• The federal government's disaster relief program provides loans and grants through two avenues: The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL).
• PPP offers up to $10 million to employers and independent contractors who retain workers during the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 
• Most applications for EIDL are temporarily closed due to high demand, but small businesses can still apply for an emergency advance of up to $10,000 or a bridge loan of up to $25,000.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The federal government's CARES disaster relief program (the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) provides two distinct avenues through which small business owners can access billions in loans and grants: The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL).

In addition to funding $670 billion for PPP to keep employees on company payrolls, CARES allocates another $10 billion to the existing EIDL program, which is meant to relieve businesses during economic disasters. This is the first time in the 60-year history of this loan program that a pandemic has been included as a disaster.

While the two programs have different features and funding limitations, both provide pathways for forgiveness, meaning the loans could turn into grants for companies that either maintain employees or restore payroll when it's safe to return to work.

The following information is based on Business Insider's review of the legislation, guidance from the Small Business Administration and Chamber of Commerce, as well as a leaked FAQ document from Senate Democrats. Here's what you need to know about these two programs.

The Paycheck Protection Program

Loans up to $10 million are available to support small business employers and independent contractors who retain workers during the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Funds may be used for salaries, wages, and tips, as well as benefits like healthcare, retirement, paid time off, and to pay certain taxes. Additional uses include mortgage or rent payments, utilities, and interest on preexisting debt.

Borrowers can apply for forgiveness of up to eight weeks of qualifying expenses off of the principal, which effectively converts the loan into a grant. Changes from the Treasury on Thursday, April 2, said only 25% of nonpayroll expenses would be forgiven, instead of the 100% originally promised.

Who's eligible: Small businesses, non-profits, independent contractors, freelancers/self-employed, and limited types of franchise affiliates that have been in business since January 31, 2020

A small business by SBA standards is generally defined as having 500 or fewer employees. For the first time ever, the CARES Act expands this definition to a sole proprietorship, an independent contractor, tribal business, cooperatives, and ESOPs. If you aren't sure where you fall, read our guide on what it means to be a small business.

Requirements: Actual financing amounts are calculated by taking your previous year's average monthly payroll cost, and multiplying by 2.5. Loans cap at $10 million for a business and $100,000 for a sole proprietor or independent contractor. 75% of funds must be used on payroll, and only 25% of funds used for other purposes will be forgiven.

How to apply:Prepare a PPP application and contact your local bank, credit union, community development finance institution (CDFI), or other SBA-qualified lender.

Expected timeline: Applications opened on April 3, though not all banks and SBA-qualified lenders rolled out their programs right away. The Treasury encourages applicants to move quickly due to the cap on available funding.

Economic Injury Disaster Loans

Most applications for the SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) related to COVID-19 are temporarily on hold, according to the SBA.

"At this time, only agricultural business applications will be accepted due to limitations in funding availability and the unprecedented submission of applications already received," its website reads.

Instead, the SBA is offering either an emergency advance or an express bridge loan, detailed below.

Who's eligible: Small businesses, non-profits, independent contractors, freelancers/self-employed, and limited types of franchise affiliates that have been in business since January 31, 2020

Requirements: Applicants will need to submit their credit score. There are no application fees, nor a prerequisite that you must be unable to receive funding elsewhere. 

How to apply: Fill out the application at covid19relief.sba.gov. It should take roughly 30 to 50 minutes to complete.  

Expected timeline: TBD. These loans are in high demand, so it could take weeks to process your application. 

Immediate EIDL grants up to $10,000

Businesses applying to an EIDL are also eligible to receive an immediate cash advance up to $10,000. These grants are an option within the EIDL and business owners may receive them even if they are not approved for further funding. Grants will be available through December 30, 2020.

The US government leaves the spending of this money up to businesses' discretion, but encourages companies to use it to maintain payroll and train employees. 

Who's eligible: If you are eligible to apply for an EIDL, you are eligible for this grant.

How to apply: Within the EIDL application, there will be a prompt to indicate that you would like to be considered for a cash advance.

Expected timeline: Businesses should expect to receive their grant within three business days after applying for an EIDL. 

Express Bridge Loans

If you already have a relationship with an approved SBA lender, you could access a rapid loan of up to $25,000 ahead of an EIDL.

The maximum terms are 7 years and an interest rate of 6.5% over the prime rate (Currently around 3.25%).

Who's eligible: If you are applying for an EIDL, and you cannot get credit elsewhere, you are eligible for this grant.

How to apply: If you have and established relationship with an approved SBA lender, apply through them.

Expected timeline: Businesses should expect to receive funding within 45 days of submitting an application.

This post will be updated with additional details as they develop.

Kimberly Leonard contributed reporting to this story.

MUST READ: America's small business owners hoped a $349 billion lifeline from Washington would pull them through the pandemic. Here's the inside story of how its launch spectacularly unraveled in 24 hours.

SEE ALSO: 6 steps entrepreneurs need to take right now to make the most of the $349 billion in emergency funds the government is about to start handing out

MUST READ: Small business owners can get either loans or payroll relief from the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill, but not both. Here's how to decide which is better for you.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What makes 'Parasite' so shocking is the twist that happens in a 10-minute sequence

• Scott Galloway, the New York University marketing professor and author, told Business Insider that some colleges and universities in the US might not reopen because of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Most colleges depend on tuition and room and board from semester to semester, Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, wrote in a New York Times op-ed article.
• A growing number of colleges are facing financial hardship, according to research by a Boston-based college-advising company.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and the author of "The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google," spends a lot of time thinking about the future.

For starters, he predicted Amazon's Whole Foods acquisition a month before it happened. He also was one of the first to say WeWork was headed for trouble with its initial public offering.

Now he thinks higher education is about to be shaken up like never before. 

In an interview with Business Insider's Sara Silverstein earlier this month, Galloway said the second-most-disreputable industry after healthcare right now is education. He said that the top institutions could see a "dip" and come back stronger but that many second-tier universities may never reopen.

"You're going to see a lot of universities, whether it's a university like Drexel or Pace or even a Fordham, I think schools like that may never reopen," he said. "We're about to see the disruption in education we've been predicting for decades."

In some ways, the colleges have already seen significant change. The coronavirus pandemic has forced colleges and universities across the nation to go fully remote, taking lectures and labs online through video chats and shared documents. And many students aren't happy. Some, including those at Indiana University, Purdue University, the University of Michigan, George Washington University, Boston University, and Brown University, have sued their colleges, seeking tuition reimbursement.

This might just be the beginning. 

"We in academia have lost the script and see ourselves now as luxury brands as opposed to public servants," he said, citing high costs and rising debt among young people.

"But here's the thing, the jig is up. People are recognizing that a bunch of Zoom classes without the campus experience is not worth $18,000, much less $58,000 or $68,000," he added.

Most colleges and universities depend on tuition and room and board from semester to semester, Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, wrote in a New York Times op-ed article.

"Remaining closed in the fall means losing as much as half of our revenue," she said.

In other words, if many students defer a semester or a year, things could drastically change.

A growing number of colleges are facing serious financial problems, The Boston Globe reported. Before the pandemic, 13 higher-education institutions in New England faced financial peril and were in danger of closing within six years, according to research by Edmit, a Boston-based college-advising company, cited by The Globe. Now that has jumped to 25.

The president of Wells College in Aurora, New York, recently said in a statement to the college community that if the college didn't receive payments for room and board for the fall semester, it would be forced to close.

Inside Higher Ed reported last week that colleges were seeing an uptick in questions about deferment.

Galloway said he expected it to be "a terrible year for the end consumer, as we, as academics, try to maintain this hallucination that we can continue to charge what we're charging for a totally substandard experience via Zoom."

He encouraged students who are about to start their undergraduate program or a business-school program this fall to take a gap year.

SEE ALSO: The coronavirus is changing how big companies contribute to America's safety nets — and that should give business leaders a chance to rethink capitalism

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 15 college students on how COVID-19 derailed their lives

• The $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program launched in early April was meant to bolster struggling small businesses.
• It was aimed at providing businesses with fewer than 500 employees with two-year, low-interest loans to cover salaries, wages, benefits, and certain taxes. The program would provide up to $10 million per company.
• Hundreds of publicly traded companies received funding through the federal government's Paycheck Protection Program. The program ran out of money less than two weeks after it was introduced.
• On April 23, the Treasury Department said publicly traded companies have two weeks to give back federal relief loans intended for small businesses. The deadline was later extended to May 14.
• Here is a list of major companies, from Shake Shack to AutoNation, that have already confirmed they're returning the funds.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

SEE ALSO: The coronavirus outbreak has triggered unprecedented mass layoffs and furloughs. Here are the major companies that have announced they are downsizing their workforces.

Lawmakers demanded that five public companies return Paycheck Protection loans on May 8. Just one, biopharmaceuticals company MiMedx, complied immediately. The other four include: Quantum, EVO Transportation & Energy Services, Gulf Island Fabrication, and Universal Stainless and Alloy Products.

Source: CBS News

Ashford Hospitality Trust, which received one of the largest federal loans, initially stated it planned to keep the $49.5 million. On May 2, the company announced it would return money.

Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence

Axios, a news site, said it would return its $4.8 million loan on April 28.

Source: Axios

The NBA's Los Angeles Lakers received a $4.6 million loan through the Paycheck Protection Program. While not a public company, the organization confirmed that it returned the funds on April 27.

Source: Reuters

IDT Corporation, a telecommunications company based in Newark, said it will return its $10 million loan on April 27.

Source: Washington Post

The popular sandwich chain Potbelly said it would return the $10 million loan it received on April 25.

Source: Chicago Tribune

AutoNation, the largest car dealership chain in the US, received $77 million in forgivable loans by applying for at least $266 million in funds through separate dealerships. It said it would return the funds on April 24.

Source: Business Insider

J. Alexander's Holdings, a company comprised of nearly 50 restaurants, said it is returning its $15.1 million federal loan on April 24. It initially received more than $10 million because it applied through separate restaurants.

Source: Nashville Post

Wave Life Sciences, a public biotechnology company based in Singapore with a strong US presence, announced it would return its $7.2 million federal loan on April 24.

Source: Reuters

OptiNose, a public pharmaceutical company in Yardley, Pennsylvania, told CNBC that it would be returning its $4.4 million loan on April 24.

Source: CNBC

Steakhouse chain Ruth's Chris announced on April 23 that it would repay the two loans totaling $20 million it received under the Paycheck Protection Program.

Source: Business Insider, CNBC

The trendy salad chain Sweetgreen is a private company but is still returning its loan to the federal government — it announced on April 22 that it received and returned $10 million.

Source: Business Insider

The largest conveyor belt sushi chain in the US, Kura Sushi, said it would return its $5.98 million loan on April 22.

Source: Forbes,Business Insider

Shake Shack, the beloved burger chain that had nearly $595 million in revenue last year, announced it would return its $10 million federal loan on April 20. It was the first company to do so after swift backlash.

Source: Business Insider

• Michael Jordan is one of the greatest basketball players of all time, and he's inspired generations of athletes since he retired from the NBA in 2003.
• In the 1990s, Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships, and he was inducted to the NBA Hall of Fame in 2009.
• ESPN created a 10-part documentary series about Jordan and the Bulls during his final season called "The Last Dance" is on ESPN and streaming services like Hulu + Live TV and Youtube TV. 
• Here are 9 inspirational quotes by the NBA icon that will motivate you for any challenge.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SEE ALSO: How to watch 'The Last Dance' — ESPN's highly anticipated documentary miniseries on Michael Jordan and the 1997-1998 Chicago Bulls

DON'T MISS: How ESPN's docuseries 'The Last Dance' got Michael Jordan to open up about his life and career like never before

"Winning has a price and leadership has a price."

In the ESPN series "The Last Dance," Jordan is asked if his intensity gets in the way of being perceived as nice, to which he replied: "I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled, I challenged people when they didn't want to be challenged. I earned that right ... One thing about Michael Jordan is that he never asked anyone to do anything that he didn't do."

"One day you might look up and see me playing the game at 50. Don't laugh. Never say never. Because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion."

Jordan was inducted to the NBA Hall of Fame in 2009. He closed his acceptance speech with this moving quote about pushing through perceived limitations.

Jordan also said, "the game of basketball has meant everything to me. It's my refuge, my peace. It's been the place of the most intense pain and joy that anyone can imagine. I hope that it's given the millions of people who I have touched the motivation to follow their dreams."

"The problems we face didn't happen overnight and they won't be solved tomorrow, but if we all work together, we can foster greater understanding, positive change and create a more peaceful world for ourselves, our children, our families, and our communities."

Amid a surge of violence related to police officers and African-Americans in 2016, Michael Jordan released a statement to the Undefeated, an ESPN website, that included this quote.

In the same statement, he announced the donation of $1 million for the Institute for Community-Police Relations and $1 million for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the oldest civil rights law organization in the US. 

"I had always set short-term goals. As I look back, each one of the steps or successes led to the next one."

Jordan shared this advice in his 1994 book "I Can't Accept Not Trying Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence," which includes the principles he has built his life and career on.

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."

In the same book, Jordan shared this quote that he lives by. By the time the book came out in 1994, Jordan had won three NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls.

"You feel better about the effort when you win."

Jordan told the Associated Press these words were going through his head in 1990 when he scored 69 points in a single game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

"I didn't think about being tired because I wanted to win the game," Jordan told the Associated Press.

"I've been in that situation where I've scored a lot of points and we lost, and I didn't want that to happen.

"So I kept pushing myself, kept talking to myself, saying, 'Don't stop, don't stop. Keep going.' You feel better about the effort when you win."

"Failure is acceptable, but not trying is a whole different ballpark."

In an autobiography called "For the Love of the Game: My Story," Jordan shared this quote. The book, which came out in 1998, details Jordan's career as an athlete and as a businessman. 

"I built my talents on the shoulders of someone else's talent. I believe greatness is an evolutionary process that changes and evolves era to era."

In the same book, Jordan said, "there is no such thing as a perfect basketball player, and I don't believe there is only one greatest player either. Everyone plays in different eras. I built my talents on the shoulders of someone else's talent. I believe greatness is an evolutionary process that changes and evolves era to era. Without Julius Erving, David Thompson, Walter Davis, and Elgin Baylor there would never have been a Michael Jordan. I evolved from them."

"The only way to relieve that pressure is to build your fundamentals, practice them over and over, so when the game breaks down, you can handle anything that transpires."

Jordan shared this insight in an ESPN interview about how to handle pressure. 

"People didn't believe me when I told them I practiced harder than I played, but it was true," Jordan told ESPN. 

"That's where my comfort zone was created. By the time the game came, all I had to do was react to what my body was already accustomed to doing."

• Americans don't think their jobs will return to normal after the pandemic. 
• A study from the business advisory firm, Brunswick found that 47% of employees believe their workplace will not return to normal operations. 
• Employees can expect to see fewer colleagues in-office and changes to the physical workplace. For example, some companies plan to ditch the reception desk for mudrooms, a space for hanging up your coat, washing your hands, and changing your shoes.
• Here are four ways the office could change once you return to work. 
• Click here for more BI Prime content.

Employees believe the coronavirus pandemic will change their work-life forever.

A recent study of more than 1,000 US workers from the business advisory firm Brunswick found at least 47% of remote workers believe their workplaces will not operate the same way in a post-pandemic world. The report shows that 87% of those not going into work are concerned about another wave of office closures in the future. 

The coronavirus has fundamentally changed how Americans work and experts are now reimagining workplaces with a host of new safety measures.

For example, before a vaccine for coronavirus is available, it's likely that employees will see fewer workers in the office, which will help prevent the spread of the virus. Employees can also expect changes to the office floor plan. This includes the addition of an "officle," a door-less space that's a mix between an office and a cubicle, Business Insider previously reported.

With some states in the US already reopening and others scheduled to ease restrictions on stay-at-home orders in the coming weeks, it's important to prepare yourself for how the workplace will change.

Here are four ways you will see the office change once you return to work, based on advice from CEOs and architects. 

There will be fewer people in the office

It's likely that most employers won't have everyone return to the office at once. A dense space or large social gatherings can increase the transmission of the disease among coworkers.

Because of this, it's likely that there will be few employees working in the office. Some employees may work from home indefinitely. Managers may also consider staggering work schedules throughout the day, or even alternating days or weeks in the office.

Without a vaccine, you can expect a gradual reentry to the workplace. For example, over the next 12-18 months, there may be a cycle of lockdown and relaxation, with periods of 100% remote work, Business Insider previously reported.

You will have to wear a mask at work

Most states are ordering people to wear a mask in public. It's likely that these measures will include the workplace as well. Some workplaces will use one-way hallways to prevent close contact. Landlords or companies may also screen for fevers and other symptoms at the entrance to an office.

While undergoing these changes, Primo Orpilla, a cofounder and principal of Studio O+A, said workplaces must also prioritize making people feel comfortable.

"How do we tell our people that we're making them safe," Orpilla told Business Insider. "But not make it feel like you're going through immigration at San Francisco International Airport?" 

No more checking in at the reception desk 

Instead of using a receptionist desk for checking in, it's likely that employees will use a mudroom, or more of a home foyer where you take off your coat and wash your hands. 

Also, some companies may forgo self-serving coffee machines, according to the architecture solutions firm Gensler. If the budget allows for this, you may see baristas serving up your favorite coffees in house, according to a sample floor plan from Gensler. Hiring a barista can potentially limit the spread of germs among colleagues, Business Insider reported. 

You might be quizzed on new office protocols 

When employees go back to work, you will also likely see an increase in communication from managers about the changes coming to a post-pandemic workplace. With these changes on the horizon, you will want to stay in the loop. 

For example, the CEO of financial services company Discover, Roger Hochschild, has been sending employees daily emails to update them on the changes the company is making.

When it comes to following social distancing protocols, HR may quiz you on how well you can adhere to the rules. Some companies are even creating courses on new protocols, which employees will need to pass before operations resume. 

SEE ALSO: What to expect when you're back in the office: 7 real-estate experts break down what the transition will look like, and why the workplace may never be the same

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• The US has granted a total of $670 billion in loan relief to small businesses struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. 
• While the first round of funding ran out in just 12 days, this investment could last for the next 10 weeks.
• The funding is lasting longer because many large firms already received relief in the first round.
• Additionally, the SBA stopped allowing banks to use an automated process to upload applications in bulk because the volume was overwhelming its technology. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Despite a rocky start, the federal small business loan program meant to save Main Street from drowning during the pandemic still has funds to allocate to business owners across the country.

When the US allocated the first round of $350 billion, chaos ensued. Last minute changes from the Treasury left banks confused and created a haphazard system that denied many founders relief while allowing publicly traded companies to access funds through a loophole in the application. 

Now, the federal Small Business Administration has a chance to learn from its mistakes with a second round of nearly $320 billion in additional aid that launched on April 20.

Initial stats indicate the SBA has slowed the amount of loans allocated to businesses in the second go-around. Approving $12 billion the first full week of May, about 40% of the initial amount remains to be claimed. If that rate remains the same, PPP funds could last another 10 weeks, compared to the 12 days it took the initial $350 billion investment to run dry.

Here are three lessons the SBA may have learned that's keeping them from running out of funds as quickly (and problematically): 

1. The largest firms already got their loans.

During the initial rollout of the PPP loans, banks favored working with businesses they had a prior relationships with — typically large firms that can afford personal, on-demand service to troubleshoot issues.

Small businesses, however, got stuck with dealing with the confusing, archaic loan system with little help from banks, Business Insider previously reported.

Big companies ended up getting access to more of the first $320 billion funding faster than mom-and-pops, which is why the money dried up so quickly.

With fewer large companies in need of funding this time around, the second investment could be lasting longer due to less-hefty loans being granted to smaller companies.

2. New technology rules from the SBA limit how many applications banks can push through at a time.

The SBA's loan processing tool, called E-Tran, was not designed to handle the massive influx of applications that came in for PPP, which resulted in initial crashes and delays.

E-Tran normally processes $20 billion in loans from fewer than 1,800 lenders each year. When PPP is over, the outdated technology will have doled out more than $1 trillion in loans from over 5,400 lenders in just a few months. 

To process the tidal wave of demand, banks used algorithms to automate loan requests, which flooded the E-Tran systems with thousands of applications. The deluge of applications caused the E-Tran system to time out and then crash entirely.

On April 29, the SBA told banks it would no longer accept loan applications submitted using these automated processes in hope of reducing site crashes.

3. Many business owners are still reluctant to take on new debt without clarity on how to pay it back. 

The rate at which small businesses have requested loans has slowed compared to the initial PPP investment, according to Business Insider Intelligence.

The PPP provides up to $10 million to help firms pay employee salaries, taxes, rent, and more, and the law states banks can forgive the debt as long as companies use the money to pay workers within eight weeks.

But some small business founders remain uncertain about how to qualify for forgiveness, and the SBA and Treasury Department have yet to release formal guidance on forgiveness aside from a Frequently Asked Questions document.  

The lack of clarity around PPP may account for the lag in requests as mom and pops weigh their options instead of jumping on a potentially risky loan.

SEE ALSO: The best sources of emergency funding for small businesses available right now if you missed out on federal loans

SEE ALSO: Bank robots have been fighting a secret war with outdated government tech to decide who gets $670 billion in small business bailouts. Here's the inside story.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths

• With thousands of white-collar employees having adapted to working from home due to coronavirus-driven shutdowns, many have posited that the office environment may not have a place in the future.
• And some have said the open office — a densified floor plan characterized by work stations cut out of large, open spaces — is dead, as employers are forced to prioritize physical distancing when offices eventually reopen and welcome returning workers.
• But some experts say both the office and the popular open floor plan will still have a place in the post-coronavirus future.
• "The seas and seas" of single desks will give way to a greater focus on group work areas as experts suggest that the future of the office could be for collaboration, with individual tasks delegated to the home office.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When people eventually go back to the office, it won't be the same as before the COVID-19 pandemic toppled global operations.

You might be a part of an office cohort with a few handfuls of your coworkers. In case of a confirmed case, it would make tracing points of contact and containing an outbreak much easier. You may only go into the office on days when you have group work, with individual tasks completed at home. Hallways may be one-directional.

Experts say that businesses are focusing on how to optimize existing office space for physical distancing. For many companies in Silicon Valley, that means taking offices arranged in the ubiquitous open floor plan and adapting it.

The open workplace environment, if done correctly, was built to support different types of work: single workstations, one-person cubbies for individual work, seating areas for collaboration, and so forth, Studio O+A cofounder and principal Primo Orpilla told Business Insider. But moving forward, there may be less of a focus on spaces designated for heads-down individual tasks as experts rethink how to use the office.

That doesn't mean the open office setup is dead, San Francisco Bay Area design firms told Business Insider. Instead, the densified arrangement will simply adapt to a new era where physical space is crucial in preventing an infectious disease from transmitting.

Here's how the open office could evolve as people start going back to work.

The open office floor plan became the de facto workplace setup in Silicon Valley during the first dot-com boom.

Over the past 20 years, the floor plan has become a popular workplace structure in the region and beyond.

It's the antithesis of the private office and cubicle-driven workplace of old, with communal tables and open work stations filling large, open spaces.

The idea was to foster collaboration among officemates by removing visual barriers between them, a feat that some studies have proven to actually have the opposite effect.

A 1997 study performed by psychologists at the University of Calgary followed how workers adapted from a traditional office setup to an open floor plan. They found that productivity dropped, and coworkers felt more detached from one another. And a 2018 study conducted by Harvard Business School researchers found that the open office plan reduced face-to-face interactions among employees by about 70%.

One reason could be that walls provide privacy, which in turn can boost performance. Having barriers around a workstation can also give you a sense of control over your job and the workday.

Still, the open office persisted as the popular design of choice — about 70% of all offices had an open floor plan by 2014, as The New Yorker reported.

The open floor plan allows for "agile work," where people can work and move freely around the facility, Orpilla told Business Insider.

Open office design is conducive to the fast headcount growth culture of the Valley — designating private offices for each individual worker takes up too much real estate.

The open floor plan has also long fostered the idea of a flat hierarchy, another cultural tenet of the tech region, where even the CEO is sometimes out on the floor with workers. We've been rebelling against status-based architecture for a while now, Melissa Hanley, the CEO of Blitz — the firm behind Bay Area designs for Skype, Zendesk, and Microsoft — told Business Insider.

That has only been magnified by the pandemic and the need for videoconferencing to stay connected with remote work — there's no corner office in Zoom, Randy Howder, Gensler managing director and principal, told Business Insider. The firm is behind Facebook's massive Menlo Park headquarters.

But there were also economic benefits of taking a densified approach to workstations in the office.

"Density has been a strategy for firms for a long time, to make the best use of space," Hanley said. "That is a premium, and that means open office. You can't have private offices; it just doesn't work."

But dense office environments could pose a problem during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic when putting distance among workers is crucial to prevent transmission of the infectious COVID-19 disease.

Eventually, employees that have been sheltering in place will begin to go back to work. And how offices will adapt to this new era of the workplace has spurred conversation about how the open office will factor in, with many positing that it won't have a place in the post-coronavirus world.

But the design firms we spoke to say that's not the case.

The open office has a place moving forward — we definitely won't see a return to traditional office setups, with individual offices and closed doors. That gets too expensive, Greg Mottola, a principal at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, told Business Insider.

There may, however, be fewer individually assigned seats, Howder said. What also may change is seeing a more group-focused approach to the open office versus the "seas and seas of open work stations," David Galullo, the CEO of Rapt Studio, told Business Insider. Rapt developed designs for the likes of Dropbox, Google, and LinkedIn.

And Orpilla said if the designs were carried out correctly, the open office is already perfectly poised to accommodate that transition.

"When you look at an open plan and you go to a lot of offices that are very well-planned, it's only about 20 to 30% at the benching system," Orpilla said, referring to the desk benching that's typical with open offices.

The rest of the space should be designated for gathering areas and other spaces. It's not built simply for sitting in your six-by-six office cube all day long, Orpilla said.

"Some of the most current offices that we've designed are so good at allowing you to social distance and keep good barriers from you and other people," Orpilla said. "The open plan is really about choice and choosing where you need to do that certain type of work."

Orpilla said the companies that will suffer are the ones that used the open office incorrectly and over-densified without having installed enough diverse work areas. They'll have to be more creative with how they adapt, especially for companies in older cities like San Francisco. Some office buildings in the West Coast city date back decades to the 1930s, and adapting them to accommodate social distancing measures is tricky, Orpilla said.

Workers want to feel safe in the office, and ensuring that people have enough space between them and their officemates is crucial to establishing a sustainable reopening plan.

For that reason, more space may be exactly what companies will need, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt said on a "Face the Nation" program Sunday. That could also mean a rise in demand for office space, according to Schmidt.

But that could be largely out of budget for many companies.

"The fundamentals of real-estate economics — we don't suddenly have the cash to buy three times more space," Hanley said. "So if we're going to engage in social distancing, we have to think about it in a different way."

A solution will likely be lowering density in the office by incorporating remote work into the office real estate portfolio, Hanley said. Many will likely still be working from home.

For tech clients, that will prove to be a simple feat.

Working remotely is already a deeply ingrained order of business in the tech industry, where productivity and results have long been valued over mere office attendance, Mottola said.

"A lot of times, people are not at their desk in this global world," Carrie Byles, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, told Business Insider.

"Everything's in the cloud for them," Orpilla said of tech workers. It's not as much of a priority for them to be in the office as it is for workers in other industries, such as the more traditional finance sector.

Much like the open office, the workplace itself will see a shift in design moving forward.

Design firms say employers may have to implement one-way hallways or flows of traffic to minimize how people come into contact with one another, which could be a difficult hurdle to leap through for open offices. For workstations that do remain, they'll have to be staggered. You won't have a desk buddy right next to you. Signage will be posted reminding people of the best hygiene and social distancing practices. Hand sanitizer stations will be set up at various points throughout the office. There may be single-occupancy bathrooms, and the workday may be shorter to allow cleaning rooms ample time to conduct the kind of rigorous wipe-down needed.

Some are suggesting that the office environment itself is dead, a reality that experts say also isn't the case.

"The importance of bringing together people of different backgrounds is largely unplanned conversations, and spontaneous innovation is what drives our economy," Byles said.

There should be space allocated for serendipity in the workplace. And besides that, many look to the office for a sense of belonging, Galullo said.

"They want to feel like they're not alone and that they're working towards something with a group of people," Galullo said. "The workplace has always been a great vehicle for that."

• If you're a college student or recent grad looking for tools to aid you in your job search, consider looking into new career websites and apps. 
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently commissioned a report from education innovation company Entangled Solutions that highlights several apps for getting young people hired. 
• These apps include Pathrise, an online program for tech job seekers that provides one-on-one mentorship, and Tallo, a social networking site where students and recent grads make a profile showcasing their work and match with recruiters. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Looking for an internship or job isn't easy. 

This is especially true in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, where a number of opportunities, mostly internships, but jobs, too, have been cancelled or postponed. If you're a student or recent grad looking for new ways to connect with employers, consider expanding your search to new career apps and websites geared toward matching recent grads with employers. 

Recently, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned a report by education innovation company Entangled Solutions on technology in education and career development. While the report listed dozens of apps transforming education, Business Insider picked several that corporate recruiters are using to connect with college students looking for internships or jobs. 

"The emerging landscape of career navigation products features products with a range of different functions, from helping students learn about the career landscape and discover pathways that align with their interests, to helping them demonstrate necessary skills and land jobs," the report reads.

Here are nine free apps students and early-career professionals can use to land a new opportunity. 

SEE ALSO: 61 cognitive biases that screw up everything we do

Handshake

Handshake is an app that lets students see relevant jobs based on your major, interests, and skills. You can also easily apply to jobs or chat with recruiters.

Bonsai

Bonsai, previously called butterflyone, connects individuals seeking career advice like students with professionals doing relevant work via 1:1 video chats. 

Pathrise

Pathrise is an online program for tech professionals that provides 1-on-1 mentorship and training to help users land their next job.

Parker Dewey

Parker Dewey matches students or early-career professionals with paid micro-internships, or short-term, assignment-based internships at a variety of companies. If you exceed expectations, it could lead to a full-time role with the employer.

The Whether

The Whether is a mentorship network designed to help recruiters find and hire diverse college students and recent grads. Users can talk with professionals at companies they're interested in and discover job and internship opportunities. 

Skillist

Skillist is a job application platform that connects job seekers with employers based on the skills the job seeker has. 

Tripebyte

Tripebyte is a job application platform focused on software development and data science roles where users complete a quiz to get accepted. 

Tallo

Tallo is a social networking site where students and recent grads make a profile showcasing their work and extracurricular activities to match with scholarships, college admissions professionals, internships, apprenticeships, and jobs.

KnackApp

KnackApp is a gaming app where users play games that show their abilities in skills like creative problem solving and decision making. Depending on your scores, recruiters can reach out to you for various positions.

• Customer complaints can spur valuable insight into your business.
• Cal Henderson, Slack's cofounder and CTO, spoke with Business Insider's Drake Baer on the podcast "Starting Up," an interview show inviting founders who've launched successful companies to talk about their journeys.
• Henderson said managers should use Twitter as a feedback mechanism for collecting and responding to customer complaints. According to Henderson, customer complaints are an opportunity to improve your business.
• Click here for more BI Prime content.

Twitter is not just a place for customers to complain about your product — it can also be useful in helping companies learn more about themselves.

That's according to Cal Henderson, Slack's cofounder and CTO, who spoke with Business Insider's Drake Baer on a recent episode of the podcast "Starting Up." Instead, look at the microblogging site as a good way to find and fix your startup's blind spots.

"That's a huge kind of free feedback mechanism to understand the challenges that your customers are having," Henderson said. "How they think about your product, you know, in areas in which you could improve."

Slack, the popular communication platform, largely relies on Twitter as a tool for navigating customer feedback. In the software development world, Henderson said Twitter is a "hidden gem." The site is currently Slack's go-to tool for real-time feedback.

"Twitter is a huge tool for being able to understand customer pain and getting customer feedback," Henderson said. "In the age of Twitter, if you're annoyed with a product for some slight reason, you just get Twitter and tell them about it."

Experts have long touted customer complaints as an opportunity to build a stronger business.

Business Insider previously reported that Hertz was the first rental car company to use Twitter t0 address customer concerns. The former CEO of the customer-service platform Conversocial, which at one time worked with Hertz, told Business Insider that ignoring complaints can potentially damage an organization's reputation.

Research shows complaints can bring positive outcomes. Ira Kalb, a clinical marketing professor at the USC Marshall School of Business, previously wrote in Business Insider that complaints are not actually a bad thing because it can improve your business.

"Customers act in their own self-interest, and they are in a unique position to tell your company the unvarnished truth," Kalb wrote. "That's something your employees are unlikely to do because it might reflect negatively on their performance or they may fear that you might 'kill the messenger' rather than listen to the message."

Most companies, however, do not respond to these issues. Nearly 79% of consumers who share complaints of poor customer service are ignored, according to the cloud software firm Oracle. Therefore, if you respond positively, it can set your business apart, and make your team more efficient. Last year, the State of Customer Service report found 85.36 % of businesses who used a help desk to manage customer questions and issues were more productive. 

Henderson agrees. By tapping into Twitter's large audience, Slack can gain useful customer insight. 

"It's an incredibly powerful channel for people's feedback in a way that doesn't have to be super extreme for them to reach that threshold of wanting to tell you about it," Henderson said.

Hashing out these issues early on makes a happy customer, and keeps innovation top of mind, too.

"You're not just building a faster horse," he said. "You're solving the problem in some unique way." 

SEE ALSO: Business Insider presents: Starting Up with Slack cofounder and CTO Cal Henderson

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why thoroughbred horse semen is the world's most expensive liquid

• If you want to bet on America and the country's ability to prevail, start a business. 
• As we saw during the Great Recession when startups like Uber, Airbnb, and Pinterest emerged, many powerful companies were formed during lean times.
• Some industries are better positioned for recovery and growth than others, so Business Insider compiled a list of the businesses we expect to grow, based on expert analysis, interviews with industry leaders, and our previous reporting. 
• Click here for more BI Prime content.

During Berkshire Hathaway's virtual annual meeting on May 2 Warren Buffet touted America's resilience to wars, economic crises, and tragedies. The coronavirus pandemic is another defining moment of US history, and experts including Buffet say there's hope for our country's entrepreneurs.

"We haven't really faced anything that quite resembles this problem," Buffet said. "But we faced tougher problems and the American miracle, the American magic has always prevailed, and it will do so again."  

The coronavirus pandemic will undoubtedly change the landscape of every industry — it has already disrupted or accelerated many. For entrepreneurs, this time will determine whether they become an economic statistic or a trailblazer of change. 

Buffet said we have a long way to go, but we should never bet against America. "Bet on America," he said. "That's what's really gotten me through ever since I bought my first stock when I was 11." 

Starting a business in the depths of a recession has proven success — Airbnb, Venmo, Pinterest, Uber, and WhatsApp were just a few of the startups formed during the Great Recession. "In 12 to 24 months, it will be the best time to start a business," New York University Stern School of Business professor Scott Galloway told Business Insider's Sarah Silverstein.

Joleen Hughes, who founded her Seattle-based media law firm during the last recession, told Business Insider that "there are business models that need disrupting because they're completely out of date, and this is demonstrating that."

In addition to running her law firm, Hughes also hosts a podcast in which she talks to a wide range of entrepreneurs.

"There's just no better time to really get your idea out there and have it take the world by storm," she said, highlighting trends she's starting to see in content creation and distribution, health and technology, and personal concierge services.

A recent survey by Lending Tree showed that half of Americans want more local businesses like restaurants, coffee shops, and grocery stores in their communities. People continue to need goods and services, and while high profits may be some years away, there's plenty of opportunity to run a resilient business that adds value to the community.

Business Insider has covered companies big and small as they've navigated shutdowns, government loans, employee safety, and preparing to reopen. We've talked to experts and leaders across industries, and through these conversations and analyses, we've determined an unranked list of businesses that we expect will shape our economic recovery. The key to starting a business, and maintaining one, within these industries will be adaptability and innovation. 

If you want to bet on America like Buffet, start a business.

HOW TO START A BUSINESS: The ultimate guides for founders on launching a company, raising money, and becoming wildly successful in 2020

THE ENTREPRENEUR'S TOOL KIT: The best apps, services, and documents all first-time founders need to start a business

SEE ALSO: 8 things you should know before starting a small business

Coffee shops

More than half of American adults drink coffee every day, Adriot Market Research found in 2019. That adds up to a total of 400 million cups of bean juice daily — more than any other country in the world.

The pandemic won't likely change people's consumption habits, but it may change where and how they buy coffee. As people leave cities with a relatively high density of coffee shops to settle in smaller towns, they'll still want their caffeine fix.

A recent study by LendingTree found that one in four Americans want more coffee shops in their local communities. And the Harris Poll found that 39% of city dwellers said they are considering moving to a less densely populated place because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The country is large, and consumer demand is strong for a well-crafted espresso drink and a place to work outside the home.

Fitness equipment, and subscriptions

Getting physical exercise is especially challenging in quarantine, when options are limited to in-home workouts or outdoor running — which often involves wearing a mask and dodging other people.

Even two years before the pandemic, a leading trade group for gyms called the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) has been recommending fitness businesses begin offering virtual training sessions.

Popular fitness startup Cubii tells Business Insider that sales of its compact ellipticals have been booming since people started sheltering in place. And Crunchbase reported that some gyms, including spin studio Flywheel, are chasing this shifting consumer behavior by offering rentals of their equipment to customers for in-home use.

Peloton, which sells a high-end stationary bike and virtual classes, has seen sales surge during the pandemic. The company reported a 66% increase in sales last quarter with over 866,100 connected fitness subscribers in total. And data from Yelp show a 424% increase in consumer interest in fitness and exercise equipment. 

Businesses that offer products or services to improve the at-home workout experience could see an uptick in sales as people lean away from exercising in public. Those who can provide a premium virtual experience will have an edge over chains and big gyms.

Contactless food ordering and grocery delivery

As we've seen during the pandemic, people are supporting their favorite restaurants from a distance, with Yelp data showing a 350% increase in takeout and delivery relative to reservations to dine-in.

The demand for quick meals, gourmet dinners, and farm-to-table will bolster the restaurants that are able to adapt. Delivery apps and business services that connect the kitchen to the customer are key to this shift to at-home dining. One startup even figured out a way to bring the kitchen closer to you.

Nick Green, the CEO and cofounder of grocery delivery service Thrive Market, told Business Insider that it's evident coronavirus has accelerated the adoption of online grocery shopping.

"In February, 5% of Americans bought groceries online; in March, 35% did. Even if half those people go back, we're likely to see a 4x increase in online grocery shopping in the 'new normal,'" he said.

Concierge personal services

If any business category has been the center of attention during the debate over reopening businesses, it's hair and nail salons. Beauty services will most certainly look very different going forward, and Yelp data found that sales at cosmetic stores were up nearly three-fold while people seek beauty regimens they can implement at home. 

Entrepreneur and lawyer Joleen Hughes says that could open an opportunity for in-home services and concierge businesses at a more negotiable price point.

"Maybe would have been a nail technician or have worked in a salon, and be part of an in-house service," she said. "Maybe that opens up a whole other door to a different type of experience."

Auto mechanics

New car sales are down. Way down. April sales fell 54% for Toyota, 47% for Subaru and 39% for Hyundai, according to Bloomberg. That means people will need to make their current cars last longer, and that will call for skilled service and repair technicians to keep the wheels turning.

Kristin Decas, the director and CEO of a California seaport told Bloomberg that companies don't expect car sales to pick up anytime soon, causing logistics companies in the industry to cut staff by about 80%.

With a relatively low Occupational Proximity Index score, auto repair businesses should be able to take simple public health measures to protect workers and customers.

Online retail

We were already experiencing the death of brick and mortar retail stores, but the pandemic is accelerating its decline. In turn, ecommerce will be tantamount to the malls and outlets of decades passed.

A Shopify report projects ecommerce to nearly double by 2023 to more than $6.5 billion, though it's still a small chunk of global retail sales. And last holiday season, the popularity of "buy online, pick-up in-store" was a difference-maker for many small businesses to reach customers. The increase of curbside pickup options during the pandemic could reinforce that trend.

Additionally, Manish Chandra, the CEO of popular shopping app Poshmark told Business Insider that retail will be transformed as consumers continue to turn to platforms that prioritize financial and environmental sustainability.

"The intergenerational movement that resale has ignited is fueling the acceleration of social commerce at scale, delivering on consumers' need for connections and a newly awakened sense of community," he said.

Telehealth services

Even before the pandemic, telehealth services were becoming more common, particularly for seniors, as states began expanding Medicaid coverage for millions of patients. 

Now, necessity is finally opening up new opportunities in telemedicine for doctors, physical therapists, dentists, mental health, and pharmacist consultations. And doctors expect pent-up demand to come roaring back after the pandemic. Meanwhile, shuttered stores originally positioned for retail may be repurposed into medical office spaces.

Ara Katz, cofounder and co-CEO of microbiome company Seed, told Business Insider that investors will be well-positioned to take on health and science industries. 

"This pandemic has revealed the underinvestment in and deprioritization of science, as well as the critical importance of its communication," she said. 

New York University professor Scott Galloway told Business Insider that healthcare and education are poised for a great dispersion.

"I think figuring out a way to get in the midst of what will be the largest transition of revenues from one channel, a campus, or a hospital, doctors-based business, which is literally multi-trillions of dollars go through those channels, to digital," he said. "I'd want to be right in front of that switch."

Wedding and event planning

After months of canceled weddings and events, demand for hosting and planning social gatherings will eventually return. Budgets and guest lists might shrink, but people will look for new ways to host their birthdays, graduations, and weddings once it's safe to gather again. 

Wedding website The Knot reported 96% of couples would rather postpone their weddings than cancel, with about half of 2020 weddings moved to July through October.

Sarah Chancey, the founder of national wedding-planning brand Chancey Charm, told Business Insider that postponed weddings will lead to the busiest fall her company has ever seen. Her planners continue to plan and consult brides through their online portal and virtual design studio, an advantage they already had in place before the pandemic hit. 

Based on research in Germany, author and speaker Julius Solaris expects events in the new normal will continue, but they'll be focused on small gatherings in multiple locations, rather than large, central gatherings. Technology and social media will play a key role in connecting people at scale.

Education technology and tutoring services

Education has a major disruption on its hands and legacy companies and universities will either delay the inevitable or quickly pivot to meet the needs of remote learning. New edtech companies will set themselves apart by easing access to online degrees and certifications, homeschooling resources, and virtual tutoring. 

A survey by Deloitte found that 75% of teachers believe digital learning will replace printed textbooks by 2026, and a NewSchools-Gallup survey of the PreK-12 public school system found that 65% of teachers are using digital learning tools to teach every day, and 87% are using it at least a few days per week.

• Consulting giant PwC is conducting all of its college internships virtually this summer due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• MBA interns may go into the office, depending on the state of the country this summer.
• College interns will complete a series of upskilling courses, learn about the company's culture, and network with senior leaders on video calls.
• The professional services firm is currently virtually recruiting more interns for the next year.
• PwC's Ron Adams, head of US talent acquisition, said internship candidates should showcase their digital skills in their resume, and make sure they're on sites such as LinkedIn.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Like millions of businesses around the world, consulting giant PwC has had to adapt its recruitment, hiring, and internship strategies during the coronavirus pandemic.

"It feels like we've been doing a lot differently these days," Rod Adams, US talent acquisition leader at PwC, recently told Business Insider.

For starters, the professional services firm will be offering most of its 3,500 undergraduate and MBA student interns remote internships in July or later due to the coronavirus pandemic. Normally, internships begin earlier in the summer. 

About 200 of this year's virtual interns are business school students who follow a different internship curriculum than the rest of the students, Adams said. Some MBA interns may be able to go into the office, but only if the country reopens by the July start day, he added.

PwC going fully remote for its internship program is a big deal for the firm, since the program serves as a major pipeline for entry-level positions. In the industry, however, it's certainly not the only one pivoting. All summer internships offered at EY, Accenture, and KPMG, for example, will be virtual.

A growing list of top consultancies have revamped their internship and full-time positions in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Boston Consulting Group has given students the option to work at a nonprofit organization but still receive full pay. BCG, alongside KPMG and PwC, have extended full-time offers to this year's internship class. They will start work right after graduation. 

Here's how PwC is rethinking recruitment amid the coronavirus pandemic, and how undergraduate and business school students can land a coveted spot next year.

An abbreviated virtual internship program

The undergraduate internship will be two weeks long, and the MBA internship will be four weeks long, which is shorter than normal. Students will receive a $2,500 to $3,500 stipend as total compensation, a decrease from previous years, a spokeswoman said.

The firm normally uses the program to test an intern's ability to handle client work. This year, though, internships will focus on introducing them to the company's culture, and to upskilling them. Those who have already accepted offers to join the firm's 2020 entry-level class will still have their jobs, and the firm will also extend full-time offers to this summer's undergraduate interns for 2021.

"We've been on a digital upskilling journey at our firm for three years now in things like data management, data visualization, process automation, storytelling, and design thinking. We're going to leverage some of our tools that we've used to upskill our own people to provide to our interns through virtual means," Adams said. Interns will get online badges to show they've completed the trainings.

A focus on virtual recruiting

The firm has also expanded its virtual recruiting process. 

Adams and Michael Fenlon, the firm's chief people officer, both mentioned that PwC made a $3 billion investment in digital upskilling in 2019 — and a good chunk of that money helped PwC switch to virtual recruitment before the pandemic hit.

"We were pretty well suited to make this adjustment to recruit virtually," Adams told Business Insider. "But still, it's been a pretty abrupt adjustment, especially when it comes to connecting with candidates."

One year ago, the consultancy switched to all-virtual interviews for entry-level positions, meaning a person starting at an entry-level job would have never met with anyone in person until their first day. While there was initially some hesitance and push back around this, it's proved invaluable for the firm now, Adams said.

"What we've seen is we're just able to reduce time — time that our professionals spend in the process, as well as the time it takes us to respond to candidates to go from an application to an offer," he said.

 Virtual interviewing, he said, is about to become a lot more common.

"I would be surprised if recruiters go back to more face-to-face approaches once all of this settles," Adams added.

The firm's campus recruiting schedule remains the same

The professional services firm is currently recruiting both interns and full-time employees for the next year, and their recruitment timeline has not changed. 

Before the pandemic, the firm had more than 500 in-person events job fairs and school visits planned. Now, they've either been canceled or turned into virtual events, where a recruiter video chats with a group of students and takes questions. This could help diversity and inclusion efforts, he said, as the firm reaches more campuses.  

Hiring managers spent last fall interviewing prospective 2020 interns, and they've since switched the intern recruitment for 2021 to this spring. Nevertheless, Adams explained that the firm will still aim to recruit 12 t0 18 months ahead of time, and that PwC is most actively looking for talent in the fall. Even during a health crisis, the consultancy is following the school calendar year and organizing webinars and career workshops with colleges and universities, Adams said. 

PwC already planned interviews through March and April, and the professional services firm was able to avoid recruitment hiccups because they had already planned for virtual processes, the recruitment head explained. Additionally, Adams also noted the virtual evaluation of a candidate's fit shouldn't be any different from how they'd usually approach it in person.

Undergraduate and MBA interns have different curriculums

Undergraduate students will definitely have two-week long virtual internships, and their experience is centered around learning digital skills, analyzing case studies, and networking with partners at consultants at the firm. 

Business school students, on the other hand, might get to experience an in-office internship, but that solely depends on the health climate and how the country will reopen in July or later, Adams added. 

"[MBA] interns will be learning and upskilling individually, and it's more self-directed," he said. "But there might also be opportunities for them to work with teams. We envision all internships to be a mix of things so that they're not sitting in front of their computers and doing the same thing all day." 

Recruiters are looking for a strong business acumen and tech skills 

During an interview, recruiters might ask that you give an example where you led a team and had to make a tough decision, or how you managed a challenging work relationship, he added. 

"We want to understand actual experiences you've had," the recruitment head said. "Give me examples that show who you are and how you deal with challenges." 

An understanding of digital and remote work tools is especially important given the current climate. Adams explained that PwC has become increasingly tech-focused. Candidates should mention digital skills in their resume and cover letter. 

"The way that we work now is very different from how we worked five years ago," Adams said. "It was already very different prior to the pandemic. Showing that you have a flexible mindset is really important to us as a firm." 

Having an online presence is also crucial, especially during a time where nearly all recruiting is being done online, the executive said. Make sure your information is current online, he added, and if a recruiter reaches out to you, make sure you reply promptly.  

"I would encourage them to really embrace all the different means out there to engage with employers out there," he said. 

SEE ALSO: Jobs for thousands of young consultants are being upended. From delaying start dates to cutting internships, here's what 8 top firms, like Deloitte and McKinsey, are doing.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• The financial services is industry is poised for a permanent upheaval as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to CTBC Bank's US CEO Noor Menai. 
• "We're all fintech firms now," he told Business Insider. "It's a profound change, but it turns out it wasn't that hard. It just took an emergency … to focus the mind."
• For a company like CTBC Bank that operates more like a community lender in the US, the pivot to digital means more than just creating new applications. 
• The firm is weighing an increased budget to hire top talent from corporations like Amazon to help market the new products to customers, according to Menai. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

The coronavirus pandemic upended nearly every US company and it remains to be seen what industries will be able to return to business as usual once the outbreak subsides.

But one sector that is poised for a permanent disruption is financial services, according to CTBC Bank's US CEO Noor Menai.

"We're all fintech firms now," he told Business Insider. "It's a profound change, but it turns out it wasn't that hard. It just took an emergency … to focus the mind."

Unlike traditional banks that still rely on brick-and-mortar locations, fintech startups like NuBank, Revolution, and Chime have used mobile-first strategies to attract millions of customers.

While industry behemoths like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup employ many of the same digital tools, the legacy aspect of its business remain a key investment area.

But as the coronavirus leads to rapid changes in consumer behaviors — namely a reduction of in-person interactions— Menai argued that old-school financial institutions will no longer look at "fintech as something curious, something that other people were doing."

Now, "we're all seeing those models around convenience and delivery and doing things not necessarily involving humans is not just doable, but desirable," he said.

And the pivot to the digital world will have even more ramifications for the smaller banks.

While Taiwan-based CTBC Bank globally manages $180 billion in assets, its US business operates more akin to a community lender. Its 13 physical locations are segmented to California, New Jersey, and New York. 

And the hyperlocal tendencies of regional players like CTBC were obliterated by the pandemic, forcing many to pivot to a technology-first model, according to Menai. 

No longer will smaller banks be limited to specific zip codes or be forced to open physical branches if they wish to expand to new locations, he added. 

"For community banks, we were always geographically bound," said Menai. "The more traditional type of bankers may want to go back to that model and may be pining for it, but I don't think customers will want that anymore."

'We're not talking about hardware, software'

But such a shift is more complicated than just investing in new digital tools, like a consumer-facing application that would allow clients to deposit checks or access accounts entirely virtually.

Fintech firms were able to achieve immense scale in a short period of time by offering their products for free and eliminating requirements that legacy institutions rely on, like minimum balances, according to Menai.

"Long-term, that's a crazy model. We just cannot do it, which is why you don't see even high-tech adopters or innovators like Citigroup or JPMorgan giving away their products for free," he said.

So as CTBC pivots to adopt more of the fintech operating model, it has to begin embracing some of the marketing strategies that have divided the new entrants from the incumbents.

"The labels might be the same as if you were doing a traditional product, but the steps involved are completely digital. And the science around data management and the targeting of those are very different," he said.

To help in that transition, CTBC is considering increasing its digital budget to hire the right skill set from top tech firms like Amazon.

"We're not talking about hardware, software. We're not talking about capital expenditures. We are talking about making the key hires," he said. "We need to bring in the pools of talent who can help us map out the pathways to being digitally native."

In the past, top Silicon Valley talent may have looked to industry heavyweights like Goldman Sachs or Chase.

But Menai said those firms "may have enough of those guys and the next place for these experts is where the other mass of people actually bank" — like community and regional lenders.

The change also means that CTBC can pivot more employees to the remote setting, a dramatic shift for a company that pre-coronavirus largely eschewed the concept of work-from-home.

"The core of getting a job done will get done without the physical cues, without the emotional strengthening of like-minded people being together in a physical location," said Menai.

SEE ALSO: The CEO of Goodyear shares how he's reopening the $1.4 billion tire maker, returning employees to work safely, and winning back customer trust after the crisis

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what it's like to travel during the coronavirus outbreak

• Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Gen Z was spending more time at home.
• Psychologist Jean Twenge said that trend will accelerate for Gen Zers — as will the deterioration of its mental health.
• Gen Zers graduating into the recession could face a higher risk of a "death of despair."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic necessitated social distancing, Gen Z was at home. 

Psychologist Jean Twenge saw it coming.

The author of "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — And Completely Unprepared," Twenge wrote in a 2017 excerpt for Wired that Gen Z may spend less time than any other generation face-to-face socializing.

"The number of teens who get together with their friends every day has been cut in half in just fifteen years, with especially steep declines recently," according to Twenge.

And now, Twenge told Business Insider, as the pandemic forces citizens around the world to stay indoors, that social interaction via screens will only increase. 

"A lot of trends since 2012 are going to accelerate since this pandemic," Twenge said. For all of the generations, 2012 is a big year, according to Twenge: it's the first year when the majority of Americans owned a smartphone. That's also around the time that the oldest Gen Zers entered high school — and it's when the youngest of Gen Z was born.

Indeed, a 2018 paper published in Joule found that, in 2012, Americans ages 18 to 24 spent 14 more days at home than they did in 2003. As Twenge reported in "iGen," college students in 2016 spent four less hours a week socializing with friends and three fewer hours partying than their late 1980s counterparts.

And, according to Twenge, another trend that might accelerate during the pandemic is the deteriorating state of Gen Z's mental health.

In 2017, around 3.2 million US teens — 13% — said they had experienced at least one major depressive episode in the past year. Compared to 15% of millennials, 37% of Gen Z is likely to report fair or poor mental health, The American Psychological Association reports. And, in 2017, the second-leading cause of death for Gen Z was suicide.

Twenge said the physical isolation Gen Z is facing "doesn't bode well for happiness and mental health."

And graduating during the pandemic could only compound that decline in mental health. As Business Insider's Dominic-Madori Davis previously reported, recession graduates are at a higher risk of dying earlier from "deaths of despair."

"We find that cohorts coming of age during the deep recession of the early 1980s suffer increases in mortality that appear in their late 30s and further strengthen through age 50," wrote the authors of a January 2020 National Bureau of Economic Research paper.

It's unclear what Gen Z will look like on the other side of the pandemic, but pre-pandemic isolation already took a toll on its members.

"An hour a day less spent with friends is an hour a day less spent building social skills, negotiating relationships, and navigating emotions," Twenge wrote in iGen.

SEE ALSO: The coronavirus pandemic could actually finally change youth turnout in elections, according to a March For Our Lives cofounder and an expert in generational differences

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why Pikes Peak is the most dangerous racetrack in America

• Nvidia's stock has surged over 1,000% in the last five years, and much of the credit goes to CEO and cofounder Jensen Huang's leadership and vision.
• Huang is so successful that he beat out other top leaders like Salesforce's Marc Benioff and Microsoft's Satya Nadella to earn the coveted spot atop Harvard Business Review's list of the most successful CEOs of 2019. 
• It's Huang's attention to all areas of the business and his ability to speak the language of his employees that makes him so successful, according to senior director of robotics research Dieter Fox. 
• Those qualities convinced Fox to come onboard and lead Nvidia's robotics lab, where the company is trying to build systems that can independently interact with humans. 
• Click here for more BI Prime content.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON— Chip-maker Nvidia's stock rose more than 1,078% in the last five years, a startling amount by any metrics.

That growth is due in no small part to CEO and cofounder Jensen Huang's decision to double down on computer chips that are increasingly being used to power new, artificial intelligence-based applications. 

It's why the esteemed Harvard Business Review named Huang the best-performing CEO of 2019, beating out luminaries like Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Salesforce's Marc Benioff, and BlackRock's Larry Fink.

But it's not just his business decisions that make Huang so successful. It's his ability to connect with employees across the company and the intimate understanding he has of the operations of all areas of the enterprise, according to Senior Director of Robotics Research Dieter Fox.

It's his "detailed knowledge about things that go on. He's not just a CEO at the top level [or a] pure manager," he told Business Insider. "He understands the importance of the research. He goes to these conferences and is able to talk to researchers because he understands their language."

Huang was also instrumental in helping to bring the most skilled employees to Nvidia's robotics lab. "He's willing himself to talk to that person [and] tell them what his vision is. Because he has this really forward-looking view of AI computing," Fox said. 

Fox met Huang at a computer vision conference in Hawaii. It was all those qualities that convinced him to come on board and lead the lab where Nvidia is trying to build next-generation robots that can interact with humans. 

The facility combines deep robotics knowledge with experts in perception and computer vision, among other topics — a winning combination, according to Fox. 

"It's just such a clear path forward because what these [current] robots currently are missing to get to this next level of understanding of their environment is really perception learning, and also simulation tools," he said.

SEE ALSO: Accenture's head of artificial intelligence shares the 4-step plan every company should consider before investing in AI

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Tax Day is now July 15 — this is what it's like to do your own taxes for the very first time

• Meghan Turner-Patel made more than $115,000 as a freelance copywriter last year, but she earned another almost $42,000 by offering related services such as branding and marketing.
• She gets and keeps clients by figuring out what other services she can offer to help them and establishing a rapport.
• After speaking with the client on the phone, she drafts a proposal for them in which she mentions additional services that could apply. 
• Turner-Patel doesn't bring up the additional services after the initial proposal and keeps her emails light and approachable.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Meghan Turner-Patel, founder of Denver-based marketing and branding agency Revelation, made more than $115,000 purely from freelance copywriting services from 2018 to 2019 — but she boosted her income by nearly $42,000 by offering related services such as branding and marketing to her clients.

When a new client reaches out to Turner-Patel about a specific copywriting project, she immediately begins thinking about any additional services she could pitch to expand the project's overall scope of work. 

"I can quickly gain insight about the quality of their marketing efforts simply by researching the brand, reviewing their digital touchpoints — such as website, mobile, social, YouTube — and maybe even digging a little into their analytics and SEO," she shared.

She noted that while this preliminary research definitely absorbs precious time, these extra efforts can pay off in the long run.

"It helps me quickly build a relationship with the client by highlighting the fact [that] I did my research, I'm invested in the client's success, and I have the diverse expertise to thoroughly support their brand," she explained.

Turner-Patel next schedules a 30-minute call with the client to establish a rapport. 

"On my end, I want to build a foundation of trust," she said. "I also want to make sure this person is someone I can seamlessly collaborate with, as well as someone who will benefit from my specific skills." 

The other goal that Turner-Patel has for this client call is to get a clearer sense of the client's project scope, their vision for the project, and their ultimate goals. As part of this discovery process, she tries to dive into what else they've been doing to market the company, which often reveals what they haven't been doing and could be doing better through her expanded offerings. 

This discussion opens the door for her pitch.

"During the call, I'll briefly address some marketing efforts that complement the project at hand and will boost their marketing strategy," Turner-Patel said. 

She emphasized that it's key to take an authentic, consultative approach to avoid coming across as a hard sell. Most importantly, she never pitches services that she knows a client doesn't need.

"I'm honest, straightforward, and supportive, which people will always pick up on and appreciate," she said. "It's a delicate balance because you don't want to overwhelm the client with solutions and the prospect of additional expenses. Rather, you want to educate [them] about different possibilities and why they work." 

Turner-Patel also pointed out that most clients don't realize that they can benefit from solutions beyond the project at hand — so when she begins mentioning other services, they're often grateful for the knowledge. 

"Something clicks," she said. "They start to see how different elements can boost the overall brand." 

Crafting the perfect proposal

Based on the client call, Turner-Patel next writes up a detailed proposal for the client, breaking down all of the services needed to complete the project. 

"I get as detailed as possible to ensure we're on the same page from the beginning about what's included (and what isn't included)," she said, adding that in most cases, the client has also asked her to quote at least one or two of those extra services she mentioned on the call. 

But the copywriter's work isn't done there. In the proposal, she includes a section called "Additional Marketing Support Options (quote available upon request)."

"These services are ones we briefly talked about on the call, plus any relevant extras I didn't cover," Turner-Patel said. "The reason I include this section is to strategically cross-sell, and [to also] reiterate those services instead of relying on them to remember them from the call." 

Turner-Patel stressed that she never repeatedly pushes additional services after the proposal phase. 

"That would come across more 'sales-y' than I want to present myself," she said. Instead, she stays on the lookout for an appropriate moment to resurrect the conversation. She has found that this time often presents itself when the initial project concludes, or is near conclusion. 

"At this time, we can both refocus our attention on new opportunities and priorities," she said. "For example, if I just finished writing SEO copy for a website, I might email the client to remind them about other services that can further boost their SEO." 

She added, "From my experience, with this mindset, clients favorably respond because they know I'm looking out for their best interest."

An example email Turner-Patel sends a client to suggest additional services

Hi [client's first name], 

I thoroughly enjoyed working with you on the new website copy. I'm so pleased you love the final product! 

Since the project is now complete, I wanted to share a couple ideas I have to further boost your SEO and the work we've done thus far. 

The first idea is to start blogging, which is another core element of SEO. When I have a client who wants to blog, I typically recommend starting with two posts per month because Google loves seeing new, high-quality content added on a regular basis. If this interests you, I'm happy to take care of everything, from copy and imagery to incorporating strategic keywords for SEO. I did a bit of research and think it'd be impactful to start with posts on [topic 1] and [topic 2]. 

The second is data monitoring. As you know, SEO and analytics are ever-changing. After completing a project like SEO copywriting, I often begin a monthly data review. This ensures we maintain a competitive edge online and make changes to the site as keywords evolve. How does this work? In short, I comb through the site's vast analytics, compile KPIs for your review, and provide any relevant recommendations to adjust the on-page and back-end SEO. These recommendations are based on the site's data as well as your competitors'. 

If blogging and/or analytics monitoring is of interest, please feel free to reach out any time. If so, I'll follow up with more information. If you have a budget in mind, we can also discuss how to stick to that while continuing to make SEO progress. 

As always, I'm happy to chat if you have questions. 

Best, 

[Your name]

Overall, Turner-Patel recommended keeping the tone of your email light and approachable, and avoiding getting too technical about your services.

"If [your client] tends to be more formal, follow their lead and adjust the messaging accordingly," she said. "If you know they've maxed out their budget for the time being, don't pitch more services. Instead, let them know you'll be there for them when they need more support."

The copywriter added that she often waits about a week after the end of the project to send this kind of email, and emphasized that you should be prepared to hear a "no," especially as COVID-19 impacts businesses' budgets.

"It's the nature of the beast," she said. "I believe being sensitive to costs is particularly important right now, as a lot of people are being more cautious with how they spend money."

SEE ALSO: How to become a highly successful and high-earning freelance copyeditor, according 2 people who did it — plus, email templates you can use to set competitive rates

NOW READ: Freelance writers, designers, and marketers reveal how much they charge clients for their services — and the strategies they use to set their rates without being underpaid

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why electric planes haven't taken off yet

• Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk seems to prefer to keep his personal life under wraps. 
• It wasn't until 2017 that he opened up in an intensely candid Rolling Stone profile. Musk discussed topics he usually doesn't, from his breakup with actress Amber Heard to his strained relationship with his father.
• Musk has had a stormy personal life at times. He's been through two divorces and is estranged from his father, who made headlines in 2018 after it was reported he had a child with his then-30-year-old former stepdaughter, Jana Bezuidenhout.
• These days, Musk is dating musician Grimes and the couple just had a baby together.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In 2010, Elon Musk said he would "rather stick a fork in my hand than write about my personal life."

But the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is a fascinating figure, and over the years, he's opened up here and there about his childhood, his parents, and his relationships.

Musk got uncharacteristically candid for perhaps the first time in an in-depth Rolling Stone interview by Neil Strauss published in November 2017. He spoke of his breakup with ex-girlfriend Amber Heard, expressing his heartbreak over their parting. Musk also touched upon his estranged relationship with his father Errol, calling him a "terrible human being."

These days, Musk is dating the musician Grimes — the pair debuted their relationship in May 2018, and just had their first child together.

Here's a look at Elon Musk's personal life over the years.

SEE ALSO: Tennis superstar Serena Williams and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian have had a whirlwind few years. Here's how the power couple met, and everything that's happened since.

Born in 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk was the eldest of three children. His mother Maye Musk is a Canadian model who's appeared on the cover of Time and became a CoverGirl spokesperson at 69. His father Errol is an engineer.

Source: Vanity Fair, Town and Country, Vogue, Forbes

Musk told Rolling Stone he's struggled with loneliness since childhood. "When I was a child, there's one thing I said," Musk said. "'I never want to be alone.'"

Source: Rolling Stone, Business Insider

Overall, Musk's childhood was far from idyllic. He was ruthlessly bullied in school, and even ended up hospitalized after his tormentors shoved him down a staircase. Soon after his parents split in 1980, Musk went to live with his father.

Source: Business Insider, Business Insider

Today, Musk and Errol are estranged. The Tesla CEO told Rolling Stone that his father is "a terrible human being." "You have no idea about how bad," Musk said. "Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done."

Source: Rolling Stone

Musk's father, who is in his 70s, made headlines in 2018 when it was revealed that he had a child with his then-30-year-old former stepdaughter Jana Bezuidenhout, whom he's known since she was 4 years old.

Source: Telegraph

Despite this familial rift, Musk is seemingly still close with his brother Kimbal and sister Tosca. All of the Musk siblings seemingly share an entrepreneurial streak. Kimbal is seeking to make the food industry more sustainable and healthy, while Tosca launched the romance film network Passionflix.

Source: CNBC, CNBC, Forbes, CNBC

Musk also seems to have a good relationship with his mother. Vanity Fair reported that he gifted Maye with a green Tesla. She also moved to California in 2013 to be closer to her children and grandchildren.

Source: Vanity Fair

Musk obtained Canadian citizenship through his mother. At the age of 17, he moved to Kingston, Ontario, to attend Queen's University.

Source: Twitter, Esquire

There, he met his first wife, Justine Wilson. Writing in Marie Claire, she recalled that Musk invited her out for ice cream. She decided to stay in to study, but he showed up with "two chocolate-chip ice cream cones dripping down his hands."

Source: Marie Claire

Musk transferred to Wharton, but kept sending Justine roses. They went their separate ways, but reconnected as Musk started working on his first startup and Justine started working on her first novel after graduation. Justine said Musk wooed her by giving her his credit card to buy as many books as she wanted. The pair tied the knot in 2000.

Source: Marie Claire

The couple moved to Los Angeles and had a son named Nevada, whom they lost to SIDS. They ultimately had twins and triplets — five sons in total. Musk said he strives to spend time with his sons. In 2010, he called his children "the love of my life."

Source: Business Insider, Business Insider, Business Insider

The couple split in 2008, and Justine kept her husband's last name for the sake of their kids. After his divorce, the tech mogul began dating actress Talulah Riley.

Source: Bloomberg

While Musk and his first wife became estranged, Justine wrote in Marie Claire that she and Riley ended up getting along very well. She even sent her ex-husband's girlfriend an email saying: "I would rather live out the French-movie version of things, in which the two women become friends and various philosophies are pondered."

Source: Marie Claire

Riley and Musk married in 2010. Two years later, news of their divorce became public when Musk tweeted: "It was an amazing four years. I will love you forever. You will make someone very happy one day" at Riley on Twitter.

Source: Forbes

The couple remarried in 2013. Musk filed for — then withdrew — a second divorce the following year.

Source: POPSugar

In 2016, Riley filed for divorce from Musk, which was finalized in late 2016. The two are still on good terms, however — Riley even made an appearance during Strauss' Rolling Stone profile of Musk. "We still see each other all the time and take care of each other," she told People.

Source: Rolling Stone, People

Musk began dating actress Amber Heard in 2016, but they broke up a year later due to their intense schedules.

Source: The Cut, Rolling Stone

Commenting on one of Heard's Instagram posts, Musk said he and his ex were "still friends, remain close and love one another" and added "who knows what the future holds." He later told Rolling Stone: "I was really in love, and it hurt bad."

Source: Rolling Stone, The Cut

In May 2018, Musk arrived at the annual Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art alongside Grimes, a Canadian musician. At the time, Page Six reported that the pair had been "quietly dating" for a few weeks.

Source: Page Six

Grimes and Musk met over Twitter. Musk was planning to make a joke about artificial intelligence — specifically, about the Rococo Basilisk character in her "Flesh Without Blood" video — and discovered she had beaten him to the punch.

Source: Twitter

Musk later told the Wall Street Journal that he loves Grimes for her "wild fae artistic creativity and hyper intense work ethic."

Source: The Wall Street Journal

In January 2020, Grimes posted a photo to her Instagram and Twitter accounts that showed her pregnant with a fetus Photoshopped on her belly. She later confirmed she was expecting a baby with Musk.

Source: Instagram

On May 4, 2020, Musk announced the birth of their son, who he and Grimes have said is named "X Æ A-12 Musk," seemingly pronounced "X Ash Archangel." "Mom & baby all good," Musk wrote on Twitter.

Source: Business Insider, Business Insider

• The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has begun to wipe out millions of jobs in the US, not just in hospitality and travel but also in spaces including sports and entertainment as well as manufacturing.
• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on May 8 that 20.5 million US nonfarm payroll jobs were lost in April.
• Nearly 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the week ending May 2. The weekly increase in new workers applying for benefits has slowed since an unprecedented 6.64 million in the week ending in March 28. 
• Several industries are pleading with the federal government for a bailout.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A recession from the novel coronavirus outbreak is a near certainty, economists say. And the fallout has already begun to wipe out a substantial number of American jobs.

According to the latest employment report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US lost 20.5 million jobs in April, a historical record and vastly larger than the loss of 870,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in March. 

The number of Americans newly filing for unemployment benefits has declined in recent weeks. Nearly 3.2 million Americans filed unemployment claims in the week ending May 2, according to Thursday morning's release of figures from the US Department of Labor. That is about the same as the number of Americans who filed for unemployment claims in the week ending March 21, the week before a record number of 6.6 million Americans.

"There is a real danger that the economic crisis that comes out of this health crisis is worse than what we experienced in 2008," Jason Furman, formerly a top economist for the Obama administration, recently told Business Insider. 

The unprecedented shutdown has closed bars, restaurants, and salons across the nation in an attempt to prevent the virus from spreading. It's unleashing a tidal wave of layoffs across sectors that power the American economy.

Many major companies, once titans of industry, are now in dire financial straits and laying off workers. And more are pleading for a bailout from the federal government.

The airlines are set to receive a $50 billion bailout from the Trump administration as part of a colossal $2 trillion federal rescue package that President Trump signed into law at the end of March. It also includes around $504 billions in loans for large corporations as well as $377 billions in loans and grants for small businesses.

Here's a look at the record-breaking unemployment figures and what industries are likely to get hit the hardest.

SEE ALSO: 8 worrying things about the US reopening that are keeping Americans up at night

DON'T MISS: One astonishing chart shows the carnage underway in the US labor market as a result of the coronavirus

Jobless claims have declined in recent weeks since more than 6.64 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the week ending March 28.

As job losses continue in the US, many Americans are seeking to claim unemployment benefits. 

The latest jobless claims from the Labor Department report that 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending May 2, down from 3.85 million Americans in the week ending in April 25.

During the early response to the coronavirus outbreak, the United States saw an unprecedented number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits. More than 6.64 million filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending March 28, surpassing the previous week's record of 3.3 million Americans. This is when businesses started to temporarily close their doors and states started to enforce stay-at-home orders.

The coronavirus emergency aid bill has expanded unemployment eligibility in a bid to address those gaps.

Initial figures from states across the nation had suggested we would see a skyrocketing number of Americans filing for unemployment — putting state safety nets under significant strain.

Nevada, Hawaii, and Montana are three states forecasted to lose the most jobs as a share of their labor force, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute.

The US saw a drastic decline in jobs in April, a record 20.5 million.

The latest BLS figures show that a startling 20.5 million Americans lost their job in April.

Experts recently shared their reactions to the record figure with Business Insider.

"There's no part of the economy that is really escaping unscathed right now," Martha Gimbel, an economist at Schmidt Futures, told Business Insider's Carmen Reinicke.

Between mid-February and mid-March, 870,000 Americans lost their jobs as businesses shuttered, more shutdowns were enforced, and a large number of unemployment claims were filed, ending a 113-month streak of job gains.

The jobs lost are across industries, from healthcare to retail. The April report noted the leisure and hospitality industry had the most job losses.

Retail lost 2.1 million jobs in April, the majority of which is from clothes and accessories businesses. Because of a decline in consumer demand and other effects from the response of the coronavirus, some retailers have filed for bankruptcy, such as J. Crew. Business Insider's Madeline Stone reported that experts believe more retailers will follow in filing for bankruptcy.

The unemployment rate skyrocketed to 14.7% in April from 4.4% in March.

As a result of the striking number of job losses in April, the unemployment rate climbed from March's rate of 4.4% to 14.7% in April — a 10.3 percentage point increase. The BLS employment report noted this is the largest monthly rate change since reporting unemployment figures began in 1948. Only three months ago the unemployment rate was 3.5%. 

The unemployment rate doesn't capture the whole picture, because workers who are employed but absent from work aren't included in the figure. 

The unemployment rate also slightly varies by race, ethnicity, and gender. For instance, the unemployment rate was 16.7% for Black Americans and 18.9% for Hispanic Americans in April.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis forecasts that the unemployment rate could reach an astonishing 32.1% in the second quarter of the year.

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government agency, recently projected that the effects of the coronavirus could last well into 2021. Unemployment could be as high as 9% around then, challenging President Donald Trump's optimistic assessment of a quick economic rebound once the pandemic subsides.

Major US airlines are being ravaged by the virus' economic fallout, and they're likely to receive emergency federal funding.

The coronavirus pandemic compelled the mass cancellation of travel plans from consumers and businesses alike, severely damaging the airline industry. Countries have also sealed off their borders to thwart the spread of the virus.

Delta Air Lines, for example, moved to drastically cut costs by parking half its fleet and sending 10,000 employees home without paid leave. United Airlines said it could take similar steps and lay off more than half of its workers in the coming months.

The four major US airlines — American, Delta, United, and Southwest — were seeking a $50 billion bailout from the Trump administration, which supports the idea.

The bailout is part of a $2 trillion stimulus bill, the largest federal rescue package in US history. Around $8 billion of it would be directed to aid cargo carriers.

But airlines have come under fire for using their profits from hiked passenger fees and cheap fuel during the long bull market to buy back stock instead of, say, improving labor conditions or creating a financial cushion for just this kind of crisis.

Boeing is another major aerospace firm seeking help, in the form of a bailout worth billions. Trump has expressed interest in extending emergency federal aid, saying, "we have to absolutely help Boeing."

Airlines employ around 750,000 people in the US, according to the Financial Times.

Hotels across the country are laying off workers or cutting their hours.

Like the airlines, hotels have also been ravaged by massive numbers of Americans canceling their travel plans in the fallout from the coronavirus.

The hospitality industry, which includes hotels and restaurants among other businesses, experienced the largest number of jobs lost in April. Based on BLS figures, the leisure and hospitality sector lost nearly half its jobs, or 7.7 million. 

Marriott International recently told workers that it was furloughing tens of thousands of them as it closes properties around the world, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The American Hotel and Lodging Association, a trade group, said that in March nearly 4 million jobs could be wiped out, or almost half of all jobs in the hotel sector.

Travel spending in the US is forecasted to plunge 31% this year — that would be six times worse than in the aftermath of 9/11 — according to a report from the US Travel Association.

Those figures are raising alarm among hotel executives, who met with President Trump last week to request a $150 billion bailout. They said the coronavirus' impact on their business has been bigger than "September 11th and the Great Recession of 2008 combined," according to the head of the AHLA.

Trump's hotels also took a financial hit, and at least 200 workers were laid off.

The travel industry has also experienced the largest single-month decline in internship openings, according to Glassdoor. 

Many major sport and entertainment cancellations are affecting the job safety of event workers.

As people are being advised to stay away from large crowds to stop the spread of the coronavirus, sports and entertainment events have been canceled or postponed en masse. Notable events like March Madness and the South by Southwest festival have been cancelled.

As games are cancelled or postponed, sports-betting companies are cutting costs to keep their companies from going under.

Many employers in entertainment have started laying off workers. According to a list compiled by Forbes, Circuit of the Americas and Cirque du Soleil are among the entertainment companies laying off workers. Cirque du Soleil has reportedly laid off 4,679 employees, or 95% of its workforce.

Sports and other event cancellations also impact the job safety of thousands of vendors and event staff members, according to Politico.

Goldman Sachs predicts it will take years for the cruise line industry to bounce back from cancellations and a decline in travel demand.

The cruise line industry is also taking a big hit from the coronavirus outbreak after the US State Department advised people not to travel by cruise ship, especially older people and people at risk of catching the virus.

Of the 3,711 passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, 705 were infected with the coronavirus. Some other cruise ships have been unable to dock at ports even if they had no suspected cases onboard. 

Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian Cruise Line have, as a precautionary measure, banned people from boarding who have been to mainland China, Hong Kong, or Macau. A few major cruise lines were on a 30-day shutdown as of March 13.

Some cruise lines cut salary pay and laid off workers as ways to handle losing profits, the decrease in travel demand, and cruise line shutdowns.

Norwegian Cruise Line, for instance, told its staff that it would temporarily cut their pay by 20%, starting March 30, in response to the outbreak. Royal Caribbean recently laid off contract workers.

Research analysts and economists interviewed by Forbes said they believed that cruise lines will have a hard time making a case of why they deserve a federal bailout compared to other industries that need it.

Goldman Sachs predicted that a cruise line recovery will take years, citing previous dips, such as the Great Recession.

Millions of restaurant workers are predicted to lose their jobs over the next few months.

Restaurants have been especially feeling the effects of stay-at-home orders since March when most places had to temporarily close and some switching to take-out food only.

The sector saw major job losses in April of 5.5 million, according to the latest figures from BLS.

As a result of the coronavirus, 5 million to 7 million restaurant workers are estimated to lose their jobs and the industry as a whole will lose $225 billion between March and June, according to projections from The National Restaurant Association.

In New York City, which CNBC has reported to have more than 27,000 eating and drink establishments with 300,000 employees, restaurants and bars are closed to stop the spread and are only allowed to provide takeout and delivery service.

Some states are starting to ease restrictions in areas like beaches and retail, and a few states are allowing bars and restaurants to reopen as long as they follow social distancing guidelines. This includes restaurants and bars in Montana, Texas, and Alabama. 

New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer laid off 2,000 employees, or 80% of his workforce, on March 18 and is donating his salary to a fund for the employees at his company Union Square Hospitality Group, according to CNBC. The company operates 18 restaurants in the city.

Although a lot of restaurants and eateries are having to think about laying off workers, some major pizza chains, such as Domino's, were looking to hire more than 50,000 new employees during the coronavirus in March. Some GoFundMe pages have also been set up to help workers during layoffs.

Manufacturing in the US is now in a state of contraction.

The manufacturing industry has been hit especially hard recently.

According to the latest BLS figures, there were 1.3 million jobs lost in April in the manufacturing sector.

April also saw a loss off 88,300 truck drivers, wiping out job gains in the sector, as reported by Business Insider's Rachel Premack. One reason for the steep job losses in trucking is the decline in consumer demand leading to a reduction in need for trucks that would transport goods.

The Wall Street Journal reported that indexes tracking manufacturing activity in the US recorded a steep drop in March, compared to February.

US manufacturing is now in a state of contraction instead of expansion, the product of falling business activity across the economy.

A recent survey from the National Association of Manufacturers found 80% of firms expected they would take a financial hit from efforts to curtail the spread of the virus.

More factories are beginning to stagger shifts in their workplaces in a bid to maintain current production levels, the Journal reported.

• Ban.do founder Jen Gotch built her multimillion-dollar brand by learning the most valuable business lessons along the way, like how to outsource production and sell your company. 
• Gotch and her cofounder sold their company to Lifeguard Press in 2012, Gotch stayed on as chief creative officer, and the brand expanded to stationery and colorful, feel-good accessories. 
• Her memoir, "The Upside of Being Down", is a candid retelling of her entrepreneurial journey and mental health struggles.
• Click here for more BI Prime content.

When Jen Gotch co-founded her headband business ban.do in 2008, she'd been hopping between jobs as an assistant, stylist, and photographer. But none of that prepared her for running a business quite like diving in head-first. 

Celebrities like Taylor Swift and Katy Perry donned ban.do's silk-flower and jeweled headbands before flower crowns became a mainstay of Coachella style. Then, women's clothing and home decor chain Anthropologie asked the brand to sell the headbands in its stores. It was time for Gotch and her partner Jamie Coulter to kick production into high-gear. 

Gotch told Business Insider that it was an adrenaline-filled moment learning how to outsource their handmade hair accessories. They found a manufacturer in China through a Google search and then read Anthropologie's giant handbook on seller protocol.

"It was mostly just finding someone who was willing to be on our side and do it," she said. "That always encouraged me to keep going. So many people were really going out of their way to help us and that felt indicative that we were on the right track."

The deal didn't make the founders any money, but it was a valuable lesson and put them on the map. "When you get those first-time opportunities, the best thing you could do is just say yes and then figure it out," she said.

After years of hustling, Gotch and Coulter parted ways and sold their six-figure company to Lifeguard Press in 2012. Gotch remained at the helm as chief creative officer and the brand expanded to stationery and feel-good accessories. She recently released her memoir, "The Upside of Being Down", which is a candid retelling of her dealing with mental health challenges such as bipolar, anxiety, and ADD while creating a multimillion-dollar lifestyle brand.

Gotch is not afraid to admit her mistakes and sees them as learning experiences. Along with tips from her book, she told Business Insider her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs.

MUST READ: How to sell your startup in 2020 for a boatload of cash, from founders who sold their companies for billions

SEE ALSO: Here's the exact phone script an entrepreneur uses to lock down new suppliers for his clothing startup after the pandemic left his entire supply stuck in a Chinese factory

Your company does not have to be high-growth to be successful

Gotch makes it clear that ban.do isn't a billion-dollar company, and that success can come at a slow and steady pace. She tells entrepreneurs that they can decide whether they want to pursue growth or sustainability. 

"These days, the way businesses are in the spotlight — especially female-run companies — the question is always 'How big can you get?'" Gotch writes in her book. "And that's really, really hard, especially since most businesses do not end up with all the early employees getting a Porsche and a new house." (She rents her home and drives a Volkswagen.)

After a few years growing their brand together, Coulter left to move to Texas and the cofounders knew they needed to sell their company to sustain it. Gotch met with a few buyers who weren't the right fit, before finding Todd and Kim Ferrier, the owners of Lifeguard Press. 

The difference between the Ferriers and other prospective buyers came down to their style — in both fashion and business. Though their laid-back clothes may not immediately indicate massive business success, to Gotch it was a sign of how they would run her company. "There was an immediate feeling of trust and that they weren't coming in to disrupt. They were really coming into elevate what we were doing," she told Business Insider. 

Since Lifeguard Press bought ban.do, the brand has become a multimillion-dollar company and sells products in over 3,000 stores in the US and internationally.

The work is never done, so it pays to set boundaries

Gotch warns founders that the to-do lists will never end. Running a business is an all-consuming job that requires focus, and sometimes comes at a cost. In the early years, other parts of her life, like paying her mortgage and tending to her marriage, took a backseat to the passion she had for her business. 

Gotch said the business was always profitable, but she and Coulter only began to pay themselves a $1,000-a-month salary after a couple of years. "You may not be able to check all those boxes all at once," she said. 

In her book she writes that though it takes an almost-unhealthy commitment to start a successful business, it doesn't have to stay that way forever. In fact, she told Business Insider that the one thing she wished she'd done earlier was create boundaries around when she would stop working each day. "The work is always going to be there," she said. 

Everything will not fall apart if you stop grinding for a moment

Founders often glorify the hustle and sweat equity as a badge of honor in the startup world. But Gotch learned the hard way that being busy does not always equal success. 

For years, she worked non-stop and drove herself into burnout because of it. But when she learned to take a step back, she was able to see that her life was more than the company she founded. In her book she writes, "If your company is destined to be successful, you will still be successful even if you carve out time for your personal life." 

She told Business Insider that it's important to schedule in fun so that work doesn't swallow you whole. "I really didn't see a difference in my performance and productivity when I slowed down and stopped working myself into the ground. In fact, I think my brain is healthier," she said.

Everything's changed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a third of the global population being put on lockdown, millions of workers furloughed or laid off, and a historic economic contraction.

The coronavirus has affected everything, from how we work and take care of one another, to how we shop, pay, and entertain ourselves.

To understand how the pandemic is transforming business, we recently asked 200 CEOs from a variety of industries in the US and beyond a three-part question:

How will the way you operate change because of the coronavirus? How will your industry change? And how will the world change?

In this feature you'll find answers from the CEOs of Walmart, AB InBev, Duke Energy, ViacomCBS, Sanofi, Zoom, PayPal, and more. Their insights address the rise of remote work and the cost of commercial rents, the role of government in business, how we'll interact with our doctors in the future, and much more.

The theme: The coronavirus has hit fast forward on many trends that were already emerging.

"The future we imagined for 2030 has been pulled forward to the present, with everything going digital by default," Tobias Lütke, the CEO of Shopify, told us.

Below you'll find takeaways from a selection of the CEOs, with their answers edited for clarity and length. You can find out how specific industries such as healthcare, tech, finance, and retail will be transformed right here.

Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev: 'Social-distancing measures around the world have moved consumption from pubs and restaurants to grocery stores and supermarkets.'

Social-distancing measures around the world have moved consumption from pubs and restaurants to grocery stores and supermarkets. These rapid changes demand agility and a redeployment of resources. We have taken decisive actions to adapt our business, from brewing operations to connecting with customers and consumers, to shifting our resources from pubs and restaurants to grocery stores and supermarkets, in response to a volatile environment and changing behaviours.

We've expanded our pickup and delivery business at our craft brewpubs across the US to ensure that we're continuing to serve consumers in our local communities. We've also launched a series of initiatives to prompt financial support during this time of uncertainty. Today, we have live initiatives across 16 countries, with more than 13,000 small restaurants, bars, and pubs signed up for programs such as "Open for Take Out," led by Bud Light in the US, "Save Pub Life" in the UK, "Café Courage" in Belgium, "Help De Horeca" in the Netherlands, and "Apoie um Restaurante" led by Stella Artois in Brazil.

Looking ahead, we are taking cues from our teams in China since the overall COVID-19 situation in China is ahead of the rest of the world. With health and safety as the top priority, our team in China has implemented business-continuity plans and started preparing for a strong recovery. As restrictions roll back, Chinese consumers are increasingly returning to their "normal" lives, and dining out and socializing.

Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb: 'We used to do a lot of travel for work and then we entertained ourselves on screens. That's going to inverse.'

No one knows for sure [how the crisis will change the travel industry], but I can give you two thoughts. First, when the comeback starts, it will start locally. People are going to take trips that are close to home, and they're going to want something affordable. Second, I think we're seeing that you can do a lot through videoconferencing, and that's going to have a big impact on how often people travel for work. Business travel isn't going to go away, but I think it's going to look very different in the future.

We used to do a lot of travel for work, and then we entertained ourselves on screens. That's going to inverse. I think we'll work more on screens and entertain ourselves in the real world.

I also think many people are realizing they don't have to be tethered to one city. So you'll see more people who are going to choose to live around the world, spending a few months at a time in different places. And we're going to focus in part on longer-term stays to better serve those people.

I've also been thinking about what won't change. In 1950, 25 million people crossed a border, and last year 1.4 billion people did. That happened because there is an innate human desire to travel, to explore and that is never going to go away. Travel may be on pause, but it's going to come back.

Bob Wheeler, CEO of Airstream: 'There's some indication that as we settle into a new normal, folks will forgo air travel, cruises, and overseas trips in favor of destinations closer to home.'

There is really no part of our business that has not been impacted by the coronavirus epidemic and the resulting recession. We were forced to shut down our production operations almost immediately and have spent the last weeks rightsizing the company for the new market realities when we return.

We went from sneaking up on the idea of a remote, dispersed workforce to having to embrace the practice immediately. Our days of welcoming 800 production associates to work every morning are over, and we're planning a health assessment for folks as they arrive at work.

But recreational-vehicle industry is well positioned to survive big downturns, with high variable and relatively low fixed costs. So we can scale down quickly and, when the market returns, scale back up to meet the need. And as we start to envision the post-COVID, post-recessionary landscape, we see many indicators that point to a strong recovery for the RV industry, perhaps ahead of the economy as a whole.

There's some indication that as we settle into a new normal, folks will forgo air travel, cruises, and overseas trips in favor of destinations closer to home. RVs are the perfect vehicle for that kind of mindset. You can move at your own pace, and bring along your own environment in which to live and cook and relax. RVs give you the flexibility to choose the travel experience that works best for you, no matter the circumstances.

Erika Nardini, CEO of Barstool Sports: 'Visual platforms are winning. Every trend that you're seeing is originating on TikTok.'

Instagram as a live platform is something that you will see last, past coronavirus. We would formerly go live on Barstool, and Periscope would be our first syndication. Now we're going live Instagram first. It feels very intuitive. It feels very organic.

Visual platforms are winning. Every trend that you're seeing is originating on TikTok. We grew 500,000 followers on TikTok in a week, which is just staggering. So we're really looking for talent that are going to succeed on TikTok first and foremost. That's a change.

If you look at sports media, local sports media is in trouble, mostly because their business, their revenue, is solely dependent on advertising. It's going to be a really tough time for local sports media, especially if sports don't come back for a while.

The coverage of global sports and nontraditional sports is going to increase a lot. You're going to see a bunch of rights picked up.

And there's going to be a really big move to personality. Right now there are very few news headlines and no sports to talk about. The vast majority of sports media does play-by-play coverage or sports analysis. People aren't looking for 10-times-over sports analysis. What they are looking for is personality.

Katia Beauchamp, founder and CEO of Birchbox: 'Even digitally native brands will have to challenge their own status quos to adapt to this new normal.'

I've always been a believer that bringing our whole selves to work is an asset to productivity. This experience has added depth to what it means. Asking about each other's health and the well-being of families, meeting our team's families, pet families, and literally inviting each other into our homes, albeit virtually, has added depth that would take months or years to create. This experience will change how we relate and collaborate because it is bringing down the walls and inviting the whole person to the work at hand.

The in-person experience will be altered permanently and likely have a positive impact on the penetration of e-commerce and foundational beauty, such as skincare, supplements, and wellness. With that, "digital" is going to take on an entirely new meaning. Even digitally native brands will have to challenge their own status quos to adapt to this new normal. The key will be finding new ways to create real and authentic connections knowing that the entire industry is shifting online.

Linda Findley Kozlowski, CEO of Blue Apron: 'It has become more important for consumers to understand the origin and standards applied to their food.'

For Blue Apron as a company, it has meant being categorized as an "essential business" practically overnight, and our teams have been working hard to provide consumers food directly to their homes.

As a player in the food industry, we are now focused on enhanced safety and sanitation measures on top of our already rigorous processes and being more connected to those resources. We feel fortunate that we already had that level of visibility into our supply chain, but we believe it has become more important for consumers to understand the origin and standards applied to their food as well, which is something we have always been proud to provide.

While awful, this pandemic has given us the opportunity to connect with consumers in a new way in unusual times and bring people together over a meal even as they social distance. While we don't know what the ultimate "new normal" will be, we believe, for now, it has brought a fresh perspective to the importance of limited resources and cutting down on food waste. And most important, we believe it reminds people of the importance of spending time with loved ones.

Catherine Keating, CEO of BNY Mellon Wealth Management: 'Warp speed isn't just for Trekkies anymore: It is the speed at which the crisis has forced us to operate.'

Crises are defining moments for businesses. We are judged by our values and the way we care for our constituents: employees, clients, and communities.

We announced there will be no layoffs in 2020, enhanced our healthcare offerings, and are providing 24/7 support for our staff during this challenging time. We also have increased our community support, including a two-to-one match on employees' charitable donations.

September 11 forever changed how we travel, and this will forever change how we work. It already has. We find we are more united than ever by the clarity of our common purposes of supporting each other and our clients in this crisis, and that will continue.

Globally, we have never experienced such rapid change, in markets, economies, policy responses, and our daily lives. Warp speed isn't just for Trekkies anymore: It is the speed at which the crisis has forced us to operate.

In wealth management specifically, the crisis is accelerating the redefinition of client success from simply "beating the benchmark" to "accomplishing goals." Over the past two decades, the shift from company-funded retirement plans to employee-funded 401(k) plans has meant we have become responsible for our own financial futures.

This requires success in the five disciplines that determine long-term outcomes: investing, borrowing, spending, managing taxes, and protecting legacy.

This crisis, and the fluctuating markets that have accompanied it, underscore just how much each of these five disciplines matters to comprehensive wealth management. The wealth managers who can deliver on all five will be the most successful, because their clients will be most successful.

Giovanni Caforio, CEO and chairman of Bristol Myers Squibb: 'Our industry is working around the clock to find treatments and a vaccine.'

During this pandemic, it has been abundantly clear that the biopharma industry plays a critical role in the prevention and treatment of viruses like COVID-19. Our industry is working around the clock to find treatments and a vaccine, and we are sharing those findings with governments and other companies.

I believe that our ability to partner with other scientific organizations, our development expertise, and manufacturing capabilities are what will ultimately help us treat and prevent this virus, and I have been impressed by the collaboration and speed with which our industry is responding. My hope is that collaboration will continue.

As I reflect personally, I see that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected our society and communities and caused everyone to look at life differently. The virus has brought out some of the best in humanity, through a strong focus on philanthropy and relief efforts, science and innovation, and incredible support for the healthcare workers and those on the front lines.

This is an unprecedented time, and it is my belief that we are learning valuable lessons on being nimble, collaborating in new ways, and leveraging talent in new and different ways. Understanding that every person is navigating this crisis with a different personal reality, our work policies account for flexible hours and schedules, which enables our colleagues to better juggle their responsibilities at home with work.

We are open to taking these lessons and applying them to work in the future. I believe we will be an even stronger company because of the pandemic.

Bill Nash, CEO of CarMax: 'Customers will no longer accept being forced into a dealer's preferred model.'

As safety is more important than ever for our associates and our customers, we've established the "Distancing & Disinfecting" initiative, focused on enabling social-distancing practices and enhanced sanitizing in all locations.

We've also launched Contactless "CarMax Curbside" to enable customers to complete the car buying and selling experience outside the store with adherence to the social-distancing practices.

Business agility has also been critical during this crisis. CarMax operates in 41 states nationwide, and has been very focused on meeting ever-changing regulatory requirements to ensure our stores can continue to remain open and provide essential services to our customers.

The consumer's behavior has changed in a lasting way because of this pandemic. Customers are seeking safety, personalization, and convenience more than ever before in how they shop for and buy a vehicle.

First and foremost, with safety being top of mind for customers, it's critical that retailers demonstrate the steps they've taken to reduce the risk of exposure and further spread of the virus. Customers will no longer accept being forced into a dealer's preferred model, which in the past may have included spending hours in the dealership. Even before this crisis, we were seeing customers interested in doing more of the transaction online and spending less time in store. This situation has only escalated this shift.

Ed Tilley, chairman, CEO, and president of Cboe Global Markets: 'We'll redesign the way that we interact.'

We'll redesign the way that we interact. We'll redesign our options institute. I think we'll be able to touch many more people in a much more efficient way.

It's really going to be recognizing that the needs of the customer don't change, but the way you touch them and the way you interact will certainly evolve. And like everyone else in the world, I think the speed of change, we've kicked technology solutions into fast forward. We're taking leaps and bounds. What would have taken years on adoption, we're doing in weeks and months. It's exciting in that regard. It's just horrible the catalyst that has made us focus on this.

I live in a very small part of the world in what we think is an important industry. But at the end of the day, there's so many much more important roles and industries that I would have taken for granted a year ago.

My hope is, personally, that I respect and appreciate what it takes to get things done each and every day. The flexibility and the hopefulness of appreciating someone else's role in this very, very complicated world and life is looked at from fresh eyes. I'm certainly going to hold myself to that.

I'm just hopeful that we do look and respect what it takes to get from the Monday to Friday. We wait at the door now for deliveries where we just assumed they would come in the past, and we're greeted with a smile from someone working harder than I could have contemplated working.

Frances Allen, CEO of Checkers & Rally's: 'People are going to want to return to comfort food and comfort brands.'

I do believe, sadly, that the industry will lose a lot of units. That said, the industry was overstored. So I look at it as an opportunity.

For the first time in a long time, we're actually going to see some traffic growth. And hopefully what that will mean is that these price wars that just drive down the profitability of restaurants will start to abate. That said, we are, I believe, going into a recession. So price will still be important. But we're looking at it as an opportunity to upgrade the quality of our guest experience.

One of the challenges the industry has faced is the labor shortage. With the closure of the units with the recession, there is going to be, sadly, more unemployment. But it will also give us an opportunity to give jobs back to those really good crew members and general managers who are going to enable us to lift the guest experience across the board.

I also think, from a selfish perspective, that people are going to want to return to comfort food and comfort brands. There is going to be this cocooning going on, a sort of a relief that we survived, wanting to embrace the things that give them comfort. And there's nothing like burgers and fries as comfort food. We're also excited to be able to lean back into that.

Sanitation is likely to stay ... The entrepreneurial activity, the omnichannel focus where people have expanded their dining rooms to curbside and take out is going to stay. We'll be handing guests sanitation wipes for a long time to come.

Circle K CEO Brian Hannasch: 'Our store employees are now considered frontline workers and everyday heroes.'

Circle K has always made it a priority to provide our customers with a clean and friendly experience when they enter a store, and the stringent measures we have implemented at the onset of the outbreak will likely be a basis for the "new normal" moving forward.

For example, I imagine we will keep our sanitizing stations in-store, gloves at fuel pumps, and clear barriers at the cash register as part of our standard operational practices. Additionally, we are continuing to adjust at lightning speed as consumer purchase behaviors have shifted.

Amid COVID-19, customers are coming to our stores for the convenience and ease of not going into a big-box location. They are expanding their baskets to include household goods, grocery items, essential products and alcohol during this time, and we will continue to ensure our shelves are stocked to meet their needs.

We have also learned during the pandemic how to adapt to our customers' desires for a more frictionless journey at our locations. Circle K stores are now piloting home delivery, curbside pickup, and full-service fuel options.

Most of all, I believe the convenience-store industry is seen as far more essential in our communities than ever before. During this pandemic, we have shown on a global scale that we are part of the solutions in the neighborhoods where we work and live.

Our store employees are now considered frontline workers and everyday heroes, and I could not be prouder of their work during these troubling times. I foresee both our stores and industry being held in higher regard in the "new normal," and we will continue to progress with ways to make our customers' lives a little easier every day.

Dr. Tom Mihaljevic, president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic: 'A lot of care will be delivered at home rather than in hospital.'

Before the pandemic, about 2% of our visits were based on the digital interface. Right now, 75% of our ambulatory care is being provided through digital. That's definitely here to stay. What is also going to change is that a lot of care will be delivered at home rather than in hospital to keep the hospital environment safe as well as patients way less exposed to infections like this.

Every country, the US in particular, will make sure our dependency to provide healthcare isn't completely dependent on getting supplies from foreign sources. We are going to see the resurgence of manufacturing domestically that will provide critically important items, including pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment, and technology. This will allow us to be not so easily exposed to the shortages that we're currently experiencing.

We are very likely going to see an accelerated decline in individual private practices or group practices that will simply not be able to withstand the financial pressures of a large pandemic like this. We're going to see fewer, yet larger, integrated healthcare delivery systems that will be caring for a larger number of patients, and a declining number of smaller systems and some smaller standalone hospitals as well.

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare: 'We're trying to ask how we can return better.'

We've stopped asking how we can return to normal. We're trying to ask how we can return better. There's a lot that's worse about not having an office, but we are learning some things, too. How can we take this opportunity to redesign the office? We're not laying anyone off. We haven't slowed down hiring.

Tech may double down on experiments that would reinvent some of the marketing activities that we've used to attract customers for years. No one relishes going to the RSA Conference and the Consumer Electronics Show anymore, but we've believed they serve an important function. It's inevitable that we're going to discover some mechanism that gives you the best of the conferences of the past. I don't know what they will be, but I'm guessing we will try a bunch of things. Some will work and some won't.

No matter what anyone's plan was in the beginning of the year, they've thrown it out and are thinking about something new. Some people feel they are so helpless. For that reason, it's really rewarding for us in tech that there's something we can actually do. The superheroes of this crisis are the medical professionals and scientists who are treating the sick and looking for a cure, but the faithful sidekick is the companies helping businesses work remotely. We're sort of the Antman to their Captain Marvel.

Carolyne Doyon, CEO and president of Club Med North America: 'The travel industry, from tourism boards and hotel operators to airlines, will work very hard to ease travelers' concerns.'

While our world and the way people travel will forever be changed, the industry will come back stronger than ever.

After a long period of social distancing and staying indoors, we believe people will want to either revisit places they're familiar with or reconnect with a brand that bring them joy and memories. The travel industry, from tourism boards and hotel operators to airlines, will work very hard to ease travelers' concerns by adjusting their operations and offerings to cater to this new world we live in.

For example, Club Med is creating new safety and hygiene protocols that will be implemented once our resorts open as we know health and safety will be one of the main factors in consumers' decisions to travel.

Examples include monitoring guests' temperatures upon arrival, as well as the temperatures of our staff, serving even more single-plated food at buffets, and continuing to sanitize all areas of each of our Children's Club daily. It is our mission to ensure all guests and employees feel safe and comfortable when staying with us.

Before the pandemic, we noticed more multigenerational families choosing to stay with us, so we conducted a research study that confirmed that "family togetherness" and "intergenerational bonding" were the two biggest drivers for choosing a vacation. We anticipate these two driving factors will prove even stronger once families are able to travel again.

Ryan Gorman, CEO of Coldwell Banker: 'I'll be able to leverage technology to be able to touch more people more efficiently without having to travel to as many cities every week.'

Before coronavirus I had a goal of being with between 500 and 1,000 of our people every week, four to five cities every week. I love it, loved understanding viscerally and personally what was going on throughout the company.

In the future, I'll be able to leverage technology to be able to touch more people more efficiently without having to travel to as many cities every week. It's become more acceptable, it's become more personal with video. I will touch more people but possibly travel less than I did before.

For the business and agents, they've been the physical and social network of their community and remote workers forever. They work in their cars and in the living rooms of their clients. They've been working from their phones and their LTE connected iPads forever, and this has probably forced a higher recognition of that.

It has forced people who didn't work that way to get aligned pretty quickly. E-notary laws have been passed and I have heard that CMBS investors may accept something other than wet signatures.

Lloyd Dean, CEO of CommonSpirit Health: 'Healthcare should be more responsive to the needs of everyone.'

The new future will be one in which our operations will need to anticipate and meet the demand of rapid surges. Our sustained resilience in the face of unanticipated stresses on our system is going to be more important than ever. We are taking the lessons from these past few months and undergoing serious planning so we can flex our system in ways we haven't needed to in more than a generation.

Healthcare has always been a collaborative industry, and we have seen this in abundance throughout this pandemic.

More than ever, the spread of COVID-19 has also brought to light how much our health depends on the local environment around us. Healthcare should be more responsive to the needs of everyone, especially vulnerable and underserved populations who have been disproportionately affected by this virus.

We must more effectively meet patients where they are when mobility is limited if brick-and-mortar care sites are impaired for any reason. One of the positive things that can come out of this tragic pandemic is if we use data to target necessary health services locally and make care more convenient and accessible to our communities.

We now have the tremendous duty to walk with our most vulnerable patients through their medical, behavioral, and social health needs that may have gone unattended during this crisis. My greatest hope is that we will rebuild the healthcare system so that it is stronger and serves all people.

Rich Antoniello, CEO of Complex Networks: 'We believe that we will continue to see significantly more and more demand for more original IP.'

Whether it's COVID-19 or the 2008 recession or any other catastrophic event, you have to remember that 95% of the things that happen are out of most of our control, which means you have to maximize and crush the 5% you do control.

One massive difference this time around is how the pandemic is influencing people's media and purchasing habits. In 2008 or 2001, audiences didn't have access to the overwhelming amount of content they do now, and e-commerce was just a fraction of what it is today. So what you have now is an impacted population that is global, has more attention to spend, and instant access to even more media and more shopping resources than ever before.

From a media-content perspective, we believe that we will continue to see significantly more and more demand for more original IP that is not news or reaction-based, more premium serialized content that has a unique voice and perspective. We're already seeing that demand from all of our constituents — audiences, distributors and, even more important, from brand partners and advertisers.

If anything, it's going to force us, and the industry, to even further prioritize rapid innovation and problem solving, which hopefully has positive lasting effects on how we all do business: how we create content, engage audiences, the types of stories we tell, improvements in cross-team collaboration, how we work with our partners and the solutions we engineer for supporting their businesses. We are already starting to see the potential to improve how work is done.

Markus Steilemann, CEO of Covestro: 'There may never again be a greater opportunity to tackle and change these global problems.'

The importance of the chemical and plastics industry might be strengthened as our products and solutions prove to be critical in coping with this crisis. So society might acknowledge this and see our sector through a different lens. And it could play a major role in building a better, climate-neutral, post-corona world, since plastics are optimally suited and indispensable to advancing more sustainable solutions.

On the other hand, our sector could face a longer economic downturn and be forced to reshape and reinvent itself, depending on how deeply customer industries, like aviation, might fundamentally change.

The pandemic suddenly shows us the fragility of our globalized world and reveals underlying trouble spots that have been in existence for a long time. But there may never again be a greater opportunity to tackle and change these global problems. In that sense, the crisis may trigger positive changes. When, if not now, will we have the chance to create a world that will be more sustainable, healthier, and fairer? I think a lot of people will be united in this goal and we will see the momentum gaining traction. The chemical and plastics industries will be more than happy to play their part.

Ken Lin, founder and CEO of Credit Karma: 'We're seeing the industry provide an unprecedented amount of support for consumers.'

This economic downturn is unlike anything we've experienced. In 2008, we saw major corporations and banks take a hit, yet the crisis was more staggered for consumers. Now we're seeing record numbers of unemployment and people without steady income in a matter of days and weeks, which is taking a toll on people's finances and our economy.

Companies are having to rethink their business models to figure out how they can be successful in the long-term and still help their customers now. As a result, we're seeing businesses, banks, and other financial institutions offer programs to alleviate some of the financial burden for Americans. You don't always associate the word "empathy" with financial-services institutions, but we're seeing the industry provide an unprecedented amount of support for consumers, which I hope will persist.

Beyond that, we expect to see lasting changes to the way issuers determine their lending criteria. Right now, there are a lot of unknowns for lenders and, with unemployment fluctuating so much, lenders are finding it difficult to assess risk and are tightening their lending as a result. This is an area where I see an opportunity for banks and issuers to partner more closely with fintechs who can bridge the information gap by providing up-to-date information on consumers in real time.

Joe Lusardi, CEO of Curaleaf: 'This has been a massive validation for the cannabis industry.'

The first thing I would say is that this has been a massive validation for the cannabis industry in general, to be deemed essential in virtually every market in the country. We've been — I've been — in the industry for 10 years, fighting for relevancy and recognition and the fact that we can operate and serve our patients is just a huge, you know, recognition.

In the short term, we've been able to adapt our business to the circumstances like everybody doing curbside pickup. I think in the short time we'll be able to get through it and be there for our patients. But in the long run, I really believe this is going to put more of a tailwind behind regulatory reform for cannabis.

It doesn't make good sense or public policy to keep this industry illegal. We create jobs, and we're there for customers. So I really think that, and you're going to see it in the ballot box in November. You're going to see states like New Jersey and Arizona, I believe, overwhelmingly pass adult use and you're going to see States all around the country looking to fill budget holes, turn to cannabis as a potential source of jobs and tax revenue. So I think it's going to accelerate that thinking and be a net benefit to the industry.

Larry Merlo, CEO of CVS Health: 'We're reaching consumers, we're helping them stay safe.'

For us it's really more about the affirmation of the strategy, the role that we want to play in people's health. 

We're reaching consumers, we're helping them stay safe. We've waived fees around home delivery, we increased access to critical offerings like telemedicine. For what we're seeing today, we are confident that the strategy that we've been working on building is the right one for the future.

This convenience-based model, it's not going to go away.

We think a lot of what we're doing will become part of the new normal. 

We've talked about three important goals as part of that strategy. The first one being local, whether it's in the community, in the home, work or now for many in the palm of their hand through digital devices.

I think we're seeing terrific examples of public-private partnerships.

Obviously there's a lot of discussion currently in the news around the role of testing. Are we adequately testing people today? What will be testing needs for the future?

We've forged partnerships, both at a federal and state level in terms of responding to the needs for testing. We're in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Georgia, Michigan, and we're conducting 6,000 tests a day in those markets across the country. That is satisfying a real need.

I think that's something that we absolutely don't want to lose. The private sector plays a critically important role in innovation and competition. I hope we can continue to capitalize on any opportunities that we can create to bring solutions to unmet needs. 

I'm sure that people will remember this result of what's going on around us — how precious life is. I think that's something we can never forget, never take for granted. 

Poppy Gustafsson, co-CEO of Darktrace: 'We will see businesses fully embrace AI that fights back against threats automatically.'

The coronavirus pandemic has provided a real-world test of how robust many companies' cyberdefences are. What's clear is that the old way of doing security — creating rules for what employees are allowed to do and trying to predict what might go wrong based on history — is useless in the face of rapidly changing, unprecedented circumstances.

This is a watershed moment for the industry, and we will see businesses fully embrace AI that fights back against threats automatically. Throughout this period, humans have struggled to keep up with the speed of attacks and security teams have become leaner with many members of staff off sick.

We have seen this active, defensive use of AI change the role of security teams during the pandemic, and improve companies' ability to defend their data and networks from future compromises, breaches, and sabotage while they focus on human-centered tasks.

Mike Parra, DHL Express Americas: 'We're going to see many customers say to us that they like the no-contact delivery.'

I think, initially, it's going to have a change in how we operate back in our workplaces in regard to things like appropriate social distancing and making sure that our employees' cubicles and workspace have the appropriate space in between each one of them.

In the elevators, we are already dictating how many people can ride in an elevator at one time. In our break rooms, or canteens, [we're dictating] how many people can physically be inside a room at one time. We are closing down small meeting rooms. This is in preparation for return, because right now 40% of our staff is working from home, and 60% of our staff is frontline employees.

Now, what are the things that are going to change permanently? I think we're going to see many customers say to us that they like the no-contact delivery and they will want that to continue. We're no longer giving them a scanner, having them use a pen, having them sign on our scanner, and then returning the scanner back to us. That is probably something that will never return, from what I'm seeing.

Tony Xu, CEO of DoorDash: 'It challenges assumptions of the worker model.'

The important thing about this pandemic, whether you're operating as an organization or a business, is you have to be very, very responsive. Yes, you want to think ahead to different scenarios. Yes, you want to do your best and listen to all of the experts — from the health professionals to the government officials to economists. But at the end of the day, the best thing is just to be ready.

The crisis makes the world question assumptions of the past. Take the need to be colocated and working together and whether or not work from home could be a part of the portfolio on a go-forward basis.

It challenges assumptions of the worker model. And I don't just mean where you work, in terms of work from home, but also when you work and what you do, because companies sometimes have to add positions and remove them. In that dynamic world, the best thing for the worker is flexibility. How do we create an employment framework that supports that?

It challenges how should business be done in the future. How can you serve customers where they are? How do you build those relationships? How do you even find the customer? How do you give them the same experience at home versus inside the store? How do you customer service them?

Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy: 'It's required us to dramatically adjust how we operate.'

This pandemic is unlike anything we've seen, and it's required us to dramatically adjust how we operate. When you're in the middle of a crisis, your priorities become very clear, very quickly.

We provide an essential service, and our priority has been to continue serving our customers and communities while keeping our employees safe.

We took steps early on to help relieve the financial burden on customers. We stopped service disconnections for unpaid bills and waived late payments fees and fees for returned payments. We also offered resources, such as one-time grants and additional paid time off, to employees who may be experiencing financial and emotional strain.

Our employees in the field, our control centers and power plants continue to work diligently to maintain our operations. We've taken significant steps to help keep them safe, including implementing social-distancing measures, performing enhanced cleaning, staggering staff and shifts, and providing appropriate personal protective equipment like face masks. Some of these practices may be implemented on a permanent basis.

Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman: 'It's time for PR to take share from advertising.'

It's time for PR to take share from advertising. Blackouts have been imposed because advertisers don't want to be next to difficult news. We can actually be part of the news cycle with stories of companies and brands stepping up, of companies in some way changing their supply chains.

We should try to have our own ideas, our own ability to do content creation, our own ability to set up channels of communication. The classic PR business of me pitching you a story is a shrinking pie. But we still need to communicate, arguably more now than ever because there's fake news and distortion and people in politics saying whatever they say.

We're going to really have to be sharp about standing up and having good content. PR is going to have to stop being a one-sided exercise where everything's great and this product is perfect and — no. If you are going direct to end-user, you'd better be somewhat more objective and not pretend to be media but pretend to be sourced and third-partied.

We have to have our own creative, we have to make up our own channels, we have to be very data-oriented. We have 150 people in research who are finding data and saying, "Go this way and here's why your creators should be like this." That's how we have to prove also that we sell stuff or improve reputation. It shouldn't be so squishy.

Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic: 'The health systems in general are in financial distress right now.'

The health systems in general are in financial distress right now. So that's going to affect their staffing levels and morale, their capital expenditures, and their operating expenditures. There are going to be bankruptcies. It's going to be a tough, tough time.

A lot of our customers have seen a 35% to 55% drop in revenue. That's a lot. And if you do that month after month, you can't keep affording to pay your staff. So that's going to be a big problem. There's already been at least one bankruptcy. And there'll be mergers and acquisitions, as some of the smaller providers will get purchased by larger health systems who can afford to stay afloat.

There may be more interest in doing HMOs and other arrangements where the patients are capitated, because those folks didn't get hit as hard financially. Because they get paid a regular amount every month, and it doesn't matter whether there's a virus or not a virus.

There's a lot of nice things, too, and more creative thinking. There's been better reimbursement models for digital health, new infection control processes, and far more video visits. We calculated there are 100 times as many video visits as there were in months before the pandemic. That's a huge increase.

Julia Hartz, CEO of Eventbrite: 'We have witnessed an overnight shift in event creator behavior to transform their offline events to online events.'

COVID-19 has ground the live experiences economy to a halt. Our customers have been especially hit the hardest as small businesses and entrepreneurs who fuel this economy and bring live experiences to life. However, our timeless need for human connection remains as strong as ever.

The 1918 Spanish flu was the most devastating pandemic, infecting one-third of the world's population and killing tens of millions. Not coincidentally, the Roaring '20s quickly followed, as the world came together to experience a renaissance of theater, music, and art. Human connection was reestablished with even greater vigor.

We will return together through live gatherings as we did following the Spanish flu. In the meantime, we have witnessed an overnight shift in event-creator behavior to transform their offline events to online events. With over a 1,000% year-over-year rise in online events in April alone on Eventbrite's platform, it's clear that now more than ever people want to connect. Event creators are the conduit to fulfill this desire, and their ability to adapt to a new format is key.

Ralph Schlosstein, CEO of Evercore: 'This is going to be an accelerant of a general, populist, more active government role in our economy.'

One of the things that I smile about now is that, one of the leaders of our advisory business always used to say to me that "people aren't working that hard because when I'm here on Saturday or Sunday when I walk around, there aren't many, if any people here."

I've said to him a couple of times since this happened that the walking-around test really doesn't in any way measure whether people are active or not. And that's going to be a real learning lesson for all of us who grew up in a world where your work time was measured almost exclusively by the time that you spent in the office.

I remember instances where we've had really talented professionals say, "Well, my husband or my wife got a job in XYZ where we don't have an office." And we lost them. Today we might consider or certainly think about, if it's a very talented person, could you work remotely? And so I think it opens up a broader thinking of how one interacts with one's colleagues and how one interacts with clients. So that is a very constructive thing, and ultimately could modestly reduce the costs of doing business in our industry.

What we have gotten in terms of the government response is absolutely unprecedented in size and speed. We haven't even had a quarter of down GDP reported yet, and we have three stimulus bills passed. And then you add to that what the Fed has done. The Fed and the monetary and fiscal authorities deserve a lot of credit for a massive and fast response.

I personally think this is going to be an accelerant of a general, populist, more active government role in our economy. And inevitably, this is going to be a massive, massive deficit, and at some point we're going to have higher corporate taxes and higher taxes on those most well off.

Henrik Fisker, chairman and CEO, Fisker: 'A majority of the new EV startups will disappear over the next 24 to 30 months.'

We'll focus on sustainability and creating cleaner vehicles. We've experienced the immediate, positive impact of less pollution from fewer vehicles on the road, and this experience can only be achieved with pure electric vehicles.

The automotive industry will never look the same again. There is no "back to normal." Value for money will be a focus for a much higher percentage of buyers than ever before, combined with increased awareness of sustainability. The vehicle has to add to life enjoyment — it's no longer the driving dynamics that will fulfill that attribute.

A majority of the new EV startups will disappear over the next 24 to 30 months, as they have focused on manufacturing and they will take too long to learn this highly complex difficult area. Further, the next wave of EV buyers will have less patience for initial poor built quality and lack of reliability.

We will also understand the need to accelerate the process of cleaner mobility, mainly quicker EV adoption and more incentives from governments to do so. The industry will look at digital ways to sell and deliver vehicles, and people will look at "luxury" vehicles in a new way. Automotive luxury will be redefined over the next years, and some traditional luxury auto makers will not have the ability or brand to overcome this successfully.

James Park, CEO of Fitbit: 'This pandemic has accelerated the use of digital health technology.'

There's no question that this pandemic has accelerated the use of digital health technology. We will continue to see an increase in both the need for and the ability to support remote patient care and telemedicine.

We will also see increased collaboration across companies and more public and private partnerships and data sharing to speed up innovation, along with regulators working with companies to get innovations to market faster. We have already experienced the FDA being incredibly responsive during this time.

Right now, we've re-prioritized our roadmap to rapidly launch features and content to help support our users and research community around COVID-19. For example, we introduced a COVID-19 resource tab in our mobile app that gives users a place to go to get information from the World Health Organization, to schedule a telemedicine appointment, and offers ways to stay healthy at home.

We are also working with leading research institutions like Scripps and Stanford Medicine on research that looks at the potential for wearables to help detect, track, and contain infectious diseases like COVID-19.

Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr: 'We'll begin to see a shift in the labor market toward more digital, flexible, independent work.'

The full extent of the impact is still unveiling, and no one really knows what tomorrow will look like, but it is pretty clear that the toll will be heavy in some areas. I believe that coming out of all this we'll begin to see a shift in the labor market toward more digital, flexible, independent work.

Looking at the broader market, businesses that are offline only are the ones who have been hardest hit, and, unfortunately, there will be many that don't make it through. However, I think new businesses will also arise out of this crisis, with new thinking and new approaches to doing business, while keeping safe.

Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton: 'Video calls have naturally become more personal as kids and pets weave in and out of the frame.'

As we are all becoming more comfortable with and accepting of video meetings, we're recognizing that it can have close to the same connectivity as an in-person meeting with less of a time commitment.

During a video meeting, you're also able to read the important nonverbal cues in a client's expressions — something that could never be done over the phone. Since our sales teams and their clients are now both working from home, video calls have naturally become more personal as kids and pets weave in and out of the frame.

With so much personal disruption, self-care is more important than ever, and it is crucial to focus on our personal well-being, embrace flexibility, and continue to adapt.

For me that has meant being creative on how I work in fitness like taking some of my conference calls while walking or taking a break to do some cycling to keep energized and focused. I am also finding that I am actually connecting more regularly with family and friends with weekly video happy hours. I am also inspired daily by how our employees have responded during this time, whether it be organizing virtual team happy hours, internal support groups to share tips on homeschooling, and participating in virtual fund-raises or sewing homemade masks.

David Brickman, CEO of Freddie Mac: 'The rumors of the office's demise and the radical transformation of the urban landscape are somewhat exaggerated.'

In truth, our company and industry were already changing; the current crises will just expedite the process. We have developed tools that automate many aspects of both our business and the mortgage process, including appraisals, inspections, underwriting — even the application itself. COVID-19 will just accelerate the digital transformation of the home-buying and financing processes and move it more quickly from forms to phones.

While the crises have not even subsided, there is likely to be widespread acceptance that this, or something like it, will occur again. As a result, the mortgage-finance industry is likely to see changes in its composition and growth that highlight the importance of liquidity and recognize that different parts of the industry rely on different operating models. We know technology provides tremendous advantages and will continue to be a primary area of focus, but it has not proved to be an effective substitute for a solid balance sheet and financial resiliency.

Just as every major institution is rethinking physical space and the need for co-location, it is also likely we will have a better understanding of where and when it is truly valuable to bring people together. No question about it, streaming video works, but it is not the same. The experience is different, and for certain functions and activities it does not produce the chemistry and energy that a person-to-person interaction does.

While many are concerned about returning to work or school, many others crave more authentic social interaction. We all will be rethinking travel policies, office layouts, restaurants, retail centers, and accommodating the many who cannot return to work, but, as in other times in our recent history, I believe the rumors of the office's demise and the radical transformation of the urban landscape are somewhat exaggerated.

Enrique Lores, president and CEO of HP: 'It's accelerating an important conversation about the role of corporations in society.'

This crisis has compelled us to change virtually every aspect of our daily lives. And how we respond to this moment will shape our company, our industry, and the world for years to come. At the highest level, it's accelerating an important conversation about the role of corporations in society. We must create value for all stakeholders — not simply in moments of crisis, but as normal course of business.

It's also a pivotal moment for our industry. Companies like ours, which empower humanity through technology, have important roles to play in helping people everywhere adapt to new ways of living, working and learning.

First and foremost, employee health and safety remain paramount. We will take a conservative approach when it comes to people returning to offices. Local government regulations will be the minimum guidelines we follow. Our teams have been incredibly resilient working remotely, and this will influence the way we think about workforce mobility and real-estate strategy moving forward.

Second, we will leverage the strength of our balance sheet and carefully manage our costs to navigate near-term challenges, while staying focused on longer-term opportunities. These range from new technologies, services, and business models to meet changing customer needs, to areas of innovation such as 3D printing and digital manufacturing that will enable more flexible, resilient supply chains across industries.

The road ahead will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and tradeoffs, carefully balancing the needs of our business with continued support for our people.

And everything we do will be guided by our values as company. HP's founders once said, "The biggest competitive advantage is to do the right thing at the worst time." That's the mindset we all need to embrace right now.

Guo Ping, rotating chairman of Huawei: 'The pandemic has made supply-chain disruptions prominent issues.'

On one hand, COVID-19 is putting the ICT industry under tremendous pressure when it comes to service assurance. On the other hand, the social value of ICT has been more apparent than ever before. Communications networks support collaboration between people and between organizations. Functions like telecommuting and online entertainment make life easier for people in isolation at home. Digital industry solutions, like AI-assisted CT scans, help doctors diagnose patients more efficiently.

While ensuring employee safety, we have worked with our customers and partners to develop and deploy multiple technologies and solutions to fight the pandemic. When infection rates spike, building new hospital networks, rolling out tele-consultation services, and establishing data platforms are especially critical. During the outbreak, R&D on medicine, 5G-enabled telemedicine, online learning, and remote education are very important. As infection rates drop, we look more closely at how digital platforms can help enterprises and governments efficiently resume work and production and boost economic development.

The pandemic has made supply-chain disruptions prominent issues. Both Huawei and its partners in the ICT industry must reconsider how to ensure business continuity to better enable international cooperation and coordination.

This pandemic may fundamentally change people's lives. Digital life will very quickly become the new norm. People must think how to add meaning to digital life and digital products. Digital life is more than games and entertainment. Everyone can create value through digital technologies and platforms. We can see how people are already using these technologies to help others. Yoga teachers are giving free classes to help people stay healthy, and engineers are leveraging 3D technology to change diving apparatus into new respirators.

Javier Quiñones, US president of Ikea: 'Issues such as climate change and equality are magnified in times like this, and we remain committed to doing our part.'

As we consider the impact of COVID-19 on our business and our coworkers, we've recognized the need to further accelerate our transformation. Optimizing and evolving our e-commerce strategy is essential right now, like it is for so many retailers. We're focused on safely converting stores to fulfilment centers and offering drive-thru click-and-collect and contactless deliveries, for example.

We're also preparing to launch a new shoppable version of the IKEA app in the next few weeks, and we recently announced the acquisition of Geomagical Labs, in Mountain View, California, to bring the uniqueness of Ikea to life through 3D and AI.

Once it's safe to reopen our stores, the shopping experience will deliver the same inspiration, but with all the necessary measures in place to ensure our coworkers and customers feel safe.

Our coworkers continue to be our top priority during this crisis. For us, keeping e-commerce operational during this time was never about making a profit, but instead protecting the livelihoods of our coworkers for as long as possible while our stores are closed. Fortunately, we already offered a robust benefits package to all coworkers who work 20 hours or more, including health insurance and paid time off.

Longer term, it will be important for retailers to take these learnings forward and look for additional ways to support and protect our workforce now and in the future.

Lastly, while it may be hard to focus on anything other than the COVID-19 crisis, for Ikea, issues such as climate change and equality are magnified in times like this, and we remain committed to doing our part. We have the opportunity to define the future we want to see and an economy that works for people and for the planet.

Mark Smucker, president and CEO of The J.M. Smucker Co.: 'I expect further acceleration of the values-driven role that businesses must play in modern society.'

I expect further acceleration of the values-driven role that businesses must play in modern society. There has been a growing recognition of the importance of companies delivering more than financial results and supporting all constituents. This crisis has shown the true impact of doing just that.

I also expect an acceleration of the need for greater collaboration across the value chain, from suppliers and manufacturers to retailers. The close alignment we've experienced with our partners during this pandemic — increased communications and openness to sharing more and better data — has helped ensure continued production amid unprecedented demand.

I expect an acceleration of the popularity of convenient shopping options, including pure-play e-commerce to click-and-collect to grocery delivery. Before this global pandemic it was essential to make your products available wherever consumers were looking to shop, and now even more consumers have become accustomed to this level of access.

Gregory Adams, CEO of Kaiser Permanente: 'We are deciding how to hardwire innovations and which of these we want to own.'

We've been challenged by this virus to reimagine work. We have thousands of employees who are working from home. For some of our employees, it's hugely satisfying to be working at home. So we will need to understand: What does that mean going forward?

We'd been preaching, leading toward, developing plans to, increase virtual visits, seeing them as more cost-effective, a way to have greater consumer satisfaction. Almost overnight we've gone from 18% virtual visits to 80%. That may not be where we stay long term. We've also had a strategy to accelerate the adoption of mail-order pharmacy. About 30% to upwards of 60% of our prescriptions are now being delivered to our members and our patients' home.

We are deciding how to hardwire innovations and which of these we want to own and be part of our business model going forward.

For members and patients that are not able to come in, especially the elderly with underlying medical conditions, who don't want their prescriptions delivered through mail order or can't, we've put in a curbside service. That is another member satisfaction. It's social distancing, it's protecting our members, protecting our employees.

Michelle Gass, CEO of Kohl's: 'I have found that these extraordinary challenges have actually opened up new ways of thinking, innovations, and a greater sense of purpose.'

As a retailer of scale with more than 1,150 stores, we have the responsibility to operate in a new way to ensure a safe workplace for associates and a clean shopping environment for customers.

Kohl's has always been known for being an easy and convenient experience, and we will now further enhance that with many new precautionary measures to make sure customers are safe and comfortable. Whereas these changes would have previously felt intrusive, these reassuring steps are now welcome.

I am really proud of how our industry has come together, setting aside traditional competitive pressures to collaborate on solving challenges that are bigger than anyone of us individually. Within Kohl's, I have found that these extraordinary challenges have actually opened up new ways of thinking, innovations, and a greater sense of purpose.

In looking ahead, we are all rebuilding toward a future of heightened support and safety for our customers and our associates. And I fully expect that this experience will have a lasting impact in people's lives in many ways.

Beth Ford, president and CEO of Land O'Lakes: 'Farming and food production are not remote occupations. They, too, require a surprising amount of technology and internet connectivity.'

Land O'Lakes is a farmer-owned cooperative with deep roots in rural America. We see every day what these communities do to provide the food and keep our country operating, despite enormous challenges.

The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted not only how essential these communities are to our food security, our economy, and our national security, but also the ways they are left behind, with fewer hospitals, grocery stores, and other crucial resources.

Many families in rural areas don't have the high-speed broadband connection that enables the telehealth, telework, and online school services that most of us have heavily relied on during this period of social distancing. Farming and food production are not remote occupations; they, too, require a surprising amount of technology and internet connectivity, which more than 19 million rural Americans do not have.

As our nation and the world begins to recover, Land O'Lakes will continue to advocate heavily for these communities, both domestically and globally, by recognizing the contributions they make and calling for better public and private investment to support them. We all have a shared destiny.

Ryan Roslansky, incoming CEO of LinkedIn: 'Companies that were not online before have now figured it out.'

Whether or not we like it, "virtual everything" is being tested right now. Companies that were not online before have now figured it out. Businesses that would have not considered a shift to remote working are making it work.

And it's not just the workday. Everything from music to conferences to happy hours is now taking place online, and we are already seeing new ways to engage, network, and hire virtually. We're seeing businesses host customer events over LinkedIn Live at a much faster pace — growing 158% since February.

We've also seen an explosion in online learning. In March alone, 4 million hours were spent learning on LinkedIn. The demand for, and desire for, remote work has also quickly increased. On LinkedIn, we're seeing a massive 43% spike in the number of people who want to get jobs working remotely.

There are no clear answers yet. But we're testing, learning, and adapting to virtual everything. And as we continue to experiment to understand what works and what doesn't, it's likely to change the way we work, learn, and collaborate forever.

Michelle Cordeiro Grant, CEO of Lively: 'Consumers are going to be very intentional with their purchases and will go back to brands they felt prioritized them during this time.'

Now more than ever, we are a company focused on flexibility, agility, and community. We decided to switch our messaging and marketing from what would have been focused on swimwear this time of year to loungewear, in response to what we were seeing and hearing from our community.

We also quickly created bundle sets for bras and bralettes, undies, and loungewear to make the shopping experience for our customers that much easier. As a result, our loungewear category is up 10x to last year, and we're seeing a huge spike in sales coming from our bundles.

We're now operating on a schedule that permits us to work in time blocks, prioritizing times we know we're more productive, taking more breaks and spending more time with family. We're seeing how productive our team continues to be while working remotely, and we're also doing way more connecting over video, which has really brought that level of human interaction.

Consumers are going to be very intentional with their purchases and will go back to brands they felt prioritized them during this time. Other brands will need to lean into the idea of being flexible, agile and community-first if they weren't already. It's not about changing your core products or your core values; it's about what you're leaning into and your messaging and tone.

Amy Errett, founder and CEO of Madison Reed: 'There are more than 77,0000 beauty salons in the US and almost all of them closed during this unprecedented time.'

How we think about workspaces will be entirely different. We will be rethinking open-floor plans, conferences rooms, and communal spaces. We've always operated with distributed staff — our entire customer-service operation has worked remotely. That experience gave us the flexibility to adapt during this moment and our strong culture and sense of community has sustained us.

There are more than 77,000 beauty salons in the US and almost all of them closed during this unprecedented time. Some may never reopen. The pain is real, from the loss of lives to the loss of livelihoods. The whole relationship that people have to service industries — from your manicurist to your stylist and your server at a restaurant — may have changed in ways we can't even predict right now.

We may see clients slow to return. They will be cautious about where they shop, where they dine and who colors their hair. We don't know yet what it means for four-wall retail. We likely will reopen our own Color Bars in phases starting with curbside product pickup and moving to sensible scheduling with no more than three clients scheduled at any given time.

The price that has been paid for everything has been enormous. It's been unimaginable. But I tend to be an optimist. I am hopeful that we emerge from this in a better place, in a better, more humane world.

Marguerite Mariscal, CEO of Momofuku: 'We need to all use this time to reevaluate industry standards.'

A lot of smaller restaurants and restaurant groups sit at the intersection of art and commerce. What that translates to over the next few months, a year, and beyond is still being written. How do you keep a connection while going contactless?

The northstar will remain the same: Have someone leave our spaces better than when he or she walked in. But we'll just need to reverse-engineer how we get there.

The pandemic has also pushed us to approach restaurants as one of multiple revenue streams. For us to take better care of our employees, we need to be profitable in and outside the four walls of a restaurant — whether that's through takeaway, products for the home, or content to cook along to. Diversifying our income means a more stable financial picture and better advantages for our teams in and out of crisis.

The last month has shined a light on some of the industry's practices that were previously barely tenable in the first place. We are hopefully going to see a reform that will better position restaurants, even after there's a vaccine.

The worst thing a restaurant can do is go back to normal. We need to all use this time to reevaluate industry standards. Does a tipped wage still make sense when a larger percentage of revenue will come from takeaway and delivery? Are delivery fees — sometimes up to 30% — defensible when takeaway is a restaurant's only source of income? Now is the time to recalibrate and come out stronger.

Ultimately, how we interact will evolve, but I don't think the fundamentals will change. We want to celebrate and commiserate with those we love.

Kirt Walker, CEO of Nationwide: 'People would've thought I was crazy if it weren't for this opportunity and said, "Hey, everybody for the next week, why don't we just start working from home?"'

We have had basically 27,500 of our 28,000 associates working from home. The focus word there is "working from home."

We didn't just tell people to go home. We said to take your laptop, take your monitor, take the other things you need. We're going to send people home over a five-day period. And at the end of five days when I was driving home and I said to myself, we did it, we sent 28,000 people to work from home.

We have not missed a service-level agreement number or a key performance indicator in four weeks. Plato says necessity is the mother of invention. People would've thought I was crazy if it weren't for this opportunity and said, "Hey, everybody for the next week, why don't we just start working from home?" But think about the opportunity that we picked up. We had the opportunity to do exactly that.

I can see in the very near future that Nationwide will have nearly, if not more than, half of our associates working from home full time as we move into the future.

Stacey Cunningham, president of NYSE: 'One thing we will remember is how we treated each other in this moment of need.'

The way people and organizations have pulled together during this crisis has been both noteworthy and inspiring. Individuals have committed to staying home to protect themselves and others. First responders and medical professionals have risked their lives to treat those who have become ill. Companies have retooled manufacturing lines to support frontline workers, producing vital products like personal protective equipment and ventilators.

At the NYSE, we have seen our listed companies step forward to address this crisis on a global level. Healthcare companies have raced to create a vaccine for COVID-19 as well as testing tools and treatments for those infected to help flatten the curve. Leading corporations are providing everything from hand sanitizer to transportation for those in need. Others are making large donations to food banks and relief organizations of all types.

At some point, we will emerge from this pandemic and life will return to normal. When that happens, part of this experience will stay with all of us, and one thing we will remember is how we treated each other in this moment of need. Those memories will spring from the extraordinary efforts we are witnessing today.

Gerry Smith, CEO of Office Depot: 'Rather than having many deliveries from numerous vendors, some customers may look to consolidate and reduce the number of deliveries they receive.'

In a time of social distancing, we can actually help people connect and collaborate. We call that providing the "essential assist" to help our customers be more productive. We do believe the future of work will include more remote activity, and we will continue to evolve and develop new solutions.

I believe that at a time like this, leadership and culture become more important than ever. Your real stars shine and true character emerges, reinforcing your culture. I couldn't be prouder of how all of our associates, from retail to our distribution centers, to headquarters, have responded to this pandemic.

It will become important to be recognized as a trusted provider of essential products. Rather than having many deliveries from numerous vendors, some customers may look to consolidate and reduce the number of deliveries they receive. The platform we've created allows us to be that trusted provider of a wide range of products and services delivered to their office or home.

Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal: 'We're not going to be using cash nearly as much in the future.'

This is an unprecedented situation for all of us. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on our business, the way we work, how we live — really everything. It's also shined a light on how truly interconnected our world is and increased use of all things digital. Now, more than ever, it is paramount that we work together to take care of each other, support our communities and help those who are most vulnerable.

Our industry is undergoing a tremendous test on an expedited timeline, and we don't take that responsibility lightly. There has never been a greater need for digital payments, and we're not going to be using cash nearly as much in the future. People want to use QR codes so they don't handle cash, or pick up a pen or sign on a touchscreen at checkout. They're also shopping more online in verticals like groceries, gaming, electronics, and home and gardening.

PayPal's products and services are perhaps more critical than ever before. Over the past couple of weeks, the number of new customers that have signed up for PayPal or Venmo has increased dramatically and the amount of spontaneous peer-to-peer giving has skyrocketed. We're seeing people use our platforms to donate to first responders and grocery store cashiers, send money to loved ones, and give to charities electronically.

John Fallon, CEO of Pearson: 'Hundreds of millions of students around the world are facing the most significant disruption to education in modern history.'

Hundreds of millions of students around the world are facing the most significant disruption to education in modern history, and this pandemic is pushing many families into full-time at-home learning for the first time. It's been a sudden and bumpy shift for some, but it's also been a clear turning point in the wide scale acceptance of digital learning. In fact, 88% of Americans now say that the pandemic will make online learning commonplace, even more than when we asked just a month ago.

This means education systems will need the ability to move seamlessly between in person and online classrooms and figure out the right balance between the two. Until a vaccine is found, periodic closures of schools and universities may make this a necessity. But longer term, some students, especially young adult and adult learners, will find the flexibility of online learning is better suited for them. While it hasn't always been easy, this moment of experimentation is actually our chance to improve virtual learning and make it more accessible for all. Making learning more widely available is a shift that ultimately can help millions of people make meaningful progress to a better life.

Albert Bourla, CEO and chairman of Pfizer: 'Our industry peers, the other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, have come together like never before.'

We are all forever changed by what the crisis has demanded from each of us. The sense of purpose, degree of confidence, and deeper pride in our work will extend well beyond the pandemic as serving the needs of patients around the world is what we do every day.

Our industry peers, the other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, have come together like never before. We're acutely aware that we are all on the same side, and COVID-19 and other diseases are the enemies. The pandemic has created a new sense of openness and trust to share early data and novel ideas to enable the potential discovery and development of future medicines.

We've opened doors for one another, and I believe the way we now are working will carry forward into our future.

Jimmy Haslam, CEO of Pilot Flying J: 'We need to move faster and we need to spend time on fewer, bigger projects.'

Most companies based in North America, like we are, prior to the virus faced a revenue challenge — in other words, continuing to develop and to grow sales has been a challenge. Post-pandemic, when we believe it's going to be a slower U-shaped recovery, and some things might not ever get all the way back. It's going to be a challenge from the revenue side.

All of us are going to have to be much more efficient in terms of how we allocate capital and how we allocate people. And I think technology, which is playing a increasingly large role in all our businesses, must help us become more efficient, whether it's running our stores or procuring petroleum.

We've all learned that we could do things faster than we thought. We've probably had too many projects going on, some of which were inconsequential. And so we need to move faster and we need to spend time on fewer, bigger projects.

Manish Chandra, cofounder and CEO of Poshmark: 'The intergenerational movement that resale has ignited is fueling the acceleration of social commerce at scale.'

We built Poshmark from the ground up specifically to enable millions of people to sell from home, ship from home, shop from home, and receive their purchases at home. Our peer-to-peer model and extensive suite of seller tools makes it easy for anyone to earn extra income, while our highly distributed logistics and inventory network means that our model is more resilient to disruptive world forces than others might be.

Because of this foundation, Poshmark has been able to continue to operate without extensive changes. Our innate architecture supports this new way of life, and I believe the kind of personalized and immersive retail experience fostered on our platform will be the "new normal" going forward.

Pre-COVID-19, the retail industry was already undergoing significant changes as companies worked to meet consumer demands for genuine human connections and personalized online shopping experiences. And now brands are required to innovate at an accelerated pace to survive.

Retail will look very different on the other side of this. As consumers continue to turn to platforms that prioritize financial and environmental sustainability, resale will be at the forefront. The intergenerational movement that resale has ignited is fueling the acceleration of social commerce at scale, delivering on consumers' need for connections and a newly awakened sense of community.

Arthur Sadoun, CEO of Publicis Groupe: 'Anyone who thinks that the majority of our clients will come out of this storm acting as they did before is very wrong.'

Uncertainty is going to be the new norm for a while. I'm afraid that anyone who thinks that the majority of our clients will come out of this storm acting as they did before is very wrong. When factories have been closed for months and demand has fallen by more than half, you also have to adapt. Not just for the months to come, but for years.

Clients will need even more creative impact to bring the necessary emotional value to justify their prices and reignite desire. Customers will have reduced buying power and justifying margins will need breakthrough ideas. There will be no more space for "nice to have" campaigns. Our clients will be under tremendous cost pressure, as cash will be king. They will be focused on immediate return on investment for their media spend.

We will have to come with outcome-based solutions if we want to be their partner and stand a chance against the walled gardens, which is why at Publicis we are creating new products and services to help our clients with these heightened pressures for performance and growth.

Finally, it is way too early to know how our industry will evolve. It will depend on the two points above and how we behave collectively. The marketing industry has taken on a new dimension in the past decade with the arrival of the platforms, consultants, and system integrators.

If we want to get out of this together, it will ask for more solidarity, more transparency, and a sense of responsibility toward the smaller companies that most of the time are a vital source of creativity.

Tim Ryan, CEO of PwC: 'We should resist the urge to go back to "business as usual."'

Businesses have had to make tremendous shifts very quickly to stay relevant, and in some cases afloat, during the coronavirus crisis. As we look to rebuild, we should resist the urge to go back to "business as usual" and seize the opportunity we now have to build on what is working well and assess how we can improve the future of our businesses, our communities, and our infrastructure and public systems.

One thing we've seen work well through the pandemic for us is digital enablement and remote capabilities at scale: Our people's ability to seamlessly move from office and on-site with clients to working at home was key to helping our clients manage the coronavirus themselves.

Coronavirus proved to business leaders that the technology that enables things like remote working — and training our people to use this technology — is absolutely critical, and I see businesses already looking to invest in their digital capabilities and their people as they think about the months and years ahead.

I'm also inspired by how many companies we've seen work across competitive lines to be part of the solution, from creating PPE to the development of tracing technologies to get people back to work and reopen the economy. I expect to see much more of this kind of collaboration that goes way beyond high-level talk and extends to the day-to-day work of addressing our biggest societal challenges in a proactive way.

Benjamin Fraser, CEO of Ready.Set.Van: 'We've already seen a pretty strong uptick in demand for vans that are already built.'

Honestly, I think the coronavirus is probably going to be quite good for the camper-van industry. For the next year, at least until there's a vaccine, I don't think anybody's going to want to go to a resort, get on a plane, or even go and stay in a hotel in a densely populated city. People are trying to figure out what they can do. Getting in a car and going somewhere is something most people feel like they can do.

We've already seen a pretty strong uptick in demand for vans that are already built. For us it's been so much more interest than we could possibly ever supply for a van that's ready to go. When we say we don't have something that's built and ready to go, their interest drops off.

Our communications people can work from home, but obviously we can't build vans from home. Me and three of the guys are living out of vans at the shop. I go home to visit my family periodically, but we've just quarantined ourselves here and everybody agrees that it's the best thing.

I have a pretty grim view on the coronavirus. We're so incredibly grateful to be in a thriving business during this extraordinarily difficult time. But when I talk to all the various small-business owners that I know, every single one has a number of weeks or months that they can survive until insolvency. None can survive six months.

I feel like there's a freight train of economic calamity bearing down on all humanity, and very few people have been willing to acknowledge the depth and breadth of the damage that lies ahead for us as people, as countries, as species.

Rebecca Minkoff, CEO of Rebecca Minkoff: 'Never before have we embraced this degree of transparency or kind of deep connection with one another.'

My industry — our society — is faced with so much uncertainty. I take a little comfort, though, in what this ordeal has taught me, and the hidden superpowers I've seen emerge among networks, businesses, consumers, and, frankly, within myself and my team.

Never before have we embraced this degree of transparency or kind of deep connection with one another. How are you feeling? What can we do to help you now?

The Support Your Ladies directory of women-owned businesses — which my network, Female Founder Collective, launched with Ladies Get Paid — came together in a matter of weeks, for example. It was born out of a real place of vulnerability and connection to our fellow female small-businesses owners.

I hope the world remembers that there is strength and power in these moments too. They may look a little different to us, but they're still something to celebrate, as friends, as parents, as a community, and as business leaders.

Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit: 'Though we will return to normal, it won't be the normal we left behind.'

While it is impossible to predict what the future holds for the economy generally and the advertising industry specifically, we believe that digital brands and social platforms — especially those that are nimble enough to lean into these challenges — will continue to see their value, use cases, and resulting engagement grow.

We are tracking changes in consumer behavior and engagement on and off Reddit that indicate a number of interesting trends across health and wellness, entertainment and technology. Though we will return to normal, it won't be the normal we left behind.

Sheltering for months means we have developed new habits for how to socialize, shop, exercise, spend time with our families, and have caused many organizations — present company included — to question the need for offices in the same manner we had before. That said, I'm really looking forward to having an in-person coffee with someone, anyone, again.

Martin Fritsches, CEO of Rolls-Royce North America: 'We see this as a time for discretion.'

The coronavirus pandemic will change the way we operate, mainly in the marketing arena, where we already interact with clients very personally. Immediately, we are increasing our use of digital interactions, social media, digital communications targeted very specifically and personally at our clients.

Once we are speaking face to face with clients, I expect to see smaller, more intimate outreach and interactions. We have traditionally eschewed mass meetings, and if anything we will only become more intimate.

As a participant in the luxury industry, we see this as a time for discretion, a time to focus on the lives and health of our clients and people who love to follow the Rolls-Royce brand. This feeling of discretion and post-opulence will influence our patrons in the near future. However, as we've seen before, Americans celebrate success and are not shy about it. In the long run, we expect this celebration to evolve but remain.

Our clients are preoccupied with leading their businesses. Rolls-Royce vehicles are not immediate purchases, but we know they will be more active once the crisis has passed.

We've all learned how to adapt, and quickly. I think this will make an impact on reacting to all kinds of challenges, and we will see more innovation and adaptation throughout our lives. The shift to a more personal way of using digital communications, face-to-face video, and information sharing will definitely continue to be more prevalent.

Sir Martin Sorrell, chairman of S4 Capital: 'The crisis has significantly improved the way we operate and made us more efficient with no lunches, dinners, or traveling.'

Paradoxically, the crisis has significantly improved the way we operate and made us more efficient with no lunches, dinners, or traveling. On the people front, we have a relatively young workforce, so the cases of COVID-19 at our company are in the low single figures. Most of our people spend most of their time with our clients, so it doesn't make sense to spend $30 million to $40 million on real estate. We're looking into canceling leases and looking to consolidate.

In terms of clients, it is very varied, but there's a huge opportunity for us in helping them with first-party data and in-housing.

Our finances are stable. We have zero debt, and we want to keep it that way. The second quarter will be horrendous for the advertising industry, but we anticipate some companies seeing a V-shaped recovery coming out of it. We're watching our balance sheet like a hawk.

The coronavirus will have a threefold impact more broadly. As consumers consume more media more at home, digital and online purchases will explode and e-commerce will take off. We were already seeing the demise of newspapers and magazines, but the transition from analog to digital will also speed up. All this will in turn accelerate the digital transformations of companies and enterprises.

In media, the strong will get stronger. The platforms may have problems with small businesses suffering in the short term, but will come out with more power in the long term. The streamers will come out on top of linear. The advertising holding companies, meanwhile, will be weighed down by the albatross of the analog.

Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi: 'We have to apply the same sense of urgency to other pressing but less apparent threats, such as climate change.'

The whole company has stepped up to fight COVID-19. The challenge from COVID will be how we maintain the gains we've made in efficiency and focus that was necessitated by the crisis. It has changed how we work, largely for the better. We are less hierarchical and more purpose-driven in our ways of working.

We have never signed so many partnerships as during these past two months, with academia, startups, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and even with one of our competitors [GSK]. The pandemic has clearly reminded us about the complexity of biology and the need to share expertise and resources to accelerate the search for solutions.

The pandemic has placed the critical link between human health and economic growth front and center. But COVID in itself will not change the world as much as our response to it at individual, community, and societal levels.

In the face of the crisis, academia, scientists and industry have moved to find a solution at an incredible pace. This is not a surprise, as human beings are wired to pay attention to immediate threats. But now we have to apply the same sense of urgency to other pressing but less apparent threats, such as climate change. Crises do not just neatly follow one after the other. They add up.

When things return to a certain level of normality, it will also be important to draw lessons and find solutions to the challenges people faced at home while in confinement.

When we draw policies to ensure equality in the workplace, we should remember that inequalities do not disappear at home, where women in particular often carry a heavier burden than men.

It is also clear — and I will lead by example — that the one-business-meeting trip will disappear. People will be more comfortable with virtual meeting solutions and travel will become something we do when it's absolutely necessary and efficient.

Doug Ingram, CEO of Sarepta Therapeutics: 'COVID is no match for our biotech ecosystem.'

The 2008 recession was primarily an economic crisis. This isn't. This is primarily a healthcare crisis, first and foremost. The economic impact is an artifact of conscious decisions that we're making to address this pandemic. Once we address the healthcare crisis, we should have a substantial rebound economically.

For 20 or 30 years, we've been developing technologies that allow us to work together virtually. And I've been among those people that have been skeptical that we should broadly embrace it. Here we are with a forced society-wide experiment on that exact issue, and I think I was wrong. We are getting stuff done. We are advancing our mission, we are progressing, we are hitting our milestones. I really think there's a place where the office of the past starts to become an anachronism.

COVID is no match for our biotech ecosystem. Science, creativity, and investment are going to defeat this pandemic and give the public back our normal lives. The optimist in me says that through this test we will have a renewed respect for science, and a renewed respect for what I think is a national treasure, and that's our biotech industry.

There may be three big effects on biotech as a result of this pandemic. We as society should have a renewed respect and love for science and should have a renewed respect and pride in our biopharmaceutical industry. We all should realize how valuable innovation is, and we should nurture it and realize that it's fragile.

And the third thing is there are going to be learnings, and this is the way we develop therapies, in trying to apply those in other areas, too, to more efficiently and faster develop therapies.

Ara Katz, cofounder and co-CEO of Seed: 'This unprecedented moment offers the opportunity to rethink, to rewire, and to redefine what's sustainable.'

COVID-19 is certainly a test of our resilience, as humans, as a company, and as a greater earth. It has magnified both the bad (the invisible and often silenced societal failures, the deprioritization of science, and a world operating system only programmed to react) as well as the good (our creative potential in the face of acute stress, the capacity to love and nurture at scale, and our will to persist).

This unprecedented moment offers the opportunity to rethink, to rewire, and to redefine what's sustainable. For startups, there will be a new normal — the lean journey to profitability will demand new fundraising strategies and financial-health planning that accounts for unforeseen downturns and operational disruptions.

Investors will evaluate companies and founders not just by their metrics, but by how they showed up during this pandemic — ethically, humanistically, and as leaders. Offline and physical-product companies will expand their digital offerings and develop more holistic and integrated experiences. And collectively, we'll see even faster adherence to global scientific guidance, even when government responses may lag behind.

Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow: 'One CEO told me point-blank: 'Innovation isn't a cost — it's an investment.'

As a digital-workflow company, we've learned that we can do just about anything wherever we are. So far, we haven't skipped a beat. In fact, we have seen an increase in employee productivity.

A colleague even told me that, in a certain sense, the social distancing has brought us even closer together as a team. I love that comment because it's such a rich reflection that culture is the secret sauce of great companies. The soft stuff is the real stuff.

In terms of the business itself, our priorities remain the same, and we've confirmed beyond any doubt that digital transformation is a business imperative. Eliminating the time and expense of travel has freed up our time to focus even more on our priorities.

Looking at physical events and the costs associated with them, we may see a permanent shift to more digital events. New general and accounting models could change work-at-home allowances that enable greater productivity. These are learnings we'll take with us when it's the right time to reenter the physical workplace.

Beyond ServiceNow, the pandemic is accelerating the various shifts associated with digital transformation — including mobile work, virtualization, digital workflows, and predictive analytics, all powered by AI and machine learning. Businesses and governments that have embraced digital tools to give their employees more flexibility in the way they work will fare better than those that have not.

Leaders are feeling this sense of urgency, and they're acting on it. One CEO told me point-blank: "Innovation isn't a cost — it's an investment."

Tobias Lütke, CEO, Shopify: 'The future we imagined for 2030 has been pulled forward to the present.'

We are in the midst of a massive societal change, and technology is playing an unprecedented role as our global connective tissue. The future we imagined for 2030 has been pulled forward to the present, with everything going digital by default.

The first major shift we see is the rapid adoption of anything starting with the letter E: e-commerce, e-sports, e-learning. In this new world, if something isn't online, it doesn't exist. Many companies saw digital as a supplement to their traditional business model, but from now on digital will be the core tactic of successful businesses.

We've had a lot of warning that we need to be digital, and the ones who prepared for this are adapting well. Some who weren't sufficiently prepared are showing that you can make up for lost time: Heinz, the 151-year-old historic brand, just launched its first direct-to-consumer online store in seven days, and Lindt went live in five.

It won't be the biggest companies or the strongest brands that survive, but the ones most adaptable to change, and it's easier to adapt when you're digital.

Frank Yang, founder and CEO of Simplehuman: 'A new consumer consciousness has been born.'

The transition toward online and virtual experience has accelerated. While the physical in-store shopping experience is at a halt, we forecast that consumers will be driven to purchase products based on reviews and reputation in lieu of the traditional touch-see-feel model.

The digital experience of online shopping will be pivotal to converting leads to sales, and when stores are back open they will be held to a higher standard in terms of experience.

Additionally, a new consumer consciousness has been born where purchase decisions will be influenced by the incremental value it will bring to their health and well-being, making fast fashion and "trendy" consumer goods a thing of the past. The housewares industry will likely shift to curating a collection of conscious comforts — ridding our home of germs, and expanding our efforts in touch-free technologies. The industry will pull items from shelves that are hotbeds for bacteria, and lean into quantifying the quality of air in our homes to improve at-home sanitization.

Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack: 'I hope that we do use it as an opportunity to think critically about how we want the world to be set up.'

I think a lasting effect will come from having that surge in demand. There's a saying in software development that nothing feels as good as shipping. So having had all of those opportunities to deliver for customers in a short time, it inspires a lot of confidence and it makes people excited and it kind of increases the momentum for the next thing they want to do.

Some of the big question marks are, do we need more salespeople now? Or do we need fewer salespeople because they'll be more efficient because you don't have to travel?

I think that the overall economy will get worse, and that means it'll be a tough time for everyone. For software more broadly, it will probably be good. There's interest in new tools that will help people make it through this time, that are going to be just as necessary after.

There's huge kind of parts of the technological infrastructure for companies, for governments, that are badly in need of updating and those updates will start to happen, which means software does really well.

There are a lot of opportunities for innovation. A lot of new ways of working will become available to people and hopefully people will be opportunistic in the pursuit of those things. I hope that we do use it as an opportunity to think critically about how we want the world to be set up and spend a little more time designing it as opposed to everything being reactive.

Lynn Jurich, CEO of Sunrun: 'In the solar industry we've always had to be scrappy.'

I do believe that our company and the renewable energy industry will emerge stronger than before after this crisis is over. Nearly overnight we've made going solar almost contact-free, including all virtual sales, digital signatures, drones, and a push for virtual permitting and interconnection.

We're working with customers to help us do house surveys over video call. Our customers really appreciate this. It's also allowing our sales consultants to speak with more people since they don't need to drive from house to house. We're working with local authorities across the state and country to try to make sure we can do all of the required permitting online. These innovations have the potential to endure long after Covid-19.

Although we certainly did not envision the necessary widespread shelter-in-place orders that we're seeing across the country, I believe that Sunrun is a counter-cyclical business. In the solar industry we've always had to be scrappy — that was one of the main lessons from 2008. We believe that people will be looking for ways to reduce their spending, and that is something we can help with.

More and more, people are taking matters into their own hands. We know that families need affordable, reliable energy now more than ever. Taken together, the changes that are happening in response to COVID-19 can further accelerate the switch towards more locally generated sources of energy, like rooftop solar and battery storage. We've been forced to make some hard decisions, but we're also adapting and innovating.

Margaret Keane, CEO of Synchrony Financial: 'Digital retail transformation will continue to intensify.'

The effects will be profound across all industries. There will be changes in how consumers shop and pay for goods. Digital retail transformation will continue to intensify. Consumers will continue to benefit from increased personalization and more integrated offers while retailers will benefit from new levels of data and consumer insights.

I anticipate we will be even more focused on digital innovation, accelerating our analytics capabilities and creating best-in-class, frictionless customer experiences. We're also helping many of our small-business partners establish or upgrade their online presence. Amid the consumer uncertainty during the first quarter of 2020, our total digital credit applications have increased.

As a member of both the Business Roundtable and Banking Policy Institute, I've been fortunate to have been an active participant in how the public and private sectors have come together. I believe our world will emerge stronger on the other side if we can continue this spirit of collaboration. As a business that supports the medical industry, and as a mom to a scientist, this crisis has shone a light on the importance of our health and science industries and the global work happening in hospitals, labs, and doctor's offices.

Mark King, CEO of Taco Bell: 'It's clear that this virus knows no boundaries and has taught us that the world is even smaller than we think.'

We're already seeing a lot of changes in the restaurant industry in Asia that will inform how we reopen our industry in the US. Restaurants will have to make adjustments to seating areas, offer more sanitation options at high-frequency touchpoints and protective shields at counters so that customers continue to feel safe.

Team members will expect their employers to continue to provide protective gear like gloves and masks to ensure they are being taken care of, and the industry will continue to offer much less contact throughout the experience, including delivery and drive-thru.

So often we get caught in our own silos in our countries, states and cities. It's clear that this virus knows no boundaries and has taught us that the world is even smaller than we think. We can learn so much from each other and the only way to move forward through this crisis is by working together and supporting our communities.

It will be interesting to see which behaviors stick around when we finally land on a "new normal." I think everyone will be a lot more conscious of their personal space, including which protective gear makes them feel safe, which events they choose to participate in in-person or virtually, and precautions they now take before they travel.

Jide Zeitlin, chairman and CEO of Tapestry: 'The continued decline of brick-and-mortar shopping is accelerating.'

The most difficult time to assess change is when you are still in the eye of the storm. There is a tendency to overemphasize new behaviors and to underestimate the acceleration of existing secular trends.

In fashion retail, accelerating trends are digital and casualization. Digital as in online consumer exploration, engagement, and purchasing. Also, as in digital/social marketing and leveraging data trails to better understand the consumers needs and desires. We must become better able to meet her where they are traveling.

The continued decline of brick-and-mortar shopping is accelerating. Not to zero, but to greater equilibrium with digital. This is the consumer expressing where they prefer to shop. It also reflects the imbalance in economics that has developed between retailers and landlords. Absolute rents are just too high! This has become clear as the pandemic closed stores, yet retailers are still expected to pay rents.

Tomorrow's winners will be those who invest in enabling platforms, but, more important, who reimagine their operating model and culture. Listening to the consumer comes first, second, and third.

Stacy Brown-Philpot, CEO of TaskRabbit: 'I'm optimistic that the shared economy and two-sided marketplaces will continue to grow.'

The extraordinary speed and scale of the pandemic has forced us all to rethink what we consider to be normal business activities, and a normal life.

Will road warriors still try to top off their frequent flier miles? Will daily commuters return to sitting in traffic each morning and evening? Will we want to work in coworking spaces or other open office concepts to reach peak productivity? Will the humble handshake and high-five survive? In all honesty, the answer is probably not.

Eventually, the pandemic will subside and business leaders and their employees will adjust to a "new normal." In addition to the logistical and operational challenges we'll encounter, we also need to consider the emotional effects of the pandemic. Many of our colleagues are experiencing increased stress and anxiety, so it's critical that we're managing with empathy and remaining diligent about protecting their health and well-being.

One of the most important things we can do is to remain optimistic and find inspiration from the everyday heroes who represent the best of humanity. From volunteers who are helping their neighbors and the frontline healthcare workers saving people's lives, to the amazing generosity and kindness of strangers, there are so many reasons to believe that we will get through this together, and come out stronger and more united on the other side.

This crisis provides a powerful reminder of our responsibilities to the communities we serve — and as companies, we all should always be mindful about what it means to act with purpose and as a force for good. As the CEO of TaskRabbit, I have witnessed first hand the essential role that independent contractors have played in responding to the pandemic. That's why I'm optimistic that the shared economy and two-sided marketplaces will continue to grow — precisely because they provide the flexibility and opportunities for people and companies to adapt to the new normal.

Kurt Listug, CEO and cofounder of Taylor Guitars: 'More of our marketing budget will go into direct-to-consumer reach.'

As far as changing the way we operate, we're going to carry a higher level of inventory. We were already discussing this before the outbreak. As long as the company has more inventory to sell and ship, we'll give ourselves more options. We will also schedule work differently, to provide for better social distancing.

We could operate several shifts 24/7 and have fewer people operating on each shift. More of our marketing budget will go into direct-to-consumer reach. That could mean more brand messaging direct to consumers, or even selling online direct to consumers. And we're fast-tracking new instrument development, because trends may change more quickly.

Weak companies might not survive, both manufacturer/suppliers and retailers. The shift to buying online will accelerate. Brick-and-mortar stores will really need to create obvious value to justify their existence and remain in business.

The pandemic may precipitate faster societal changes and social-musical trends. New young artists will create new music. Legacy music and the instruments used to play them may fade in popularity, especially with baby boomers aging. New music and new forms of musical instruments may come into being faster.

The trend will continue toward greater border security, and greater trade barriers where appropriate. Especially with countries that cheat and are not trustworthy. I hope there will be less tolerance toward countries that are bad actors, for the sake of one's own prosperity.

Hopefully there will be a greater focus on fixing societal and environmental problems, and helping the inhabitants of our planet survive and prosper

Vanessa Pappas, general manager of TikTok US: 'Our desire to drive empathy and connection with one another will continue long after the pandemic subsides.'

With work cultures adjusting to sheltering at home, the tech sector has been fortunate enough to manage working remotely more seamlessly than others. However, we're also seeing a challenge with blurred lines between home and work as we try to delicately balance our jobs and families under one roof.

One silver lining we've seen both at work and in our app has been heightened human empathy and connection. Despite being physically separated from the office, we've embraced the humanizing moments — whether it's your 4-year-old making an appearance on a video conference or your dog who simply won't stop barking — that help us connect more intimately.

The growth in users and engagement we are witnessing is testament to the shared desire for connecting with our communities through common experiences. Our business has seen a shift in demand, for more livecasts and educational content. Seeing just how much our users value these connections with the community is the very reason why we continue to build and invest in these experiences.

I believe our desire to drive empathy and connection with one another will continue long after the pandemic subsides. New habits are said to take 21 days to form, and with many of us being remote and distanced for longer than that, I imagine a world where we each take a minute to better understand a coworker, family member, friend, or neighbor. The impact of this alone time will have profound effect on the world around us.

Elie Seidman, CEO of Tinder: 'We've seen Tinder's youngest members, Gen Z, broaden their view of how to make and sustain a connection.'

During this pandemic, the shutdown of the physical world has not ended our desire for connection. It's just the opposite: We need connection now more than ever. Just a few years ago — which feels like forever now — many of our members would have said that connecting was inextricably tied to meeting up in person, IRL. Since then, we've seen Tinder's youngest members, Gen Z, broaden their view of how to make and sustain a connection.

The pandemic has caused the rapid adoption, and acceptance, of virtual happy hours, virtual meetings, virtual book clubs, and virtual dates, and has introduced so many to what Tinder members have understood for a while, that connection is possible even when meeting up in person isn't. An online connection is just as valid, just as real and just as meaningful as one formed in the physical world.

In the context of dating, face-to-face will, of course, remain important. But we are also seeing a world where you can find someone compatible, independent of geography.

The work of building Tinder has also been profoundly changed. We're very lucky to be able to do our work from home, and we've witnessed a societal silver lining. Los Angeles, home to our headquarters, is notorious for bad air quality. Like other Angelenos, I can't help notice the dramatically cleaner air.

For those of us who can effectively work from home, we have an opportunity post pandemic to deliberately choose when commuting is and is not worth the cost of the air we breathe.

Lee Olesky, CEO of Tradeweb: 'We're really exploring what works best for our team, now and in the future.'

We're really exploring what works best for our team, now and in the future. Everything is on the table: where we all work, how the ideal week should look, how our office space is designed to accommodate our teams safely, and what technology allows us to best collaborate. Ultimately, I want our approach to be really flexible and creative and focused on what works best for our people and our clients.

It's difficult to draw many positives from a crisis that has had such a significant human cost and that has created such dire economic circumstances for so many families. I hope we'll use it as an opportunity to ask some tough questions: Do we need to adjust the work-life balance? How can we make sure the most vulnerable are better protected? Are we really getting healthcare right?

And while technology in certain respects will play an even more important role in our lives than before, I'd hope we also see more of the humanity in each other. This has been incredibly isolating on one hand, and very tough on all of us, but social distancing has also been one of the greatest acts of cooperation for the common good I've seen in my lifetime.

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO, Uber: 'We need the partnership of governments to improve the standards for the whole gig economy.'

As one of the world's largest platforms for work, we believe Uber can and will play an important part in the economic recovery of cities around the globe. It's still unclear what the full economic impact of this crisis will be, but there is no question it will take time to recreate jobs for the millions of employees who have lost theirs over the last two months. Our economy has changed and I believe we will all change with it.

This crisis has underscored that for many independent workers, the status quo simply isn't good enough; especially in moments like this, now and in the future, the safety net must continue to grow to catch them too. Platforms like ours have a responsibility to raise the standard of independent work. Yet we can't do it alone. We need the partnership of governments to improve the standards for the whole gig economy. Some have argued that we should scrap independent work altogether, but as this crisis has shown there is real peril in mandating that you can only earn a living or work a few additional hours a week if you are an employee.

Millions of Americans have been laid off, furloughed, or had their hours reduced, and they will soon need a way to earn extra money quickly, safely, and flexibly, while balancing increased caregiving demands at home that don't fit neatly into traditional schedules. A key focus of mine will be advocating for governments to require companies like ours to provide new protections and benefits to independent contractors, so that flexible work can rise to meet the moment, and be a bridge to the future as economies recover.

Reshma Kewalramani, CEO and president of Vertex Pharmaceuticals: 'The world had become a very small place.'

We've needed to adapt and innovate to overcome new challenges, such as finding solutions to conduct clinical trials virtually so we don't put additional strain on the medical system or unnecessarily put patients at additional safety risks.

Discovering these new skills and ways of working will certainly benefit us in the future. We now see what's possible and what we're capable of when we work remotely, so we're actively incorporating these learnings into our own policies and practices at Vertex.

I wouldn't be surprised if the industry starts to operate more virtually, leveraging telemedicine and virtual clinical trials. We've proved it's possible and there are likely benefits to patients and the healthcare system.

I also think the COVID-19 crisis has given people who may not have had a lot of visibility into biotech, a view into this world. Whether the topic is diagnostic testing, vaccines, or therapeutics, science is front and center in everyone's living room every night, and I think the general appreciation for science, innovation, and biotechnology, has increased dramatically.

The world had become a very small place. Until recently, it was not unusual for a businessperson to travel across the Atlantic to meet a customer, or for a student to study abroad for a semester or for an entire four years, or for a consumer to walk into a grocery store and purchase cheese from France or pasta from Italy.

I see that changing. I see the world becoming bigger again. We will have to adjust to the new normal.

Bob Bakish, CEO of ViacomCBS: 'I think people are going to get back to what they really missed, and for many that means enjoying live experiences.'

This crisis has caused us to reexamine how we can do things better — how to make our organization more agile and resilient and ensure our employees have the resources and support they need to adapt and remain productive even in the most challenging of circumstances.

Streaming-TV consumption continues to grow rapidly, and no doubt that the coronavirus quarantine has only accelerated this momentum. But it is also important to note that people are also spending more time with traditional TV. Regardless of the distribution method, people are spending more time in front of screens and more time in front of great content. We are looking to serve that in every way we can.

Out of this remote work environment we've seen some interesting models emerge that may end up influencing the operations and strategy behind content production and distribution. When it comes to film, this crisis has forced studios, Paramount included, to significantly adjust their release schedules, and so those shifts will likely continue until the calendar is fully realigned.

Ultimately, people are going to get back to what they really missed, and for many that means enjoying live experiences like going to the movies and watching live sports. I believe there is enormous pent-up demand for that content.

The long-term economic impacts of coronavirus remain unclear, but it's already forcing both the private and public sectors to seriously reevaluate how to make our supply chain more resilient and responsive to global shocks of this nature.

I'm also hoping this will be a wake-up call for the global community to better prioritize public-health preparedness and prevention and to ensure we have the infrastructure and systems in place for a coordinated emergency response when another such crisis occurs.

Nancy Dubuc, CEO of Vice Media Group: 'More brands will need to start delivering to young audiences the voices and the stories they care about.'

COVID-19 has led to us having to make some tough decisions in recent weeks. While we've been around for 25 years and heave weathered some storms before, we've learned how to be resilient by strengthening our business through diversification. Many think still that we are a digital business, but digital revenue is less than 30% of the pie.

Nonetheless, the current situation is making us think, act, and create in ways we never thought possible. We're pushing the boundaries on unique and innovative approaches for people to engage with information, news, and entertainment while building exciting programs and connection points with our employees that will have lasting impact on our culture.

While we've seen incredible acts of solidarity, this crisis has also exposed how little the media pays attention to young people and how they are living through this. We just released the first study about the effects of COVID on this group to try and bridge the gap in knowledge.

We need investigative minds out there asking the probing questions and better representing the over 50% of the world's population who are Gen Z and millennial. To survive, more brands will need to start delivering to young audiences the voices and the stories they care about.

Driven by our millennial workforce, mental health was already a topic and area of great discussion internally and within our reporting, and now going forward I'm guessing most businesses will start putting it at the top of their priorities too. For example, we've launched a series of interactive expert-led virtual conversations for our employees called "Ask Me Anything," and last week's featured guests were two licensed therapists who specialize in trauma, loss, anxiety, and change.

We're starting to see talk of returning to the workplace, but while that might feel like a return to a state of normal, we're actually going to start questioning everything we did before. We used to joke about meetings that could have been emails, but now we'll wonder why we can't just do them in our pajamas with our pets on video conference.

There's a balance of course because some work is actually more productive and better done in person, but it will never need to be five days a week, all day every day again. We've seen successful examples of creative agencies and those responsible for creative output adapt in new ways to collaborate and create together, while apart.

Our Pulse Studio business, in just one week, developed, pitched, shot, and delivered three commercial projects for major multinational corporations. So in essence we've found out that creativity and content transcend the four walls around us. That's something I hope we all remember.

Thomas Flohr, CEO of VistaJet: 'The commercial network that was so well built over many, many years, and actually decades, has come to a complete stop."

We need to look at two periods. We initially saw an unprecedented demand for flights from one continent to the other. In the January-February time frame, there was very strong demand away from Asia into the United States and Europe.

And as the virus was in Europe in February, and moved on to North America as Asia was recovering, we saw the reverse trend that people were flying back into Asia after they were leaving Asia in the January-February time frame. This coincides with the massive reduction of commercial flight connections point-to-point being available.

Since the end of March, we have seen a reduction in our flight activity and this was obviously mainly due to the shutdown by governments and really only allowing the repatriation of nationals of different countries.

We see that the commercial network that was so well built over many, many years, and actually decades, has come to a complete stop. For a commercial airline to rebuild that network, that density of flights and routes, and do it profitably, will be a very, very hard job and might take years.

This is due to the fact that their business model is depending on the load factor — how many people they can get on a flight and then operate it profitably. So we're seeing that with our business model of a floating fleet that we can immediately fly again when the governments are allowing it.

Undoubtedly, the experiments we're all going through by using videoconferencing, FaceTime facilities for quick meetings a quick exchange of ideas has certainly changed significantly our behavior. So that in the short term, I don't see that travel is going to rebound anywhere in the near future.

However, our client base, which are the chairmen and CEOs of significant companies, they still need to go and be with their companies. They need to go and see their customers and that's where we've seen over and again, that business is done between human being and it's that travel which we believe should rebound first.

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMWare: 'This is a defining moment that creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to challenge old assumptions.'

We cannot sugar-coat that the pandemic has laid bare a central divide holding us back as a global community: a fundamental lack of access to healthcare, to education, to jobs and financial security. While some have access, far too many do not.

One of my favorite quotes as a business leader is from Churchill: "Don't waste a good crisis." This is a defining moment that creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to challenge old assumptions and drive structural changes that open the playing field in critical areas.

Take healthcare. We've been talking for years about the promise and potential of telemedicine. Suddenly, in the space of just a few weeks here in the US, the crisis has spurred the elimination of decades-old legal and regulatory barriers that held us back from building a telemedicine model capable of crossing state lines.

As world-class schools are forced to move en masse to online learning, the best of educational capacity is available nationally and globally. Factors like ZIP code or district zoning or union rules are no longer barriers to educational access.

In parallel, the crisis is inspiring us to rethink the very nature of work itself. Before the pandemic, working from home was a luxury reserved primarily for knowledge workers and the affluent. That reality is changing. We will look back on 2020 as a watershed moment when distributed work went mainstream for millions globally.

The upside here is significant: Improved quality of life for workers, a chance for businesses to reduce their carbon footprint, and an opportunity to expand access to a more diverse workforce that includes minorities, mothers with children, and people living in more affordable areas.

Doug McMillan, CEO of Walmart: 'This crisis has shown there are other people on the front lines — tens of thousands of people we might not normally think of as heroes.'

We hear the word "unprecedented" a lot these days, and that's probably because there's not really any other way to describe what's going on. And the crisis isn't over at this point. We've got to keep learning and adjusting. But some clear insights are starting to emerge.

One is the important role people on the front lines play.

The first responders are there, as they always are: nurses, police, firemen and women, doctors, EMTs, and others. We see them in their uniforms, and we recognize them right away. But this crisis has shown there are other people on the front lines — tens of thousands of people we might not normally think of as heroes. They wear a very different uniform. They work at retailers and grocers of all sizes in towns and neighborhoods across the country. We've come to expect them to be there in a way we never have before, and they have risen to the occasion.

Along the same lines, the world is seeing the importance of supply chains in a way it hasn't before. Usually supply chains operate quietly behind the scenes. But this pandemic has shown the world that the supply chain is really a lifeline. And the people in the retail industry, foodservice, and delivery services have been standing on the front lines of this crisis and extending that lifeline to all of us, every day.

People have also come to see that the supply chain doesn't just extend from a distribution center to the loading dock of a store. It goes all the way to the trunk of a customer's car or their doorstep. The "last mile" of delivery has become front and center. This is just speeding up the significant change the retail industry was already undergoing.

Before this crisis, we were already seeing robust adoption of online pickup and delivery in our business. As this crisis created the need for social distancing and required people to stay at home, customers embraced the pickup and delivery experience even more. My feeling is that once this crisis is more under control, people will have seen the benefits of that service and will likely continue to use it. It will become part of the "new normal."

Broad collaboration across all sectors of industry and government has always been important — it's literally become a matter of life and death now. At Walmart, we're proud of the work we and others in the private sector have done to collaborate to help find solutions. Business has the unique ability to make things happen fast and at scale. We've seen this across industries — car manufacturers quickly re-tooling to make respirators, textile makers pivoting to produce masks and gowns, distillers in the beverage industry converting their processes to deliver hand sanitizer. It's nothing short of amazing.

And there's been wide partnership with governments at the federal, state, and local levels. One of the most visible initiatives has been to stand-up mobile testing sites across the country. Walmart has been glad to have lent our hand in those efforts.

Which gets to the biggest lesson this pandemic has taught: the need for cooperation and partnership, the need for community. As one Walmart associate put it, "Though we're working further apart, we've never felt closer." As businesses, as communities, as families, and friends, we need to go forward remembering that we're all connected in one way or another. If there's anything good that can come from this moment, it would be the chance we have to deepen our connections with each other.

John Krafcik, CEO, Waymo: 'We'll need strong leaders and teamwork across nations to ensure we treat our planet better in the post-pandemic world.'

During this pandemic, we've suspended our public road-engineering testing and our operating services, both Waymo One, which moves people, and Waymo Via, which moves goods. But most of the progress we've made developing the Waymo Driver over the past several years has come through the billions of miles we've driven in simulation. These days, all our progress is a product of our massive compute infrastructure and the simulation and evaluation techniques our talented engineers have developed.

We've continued to make great strides during this period, and it's underlined even further the importance of improving the realism of our simulation tools. Stay-at-home guidelines have obviously driven a tremendous reduction in demand for traditional human-piloted transportation services, such as ride-hailing, taxis, buses, trains, and air travel. Yet for those with access to their own private automobiles, the pandemic hasn't changed their ability to move about the world. But for those without that luxury, choices now are narrower.

While we've yet to realize the long-term effects of this pandemic, we can imagine that society's view on sharing space with a human driver may forever change. It's here that we can see the potential of a world of automated transportation services piloted by the Waymo Driver, providing safe, accessible, and hygienic transportation for people and their loved ones, and the things they need in their lives.

Our new normal will be defined by new behaviors and expectations that will drive new products and services. For example, we'll see appreciation for the benefits of cleanliness and hygiene. Companies and brands that do well here will earn the trust and loyalty of post-pandemic consumers. As humans, we'll crave, perhaps more than ever, face-to-face interactions, but at the same time we'll seek out daily experiences that provide more physical and virtual privacy. These will be proxies for comfort and security.

And while many of us have found delight in the cleaner air that we're experiencing as our global energy usage has declined, we'll have to be vigilant about how some of our habits change as we start turning the lights back on.

Will we continue to push for renewable energy sources and CO2 reductions in a world of lower oil prices? Will our concern about hygiene lead us to more plastic packaging, fewer bulk supplies, more individual servings? I'm really worried about these things. We'll need strong leaders and teamwork across nations to ensure we treat our planet better in the post-pandemic world.

Gail Heimann, CEO of Weber Shandwick: 'Idea making can completely thrive in this virtualized world.'

Things change every day, so we need to be incredibly agile and incredibly flexible so that we not only serve our clients, we also do the best thing for the business.

The virtualization of business has democratized the way we work. It's working well in terms of delivering client work and it's working well for the gestalt of our organization. That will stay in some way.

We used to think that idea making — to get to the creative part of the business — idea making had to have a human touch. You had to be in the room, you had to be kicking it around. You have to be throwing stuff at each other and eating pizza. But idea making can completely thrive in this virtualized world.

However reentry happens in the most secure and protected way, there are people who will be happy to be back in an office environment, when it is safe to be there.

Data will remain an important part of what we deliver for our clients for sure. COVID-19 will put a lens on the kinds of technologies we deploy to do our work and the kinds of technology consulting that we offer our clients. Whether that translates into massive investment, I can't say.

Some 40% of our business is "digitally fueled." As we move towards the next chapter, whatever it looks like, we know technology has an absolutely huge role to play. We have a mandate to have the depth of knowledge and insight and predictive capabilities to counsel our clients.

Mindy Grossman, president and CEO of WW: 'We're already seeing the health and wellness industry become increasingly agile.'

Several things have become clear to me during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite physical distance and social isolation, people are experiencing an overwhelming sense of community, and there is increased focus on maintaining health and wellness to help guard our minds and bodies. At WW, our employees globally have been working from home since mid-March, and I've been so proud of how closely we have all stayed connected.

After transitioning our 30,000 studio workshops globally to virtual workshops in just a matter of days, it became clear that it was crucial for our members to be able to connect to their community, especially in a time of heightened stress and uncertainty. We galvanized teams across the entire organization to collaborate quickly and innovatively, including training thousands of coaches around the world in just three days.

This strong sense of purpose and clear communication are the hallmarks of successful organizations now more than ever. Once we empower our employees to work in ways that work for them, trust that they'll do their jobs and demonstrate thoughtful leadership, incredible innovations happen and amazing ideas blossom.

We're already seeing the health and wellness industry become increasingly agile as well. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but it's obvious that consumers must be met exactly where they are, literally. Success will be predicated on whether an organization can make those personal connections — so critical to health and wellness — authentically in a digital environment.

Mark Read, WPP CEO: 'We have produced work in four days that could have previously have taken four months.'

We've just had a decade of innovation in six weeks that has changed the way we work, communicate, meet, shop, and educate our children.

Which changes will stick and which will not stick is still not clear. I am continually asked if there will be more people working from home, and I am sure the answer is yes. But I also know that many people long to get back to an office and to have the interaction with colleagues that makes working ... well, not just working, but something more rewarding.

At WPP, there's no doubt we will fly less, meet more by video. But there will also be more fundamental changes in the way we work — faster, more agile and more collaboratively.

We have produced work in four days that could have previously have taken four months. We will be more collaborative as an organization, working more closely with our colleagues across the different brands that make up WPP as I have seen our culture change and grow in just a few weeks. There will be more demand for the technology-driven services in which we have invested significantly and now integrated into our overall offer.

There will no doubt be tough times ahead, but our industry, and WPP, will come through this. And when we do, our clients will value what we do as much as ever — the ability to envision the future and deliver growth.

Brad Jacobs, XPO Logistics: 'Precise visibility into the exact location of goods and their projected trajectories will become even more important.'

I think supply chains will become more ironclad against disruption, and the lead actor will be intelligent technology.

Precise visibility into the exact location of goods and their projected trajectories will become even more important. Robotics is still in its infancy, but growing at an extremely fast clip. Intelligent analytics should deliver astounding gains in efficiency, safety, and customer service.

This will help prepare for crises, assess risks, and forecast disruptions in the future.

One noteworthy side effect of the COVID-19 crisis is that many barriers between competitors have dissolved as we collaborate for the common good.

This crisis will come and go and the industry will settle back into familiar patterns, but it won't be the same as before. Over time, it will be better. I think we've all become more human.

Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom: 'Working from home and use of video communications will be more accepted as standard practice in day-to-day business.'

Zoom was created nearly 10 years ago to build a better enterprise video-communications platform and simplify how people communicate. When the pandemic started, we felt an immense responsibility because we knew Zoom was uniquely positioned to help people stay connected.

We have learned from the experience, as Zoom now has a much more diverse set of users who are employing the platform in a variety of new ways.

The pandemic has put a spotlight on the huge role that video communications can play in the enterprise, education, healthcare, and a variety of other areas. I think solutions providers will move quickly to bring new capabilities to their platforms to meet increased demand and respond to new use cases. Innovations that can enhance the user experience and make virtual meetings better than face-to-face, will be fast-tracked.

There are so many caring people in the world and the pandemic has brought out so much of the good in them. Hundreds of organizations and individuals have stepped up to help however they can during a very uncertain and stressful time. I am hopeful that these efforts to help each other will continue, and that Zoom can continue to help facilitate them.

The way people communicate will be forever changed. Companies and individuals alike now understand the great benefits of video communications, including the ways in which it can increase productivity and collaboration, and the fact that it's easy to use. In the long run, I think working from home and use of video communications will be more accepted as standard practice in day-to-day business.

Everything's changed. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a third of the global population being put on lockdown, millions of workers furloughed or laid off,  and a historic economic contraction. 

The coronavirus has affected everything, from how we work and take care of one another, to how we shop, pay, and entertain ourselves. 

To understand how the pandemic is transforming business, in the last week of April we asked more than 200 CEOs from a variety of industries in the US and beyond a three-part question: 

How will the way you operate change because of the coronavirus? How will your industry change? And how will the world change? 

In this feature you'll find answers from the CEOs of Walmart, AB InBev, Duke Energy, ViacomCBS, Sanofi, Zoom, PayPal, and more. Their insights address the rise of remote work and the cost of commercial rents, the role of government in business, how we'll interact with our doctors in the future, and much more. 

The theme: The coronavirus has hit fast forward on many trends that were already emerging. 

"The future we imagined for 2030 has been pulled forward to the present, with everything going digital by default," Tobias Lütke, the CEO of Shopify, told us.

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