Corporate Purpose, The New Paradigm, and Unintended Consequences

A panel discussion with Colin Mayer, Mats Isaksson, Martin Lipton, and Ron Gilson at the Millstein Center’s Counter-Narratives Conference.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing multi-part series covering the Millstein Center’s March 1, 2019 conference, “Corporate Governance ‘Counter-narratives’: On Corporate Purpose and Shareholder Value(s).”

By Brea Hinricks

In his recent book, Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good, Oxford Professor Colin Mayer lays out a framework for radically reconceptualizing business for the 21st century. At the core of his argument is the idea that the purpose of business is not solely to make profits, but to “produce profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet, and in the process it produces profits.”

Mayer’s proposed law and policy reforms, which he detailed in his remarks at the Millstein Center’s March 1, 2019 conference, Corporate Governance “Counter-narratives”: On Corporate Purpose and Shareholder Value(s), would aim to incentivize companies to create and deliver on a corporate purpose that transcends profit alone. (We discuss Colin’s presentation in greater detail here.)

Mayer debated these ideas during a panel discussion with Mats Isaksson, Head of the Corporate Affairs Division at the OECD, Martin Lipton, a founding partner of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP, and Ron Gilson, Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and Stanford Law School. (A full recording of Mayer’s remarks and this panel discussion is available here.)

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