Planning for the DFEI High School Summit

Daniels Fund CEO, Hanna Skandera, introducing Starbucks CEO, Kevin Johnson

Last week, two of our staff members had the opportunity to attend the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative (DFEI) Collegiate Summit in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The theme this year was Accelerating Ethics in the New Workplace. The annual collegiate summit brings together university students and professors from the twelve participating DFEI schools across Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.

The summit participants also include local business professionals, national business leaders, and Daniels Fund leadership to convene on the topics of ethics in business today while examining how the eight ethical principles developed by Bill Daniels can serve as a basis for navigating and responding to ethical challenges that young people will inevitably face in their future careers.

The summit highlights business leaders who are committed to the benefits of making ethical decisions for their companies, and provides a forum for all participants to examine and discuss how ethical dilemmas can be addressed using the ethical principles as a guide. Discussing real-world ethical challenges that their companies have faced, the business executive participants included:

  • President & CEO of Starbucks, Kevin Johnson
  • Carnival Corporation’s Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, Peter C. Anderson
  • Co-CEO of SecondMuse, Carrie Freeman
  • And others from Google Cloud, Montech, Inc., and Bank of America New Mexico

The business executives spoke directly to the hard choices that they’ve made in the past 18 months in response to both, the COVID-19 crisis, and the national reckoning around racial justice and how decisions like these often determine the futures of companies and reflect directly on company cultures.

Keynote speakers all championed the idea of embracing problems as opportunities to grow and become better companies, not shying away from the truth, and inviting feedback and discussion at every level within a business.

Our attendance at the summit is part of our own preparation for a Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative High School Summit we are holding on April 20, 2022, in Cincinnati. Area schools who are either using the Daniels Fund ethics materials or participating in the High School of Business program have been invited to attend with select students from their schools. We are still recruiting business speakers and participants, local college students, and area high school teachers and student participants. For more information on how to participate, contact Stephanie King, Director of Business Engagement, at KingS@MBAResearch.org.

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