We are now just about a month away from the biggest student event of the year at IESE: the Doing Good Doing Well Conference. This annual conference was created by students over a decade ago, and has since become the largest student run conference in Europe and a hallmark event of student life at IESE.
The conference is designed to be a platform to bring in senior thought leaders and professionals from leading companies to discuss the intersection between their businesses and society – an intersection that continues to narrow as more consumers and employees gain consciousness of the impact of business, and businesses recognize the opportunities for shared value.
Each year, the conference is entirely organized by IESE students. It’s a unique opportunity for those of us on campus to not only engage with outside professionals from leading companies, but also to collaborate more closely with professors, alumni, the MBA office, IESE’s other professional departments and programs, and each other. The leadership opportunities it provides, the professional connections we are able to make, the relationships we build on campus, and the opportunity to positively represent our school in the MBA community make it truly fun and gratifying to be part of the DGDW team.
What is responsible business?
This year’s conference theme is “what is responsible business?” In choosing it, our team wanted to invite for-profit firms to talk about how they view their roles in society – who their stakeholders are, how their roles might be changing, and what they’re doing to reinforce their visions. We will have some organizations who will contend that what they do makes them responsible – e.g., it’s inherent in their products/services/missions. We’ll have others who will assert that what makes them responsible is how they’ve been able to enhance their processes to “do good” or do less harm – e.g., sustainability, human capital practices, etc. And still other speakers and organizations will present the view that their businesses are responsible because of who they market to or whose needs they fulfill – the Bottom of the Pyramid.
We are thrilled to announce our list of guest speakers this year. We have individuals coming from companies such as Patagonia, IBM, BMW, Henkel, Syngenta, Exxon Mobile, La Caixa, Agbar, Armani, and numerous others.
For those in and around Barcelona, be sure to buy your tickets and save the date! The conference will take place on IESE’s North Campus on February 27 and 28 – make sure you join us for this great event! We continue to add exciting speakers and panels and updated information can be found here.
: One Month to Go!){kind=link}