"What kind of capitalism do we want? That may be the defining question of our era. If we want to sustain our economic system for future generations, we must answer it correctly.” -Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum We are entering the era of stakeholder capitalism. What do we mean by that? Lutfey Siddiqi, Managing Director at the CFA Institute and a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics describes the shift in corporate leadership “from an allegiance to a single stakeholder—shareholders—to a multi-stakeholder approach,” which requires corporations “to be mindful of their impact, positive and negative, on the environment, on employees, on the societies that they operate in." “All of those things need to be considered,” Siddiqi says. “That is the ethos of stakeholder capitalism.” The concept of corporations taking their responsibilities beyond financial measures such as quarterly returns and profitable growth may be a bit of a pendulum swing. According to The New York Times “Deal Book” columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, through the mid-20th century “corporations, for the most part, were run for all stakeholders. It was a time defined by organized labor, corporate pension programs, gold-watch retirements and charitable gifts from [...]

Digital technologies are reshaping how humans live and work, and the impact on everything from individuals to economies is immense and growing. Mitigating the disruptive impact of tech and being deliberate about its constructive application is at the heart of Technological Social Responsibility. PUTTING THE TECH REVOLUTION IN CONTEXT Sometime in the 6th century BC Heraclitus wrote, “The only constant in life is change.” Lest we think the current tech revolution is unprecedented, Eric Hazan, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, reminds us that we have been here before. “We have experienced three industrial revolutions, even before this one. And the impact of technology on society and the economy is similar each time. It’s destabilizing. Some businesses die, some new businesses are created, and overall the equation is rather positive for economic growth and society also. But the transition is painful. That’s what has happened over the past 250 years."  Digital transformation itself, Hazan explains, has three waves to it. “The first wave, which is occurring from the middle 1990s until now, is digital technology, which includes telecommunications and the internet. The second wave is artificial intelligence, which has been present in a commercial way for the past five to [...]

A Conversation with John Amaechi John Amaechi, OBE is founder of Amaechi Performance Systems, an organizational psychologist, author, Board Director, and thought leader. AESC spoke with him about the relationship between diversity and inclusion and organizational competitiveness. Amaechi is very competitive. “I’m just really interested in winning,” he says. “And diversity and inclusion is one of the elements of that success.” Defying Definition How we look at and define “diverse” is often incomplete, and Amaechi argues that we need to be sure that we are thinking of race and gender inclusively. “It’s amazing when you talk about race, people often imagine that that’s about Black men. When you talk about gender, people often imagine that that’s about white women, and specifically white professional women.” Amaechi adds, “We sometimes act as is if women who don’t have jobs don’t count. That’s not what I think, but it is how we behave.” For Amaechi, absolutely every form of diversity needs to be part of the conversation. “Disability is one of those areas of inclusion that is neither sexy enough nor interesting enough for people to want to have a discussion about. It’s also just dangerous enough so that people with disabilities often [...]

Organizations are being asked to identify diverse talent to fill executive-level positions. The lack of diversity in leadership positions is consistently cited as a critical corporate issue, leading recruiters to pursue a wide range of executive diversity initiatives in 2021. According to an analysis by McKinsey, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to achieve above-average profitability in 2019 when compared to companies in the fourth quartile. That percentage is up from 21% in 2017 and just 15% in 2014. In the same study, McKinsey found that top-quartile companies for ethnic diversity outperformed those in the fourth quartile by 36% in profitability. Nonetheless, achieving executive diversity is a challenge for many organizations. It is now more important than ever for recruiters to leverage robust sourcing tools so they can meet diversity requirements for ethnicity, age, gender, and experience. Here, we’ll explore why executive diversity trends are driving a shift in how executive boards find their members and how organizations can harness actionable people intelligence to identify the best candidates for leadership roles. RECRUITING ETHNICALLY DIVERSE CANDIDATES There is a heightened imperative for organizations to seek ethnically diverse leaders after a year of [...]

Digital transformation and the pace of change are not new. Leading through transformation at a breakneck pace in the midst of a global pandemic, however, is unprecedented. In a 2021 survey of executive search and leadership consultants, AESC asked its members what topics their clients are discussing the most. The top response by a decisive margin: “Hiring leaders who can drive change.” Boards and C-suites responsible for ensuring their organizations have the right talent for the current environment are looking for leaders who can drive, rather than ride, this tsunami of change. We asked several members from AESC’s Board of Directors and Regional Councils to address this heightened demand for leaders who can drive change. “The thrill of breakthrough creativity doesn’t just belong to upstart companies with the most radical technologies. It can be summoned in all sorts of industries and all walks of life if leaders can reimagine what’s possible in their fields.” —Bill Taylor, Co-Founder of Fast Company, Harvard Business Review December 21, 2016 THE CONTEXT IS COVID-19 The global pandemic is not the impetus for some of the key challenges that organizations face, such as digital transformation, diversity and inclusion, and demands for transparency and purpose. These [...]

Diversity in Executive Search and Leadership Consulting Diversity has long been a cornerstone of the profession, but something changed in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. “It was almost like a sledgehammer to the head, a wake-up call to the opportunity we had as a profession to truly be leaders.” Karen Greenbaum, President and CEO of the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) describes what happened within the leadership of AESC. “Clarke Murphy, the CEO of Russell Reynolds, sent me a text at 7:00 am on a Friday. I won’t forget it, with the headline ‘Black Lives Matter’ saying, ‘can we talk?’” Greenbaum immediately called Clarke back, and within a few days, they were convening a meeting of the CEOs of some of the largest and most influential search firms. “We had eight CEOs who came together, all competitors, all CEOs. We had some of the largest firms in the world represented. We had the largest woman-led firm represented. We had the largest Black-led firm represented. And we decided that what we wanted to do is begin by creating a CEO pledge, pledging the commitment of our member firms to diversity and [...]

Leaders And Organizations Ready For Change In a fast-changing world, we have to look past our work-based identity, move beyond the comfort of our current knowledge and skills, and prepare ourselves and the organizations we lead to adapt continuously to a rapidly changing future of work. Renowned future-of-work strategist Heather E. McGowan is co-author with Chris Shipley of The Adaptation Advantage. Adaptability, they argue, is the most significant determinant of success for individuals and organizations, now and in the future. What is adaptability? For McGowan, adaptability is the skill to handle ambiguity, to both learn and unlearn in a changing environment. “In work as in life, evolutionary success belongs to those who can most readily adapt.” Adaptability as an advantage is more than theoretical. In the context of COVID-19, McGowan reflects on the near-immediate shift to working from home, telemedicine, and online learning. “That was five years of digital transformation crammed into a week, and what that says to me is nothing more than we’re a highly adaptive species. We’ve got to look at this period and say, wow, look at all that we did when pressed. Now, what could we do going forward? How do we reimagine work and [...]