Each year four MBA student clubs (Net Impact, Energy Club, Entrepreneurship Club, and Healthcare Club) come together to host the High Impact Career Symposium. This annual event brings together professionals and students in a forum to discuss how careers can be built around impact—whether that be social, economic, environmental, or perhaps another form altogether. This year’s event was also sponsored by the Weston Career Center and the St. Louis Professional Net Impact chapter.
The topic at hand was Shared Value, the latest framework developed by Harvard PhD Michael Porter. Shared value is an emerging language in business sustainability and profitability, a model that aims to bring together public and private partners to create impact.
An impressive panel of professionals was moderated by Jonathan Kaufman (MBA ’11), co-founder and president of Third Plateau Impact Strategies. Olin was proud to welcome:
- Burl Stamp, founder and president of Stamp & Chase Healthcare Consulting
- Diane Herndon, Sustainability at Nestlé Purina
- EJ Hullverson, Marketing at Nestlé Purina and co-founder of the St. Louis Net Impact Professional Chapter
- Dane Glueck, co-founder and president of StraightUp Solar
- Cambrie Nelson, founder of Civic Creatives
Jonathan’s extensive experience consulting with non-profit organizations allowed him to lead a discussion that was impressive in its depth and breadth given that it was only an hour long! One point of his I found especially poignant came about when discussing the complexities of the weapons industry: “You can’t ask everyone to start talking about shared value, and then ask their values to align with yours….you can’t dictate what the values are that happen.”
EJ talked about how partnerships are a core tenet of the shared value framework, since many problems are bigger than one company can solve. He notes, “all along the value chain, each piece has something to bring to the table, and you can’t leave anyone out or you won’t get something that works.”
Cambrie spoke about how defining what value is for everyone involved is a critical piece of the process. Using her experience in design thinking, she painted a picture of how one can “start with the end in mind, and design backwards,” so as to keep the wants and needs of the customer or end consumer in mind. Her insights into how aligning individuals and teams in a way that allows them to succeed at their goals brought a new angle to the discussion and reminded the audience of the power of individuals, even within large corporations.
Dane Glueck of StraightUp Solar discusses Shared Value at the 2016 High Impact Career Symposium.
At one point, Burt made a statement that reminded everyone that we must constantly be considering the “business” piece of shared value. He noted, “You have to be crystal-clear about the long-term benefit to the company” to ensure buy-in from shareholders, adding, “Wall Street gets more short-term focused every day.”
As a front-runner in the Shared Value Initiative, Diane spoke to Nestle Purina’s dedication to a variety of community-oriented activities. From their support to animal rescue organizations with grants and donated products, to their consideration of the environmental impact of their packaging, she highlighted the example of Shared Value in our own backyard.
And although much of the conversation was about companies making an active choice to engage in shared value activities, Dane mentioned that there are ways companies can hold themselves quantifiably accountable for results; his own company is B Corp certified, showing that it meets rigorous environmental and social standards.
The ideas and thoughts expressed by the panelists truly drew out some of the more ambiguous aspects of shared value, and brought nuanced topics to the surface that the concept raises for companies and individual employees.
