“If you’re looking for a business opportunity, here’s the most under-served market in the world,” said Craig Kielburger, founder of the charity Free the Children. Absolute silence.
That market: “People who live in desperate poverty and need,” said Kielburger, who was, for the remainder of lunch on Saturday, keynote speaker at the Impact 2007 Leadership Conference, billed as “Canada’s premier entrepreneurship event.”
The crowd is a bunch of young entrepreneurs itching to put what they’ve learned over the past day and a half to good use in their fi rst, second, third, or maybe their fourth business venture— and some of these people aren’t even out of high school.
Kielburger defi nes an entrepreneur as “someone who brings an innovative model to create social change,” and claims Mother Teresa as “the quintessential entrepreneur.”
Throughout the conference, the organizers tried to break the stereotype of CEOs as suits (despite the formal dress code).
On Friday, George Roter, CEO of Engineers Without Borders, spoke about applying business principles to a charity. According to Roter, “entrepreneurship is an approach, not an end.”
Such Zen-like business philosophies were common over the two days. Successful CEOs were treated like gurus. Admittedly, conferences, whether for entrepreneurs or Star Trek afi cionados, can be a surreal experience for an outsider. Business conferences are no different for having their own cultures, their own celebrities, their own lingo. Business schools have their own cheers.
“Man, if this were West Coast…” said one of the Albertan delegates after the banquet. West Coast biz conferences are known, surprisingly, for being more laid-back and booze-soaked. Here at our East Coast conference, everyone’s heading back to their rooms to work on case studies.
Kielburger put social responsibility in an economic context. Last year, the world population spent $15 billion on perfume—three times as much money as it would take to provide universal literacy, he claimed. We spent the same amount on makeup as would take to eliminate hunger. Stopping the spread of AIDS? Less than Europe spent on ice cream in a single year.
Kielburger isn’t arguing that we stop buying these things, but that we do have the resources to solve the world’s problems. Throughout his speech, he returned to his refrain that such a change can only be effective if expressed at the ballot box, the cash register, and the boardroom.
To a packed house of aspiring CEOs, those that many would consider at the forefront of me-culture, the co-author of From Me to We argued that “helping others is good for the bottom line. What’s good for the heart is good for the wallet.”
Is he trying to redefine selfishness?
“More than that,” he said when we sit down for an interview—he’s trying to “redefi ne the self.” There’s a myth in North America, argued Kielburger, that we’re more independent than those in developing countries, but “we don’t grow our own clothes, we don’t make our own food. We’re more dependent on others here than [they are] anywhere else.”
In his keynote remarks, the recent U of T grad provided examples of charitable businesses and charities with business principles. Take Participant Films—which produces socially responsible films, such as North Country, Syriana and Nobel-maker An Inconvenient Truth—and the Institute for One World Health, what would strike most as an oxymoron: a not-for-profit pharmaceutical company.
“It’s a charity,” says Kielburger, “it’s non-profit, but it brings in those business principles.” The United Nations High Commission for Refugees is hiring, first and foremost, MBAs.
For some, the greatest challenge comes not in the form of case studies or, for that matter, taking over the world, but over dinner Friday evening. The occasion: a banquet at the Westin Harbour Castle, where Michael Lee- Chin, the major donor to the ROM’s Crystal renovation is giving his keynote address. Two delegates’ vegetarian option arrives. Looks good to me, but—
“Omigod, what is that?”
“I think I just got served a bowl of rice.”
“Try it. What’s it like?” Some tentative poking at with fork follows.
“It’s kind of mushy, but kind of grainy, and it tastes really cheesy.”
Opined the other vegetarian at the table: “It’s like they were trying to make Indian food.”
The first vegetarian picks up the sprig garnishing her plate. “And what’s this?”
“I hate it when food is decorated,” pipes in one of the high schoolers.
The next morning, as I’m riding the escalator on my way to a breakout panel hosted by the Ontario Centres of Excellence, I catch the tail end of a conversation between two older delegates, one of whom had just attended the Social Etiquette in a Business Setting workshop.
“It was a good reminder,” I overhear the woman say. “I went to the banquet last night and some of the kids didn’t have a clue.”
Oh well. Today we take over the world. Tomorrow, risotto.
