Introduction

In 2001, I was teaching an EMBA class at the University of Washington (UW). For the first 15 years of my career, I had avoided the academic world. I came from an academic family. My dad, both brothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents – most had been academics. I had started a couple of small businesses while in college and those were fun, so I wanted to get better. I was offered jobs in my senior year, including one with Salomon Brothers in New York and the other with Black Angus Restaurants. Salomon paid more the double what Black Angus offered. I took the Black Angus job. As one mentor said to me, the difference isn't the money but the skills. Black Angus would teach me how to run a business. Salomon would teach me how to manipulate spreadsheets. For the next 15 years, including getting my MBA, I worked for startups (my own included), Fortune 500 companies, and in turnarounds. It was exhilarating, but I loathed corporate politics. I gave a talk at UW and the next thing I knew the university invited me to teach. I fell in love with it. The opportunity to teach at Singapore Management University arose and I took it. I started writing and publishing multiple books on business, marketing, and sports. It led to some terrific experiences. I became a full professor of practice; served as department chair at other schools; became Dean at SP Jain School of Global Management; then spent the past few years at Duke CE, heading up Asia from Singapore; and then did the same in the United States. Throughout I worked with leaders of Fortune 1000 companies, learning that many shared a common anxiety: how could they leave their company, and the world, in a better place than they found it. The increasing ferocity of climate crisis storms, social injustice, economic inequality, and global pandemics ushered in an era of extreme vulnerability for humankind. What would it take for businesses everywhere to become a collective force for good, not just makers of goods? That question has nagged at me for years, hence this book.