has a deep background in areas such as AI. That's opening new avenues for executives who are less likely to look like the status quo. The implications are real for the C-suite, too; research has shown that more diverse boards are more likely to appoint a woman as CEO. There is no denying that momentum for women who aspire to reach the top has slowed in recent times. But let's also look out for those signs that it's not so easily reversed. That's why we celebrated the wins to begin with—to show women that there's good reason to keep climbing. ©Bloomberg The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering corporate America. Topics You May Be Interested In
Miami Herald
11-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Parmy Olson: College grads are lab rats in the great AI experiment
Companies are eliminating the grunt work that used to train young professionals - and they don't seem to have a clear plan for what comes next. AI is analyzing documents, writing briefing notes, creating Power Point presentations or handling customer service queries, and - surprise! - now the younger humans who normally do that work are struggling to find jobs. Recently, the chief executive officer of AI firm Anthropic predicted AI would wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs. The reason is simple. Companies are often advised to treat ChatGPT "like an intern," and some are doing so at the expense of human interns. This has thrust college grads into a painful experiment across multiple industries, but it doesn't have to be all bad. Employers must take the role of scientists, observing how AI helps and hinders their new recruits, while figuring out new ways to train them. And the young lab rats in this trial must adapt faster than the technology trying to displace them, while jumping into more advanced work. Consulting giant KPMG, for instance, is giving graduates tax work that would previously go to staff with three years of experience. Junior staff at at PriceWaterhouseCoopers have started pitching to clients. Hedge fund Man Group Plc tells me its junior analysts who use AI to scour research papers now have more time to formulate and test trading ideas, what the firm calls "higher-level work." I recently interviewed two young professionals about using AI in this way, and perhaps not surprisingly, neither of them complained about it. One accountant who had just left university said he was using ChatGPT to pore over filings and Moody's Ratings reports, saving him hours on due diligence. Another young executive at a public-relations firm, who'd graduated last year from the London School of Economics, said tools like ChatGPT had cut down her time spent tracking press coverage from two and a half hours to 15 minutes, and while her predecessors would have spent four or five hours reading forums on Reddit, that now only takes her 45 minutes. I'm not convinced, however, that either of these approaches is actually helping recruits learn what they need to know. The young accountant, for instance, might be saving time, but he's also missing out on the practice of spotting something fishy in raw data. How do you learn to notice red flags if you don't dig through numbers yourself? A clean summary from AI doesn't build that neural pathway in your brain. The PR worker also didn't seem to be doing "higher-level work," but simply doing analysis more quickly. The output provided by AI is clearly useful to a junior worker's bosses, but I'm skeptical that it's giving them a deeper understanding of how a business or industry works. What's worse is that their opportunities for work are declining overall. "We've seen a huge drop in the demand for 'entry-level' talent across a number of our client sets," says James Callander, CEO of a Freshminds, a London recruitment firm that specializes in finding staff for consultancies. An increasing number of clients want more "work ready" professionals who already have a first job under their belt, he adds. That corroborates a trend flagged by venture capital firm SignalFire, whose "State of Talent 2025" report pointed to what they called an "experience paradox," where more companies post for junior roles but fill them with senior workers. The data crunchers at LinkedIn have noticed a similar trend, prompting one of its executives to claim the bottom rung of the career ladder was breaking. Yet some young professionals seem unfazed. Last week, a University of Oxford professor asked a group of 70 executive MBA students from the National University of Singapore if Gen Z jobs were being disproportionately eroded by AI. Some said "no," adding that they, younger workers, were best placed to become the most valuable people in a workplace because of their strength in manipulating AI tools, recounts Alex Connock, a senior fellow at Oxford's Saïd Business School, who specializes in the media industry and AI. The students weren't just using ChatGPT, but a range of tools like Gemini, Claude, Firefly, HeyGen, Gamma, Higgsfield, Suno, Udio, Notebook LM and Midjourney, says Connock. The lesson here for businesses is that sure, in the short term you can outsource entry-level work to AI and cut costs, but that means missing out on capturing AI-native talent. It's also dangerous to assume that giving junior staff AI tools will automatically make them more strategic. They could instead become dependent, even addicted to AI tools, and not learn business fundamentals. There are lessons here from social media. Studies show that young people who use it actively tend not to get the mental health harms of those who use it passively. Posting and chatting on Instagram, for instance, is better than curling up on the couch and doom-scrolling for an hour. Perhaps businesses should similarly look for healthy engagement by their newer staff with AI, checking that they're using it to sense-check their own ideas and interrogating a chatbot's answers, rather than going to it for all analysis and accepting whatever the tools spit out. That could spell the difference between raising a workforce that can think strategically, and one that can't think beyond the output from an AI tool. (Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of "Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World.") Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Arabian Post
21-05-2025
- Business
- Arabian Post
Chinese AI giant FancyTech enters GCC region
Artificial Intelligence is expected to contribute around US$320 billion to the Middle East's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030, with the Gulf Cooperation Council countries accounting for nearly 80 percent of that impact, translating to approximately US$260 billion, according to a latest report by global accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—are at a critical inflection point. As these oil-rich nations pursue economic diversification and digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as a central pillar of their strategic vision. 'AI represents a transformative force for GCC economies, with the potential to generate over US$260 billion in annual economic value by 2030. Beyond the dollar figures, AI offers a strategic pathway for the region to reduce dependency on hydrocarbons, boost productivity, and lead in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,' it said. ADVERTISEMENT By 2030, AI is projected to contribute significantly to the GCC's gross domestic product (GDP), with estimates ranging from hundreds of billions to over US$1 trillion. Among these, Saudi Arabia could see an AI-driven GDP boost of US$135 billion, representing around 12.4 percent of its GDP while the UAE is projected to gain US$96 billion, or 13.6 percent of GDP, making it one of the most AI-forward economies in the region by 2030. Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain are expected to gain between US$5 billion and US$15 billion each, as AI adoption matures. These figures reflect not only enhanced productivity and cost savings but also the creation of new economic sectors. AI applications in predictive maintenance, reservoir management, and process optimisation are expected to save billions. Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, and other regional giants are investing heavily in AI-driven upstream and downstream operations. AI is already disrupting banking and insurance in the UAE and Bahrain, with fraud detection, robo-advisory, and personalised financial products reducing costs and increasing revenues. In dollar terms, AI could unlock US$15–US$20 billion in value for the GCC's banking sector alone by 2030. The GCC's rapidly expanding healthcare market, projected to reach US$104 billion by 2027, will benefit from AI in diagnostics, patient monitoring, and administrative automation—potentially generating US$10–$15 billion in efficiency gains. ADVERTISEMENT Initiatives like NEOM (Saudi Arabia) and Smart Dubai incorporate AI at their core, spanning mobility, energy, and governance. These projects could collectively add US$50 billion or more in AI-related economic value over the next decade. GCC governments are actively investing in AI infrastructure, talent, and startups. Saudi Arabia committed over US$6.4 billion in AI and emerging tech investments in 2022 alone. The UAE's National AI Strategy 2031 aims to position the country among the top AI nations, driving both public and private investment. Qatar and Kuwait are developing AI roadmaps focused on energy, defense, and cybersecurity. These efforts are expected to attract tens of billions of dollars in foreign direct investment (FDI) over the coming decade. Despite the bullish projections, unlocking AI's full economic potential in USD terms requires overcoming several hurdles including a significant skills gap in data science and machine learning, with demand far exceeding supply. While digitalisation is accelerating, many sectors still lack robust data ecosystems needed for effective AI deployment. That's why global AI conglomerates such as FancyTech are entering the region with their expertise, talents, to disrupt the industries. FancyTech is a global leader in AI-powered commercial content, offering end-to-end visual solutions—from creation to distribution across digital and social platforms. With a portfolio of over 1,000 clients in more than 10 countries, FancyTech recently announced its strategic expansion into the Middle East, establishing Dubai as its MENA headquarters. It has partnered with Images RetailME to bring A&M Awards to the industry – to focus on innovation. 'Partnering with the A&M Awards reflects our commitment to championing innovation that embraces personalisation-at-scale,' shared William Li, CEO of FancyTech. 'It's about recognising how AI, creativity, and marketing expertise converge. This year's winners remind us that great marketing always needs to be targeted to become more meaningful and effective.' This year's awards highlighted outstanding examples in localised content, customer engagement, and personalized promotions. Winners were selected from diverse industries, such as retail, e-commerce, financial services, creative agencies, and real estate. 'We used to spend the entire budget on one or two sets of creatives,' says Lolen Windra, CEO of Space and Shapes, an AI Marketing Ecosystem Partner Award winner. 'Now, we can produce several sets on the same budget. We tell our clients that with FancyTech, it's three times more cost-efficient and two times faster than traditional production.' McKinsey research has estimated that the application of gen AI to 63 use cases could generate global annual economic value worth between US$2.6 trillion and US$4.4 trillion, adding 15 to 40 percent to the value we previously estimated that other AI technologies, such as machine learning, advanced analytics, and deep learning, could unlock. 'In Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, the same gen AI use cases could generate between US$21 billion and US$35 billion a year, on top of the US$150 billion that other AI technologies could deliver. To put that into perspective, gen AI could be worth 1.7 to 2.8 percent of annual non-oil GDP in the GCC economies today,' McKinsey said. Many GCC organisations are taking prompt action to capture the surge in value that gen AI offers. Many have also developed a gen AI strategy and road map and have directed budgets to areas where gen AI is likely to have the most impact. But on all fronts, value realisers are pushing harder. In a significant move, the UAE, in collaboration with the United States, unveiled plans for a 5-gigawatt AI campus in Abu Dhabi—the largest of its kind outside the US. This facility is designed to provide low-latency AI services to nearly half of the global population within a 3,200 km radius, leveraging a mix of nuclear, solar, and gas power to minimise carbon emissions. The UAE's ascent in the AI domain is bolstered by substantial international partnerships. Notably, the state-backed firm MGX has invested US$6.6 billion in OpenAI, reflecting the nation's commitment to fostering cutting-edge AI research and development. Also published on Medium. Notice an issue? Arabian Post strives to deliver the most accurate and reliable information to its readers. If you believe you have identified an error or inconsistency in this article, please don't hesitate to contact our editorial team at editor[at]thearabianpost[dot]com. We are committed to promptly addressing any concerns and ensuring the highest level of journalistic integrity.
Al Bawaba
09-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Bawaba
Can Yaman heads to Egypt for major advertising campaign amid acting comeback
ALBAWABA - Is Can Yaman on his way to Egypt? The attractive actor, who spends his days learning Spanish and getting ready to resume his lucrative acting career in Italy with projects he will film in Spain, has agreed to a massive advertising campaign in Egypt. Can Yaman is now the spokesperson for a well-known food company. Yaman will film three ads and posters while in Egypt starting Monday. The well-known actor is expected to spend a week in Egypt, according to reports. On March 21, Can Yaman's El Turco series will also be presented to the public. Who is Can Yaman? On November 8, 1989, Can Yaman was born in Istanbul. Yaman is the only child in his family and comes from Macedonia, Albania, and Yugoslavia. Yaman excelled academically and was the top student when he graduated from the Italian high school. In 2012, Yaman successfully finished the Yeditepe University Faculty of Law, continuing his academic achievement throughout his time in college. In order to obtain professional experience, he interned as a lawyer at the renowned auditing company PriceWaterhouseCoopers after receiving his law degree. Erkenci Kuş Instagram profile Yaman's language abilities also make him a name that attracts notice. He is fluent in Italian, English, German, and Spanish in addition to Turkish. He has been able to participate in global projects thanks to these abilities. Rather than pursue a career in law, Yaman decided to pursue acting and improved his skills in this area by taking individual lessons from Cüneyt Sayıl. Career and Progression in Acting Beginning his acting career in 2014 as "Bedir Kocadağ" in the Star TV series "Gönül İşleri," Yaman rose to prominence in the television industry quite rapidly. Playing the role of "Yalın Aras" in the 2015–2016 FOX TV series "İnadına Aşk" allowed him to reach a large audience. Known for his captivating demeanor and acting prowess, Yaman made his screen debut in 2017 as "Ferit Aslan" in the television series "Dolunay." ElTurco Instagram profile However, it was the series "Erkenci Kuş" that ran from 2018 to 2019 and helped make Yaman a household name in Turkey and abroad. By playing the role of "Can Divit" in this series, he gained widespread recognition. The series was a huge hit in Turkey and elsewhere because of the harmony he and his partner Demet Özdemir were able to build. With this project, Can Yaman received numerous accolades, and his fame extended throughout Europe. Yaman garnered a lot of attention for this endeavor because he starred in the 2020 FOX TV series "Bay Yanlış." He received proposals for television shows and movies from other nations as a result of his growing reputation in Turkey and elsewhere. He appeared as a guest actor in the Italian television series "Che Dio ci Aiuti" in 2021. He starred as "Francesco Demir" in the Italian television series "Viola come il mare" in 2022. Fans in Turkey were also able to follow the project thanks to the series' BluTV broadcast.
