The Aspen Institute New Zealand in collaboration with the Aspen Institute presents the Socrates Programme 2024:

The Future of Business: How to Create Real Value in a Changing World

Sun May 5 to Tue May 7, 2024

Millbrook Resort, Queenstown

Moderated by New York-based Judy Samuelson, Founder and Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Programme

Seminar fee: $2500 + GST (USD$1800), includes tuition, accommodation and meals

Local fee:$1600 + GST without accommodation (includes tuition and meals)

Partial Scholarships Available:

Scholarship Applications on Registration Form (above)

In a world where corporate responsibility and sustainability have taken centre stage, business leaders face a critical juncture. The commitment to operate sustainably and ethically is under the microscope but the path to implementation is fraught with challenges, including the ever-changing economic landscape, the urgency of climate change and natural resources at risk, global tensions, and cynicism about business and its ends.   

Questions about business and value creation for the public good are growing: In this time of social and industrial transformation, whom does the corporation serve? What is the role or not of the government in directing business priorities? How does the executive define—and measure— ‘real’ value, i.e. value beyond profits and financial return? What is required of business leaders, advisors to business, and those with the power to regulate, in this moment? 

Amid these tensions—and both public critique of business and heightened expectations of employees—the private sector is still trusted to get things done. We cannot make progress on solutions to our most important problems without the remarkable resources, talent and problem-solving skills, global reach and distribution systems that are the hallmark of the modern corporation.  

Join us for this exclusive Aspen Socrates Seminar, moderated by Judy Samuelson, internationally renowned for challenging conventional thinking in business. This seminar will examine the evolving business landscape and the impact, resilience, governance, and decision-making have on business value. With years of branding statements and pledges in place, companies are now confronted with the practical realities of delivering on these commitments while navigating financial constraints and competing priorities. Through readings and discussion, we will address how organisations can bridge the gap between vision and action to create long-term business value.

Participants will explore five key questions:   

Profits vs. Purpose: Profits are necessary to sustain the corporation, and the financial performance pressures can be unrelenting. How do executives and directors define value, and work to resolve these tensions and trade-offs? What needs to be true to assure the long-term performance of the enterprise—but also secure the public good?  

Fiduciary duty: In a world with multiple interests and ‘stakeholders’, to whom is the executive responsible?  

Seizing this moment: Forward-thinking executives and boards see the opportunity for competitive advantage and ROI rooted in products and services designed with sustainability as a first order condition. Can these businesses secure a ‘green premium’?  

Allies in the long game: Employees are changing the conversation from the inside and NGOs are deploying sophisticated techniques to raise the bar in a company or drive collaboration within or across industries. What is changing in the eco system of business and how do executives clarify who matters most?  

Personal commitments: What relationships, habits and practices will help next generation leaders stay at the work that lies ahead?  
 

Who Should Attend

Senior executives, directors, decision-makers, and leaders from the corporate, non-profit, and government sectors, who are committed to steering their organisations towards a resilient and profitable future.
 

Seminar Details

Starting 5pm, Sunday 5th May and finishing 2pm, Tuesday 7th May

at Millbrook, Queenstown 

Seminar fee: $2500 + GST (USD$1800)

(Includes seminar tuition, two nights standard accommodation at Millbrook and meals. Participants are responsible for transport to and from Queenstown)

Local fee: $1600 + GST without accommodation

Scholarship Applications Here

 Schedule

• Sunday 5th May, 5pm - Welcome Drinks & Dinner, The Hole In One, Millbrook

• Monday 6th May, 9am to 4:30pm - Seminar at Millbrook Conference Centre, 6pm - Dinner, Botswana Butchery, Queenstown

• Tuesday 7th May, 9am to 12:30pm - Seminar at Gibbston Valley Winery, 12:30pm - 2pm - Wine Tasting and Closing Lunch

Alumni Network

Upon completion participants are presented with a certificate and welcomed into the dynamic group of Aspen NZ alumni and 9500 Socrates alumni worldwide.

We are honoured to have Judy Samuelson moderating our first Socrates seminar, the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, which she founded in 1998—with a plan to change how business schools prepare students for a new age in business. Within three years, Enron had floundered on the failure of shareholder-first thinking, and Samuelson and her colleagues pivoted to engage hundreds of business executives and governance gurus in dialogue about public company priorities, shaping the provocative ideas captured in the Aspen Principles of Long-Term Value Creation (2007), and launching a ten-year campaign to disrupt Milton Friedman’s narrative about corporate purpose. Other signature programs under Samuelson’s leadership include the Aspen Principles for Sensible and Effective Executive Pay, and the most recent release, the Agenda for the Prepared Board (2023), which illuminates seven ideas designed to help directors refocus on what is needed now to create value for the future.

In 2021 Samuelson authored Six New Rules of Business: Creating Real Value in a Changing World (Berrett-Koehler) to capture lessons from three decades of engagement with business and challenge the dominate assumptions about business value.

Samuelson previously worked in legislative affairs in California’s state capitol, banking in New York’s garment center, and as the director of impact investing for the Ford Foundation. She writes for Quartz@Work, is a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow and a director of the Financial Health Network. A native Californian, she lives in New York City with her husband.

For inquiries, please contact info@aspeninstitute.org.nz. Accommodation costs are deducted if not required and a select number of partial scholarships are available.

Note: For IoD NZ members, the seminar can contribute to your annual quota of CPD points.