In 1908, Harvard Business School’s first dean, Edwin Francis Gay, welcomed the School’s inaugural class of 59 students by saying that HBS was challenged with encouraging its students to have the “intellectual respect for business as a profession, with the social implications and heightened sense of responsibility which goes with that.”

The purpose of business, Gay said, was to make “a decent profit decently.”

In the 111 years since then, many HBS alumni have taken the school’s emphasis on social responsibility to heart by attempting to effect societal change. A recent book, Problem Solving: HBS Alumni Making a Difference in the World—co-authored by HBS Professor Emeritus Howard Stevenson, HBS project director Shirley Spence, and writer Russ Banham—shares more than 200 stories of HBS graduates who have taken steps toward tackling social challenges. For example:

• As CEO of Curriculum Associates, Robert Waldron turned a company that was in decline in 2008 into a profitable $190-million business 10 years later by developing online learning tools as well as print workbooks for schools. In 2017, the company gifted the majority of its shares, valued at $200 million, to charity.


• Diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare and incurable blood cancer, Kathy Giusti cofounded the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, which has helped thousands of other patients with the cancer and has accelerated drug discovery and development for several other diseases.


• Sir Ronald Cohen left a successful career in venture capital private equity to launch a global movement that has brought together governments with service providers and has attracted private investment to pay for a variety of social programs. One such program in 2010 reached out to help 2,000 young criminal offenders who were released from a UK prison, significantly reducing the rate of recidivism.

The book is the result of four years of research, including a survey of 13 MBA classes, more than 200 interviews, and extensive archival and secondary research.

Stevenson says the research team found that alumni tend to take a pragmatic approach to figuring out their own best ways to contribute.

“Our people feel a moral imperative to act, but they don’t go out and try to solve world hunger,” he says. “They identify a problem where they think their skills and resources can make a difference, and they dive in with an optimism that they can do it, rallying others to their cause as they go.”

Dina Gerdeman: We talk about corporate social responsibility (CSR) today, yet it’s clear from the book that this emphasis on business solving social problems isn’t new. Do you think readers might be surprised to learn that these efforts date so far back?

Howard Stevenson: I think it depends on your perspective. The discussion about the role of business in society and the responsibilities of business leaders has been going on since Scottish economist Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776. CSR is a relatively new movement espousing a triple bottom line of people, planet, and profits, rather than a single-minded focus on shareholder value. People of my vintage recall when business leadership was about serving customers at a profit and giving back to your community was expected. And many of today’s business students arrive with a commitment to social impact through or alongside their professional careers.

Shirley Spence: While our book primarily focuses on the social impact of today’s business graduates, we wanted to point out that this is not a new phenomenon. HBS and its alumni have been responding to the challenges and opportunities of their times for more than 200 years, from the economic boom and social challenges of industrialization to what has been described as the promise, peril, and unrealized potential of the 21st century. The language and methods have evolved and continue to evolve, but the strong sense of social responsibility remains a constant.

Gerdeman: Do you think the case method of teaching helps prepare business school students to consider how they might be able to contribute to society?

Stevenson: The case method by definition is about problem solving, regardless of the nature of the problem. Basically, you are teaching people to ask the right questions, sort through too much information, define the problem, identify options, and hone in on a solution from the vantage point of a particular person in a particular situation. It’s pretty easy to say that some problems are unsolvable, but we don’t let students get away with that in class. We ask: What can you do about it with the resources you have or can rally to your cause?

I think that one of the things the case method does for people is to say, it’s possible. It gives them a sense of confidence. As one interviewee put it, “HBS gave me a deep-rooted sense of optimism. Against the backdrop of all the problems in the world, it’s about focusing on solutions and the belief that we can make meaningful change.” Our research found business people tackling education, health, environment, poverty, inequality, and other challenges in every corner of the world.

Gerdeman: Were there any big surprises from your research?

Stevenson: I first arrived at Soldiers Field as an MBA student in 1963, stayed to do my doctoral work, and spent 40 years as an HBS professor and senior administrator. Over that time, I met thousands of students and alumni. I knew that many were applying their skills and resources for social good, but I was amazed—and inspired—by the breadth and depth of activity that our research uncovered and the passion that people bring to their social impact work.

Each story is unique, but problem solving was a common theme and we were able to detect some patterns. There basically is an infinite combination of five core strategies being used across a spectrum of impact to make positive change. The strategies include finance for social purpose, capacity building, product and market innovations, social and political mobilization, and government policy and legislation. Any and all of those strategies can be used to fulfill urgent needs, address the root causes of problems, and strive for system-wide change.

Spence: Our research also looked at how social impact journeys evolve over the course of a person’s lifetime. Causes of interest and alumni’s approaches for addressing problems and opportunities will change, in sometimes predictable and sometimes serendipitous ways. And, at any given time and especially over time, people may wear multiple hats as corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, nonprofit professionals, public servants, philanthropists, and volunteers contributing at local, national, and international levels.

Gerdeman: The early 2000s were a rocky time for business, with the global financial crisis and people like Bernie Madoff jailed for fraud. Was there a sense during this time that business schools weren’t doing their job in terms of graduating ethical business leaders?

Stevenson: What I would say was there was a sense that ethics were forgotten as investor capitalism became the new business model, with shareholder value and personal gain at its core. It sparked considerable soul searching at business schools and discussion of whether and how ethics can be taught. Here, too, I think that the case method can help. As a professor, you can inject ethical questions into the discussion of any case problem, raising moral issues and asking students to consider the social and environmental impact of the solutions they are proposing.

Many schools have made programmatic and other changes geared to heightening students’ awareness of corporate and personal accountability. At HBS, I actually think that—as with many developments—it is the students who are driving ethics back to the forefront again. I think they are saying no, that’s not what leadership is about, and that’s not what I want to be.

Spence: There are many examples of student efforts to promote social action and ethical behavior. The student-run Social Enterprise Conference draws over 1,000 participants each year. One group of students successfully lobbied faculty to create a field-based course on poverty and inequality. Members of one graduating class crafted and signed an MBA Oath with a professional code of ethics. Another class launched a Commit to Start initiative to encourage new graduates to take concrete steps to immediately get involved in their communities.

Gerdeman: Given the perception by many in the public that businesses are concerned only with making profits, are you hoping this research will open people’s eyes to the fact that many business leaders actually are championing social causes?

Spence: We know that there’s a keen interest among HBS alumni to know what other alumni are doing to advance social causes. We hope that Problem Solving will meet that need and provide role models for students. It’s also intended to be a reminder to the faculty and staff and everyone else in the HBS community of the true meaning of the School’s mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.

Stevenson: There’s no avoiding the negative press that business people get daily, sometimes deservedly, which often overshadows the many more positive examples of CEO activists and business people quietly working to better society. The book’s stories—which effectively are mini case studies—shine a spotlight on the latter. I hope our research will cause people to say, “I didn’t know business leaders were doing these kinds of things.: And inspire both academics and business people to say, “I can do something, too. Now, what should I do?”

BOOK EXCERPT

Healthy and Sustainable Food

Around the world, HBS alumni are tackling the challenges of food insecurity and realizing the potential of sustainable agriculture.

Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli (MBA 1999), Mezuo Nwuneli (MBA 2003) and Kola Masha (MBA 2006) are working to unlock the potential of agriculture in West Africa. The Nwunelis—a husband and wife team—co-founded AACE Food Processing & Distribution Ltd. in 2009 to combat malnutrition, provide jobs, and reduce Nigeria’s need for costly food imports. AACE Foods processes, packages, and distributes branded food products sourced from subsistence farmers. “Our vision is to be the preferred provider of food to West Africans,” they said.

In 2010, the Nwunelis founded Sahel Capital, which includes a consulting business and a private equity venture. The consulting arm provides crop value chain analysis, strategic consulting, public policy development, and implementation support for partners across West Africa. The private equity venture manages the $66-million Fund for Agricultural Finance (FAFIN) in Nigeria, which invests in small- and medium-sized agricultural ventures. “In Nigeria and across West Africa, there are tremendous opportunities to transform the agricultural landscape,” the Nwunelis said.

Kola Masha (MBA 2006) sees smallholder agriculture as the key to tackling poverty and preventing the spread of insurgency among unemployed youth in Nigeria. Through his impact investing firm, Doreo Partners, he founded Babban Gona, which means “great farm” in Hausa, as a for-profit social enterprise.

“Low economies of scale keep smallholder farmers in a cycle of poverty,” Masha explained. Babban Gona uses an agricultural franchise model inspired by Masha’s grandfather, a South Dakota farmer. “Growing up in Lagos, I remember my mother talking about how her father struggled to earn a living—until he joined a farmers’ cooperative,” he said.

Babban Gona recruits groups of enterprising farmers and provides them with affordable credit, agricultural inputs, training, and marketing services. “Since 2010, we have more than doubled the yields and incomes of tens of thousands of smallholders and are on track to serve 1 million farmers by 2025,” Masha reported.

Babban Gona specifically attracts rural youth who are otherwise driven to urban centers’ promising jobs, only to struggle and become vulnerable to recruitment by extremist groups. “Everyone deserves a secure future,” Masha said. “To end insecurity, we must unlock the potential of agriculture as a job creation engine for millions of youth.”

Andrew Kendall (MBA 1988) is on a mission to change the way New England eats. As executive director of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation, his family’s philanthropic organization, Kendall is dedicated to increasing the production and consumption of local, sustainably produced food.

He was inspired by Food Solutions New England, an organized network of agricultural experts, farmers, academics, and concerned citizens working to overcome barriers to local food production. “They’ve created a bold and provocative vision—‘50 by 60’—that says that we in New England can produce 50 percent of our food locally by 2060,” Kendall said. Since 2011, the Kendall Foundation has granted $19 million to high-impact programs like Food Solutions, and institutions with large food purchasing power like colleges and universities, to help move the region closer to the 50 by 60 goal.

Ian Carson (OMP 42, 2012) and his wife, Simone, a registered nurse, are providing fresh and nutritious surplus food to people in need in Australia, where one in five Australian children suffers from food insecurity. Their nonprofit SecondBite distributes free food to more than 1 million people, the equivalent of 40 million meals per annum, through shelters and missions that feed the hungry.

The Carsons initially reached out to local restaurants that agreed to turn surplus food into soups. Then they went to supermarkets. “We went to one grocer where we’d been shopping for 30 years and asked if we could take the leftover food to the mission,” said Carson. “The next Saturday, he had three boxes for us. The following week he had six. It grew organically from there.”

Today, the nonprofit receives surplus food from more than 1,200 outlets across the continent. Coles, one of Australia’s largest supermarket chains, makes food donations twice a week from 550 of its stores. Since its inception 13 years ago, SecondBite has rescued enough healthy nutritious food for over 90 million meals.

Reprinted with permission of Russ Banham, Shirley Spence, and Howard Stevenson, Problem Solving: HBS Alumni Making a Difference in the World (Boston: Harvard Business School, forthcoming in 2019).