BEYOND CONVENTION

Richard Ditizio spent decades at the summit of global finance, a world where emotion was treated as an anomaly. As CEO of the Milken Institute, he is now challenging the old guard's legacy, positing that vulnerability could be the most powerful tool for solving the crises the world faces

- Karen Vera

Last summer, Richard Ditizio was in Palermo, a city that has been known to exist since the 8th century BC.

It is a place of layered history. “When you stand there, in a city that people have lived in for 3,000 years, it does give you perspective [on] everything that’s going on, that seems so acute in the moment,” he says. “People who lived there have seen it.”

That contemplativeness is still palpable in a Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong function room, where we meet him in March, fresh from the hubbub of the Milken Institute’s Global Investors’ Symposium. Ditizio is the CEO of the Milken Institute, a nonprofit organisation that connects capital with social initiatives, with a focus on practical solutions. Since 2016, for instance, it has partnered with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to bring mid-career professionals from across West Africa to Washington DC. These individuals spend months at the city’s George Washington University mastering the financial tools needed to support projects such as hospitals and power infrastructure back home.