Future of the Corporation – February 2021 Purpose Summit

With the resilience of business and society tested to the limit by the COVID-19 pandemic, our assumptions around the roles of business, investors and government are shifting.

The British Academy’s Future of the Corporation review into the role of business in society brought to the fore a new definition of the purpose of business – “to profitably solve the problems of people and planet, and not profit from creating problems”. Eight principles supporting this vision were published in our November 2019 report, Principles for Purposeful Business, which outlined necessary reforms to company law, corporate governance, finance, measurement, and the role of regulators.

This definition and the associated principles now provide a robust framework for reshaping business policy and practice in response to the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to public health, the economy and the well-being of our societies.

The second Purpose Summit held in February 2021 gave us three top-level discussions on the role of purposeful business in delivering solutions to the mounting crises we face – jobs, climate, inequality and economic recovery. We explored how governments can capitalise on and promote the appetite of business to contribute to solving our greatest challenges by looking at three topics:

1. Why we need government leadership to promote purposeful business
2. How government can promote purposeful business through law, regulation and standards
3. How government can support business to become purposeful through partnerships and skills

Below you will find details of each of these three discussions including links to watch the full sessions and snippets from different speakers.

Meanwhile, you can still view recordings of the the first Purpose Summit that took place virtually from 22 to 24 June 2020.

• Chair: Gillian Tett, Chair Editorial Board, Editor-at-large, US The Financial Times
• Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States Chairman of Generation Investment Management
• Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director of LSE
• Arunma Oteh, Executive-in-Residence at Said Business School University of Oxford and former Treasurer and a Vice President of the World Bank

• Chair: Professor Julia Black CBE FBA, Professor of Law and Strategic Director of Innovation at LSE
• Leo Strine, Former Chief Justice of the Delaware Supreme Court
• Janine Guillot CEO, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
• Professor Rebecca Henderson FBA, University Professor at Harvard Business School
• Professor Raghuram Rajan, Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India
• Rt Hon Edward Miliband MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
• Saker Nusseibeh CBE, CEO of the International Business of Federated Hermes

• Chair: Julie Pybus, Freelance Journalist and Global Editor of Pioneers Post
• Lord Victor Adebowale, CBE Chair of Social Enterprise UK
• David Blood Senior Partner, Generation Investment Management
• Natalie Campbell, CEO of Belu Water
• Rt Hon Jesse Norman MP Financial Secretary to the Treasury
• Julia Hobsbawm OBE Editorial Intelligence and Chair of Workshift Commission

The British Academy would like to thank the following partners and supporters for their support of the Future of the Corporation programme.

If you would like more information about becoming a partner or supporter of the programme, please contact Michelle Waterman, Head of Development on 020 7969 5290.