Socially Responsible Business is a Driver of Radical Innovation

Online, January 28, 2010 (Newswire.com) - A gathering of senior business executives, thought leaders, non-profit executives, academic leaders and entrepreneurs saw a vision of the new future of business at the 2010 Innovation and Humanity Summit (http://www.innovationhumanity.com/agenda.html) at Chapman University in Orange, California.

Host and organizer, Glenn Llopis introduced Chapman University's Daniele Struppa who announced that the university, which has a top ten school of entrepreneurship, is expanding entrepreneurship training to all majors including art, film, law and engineering because into the new future everyone will need the skills of self-sufficiency.

Robert Wolcott, PhD., founder and executive director of Northwestern University's Kellogg Innovation Network, keynote speech proposed that universal innovation is necessary to create a sustainable future. He stated that innovators should begin with the big question, "What am I trying to accomplish?" Wolcott said that we cannot create real value if we cannot look beyond financial models. He stated, "The big goals are the world saving ones."

Will Marre, CEO of Realeadership Alliance, a leadership development firm focused on sustainable business models and innovation, said, "Random acts of inspiration are not sufficient to create an economically and environmentally sustainable future. We must begin with a bigger purpose of business leadership, new business models and a new innovation framework that creates relevant value-value that leads to sustainable abundance." He went on to say that we have reached the limits of good intentions and must now empower our leaders and our workforce with new models and tools to drive innovations that benefit humanity.

One of the most startling comments came from Eric Llopis, Vice President of Strategy for Pepsi-Bottling of North America. He told the audience that Pepsico was strategically engaged in reinventing itself as the healthy snack food and drink company. He mentioned that Pepsi had recently developed a fully mulching bag for its Frito Lay brand chips and that it had several innovation labs developing health drinks and good tasting healthy snacks. He said, "Transforming a global business takes time, but this is the course we at Pepsi are firmly on."

Former Wall Street investment banker, Adlai Wertman, presented the afternoon keynote. He is now the Director of the Business and Society Lab at USC's Marshall School of Business. His innovative methodology for creating hybrid enterprises that have both financial and social missions has enjoyed great success in Los Angeles. Wertman recently led Chrysalis, a workforce staffing company that earns $5 million in annual revenue providing newly trained homeless people as contract labor force. Wertman asserted that the hybrid enterprise sector will grow because it creates necessary innovation to meet both its missions.

The Innovation Humanity Summit seemed to inspire this cross section of leaders because it was so broad. As Marre summed it up, "A diversity of ideas and united connections is the source of sustainable innovation."