5th Annual IESE DGDW - Great Success!

March 7, 2008

Europe's Leading Student Conference on Responsible Business

Original Article can be found at:

http://www.iese.edu/Aplicaciones/News/view.asp?id=1375&lang=en&s=15

The fifth annual "Doing Good and Doing Well" conference was held at IESE Business School (University of Navarra) on February 29 and March 1. Opening the two day event was IESE Dean, Jordi Canals, who thanked participants for attending an event that closely reflects the key values of the school.

Organized and run by students from IESE's full-time MBA program, this year's conference was attended by 450 MBA students, speakers, moderators and career forum participants over 50 countries.

Responsible Banking

The first presentation by Daniel García Guelbenzu, GE regional vice president, highlighted how businesses can no longer afford to ignore people and the environment. Financial and environmental performance could work together to produce positive and sustainable results, said García.

During the session "Banks go Responsible: Can they Link Social Impact to Their Bottom Line?", Charity Bank founder and chairman Malcolm Hayday said that it was in banks¿ interests to promote a more civil society and help people get out of poverty. Financial institutions have to make a profit but there should also be recognition of their social impact, which is often overshadowed by the glare of frequent short-term financial reporting, he said.

Climate Change and Clean Investing

In a session on clean investing, the experts' predictions for 2020 were that most new buildings would have solar roof tiles, OECD countries would account for less than 30 percent of world GDP, food would be a more important issue than energy, a set of completely new disruptive technologies would have emerged and that "global carbon price" and "global carbon forum" would be familiar terms.

Social Enterprises

In a session on how to successfully scale social enterprises, IESE Prof. Johanna Mair said what was once seen as an anomaly ¿ running a company for social as well as economic benefits ¿ had gone mainstream. The next challenge for social enterprises (SEs) was scaling up to improve more lives and compete with from multinationals increasingly interested in emerging markets, she said.


New Clean Technology Venture Event

For the first time, this year's conference featured the Cleantech Ventures Seminar, which brought together more than 25 venture capitalists to hear pitches from cutting-edge start-ups, including a wave power project. Patents and protecting unique features from competitors were among points of interest for would-be investors.

Creative Capitalism?

The conference's closing session, chaired by Prof. Mair, drew together an entrepreneur, an oil executive, a private equity director and a Base of the Pyramid expert to discuss the implications of capitalism's evolution. Successful private equity investments in Africa, India and China was also addressed.

Reuben Abraham, director of the Base of the Pyramid Learning Lab in India and also on the board of George Soros' Economic Development Fund (SEDF), said there was constant argument in the West about development aid, but it missed the point.

"The single greatest poverty reduction experiment in history is going on as we speak because of the economic growth in India and China. It¿s lifting hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty and it¿s not being built by development assistance," he said.


Emerging Markets, China and India

Abraham also said the global economy was about to undergo even more change. "Any time you talk about a multinational, it's biased because what you really mean is a Western multinational. But get used to the idea that there¿s a new breed of multinational coming at you at a furious pace in the next five years. You're going to see a lot more south-south investment."

Mark Goldsmith, head of the Environmental, Social and Governance Team of Actis, a leading private equity investor in emerging markets, predicted "It's not just going to be low-cost manufacturing, it's going to be the service sector and it's just a matter of time¿ in 10-15 years it will be China followed closely by India."

Conference chair and IESE MBA student Tammy M from Canada said the conference and associated career forum had made it clear that a new career trend was emerging.

"Historically, MBAs had to sacrifice a decent salary in order to feel like they were having a positive impact on society. But a new breed of company that is doing good and doing well has arrived for those who want to work in finance/banking, consulting or industry, but also want to assist in the global quest for a more equitable and sustainable world," Tammy said


Visit http://dgdw.iese.edu/ for more information.