CEOs and business leaders discuss the real purpose of the American corporation. Howard Schultz, Lynn A. Stout, Shelly Lazarus, Thomas Donaldson are in discussion. Location: Greenwald Pavilion"
Bio
Thomas Donaldson
Thomas Donaldson is the Mark O. Winkelman Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he also serves as director of the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research. He has written broadly in the area of business ethics, values, and corporate governance. He was chairman of the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management (2007–2008). Donaldson has consulted and lectured at many organizations, including the Business Roundtable, Goldman Sachs, Walt Disney, the United Nations, Microsoft, The Tata Group, JP Morgan, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, BP, IBM, the AMA, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
Shelly Lazarus
Shelly Lazarus is chairman of Ogilvy & Mather, a global advertising agency. She has been on the forefront of the advertising industry since the 1970s. Her trademarks—clear branding and building close client relationships—have attracted some of the world’s most respected brands to Ogilvy, including American Express, Coca-Cola, Ford, IBM, and Unilever, among many others. A frequent industry honoree, she has appeared in Fortune magazine’s annual ranking of America’s 50 Most Powerful Women in Business since the list’s inception in 1998. Lazarus was the first woman to receive Columbia Business School’s Distinguished Leader in Business Award as well as the Advertising Educational Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She serves on a number of boards, including General Electric, Merck, New York Presbyterian Hospital, World Wildlife Fund, the American Museum of Natural History, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Joe Nocera
Joe Nocera is an op-ed columnist at The New York Times. Before joining the opinion pages in 2011, he wrote the Talking Business column and was a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. He also serves as a regular business commentator for NPR’s “Weekend Edition.” Before joining the Times in 2005, Nocera spent ten years at Fortune, where he held a variety of positions, including contributing writer, editor-at-large, executive editor, and editorial director. He was the Profit Motive columnist at GQ until May 1995, and he wrote the same column for Esquire from 1988 until 1990. Nocera has won three Gerald Loeb Awards, including the 2008 Award for Commentary, and three John Hancock Awards for excellence in business journalism. He is the author of three books, including All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis.
Howard Schultz
Howard Schultz is chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Starbucks Coffee Company. He purchased Starbucks in 1987 with the help of local investors in Seattle. He was originally drawn to Seattle and its extraordinary coffee culture in 1982 when he moved from his native New York to join Starbucks as director of operations and marketing when Starbucks had four stores. In 1983, Howard traveled to Italy and was captivated by Italian coffee bars decided to bring that back to the States. In order to pursue this dream, Schultz left Starbucks to start his own coffee company, Il Giornale, and returned in 1987 to purchase Starbucks. Schultz went on to create two landmark programs for Starbucks partners (employees): comprehensive health coverage for part-time partners and equity in the company in the form of stock options. Starbucks has grown to more than 16,000 stores around the world.
Lynn Stout
Lynn A. Stout is the Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Business Law in the Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell Law School. Stout is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of corporate governance, securities regulation, financial derivatives, law and economics, and moral behavior. Her most recent books are The Shareholder Value Myth and Cultivating Conscience. Stout also serves on many boards, including as an independent trustee and as chair of the governance committee for the Eaton Vance family of mutual funds, as a member of the board of advisors for the Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, as executive advisor to the Brookings Institution Project on Corporate Purpose, and as a research fellow for the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research. Stout has taught at Harvard Law School, NYU Law School, Georgetown University Law School, UCLA Law School, and the George Washington University National Law Center.
Lynn A. Stout, Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Business Law in the Clarke Business Law Institute at Cornell Law School, explains the volatility of today's stock market, and argues that a transaction tax would curb "hyperfrenetic" trading.
