Star panel
I'm just back from an intensive weekend at BGI (when we go for 4 days/month to have class in person). We always have a few ExIRs (Executives in Residence) and EIRs (Entrepreneurs in Residence) staying with us for the weekend. They hang out, eat meals with us, attend classes with us, and give the Friday night "Fireside Chat," which is basically a panel discussion led first by Gifford (school founder) and then opened up to everyone.
This month, we had an awesome line-up. We had Ben Packard-- Corporate Social Responsibility officer for Starbucks; Amy Hall-- Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher; and Kim Jordan-- CEO of New Belgium Brewery. As Gif said, "Aren't we lucky?"
They made a great panel. From a craft brewery to a specialty women's clothing company to a global coffee giant, they spanned a wide range of company types. And yet, they were all concerned with the social and environmental aspects of business: How do you create and maintain good values in the workplace, and how do you grow responsibly? Kim Jordan talked about how they have names for everything at their office, including some of the doors and waste containers. Ben Packard took a little heat for some of the recent issues with coffee bean branding in Ethiopia, but handled it well. Amy Hall described a surprising corporate culture-- they have yet to install a company intranet at Eileen Fisher. And job applicants sometimes get interviewed by 6 or 7 people at once. The three managed to play off each other quite well too, engaging in their own dialogue and learning from each other during the evening.
I was lucky enough to sit with Ben Packard at lunch one day. We talked about the preparation of their CSR report, which we had analyzed in a class last quarter. It turns out that the Starbucks report fared pretty well against some of the others we looked at -- The Gap, BP, and Diageo. But Ben told me that Diageo, whose report scored quite low in our rating, is actually doing quite a lot of good CSR work. I found it interesting that their report did not accurately convey this because obviously all companies try to make their CSR reports look convincing and positive.
And Kim Jordan brought Fat Tire Ale. Good deal!
This month, we had an awesome line-up. We had Ben Packard-- Corporate Social Responsibility officer for Starbucks; Amy Hall-- Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher; and Kim Jordan-- CEO of New Belgium Brewery. As Gif said, "Aren't we lucky?"
They made a great panel. From a craft brewery to a specialty women's clothing company to a global coffee giant, they spanned a wide range of company types. And yet, they were all concerned with the social and environmental aspects of business: How do you create and maintain good values in the workplace, and how do you grow responsibly? Kim Jordan talked about how they have names for everything at their office, including some of the doors and waste containers. Ben Packard took a little heat for some of the recent issues with coffee bean branding in Ethiopia, but handled it well. Amy Hall described a surprising corporate culture-- they have yet to install a company intranet at Eileen Fisher. And job applicants sometimes get interviewed by 6 or 7 people at once. The three managed to play off each other quite well too, engaging in their own dialogue and learning from each other during the evening.
I was lucky enough to sit with Ben Packard at lunch one day. We talked about the preparation of their CSR report, which we had analyzed in a class last quarter. It turns out that the Starbucks report fared pretty well against some of the others we looked at -- The Gap, BP, and Diageo. But Ben told me that Diageo, whose report scored quite low in our rating, is actually doing quite a lot of good CSR work. I found it interesting that their report did not accurately convey this because obviously all companies try to make their CSR reports look convincing and positive.
And Kim Jordan brought Fat Tire Ale. Good deal!
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