Breakout Session 5 and Off-Site Visits

Lower Manhattan Development: Inside the Development Process of Battery Park City and the World Trade Center
Gary Hack, Dean, School of Design, University of Pennsylvania
Meyer S. Frucher, Chairman and CEO, Philadelphia Stock Exchange
Carl Weisbrod, President, Alliance for Downtown New York, Inc.

Learn about the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan with a site tour of one of the largest and most comprehensive urban development projects in the nation. This tour will not only examine the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, but also the rebuilding of the entire lower Manhattan area, with a specific focus on the project’s mission of developing the district into a 24-7 neighborhood.

Two Harlems: Local Partnerships in Affordable Housing Development
(2 sites)
JoAnne Page, Esq., Executive Director, The Fortune Society L&M Equity Participants, LTD.

Discover why New York City is on the cutting edge of affordable and supportive housing development! This site tour will visit The Aspen, a new mixed-income development in East Harlem, and include a discussion of financing and development challenges. The second site will be The Castle, a beautifully restored Gothic Revival school in West Harlem. The Fortune Society developed and manages The Castle as supportive housing for ex-offenders. JoAnne Page, Executive Director of The Fortune Society, will give a tour and discuss financing and management challenges.

Times Square Case Study and Site Visit
Professor Lynne B. Sagalyn, Professor of Real Estate Development and Planning, University of Pennsylvania

Non-profits making a critical difference in the transformation of Times Square? Sounds a bit counterintuitive. But it's true. Come hear about the Times Square Alliance, a business improvement district organization, and The New 42nd Street, Inc., a theater entity operating two theaters and rehearsal space on 42nd Street. This off-site tour will be conducted by Professor Lynne Sagalyn, former director of the MBA Real Estate Program at Columbia and now at the University of Pennsylvania. The group will meet at the offices of the Times Square Alliance where Lynne will give an overview of the transformation; the head of the Alliance will then speak about the important role his organization played in the early 1990s. We will then walk over the New 42nd Street to learn how they brought youth theater to the street, as well as more non-profit theaters than anyone thought possible. The off-site will conclude with a walking tour of Times Square.

The Role of Arts and Artists in the Revival of TriBeCa: Site Visit
Craig Hatkoff, Chairman of the Executive Committee, Capital Trust

How is it that over and over in the United States and abroad artists are able to transform urban blight into urban revival and celebration? Is the secret in economics or ideas? Is the answer in culture or concrete? This event seeks to educate attendees on the process of neighborhood revitalization and community development through the arts with a site visit to TriBeCa, home of the TriBeCa film festival, and a vibrant New York City neighborhood that was revitalized through the arts. This case study will provide valuable insight to attendees, to help them make the step from being a tourist, post-development, to becoming a change agent, pre-development, able to recognize viable opportunities in their own communities.

Common Ground Community: Site Visit
Cathy San Fan Andre, Replication Coordinator, Common Ground Community

Common Ground Community is a non-profit housing and community development organization whose mission is to solve homelessness. They start by creating communities where housing is safe, attractive, and affordable and then add support services, like access to medical and mental health care, job training, and job placement. Common Ground provides a comprehensive support system designed to help people regain lives of stability and independence. This includes a network of partners, including the Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS) and the Actors Fund. Their staff provides a full range of support services to tenants. By building oneon- one relationships with tenants, case workers and vocational counselors anticipate tenant needs and deliver the individualized assistance each individual requires. Common Ground challenges individuals to realize their goals and meet high standards of personal responsibility and neighborly behavior, while offering the support and services needed to succeed. The visit to Common Ground will include a view of Common Ground’s renovation accomplishments at the landmark Time Square building as well as an understanding of how this model works and how it is being replicated to perpetuate a holistic approach to addressing homelessness.

Leadership: Incorporating a Sense of Social Responsibility into Your Career and Organization
Nancy McGaw, Deputy Director, Business & Society Program, The Aspen Institute
Mandy Cormack, Vice-President, Corporate Responsibility & Head of Corporate Relations, Unilever
Susan Nickbarg, Principal, SVN Marketing
Hannah Wilder, PhD, MCC, President and Senior Global Executive Coach, Advantara Executive Development Worldwide

This panel will examine the diverse ways in which leaders throughout a company maintain a sense of social responsibility in challenging business environments and strategically integrate social responsibility into their organizations. Coming from a variety of roles within a company, how does one infuse and institutionalize socially responsible practices into their organizations to ensure it becomes part of the company culture? What obstacles and opportunities are encountered when integrating social responsibility throughout the company and what systems are used to reinforce socially responsible behavior? The panel will also address where social responsibility fits into the corporate decision making process and how that has changed over the past few years.

Spirituality in Economics and Global Sustainable Development
Srikumar Rao, Professor of Marketing, Long Island University and Adjunct Professor, Columbia Business School
Misha Goussev, Director, Strategic Services Group, Morgan Stanley
Alfredo Sfeir Younis, PhD, Senior Adviser, Managing Directors Office, World Bank
Robert Thurman, Chair of Religious Studies, Columbia University
Walter Henry Beebe, Founder and President, The New York Open Center

Recent business financial and accounting scandals have fostered increased attention to ethics and social responsibility issues all over the world. Business schools everywhere, including Columbia, have quickly responded to this new landscape by rapidly incorporating new ethics and business values courses into their curricula and have struggled to address these “hot issues”. How do we develop a framework of concrete values that can help effectively guide business leaders to shape a better world? Here we turn to philosophy, the arts, religion, independent thinkers, and spiritual leaders for a discussion on their perspectives on human values and ethics for the business world.

The Role of Ecotourism in Environmental Conservation
Geoffrey Heal, Professor, Columbia Business School
Ravi Corea, Founder & President, Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society
Ryan Moore, Director of Training and Education, International Ecotourism Society
Chris Seek, CEO, Solimar Marketing and Travel

We will examine the necessary components of a successful ecotourism venture (infrastructure, stable political climate, etc.) and look not only at existing success stories of ecotourism, but also at future untapped potential for this novel approach to conservation. Our panel includes representatives from NGOs and practitioners implementing cutting-edge solutions. Learn what it takes to get started and be successful in this growing field.

Investment in Africa: The Challenges and the Rewards
Nadine B. Hack, President, beCause Global Consulting
Charles H. Allison, Jr., Senior Investment Officer, The F.B. Heron Foundation
Donna Katzin, Executive Director, Shared Interest
Mora McLean, President and Chief Executive Officer, Africa-America Institute
Alan Patricof, Co-Founder, Apax Partners, Inc.

The panel will discuss the challenges and rewards of investing in Africa. From Private Equity to institutional investment, the panel will highlight the initiatives undertaken by these practitioners to put foreign capital to work in Africa, the effect it has had on African development, and the forecast for future growth and opportunity.

Measuring Your Mission: Social Impact Assessment and Social Return on Investment Workshop
Catherine Clark, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Columbia Business School

Much attention has been paid in recent years to how social entrepreneurs can use the tools of business to be more accountable for the impacts they aim to achieve. From Balanced Scorecards, to Benefit-Cost Analysis and Social Return on Investment, there are many tools in current use to help entrepreneurs report on the financial and mission success of their double bottom line for-profit or nonprofit enterprises. This workshop will provide participants with the experience of working through a Social Return on Investment Analysis for a sample venture, and will discuss other tools entrepreneurs can use to convey their social impact in a clear-cut manner to their stakeholders. Download SROI presentation (.pdf) here.

"The Career Intensive" with Josh Klenoff
Joshua Klenoff, Co-founder, League for Lifelong Leadership

In this highly interactive workshop, you will explore your passions, talents, values and other elements within your constellation of career "qualities." Then make strides in translating this personal information into your most rewarding professional path:

• Gain clarity by conducting a career-oriented self-inventory
• Make strides in discovering your most suitable career path
• Create an action plan with goals to advance your career and land your next job

Participants will grapple with questions such as what type of work they are most enthusiastic about, what are their highest priorities and what are their core competencies.

“Concert of Ideas” with Creative Leaps International
Creative Leaps International: Paul Spencer Adkins (tenor), Dianne Legro (soprano), John Cimino (baritone), Donna Wissinger (flutist), Krista Apple (actor), Jon Klibonoff (pianist), Tom McCoy (pianist), Richard Albagli (percussionist) Harriet Mayor Fulbright, Former Clinton Administration Appointee; Goodwill Ambassador for the Fulbright Program
Carol Ross, Founder, Carol Ross and Associates, LLC

Creative Leaps International, known for its strategic and creative use of the performing arts within highly integrated learning environments, will partner with Harriet Mayor Fulbright—an authority on education, cultural capital and the arts—to celebrate how business leaders are building a better world. Creative Leaps will incorporate ideas from the past two days’ sessions in a dynamic presentation aptly described as a “fusion of lively performing arts with imaginative, cross-disciplinary stimulation for the intellect, as well as the heart and soul.” This session, designed as a change of pace and spark to new thinking for conference attendees, will explore and celebrate the themes of the conference and prove a Saturday afternoon chance to get to know and be inspired by the people sitting next to you in a highly interactive setting. The “Concert of Ideas” is to be followed by a debriefing discussion with all principles.

Creative Leaps International has performed its Concerts of Ideas as the centerpiece of dozens of international conferences, symposia and Fortune 500 corporate training events, including major projects with Starbucks, GE, Pfizer, the Center for Creative Leadership and Washington DC’s Council for Excellence in Government. Their artists are winners of more than 60 national and international prizes for excellence in performance and can be heard on the stages of many of the world's great concert halls and theaters. Creative Leaps is also networked as creative partners with premiere organizations and research institutions around the globe concerned with leadership, professional development, trends in innovation, and advances in teaching, learning and organizational development. For further information, download a background description (.doc)

Corporate Philanthropy or Good Business Sense? The Role of Corporate Social Enterprise in the 21st Century
Natalie Hahn, President, Hahn Associates
Judith Samuelson, Executive Director, Business and Society Program, Aspen
Institute
Virginia Davies, Attorney, Blake Cassels & Graydon
Amir Dossal, Executive Director, United Nations Fund for International Partnerships

Why do Americans give? How much is contributed? Are tax incentives the primary reason? Can this legislation be coordinated at the international level? Should the law differentiate between individual and corporate giving? How can business and private sector flows become more powerful development actors in the global arena? How can the nearly $200 billion in remittance flows be channeled for more home country development? Can business adequately respond to the most complex, enduring problems-from poverty to HIV/AIDS to environmental degradation? How has the United Nations responded to corporate and philanthropic partnerships? What has been the impact of the Ted Turner historical $1 billion contribution to the United Nations System? How can global companies and local philanthropy best contribute to achieve the Millennium Development Goals? Many practical examples, documentation and dialogue time will be provided. The focus will be on translating these experiences for leadership development, expanding partnerships with business executives and educators as well as innovative curriculum in business schools.