Please join us for the inaugural event to launch Business: The next 25 years. With the School celebrating its 25th anniversary this academic year, we will be looking at how the business and business school landscape will change in the next 25 years.

Marya Besharov and Thyra Lee will host Emeritus Professor, Colin Mayer CBE, in celebration of Professor Mayer’s time and leadership of the School as its first professor, first academic director and former Dean, and to congratulate him on his retirement.

They will be joined by Paul Polman, founder of Imagine and former CEO of Unilever. The discussion will focus on the major problems we are facing, the profound changes in business that are in progress and the even greater changes that are about to happen.

Mayer’s seminal book “Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good” sets out the urgent case for change and how to bring it about. Polman’s widely acclaimed new book, “Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take”, describes how to do it and what has worked in practice.

What are the changes that are needed and how do we ensure they happen?
What are the impediments to business moving faster and how can they be overcome?
What examples can we look at to see what has and has not worked?

Speakers
• Marya Besharov, Professor of Organisations and Impact, Saïd Business School and Academic Director, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.
• Thyra Lee, Final year E&M undergraduate, University of Oxford and Research Assistant, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
• Colin Mayer CBE, Former Dean and Emeritus Professor, Saïd Business School.
• Paul Polman, Founder of Imagine, and Chair of the Board, Saïd Business School.