Recently, NY Chapter member Marc Hodak, Managing Partner at Hodak Value Advisors and Adjunct Professor at NYU Stern School of Business, delivered a wonderful talk about corporate social responsibility (CSR), set against utopian communities in the industrializing U.S. These communities each had shared aspirations, and distinctive--sometimes unorthodox--visions. They all failed to to varying degrees, and their failures yield important lessons for modern businesses hoping to do well by doing good. Hodak also highlighted some successes by somewhat more modest reformers, such as the profit sharing program launched inside P&G in the 1880s, which lasts to this day, and has been widely copied.

As always, the content of the talk was as stimulating as the networking opportunities before and afterwards. Baruch students and faculty joined CEO Trustees and their guests. The new faces smiled throughout the program, so I look forward to seeing them again as members.

- CEO Trustee, Aaron Mandelbaum - Founder of Icebreaker Consulting