The evolving role of ethics in business leadership, and how leaders can balance navigating climate change and inequality with turning a profit, were key themes at this year's David J. BenDaniel Lecture in Business Ethics.
The lecture, held April 23 in Warren Hall, featured Sanda Ojiambo, assistant secretary-general, CEO and executive director of the United Nations Global Compact, in conversation with Andrew Karolyi, Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, and Colleen Barry, dean of the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
Speaking to students, Ojiambo began by describing the work of the U.N. Global Compact, which has 20,000 business participants worldwide and promotes responsible corporate practices rooted in 10 core principles covering human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption.
"We're not saying they make a business perfect," Ojiambo said, "but they're absolutely foundational."
The U.N. Global Compact builds business capacity through training, including both peer learning and digital learning, offers a platform for leaders to showcase their work and advocate on key issues, and represents its mission at the local and regional levels as well as globally.
"Profit and purpose, people and planet can all go together," Ojiambo said, calling the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals "investment opportunities" where businesses can thrive while driving global impact.
Ojiambo said the demands on today's business leaders are growing more complex, making ethical leadership "a trait that will continue to evolve and become more difficult over time." Referring to the Global Compact's post-pandemic survey of 2,000 CEOs worldwide, she noted that what keeps executives up at night was no longer about products or markets, but issues like diversity, climate change, reproductive rights and global supply chain disruptions.
"CEOs today have to do so much more than lead a business," she said.
Ojiambo outlined four pillars of strong ethical leadership: establishing clear principles and sticking to them; being authentic to build trust; embracing transparency, even when acknowledging business failures; and standing firmly for truth. "Putting your issue on the table helps you solve it," she said, noting that these "soft characteristics" are now essential to effective leadership.
Karolyi defined ethical leadership through the lens of stakeholder capitalism - emphasizing accountability not just to shareholders, but also to employees, customers, suppliers and the environment. He noted the tension between value-based investors, focused solely on profits, and values-based investors, who prioritize social and environmental responsibility. Ethical leadership, he argued, means aligning corporate and investor actions with the long-term well-being of all stakeholders.
Ethical leadership is core to public policy education, Barry said, noting that it's embedded in the Brooks School's first-year curriculum to prepare students for complex, judgment-based decision-making. "We are training you to be leaders, full stop," she said, addressing students directly and urging them to develop principle-driven frameworks.
Barry asked Ojiambo to describe her own career trajectory, from the nonprofit sector to business to global policies focused on business. Ojiambo spoke of her lifelong commitment to addressing inequality, rooted in her upbringing in Kenya, where she saw wealth and poverty side-by-side.
"Even as a 9-year-old, I asked myself, 'What could I do?'" she said.
Her career in the nonprofit sector began in community development in Somalia, where she focused on women's access to water and led the national de-mining program. Recognizing the central role of women's agency in societal progress, she later shifted to women's health advocacy across Africa.
Frustrated by the limitations of donor funding, Ojiambo transitioned to the corporate sector, helping a major African telecom redefine its success by "how many lives it had transformed," not just profits. Ojiambo collaborated with the U.N. Global Compact during her corporate tenure and later joined the U.N., where she continues to tackle inequality.
Ojiambo asked Karolyi for his perspective on Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), a U.N. Global Compact initiative that represents 840 business schools worldwide and is dedicated to ensuring the next generation of business leaders is equipped to address global crises and create a world that's good for all.
Karolyi praised PRME's emphasis on transparency through "sharing in progress" reports, calling it a commitment to higher standards in leadership education. "It's about holding ourselves accountable," he said, adding that PRME's spirit of partnership with corporations and governments amplifies its impact. "Transparency and progress are at the heart of responsible leadership."
The David J. BenDaniel Lecture in Business Ethics was established and endowed to emphasize the strong interest in ethical business leadership and commitment to educate moral leaders at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. The series was created in 2010 in honor of David BenDaniel, a professor of management at the Johnson School and a key figure in the entrepreneurial sphere at Cornell.
Janice Endresen is a communications editor at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.
