September 19, 2002

Jane Nelson
Director of Business Leadership and Strategy
The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum [IBLF]

Global Corporate Citizenship: Passing fad or future competitive edge?

Over the past five years the subjects of corporate citizenship, sustainable development and corporate responsibility have started to move from the margins to the mainstream of the business agenda. Spurred by the corporate governance crisis in the U.S. and other OECD countries, financial crises in emerging markets, growing anti-globalization sentiment and activism, growth in socially responsible investment funds, and new government initiatives at the national and international level, companies are starting to address a range of issues that were not even on the corporate radar screen a few years ago. Will these issues remain there or are they a passing fad? How many companies are looking at these issues as a source of strategic opportunity and future competitive advantage as opposed to compliance, risk minimization or philanthropy? Are these companies lonely, misguided pioneers on a map of the world that is short-term and selfish, or do they represent the vanguard of a new style of corporate leadership? What skills and competencies will future business leaders require to address this emerging agenda?

These will be some of the questions addressed by Jane Nelson, Director of Business Leadership and Strategy, the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF), in the Coleman Lecture on 17th September 2002. The IBLF is an international network of CEOs from some of the world's leading companies focused on supporting responsible business practices and new types of partnership between business, government and civil society. Jane, a former vice president at Citigroup, has spent the past 10 years working with business and government leaders around the world looking at these issues. She worked for the Business Council for Sustainable Development at the time of the Rio Earth Summit, and in recent years has worked in the office of the UN Secretary-General with his Global Compact initiative, been a Fellow at the Center for Business and Government at Harvard, and advised the World Economic Forum in developing their Global Corporate Citizenship initiative. She sits on a number of advisory boards for companies, NGOs and government bodies around the world. Born in Africa, Jane has lived and worked in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, and is a former Rhodes Scholar, Aspen Institute Scholar and Fellow of the 21st Century Trust.

Biography

Jane is Director of Policy and Research for the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum (PWBLF). Prior to joining the PWBLF in 1993, Jane was a lecturer in agricultural economics at the University of Natal in South Africa, and a Vice President at Citibank, based in Tokyo, London and Hong Kong and working in sales and marketing throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East. She has been a consultant to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development; FUNDES (Fundacion para Desorrollo Sostenible en America Latina); UNEP's Industry office; and IPECA (The International Petroleum Environmental Conservation Association). She has also co-authored a book on small-scale enterprise in Latin America and acted as adviser to Sustainability Ltd, the Copenhagen Centre, NPI's Global Care Funds and AIESEC. Jane was born in Zimbabwe, educated in Africa, the United States and Europe and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. She has written a number of publications during her time at the PWBLF, the most recent being the 'The business of peace: the private sector as a partner in conflict prevention and resolution', which came out in September 2000.

Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum [LINK]

The Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum is an international charity which was founded in 1990 to promote socially responsible business practices that benefit business and society, and which help to achieve socially, economically and environmentally sustainable development. The Forum works at the very highest levels in 60 of the world's leading multinational companies, and is active in some 30 emerging and transition economies.