Institutional investors, employees, customers, governments
and regulators and the broader society have increasingly high
expectations of companies. These high expectations extend to
corporate purpose, corporate impact and capital allocation and
raise the question of whether a short-term focus on maximizing
stock prices and shareholder value has had unintended
consequences, undermined sustainable and resilient business
models and even reduced long-term profi tability.
How companies have been navigating the COVID-19 pandemic,
geopolitical shocks and the war in Ukraine, intensifying social
inequalities and unrest, climate change, infl ation, employee
demands and ESG and stakeholder-driven concerns alongside
investor pressure have only sharpened the importance of these
issues and revealed the stakes involved.
This panel will feature a vigorous debate and discussion on
whether a vision for corporate purpose that empowers the
private sector to look beyond immediate stock prices and
balance and prioritize a wide range of stakeholder interests
(including employees, customers, suppliers, communities and the
economic and society as a whole) is realistic and the prospects for
corporations delivering on broader corporate responsibilities and
achieving stronger and sustained profi tability and impact for the
benefi t of all constituencies—including a renewed embrace of a
reinvigorated capitalism. It will also address emerging regulatory
responses and how boards of directors, CEOs and policymakers
are navigating and short-termist pressures, hedge fund activist
attacks, ESG-related activism, proxy advisory fi rm withhold
recommendations related to social issues. Renewed efforts by
the Business Roundtable, World Economic Forum International
Business Council and other private sector efforts to defi ne and
measure corporate success in ways that embrace stakeholders as
well as shareholders will also be discussed.