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Contact: Nicole Buckley
Program Manager
Business & Society Program, The Aspen Institute
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THE ASPEN INSTITUTE
ANNOUNCES 2011 FACULTY PIONEER AWARD WINNERS
New York, NY, October 4, 2011 – The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education announced today the winners of the 2011 Faculty Pioneer Awards. Dubbed the “Oscars of the business school world” by the The Financial Times, the Faculty Pioneers recognition celebrates business school instructors who have demonstrated leadership and risk-taking in integrating social, environmental and ethical issues into the MBA curriculum.
“We are so impressed by this year’s group of winners and finalists,” says Judith Samuelson, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute’s Business & Society Program. “Their success in integrating environmental impacts and social context into teaching and research sets a high bar—for business faculty and for the future managers they help prepare for the challenges and opportunities in global business.”
The 2011 Faculty Pioneer Award winners are:
• In the “Lifetime Achievement” category:
Lynn Sharp Paine, John G. McLean Professor and Senior Associate Dean, Director of Faculty Development, Harvard Business School.
• In the “Faculty Pioneer” category:
David L. Levy, Chair of the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Massachusetts-Boston; founder and current director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and Regional Competitiveness.
• In the “Rising Star” category:
John Becker-Blease, Assistant Professor of Finance, Oregon State University College of Business.
This year’s winners were selected from over 80 nominations submitted by respected academics and business executives. Self-nominations are not considered, and finalists are selected by Aspen Institute staff in consultation with prominent academics; winners are selected by a panel of corporate judges. This year’s final-round judges were:
• Dan Bross, Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship, Microsoft Corporation
• Beth Colleton, VP, Green is Universal, NBCUniversal
• Paul Dillinger, Senior Director, Global Design, Levi Strauss & Co.
• Karen Ellis, Managing Director, Corporate and International Environmental Programs, FedEx Express
• Deborah Holmes, Global Director of Corporate Responsibility, Ernst & Young
• Carsten Tams, Senior Vice President, Bertelsmann Ethics & Compliance Executive
In addition to public recognition, Faculty Pioneers receive an honorarium. For more information about this awards program and to see the list of finalists, please visit: www.aspencbe.org/awards.
The Aspen Institute’s Business and Society Program, along with its Center for Business Education, seeks to create business leaders for the 21st century who are equipped with the vision and knowledge necessary to integrate corporate profitability with social value. To that end, it offers programs that provide business educators with the resources they need to incorporate issues of social and environmental stewardship into their teaching, research and curriculum development.
The Aspen Institute mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues. The Aspen Institute does this primarily in four ways: seminars, young-leader fellowships around the globe, policy programs, and public conferences and events. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It also has offices in New York City and an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.
FACULTY PIONEER AWARD WINNERS
Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
Lynn Sharp Paine
Harvard Business School
Lynn Sharp Paine is John G. McLean Professor and Senior Associate Dean, Director of Faculty Development, at Harvard Business School. Former chair of the General Management unit and co-founder of the required course on Leadership and Corporate Accountability, she has taught courses on general management, cross-cultural management, and business ethics in a variety of MBA and executive programs. She currently co-chairs the School’s Senior Executive Program for China.
Lynn has written widely on the leadership and governance of companies that meld high ethical standards with outstanding financial results. Her books include Value Shift: Why Companies Must Merge Social and Financial Imperatives to Achieve Superior Performance and Leadership, Ethics, and Organizational Integrity. Her new book Capitalism at Risk: Rethinking the Role of Business, with HBS colleagues Joe Bower and Dutch Leonard, is due out from Harvard Business Review Press in October, 2011.
Advisor to companies and industry groups, she served on the Conference Board’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Public Trust and Private Enterprise after Enron’s collapse and the Conference Board’s Task Force on Executive Compensation following the financial crisis of 2008. She is currently a member of the Governing Board of the Center for Audit Quality, an adviser to the Hills Program on Governance at CSIS, and an adviser to the Conference Board’s Governance Center. She was a director of RiskMetrics Group until June 2010, when the company became part of MSCI Inc.
A summa cum laude graduate of Smith College, Lynn has a doctorate in moral philosophy from Oxford University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. She practiced law with the Boston firm of Hill & Barlow early in her career.
Faculty Pioneer Award Winner
David L. Levy
University of Massachusetts Boston
David L. Levy is Chair of the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He teaches courses in international business, strategy, business and climate change, and business and society. He recently founded and is now Director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise and Regional Competitiveness, which engages in research, education and outreach to promote a transition to a clean, sustainable, and prosperous economy. David’s research examines corporate strategic responses to climate change, the growth of the clean energy business sector, and the emergence of carbon disclosure as a form of governance. He also writes about the role of business in the governance of contested social and environmental issues. He has published and lectured widely on these topics. He was recently Principal Investigator on a grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to develop sustainability education programs and is also engaged in collaborative research with colleagues at the University of Oxford, the University of Western Sydney, and other institutions. He edits the blog Climate Inc. on business and climate change.
Rising Star Award Winner
John Becker-Blease
College of Business, Oregon State University
John R. Becker-Blease is an assistant professor of finance at Oregon State University’s College of Business. He has established himself as an innovative educator in corporate finance, where his classes challenge students to think beyond a shareholder-only understanding in financial decision making. He has been an invited speaker on CSR and curriculum reform at the AACSB’s Sustainability Conference, Boston University’s Stakeholder Marketing Consortium, the Financial Management Association, and the Financial Education Conference. A substantial portion of Becker-Blease’s research examines social justice in corporations, with a particular emphasis on gender equality. His research has appeared in a wide range of leading academic outlets across multiple disciplines including finance, entrepreneurship, accounting, and economics, and is frequently cited in the popular press at such outlets as Businessweek, Forbes, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR, ABC News, and CNBC, among others. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in Financial Economics and degrees in history from the University of New Hampshire and in finance and insurance from the University of Florida.
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