SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

(Bios and Speaker topics follow the schedule - keep scrolling)

BIO AND SPEAKER INFORMATION

Keynote Speaker:

Dan Bross, Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship, Microsoft

Dan has been a leader in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors for over twenty-five years.  With a background in political science, government affairs and public policy, Dan has lead government affairs teams at both the federal and state level for two Fortune 100 companies.  Dan’s responsibilities include Citizenship strategic planning business reviews; Citizenship community readiness and training; triple bottom line reporting; and investor outreach and engagement. He also manages Microsoft’s strategic relationship with the World Economic Forum. 

Social Accountability and the Future of Business Leadership

Clearly, today’s economic and social challenges are beyond the ability of governments to solve and will require a cross sector response.  Business success in our flat, interconnected, multi-cultural world will require forward looking, socially aware leaders.  Leaders who recognize the opportunity to increase business value by addressing social challenges.  As the role of business in society, particularly in the US, evolves beyond Friedman (Milton and Tom), corporate leaders need more than the basic toolbox of traditional business skills—finance, marketing, human resources, strategy.   Successful executives will need creativity, empathy and context to help their businesses compete and grow across multiple cultures and geographies.

Breakout Speakers: 5 Concurrent sessions to choose from – Please sign up for only one session

Breakout Session 1:

Tal Dehtiar, a proud Canadian, is the Founder of Oliberte Footwear, the first premium footwear company that is exclusively made in Africa.  Previously, Tal co-launched MBAs without Borders, which supported socially-minded organizations across Africa, Asia and Latin America.  With an MBA from McMaster University, Tal is a recipient of the International Youth Foundation Fellowship, Ontario Global Trader Award and was nominated for the YMCA Peace Award, Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 and Ernst & Young’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year.

Session Title: Social Enterprising in Emerging Markets: The huge potential of apparel and footwear to build lives in Africa (and Haiti)

Born out of the idea that Africa is awesome, Tal Dehtiar founded Oliberté, the first company to market premium urban-casual footwear that is exclusively made in Africa. Africa has a lot challenges but it also has huge potential to build and it is time a company, a shoe company, began to show that potential. Oliberté believes in building a premium footwear company that supports Africa is one step forward towards building a better tomorrow. Come learn more from Tal about the strategies and challenges of creating a profitable and socially responsible business.

Breakout Session 2:

Nomi Prins is a journalist and Senior Fellow at the NYC-based non-partisan public policy think-tank Demos.  Her latest acclaimed book, It Takes Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street, was published by Wiley (September 2009). She is the author of Other People’s Money: The Corporation Mugging of America, chosen by The Economist, Barron’s and The Library Journal as a best book of 2004. Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and a Senior Managing Director at Bear Sterns in London, as well as a senior derivatives strategist at Lehman Brothers. 

Session Title: The Pillage of Main Street by Wall Street and Washington

On Wall Street, in Washington, and across Corporate America, there’s a fine line between legality and what’s ethically and morally right. The recent financial crisis that erupted on Wall Street in the fall of 2008, has been, and continues to impact Main Street with growing unemployment and stagnated business initiatives. The decline in the economy was a result of ethical abandon coupled with executive greed and legislative deregulation. Too often in  business and politics, it’s easy for senior officials to convince themselves that what they are doing is appropriate, or at least legal, as a way to deflect any sort of consideration as to whether it’s ethical or moral. In that vein, Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein can say that he is doing “God’s work,” The Supreme Court, past and present, Treasury Secretaries and Presidents alike, can argue that if they had acted differently during the crisis, it would have had catastrophic results, not pausing to examine the irony of that statement when compared to the sad reality of the economy today, 18 months after the collapse. Maintaining one's personal ethical compass in the face of overwhelming pressure is not easy. It requires a strong sense of self,
a  comfortability with standing alone, a conviction for truth and transparency in business and government, and patience. Acquiring wealth is not evil, but unbridled profits through unscrupulous tactics will ultimately destroy our economy, and our collective soul.

Breakout Session 3:

Justin Paperny, 35 years old, a lifelong resident of Southern California was reared in the affluent community of Encino, in the heart of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. After graduating from the University of Southern California as a student-athlete in 1997, Justin built his career as an investment executive working at such previously distinguished firms as Bear Stearns and UBS.  Justin is also a felon!  Interactions with his senior partner, and his client, who was operating a Ponzi scheme, were at the nexus of his conviction. As a result of his behavior Justin pleaded guilty to violating securities laws, and as a sanction, served just over one year in prison.  While serving his sentence, Justin contributed to a daily blog at www.JustinPaperny.com and also authored Lessons From Prison, which is about his life, ethics, and the justice system. Since his release in August 2009, Justin has built a career as a public speaker and consultant.

Session Title: Lessons from Prison

In this presentation, Justin walks the audience through his journey as a federal prisoner. He explains how making decisions from a supposed ethical gray area can lead to financial devastation, loss of reputation, separation from family and community. It will debunk misperceptions about country club prisons by discussing what he learned from others and his own experiences. Justin is uniquely qualified to lecture on ethics and specifically the consequences that follow lapses in ethical behavior because of his experience of having served time in federal prison, and because of the lessons he learned from living in that community of felons. 

Breakout Session 4:

John Piano, Founder and CEO of Transplant Connect
In 2003, driven by his passion to contribute to society John created Transplant Connect — a Santa Monica-based socially-conscious software firm dedicated to expediting and increasing the availability of organs and tissue for transplant.  Leveraging advanced Web-based technologies, and through corporate and financial partnerships, Transplant Connect enables 12,000 – 14,000 life-saving organ transplants each year.  Previously, John was the Executive Vice President at Reelplay.com (named by Forbes Magazine as a "Top 200 B2B Company" in both 2000 and 2001), a Business Affairs Executive at 20^th Century Fox and a Los Angeles corporate attorney. John graduated Phi Beta Kappa in Economics from the University of Buffalo and earned his JD from the Cornell Law School.  For his work in creating Transplant Connect, John was recently named by GQ Magazine as the "2009 Better Man, Better World" in recognition of his humanitarian efforts through Transplant Connect.

Session Title: Doing Well While Doing Good- The Truth about Building a Successful Socially-Conscious For-Profit Enterprise

John Piano walked away from a successful career to save people’s lives.  He is the founder and CEO of Transplant Connect, a socially conscious business that leverages advanced web-based technologies and financial partners to enable 12,000-14,000 life saving organ transplants each year. Their nationwide effort to create online donor registries has and continues to save and improve the lives of burn victims, amputees, seriously injured, as well as 10 million of the world’s curable blind in need, all while providing a successful return for their shareholders. Come learn more about why John Piano left a successful career in the corporate Entertainment industry to pursue a passion for making a difference. 

Breakout Session 5:

Rhiannon Bailard

Pepperdine University

Assistant Vice President, Governmental & Regulatory Affairs

Director, Pepperdine University Center for Sustainability

Rhiannon Bailard received her bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Colorado and graduated cum laude from Pepperdine University School of Law with a Juris Doctorate and a Certificate in Dispute Resolution. She is a member of the California Bar and currently serves at Pepperdine as the director of the Center for Sustainability and the assistant vice president of Governmental & Regulatory Affairs. She is responsible for Pepperdine’s land use planning, environmental compliance, community affairs, governmental relations, and sustainability. Rhiannon was instrumental in the first campus-wide sustainability assessment, approval of a sustainability policy, and is the first director of the Center for Sustainability. During her tenure as director, Rhiannon has focused on formally incorporating sustainability into the University’s core functioning. Successes include the creation of a sustainability website; expansion of the University’s recycling program, and dedication of 72 acres of pristine native habitat. Rhiannon also chairs the Malibu Chamber of Commerce Environmental Committee and volunteers at Mental Health Advocacy Services.

Session Title: Sustainability as Distinguished from the “One Size Fits All” Approach

Rhiannon Bailard, Assistant Vice President, Pepperdine University

Nearly everyone in Western Civilization has heard of “going green.” But what does that mean? And more specifically in the business context, what does it mean for a company or institution to be truly sustainable? There are many consultants and vendors who are quick to proffer up an answer but the answer will be different for every institution for which the question is asked. No two institutions are identical so no two institutions should have the same sustainability program. It is imperative that a company looks to their own company culture, function, guiding principles and mission to inform their sustainability decisions. This emphasizes intentionality and ensures that the decisions are not myopic, instead analyzing all of the short- and long-term implications for the successful functioning of the institution.

Pepperdine University strives to incorporate measures in an intentional and deliberate way such that the practices are consistent with the environmental context of Southern California, the role of a University, and Pepperdine University’s mission. In this session, we will discuss the ways in which sustainability should not be a “one size fits all” model and what that has meant for the University’s own practices.