Challenges to Business in the 21st Century: The Way Forward

The early years of the twenty-first century have witnessed a crisis in professional leadership in America which neither the corporate world nor business schools have adequately addressed. Using its unique convening power, the Academy has brought together practitioners and educators from the business and law communities to explore how the professions can foster leadership skills.

This advisory committee is organizing a study that will consider how to develop a cadre of well-qualified business leaders who are capable of advancing fiscal goals and personal integrity for the good of the corporation as well as the larger society. Thus far, the planning group has identified two areas of particular concern in the training of America’s next generation of business leaders: 1) the need to foster understanding of the appropriate balance between a desire to make money and a desire to do the right thing; and 2) the importance of developing an integrated world view that will be central in shaping the character and competence of business leaders. An integrated world view includes an appreciation of the role other disciplines play in developing sound business practices, as well as an ability to respond to the challenges and complexities of today’s global marketplace.

Essays on related topics will be prepared by both academic and business leaders, to be followed by a workshop and publication. In phases two and three of this project, leadership in the legal profession and leadership in American colleges and universities will be addressed.

The project leaders are Jay Lorsch (Harvard University), Rakesh Khurana (Harvard University), Martin Lipton (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz), and Gerald Rosenfeld (Rothschild North America and New York University). Members of the advisory committee currently include William Allen (New York University), Thomas Cooley (New York University), Robert Eccles (Advisory Capital Partners, Inc.), Benjamin Heineman, Jr. (Harvard University), Joel Podolny (Yale University), and E. John Rosenwald (Former Vice Chairman of The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc.).

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