Tuesday, April 17 at 2:00 pm
Speaking in Maine takes us next to the University of Southern Maine for a talk by Harvard Business Professor Rebecca Henderson on “Reimagining Capitalism: Business and the Big Problems.” Henderson discusses the potentially catastrophic environmental and social problems of many current business practices, and how some are turning solutions into real opportunity.
Many business leaders are aware that the world faces potentially catastrophic environmental and social problems, and many believe that finding solutions to these problems presents real opportunity. They are busy cutting water and energy use, cleaning up their supply chains and reassuring their millennial employees that they care about making a difference. Companies like Tesla, Whole Foods, Unilever and Walmart have shown that doing the right thing can substantially augment the company’s bottom line.
But more and more leaders are asking whether simply being less bad is going to be enough to solve the problems that we face. How can businesses step up to address the big problems of our time in productive and useful ways? As a business person, what can you do? Could purpose-driven business people be the critical catalysts in driving the system transformation that we need in the next 10 or 20 years?
Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson explores these questions in her keynote address following the inaugural Timothy B. Hussey Leadership Institute, which brings together a diverse group of Maine’s emerging leaders.
About Dr. Henderson:
Rebecca Henderson is the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, where she has a joint appointment at the Harvard Business School in the General Management and Strategy units and is the Co-Director of the Business and Environment Initiative. Professor Henderson is also a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. From 1988-2008 she was a Professor at MIT’s Sloan School, where she specialized in problems in the economics of innovation, organizational change, and the strategic issues facing large organizations attempting to take advantage of significant innovation. Her current work focuses on the economics of innovation in energy and on the organizational and strategic challenges inherent in the efforts of private firms to respond to climate change.
Sources: USM, Eventbrite.com, and heep.hks.harvard.edu/people/rebecca-henderson
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