Washington – As part of today’s Business Roundtable CEO Innovation Summit, top leaders from business and the non-profit sector participated in a panel discussion on “Shared Growth through Inclusive Innovation.” The conversation featured EY Global Chairman and CEO Mark Weinberger, Boston Consulting Group CEO Rich Lesser and Markle Foundation CEO and President Zoë Baird. Alan Murray, President of Fortune, moderated the discussion.
Innovation BRT Innovation Summit: Shared Growth through Inclusive Innovation
Click the image above to watch the full “Inclusive Innovation” panel featuring Mark Weinberger, Rich Lesser, Zoë Baird and Fortune’s Alan Murray (moderator).
Highlights:
Mark Weinberger, Global Chairman and CEO of EY, on measuring the value of inclusion:
“The true issue is, if investors are looking at quarterly financials to make investments today, they're getting wholly the wrong info. They should be looking at strategic assets like workforce, like culture, like governance, like your effect on communities and everyone knows that, they just can't measure it yet.”
Rich Lesser, CEO of Boston Consulting Group, on how diversity and inclusion drive innovation:
“It’s the responsibility of businesses to think about how they create value across multiple stakeholders. And that gets directly to innovation and thinking about strategies that are in the core of the business that are aligned with the overall direction of the company to create a sense of purpose…. Organizations who create more diversity — of course in gender, nationality, and in different backgrounds — drive more innovation in their enterprises.”
Zoë Baird, CEO and President of the Markle Foundation, on building workforce skills for to support economic inclusion:
“I am seeing that business leaders and governors are tremendously interested in this. We have a network of 20 governors who are deeply committed to transforming the labor markets in their states... It's really isn't just a matter of is it the responsibility of business. It's a matter of how does business work with others in the community so that everyone is able to contribute their component of what's needed to make this work for people.”
More information about the Business Roundtable CEO Innovation Summit, including additional highlights and upcoming panels, can be found at BusinessRoundtable.org/InnovationSummit.