“Our country, every region in our great nation, is in the midst of an unprecedented demographic transformation and you will need to buckle your seatbelt in order to deal with them,“ said James Johnson, Jr., professor and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the University of North Carolina during a keynote speech at Financial Executives International annual Summit Leadership conference. "And if you ignore them, you ignore them at your own peril.”Johnson, who bases his research on census and other social data, added that changes in the makeup of the U.S. population of the next decade will be more profound than at any period in history. The academic detailed six demographic changes in detail during his presentation, including:The South Rises Again: After losing population during the 1950s and 1960s, the South has been rapidly outpacing growth compared to other regions of the United States. “For much of the 20th century it was a place to leave as opposed to a place to be,” Johnson explained, citing data that shows that four states -- Texas, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina -- have seen the biggest growth. “What we are in the midst of is a profound redistribution of the population of this country from the northeast to the west and south.”The Browning of America: Over 90 percent of the net population growth since 2000 was nonwhite, Johnson said. The largest growing group is Hispanics, and the second highest growing group is multi-racial. Johnson pointed out, however, that the vast majority of the increase in the Hispanic population was not tied to illegal immigration “sneaking into” the U.S. but legal immigrants who “overstayed” working visas that are part the existing U.S. immigration policy. “If you build a wall, they are going to walk through the door,” he said.Marrying Out Is In: The percentage of people married to someone of a different race grew from 3 percent in 1980 to 8 percent in 2010. Johnson said the family of the future will not be as homogeneous as in past decades and will require employers to understand multi-ethnic traditions.The Silver Tsunami: Baby Boomers will continue to reach retirement age at a rate of between 8,000 and 10,000 a day for 19 years. Coupled with advances in health care, financial executives will need to deal with a growing older population that will live longer. This...