42. Profit, Purpose & What Is In Our Hands To Give / Prof. Alex Edmans

In today’s episode, I speak with Alex Edmans, the professor of Finance at London Business School. He has a PhD from MIT as a Fulbright Scholar, and was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. Alex has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, testified in the UK Parliament, and given the TED talk What to Trust in a Post-Truth World and the TEDx talk The Social Responsibility of Business with a combined 2 million views. He serves as Mercers School Memorial Professor of Business at Gresham College, giving a series of lectures to the public, and on Royal London Asset Management’s Responsible Investment Advisory Committee. His book, Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit, headed the Financial Times list of Business Books of the Month for March 2020 and was featured in the FT’s Summer Books of 2020. He has been named to Poets and Quants Best 40 Professors Under 40 and Thinkers50 Radar. In this conversation, we dismantle some of the misconceptions about purpose-driven businesses, and explore how enterprises of any size can begin to connect more deeply with their values to meaningfully contribute to society. From how we define purpose, to focussing on what is in our hands to change, Alex offers a refreshing and accessible way of re-appraising what we can offer to the world. Join in the conversation #hivepodcast, and find out more at www.nathalienahai.com/the-hive-podcast/ Recorded on 19th October 2020.