The Board’s Role in Conscious Capitalism

BDO in the Boardroom

Join BDO’s Hitesh Shah, leader of our San Jose Board Roundtable series, in discussion with Raj Sisodia, Co-founder of Conscious Capitalism movement, as they discuss the importance of the board’s role in supporting conscious leadership and building a conscious business.

Key Takeaways:

• The board’s role is critical in helping management define the purpose of the company to build and support a conscious organization – without it, C-suite efforts are likely to fail.
• Under the traditional business paradigm, companies invest much less in their futures and tend to take on massive risk when primarily focused on shareholder primacy, fiduciary duty and financial performance. A conscious business is set up to hit both purpose and performance benchmarks far into the future.
• Conversations at the board level around culture, purpose, and core values that align all stakeholders send a very strong signal to management and lead to a successful business strategy.
• ESG is an increasingly important topic in the boardroom but often seen as a compliance exercise or obligation rather than as an opportunity to build a conscious business with a defined purpose to truly generate and sustain long-term value creation for many stakeholders.
• Boards can play a very important role in helping their companies tackle the largest existential threats like climate change, income inequality and inclusion by being informed and being active in the conversations on these topics with company management.
• Succession planning is a critical role of the board especially when you’ve built a conscious business - selecting the wrong leader for a conscious company can destroy decades worth of work.

Additional Resources:

• To learn more, BDO has partnered with Raj Sisodia and Neha Sangwan, MD to create the Conscious Business Leadership Academy (CBLA) to support leaders looking to maximize their personal potential while optimizing value and benefits for their organizations and stakeholders.
• Raj Sisodia - Co-founder of the Conscious Capitalism movement