BUSINESS & GOVERNMENT SEMINAR SERIES
Corporate Governance and Accountability: The Six Essential Tasks

This presentation will discuss the six essential tasks which boards of directors and senior executives must discharge to create sustainable value for the contemporary corporation in a time of economic turmoil. These tasks must balance risk-taking with risk-management and must fuse high performance with high integrity. Only by discharging these tasks with focused energy can corporations regain trust, answer critics of company leadership and set the standards for corporate accountability, now that maximization of short-term shareholder value has been discredited as the proper measure for holding companies to account.

Ben Heineman
Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Distinguished Senior Fellow, Program on the Legal Profession at the Harvard Law School
Senior Advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Please RSVP to MRCBG@ksg.harvard.edu

AN MRCBG BROWN BAG LUNCH MODERATED BY THE BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT PROFESSIONAL INTEREST COUNCIL
Davos Debrief

The "Davos Debrief" brings together several Harvard faculty just back from the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. In an informal setting, Harvard faculty experts will share their unique perspectives on the global proceedings.

Words of Introduction by Professor Roger Porter
IBM Professor of Business and Government and Director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government

Harvard Faculty Davos Participants

Dean David Ellwood
Dean of Harvard Kennedy School and the Scott M. Black Professor of Political Economy

Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor, Harvard Business School

Professor Jonathan Zittrain
Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Professor Ricardo Hausmann
Director of Harvard's Center for International Development and Professor of the Practice of Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School

Please RSVP to MRCBG@ksg.harvard.edu

CSRI VISITING PRACTITIONER SERIES SEMINAR
Unleashing Technology to Advance Social and Economic Development

Technology can be an amazing tool for social and economic development. It can help people get a better education, learn new skills to earn a living wage, or start a business. It also can enable organizations to meet community needs by broadening access to healthcare, education, micro-banking and other essential services. One of the most significant advances in information technology (IT) today is the growing connectivity among smart devices—computers, mobile phones and even televisions. With the widespread penetration of mobile phones and other handheld devices that connect to the Web, nearly 4 billion people worldwide now have some level of access to computing. The increasing convergence of device connectivity, software innovation and “cloud connectivity,” has created a new computing paradigm to support an improved and integrated user experience. This new paradigm offers great potential to improve how we all work, but holds an even more significant promise for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to manage their operations more effectively, deliver a broader array of services and achieve a greater impact in the communities they serve. Microsoft’s Akhtar Badshah will speak on current developments in technology that are not only working to increase productivity, but are helping  NGOs across the globe to improve and expand service delivery to more effectively achieve their missions and facilitate economic and social development.

PAPER AVAILABLE HERE

Akhtar Badshah is the senior director of Global Community Affairs at Microsoft Corporation, where he administers the company’s global community investment and employee programs. Since 1983, Microsoft and its employees have provided over $3.4 billion in cash, services and software to nonprofits around the world through localized, company-sponsored giving and volunteer campaigns. Among his responsibilities, Badshah manages the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Community Technology Skills Program (CTSP), a global initiative that is designed to help narrow the technology skills gap; aid global work-force development; and create social and economic opportunity by providing technology training through community technology centers.  CTSP offers a comprehensive approach to broadening digital inclusion by bringing together critical components, including training grants, software donations, community learning curricula and a global support network.  Microsoft is working to broaden digital inclusion and to bring the benefits of technology to the next billion people by 2015.  Badshah also oversees programs aimed at helping nonprofit organizations improve their effectiveness through increased technology capacity. This includes Microsoft’s signature partnerships with organizations such as NPower, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, telecentre.org, TechSoup and NetHope. He is an architect by training, a doctoral graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the former president of the Lambda Alpha International, New Jersey Chapter.

BUSINESS & GOVERNMENT SEMINAR SERIES
Lobbying’s Impact on Policy Making: Myths, Realities and the Future

Healthcare reform, executive compensation, financial regulation, and climate change policies are just a few of the key issues being debated in Washington and in capitals around the globe. Lobbyists are playing a major role in the shaping of policy responses. Some argue lobbyists provide vital information to insure informed outcomes. Others say they are simply buying positions and votes. Come join a discussion with Senior Fellow Mark Fagan as he explores the myths and realities of lobbying and considers the role of lobbyists on policy making in the future.

Mark Fagan
Mr. Fagan is a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. The focus of his research is on the role of regulation in competitive markets. He has written about the impact of regulation in network industries from transportation to electric utilities and in the financial sector. He is the co-author of Law and the Financial System: Securitization and Asset Backed Securities. He co-teaches Operations Management at HKS and Securitization at Boston University School of Law. He is a founding partner in the management consulting firm Norbridge.

Please RSVP to MRCBG@ksg.harvard.edu

CSRI ROUNDTABLE EVENT
Social Entrepreneurship and Social Investment in the Middle East: Roundtable Discussion on Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward

The Brookings Institution

*Note: This event is by invitation only