Leila Janah Quotes

Despite their good intentions, today's businesses are missing an opportunity to integrate social responsibility and day-to-day business objectives - to do good and make money simultaneously.

The question remains: which brands will commit to creating a private sector pillar of social change, and which will become casualties of their own outdated thinking?

Charitable involvement, social impact, and global responsibility have always been important at Bain Capital.

Interest in business ethics courses has surged, and student activities at leading business schools are more focused than ever before on making business serve long-term social values.

Engaging in social business is beneficial to a company because it leverages on business competencies to address social issues, involves one-time investment with sustainable results, and produces other positive effects such as employee motivation and improved organizational culture.

Integrate purpose into your for-profit business model through a long term commitment to a cause that is aligned with your core values and those of your community.

Business can be a source of progressive change.

Any entrepreneur worth their salt knows that their brand is worthless if it doesn't somehow contribute to society or the overall good of the planet.

As business leaders, we should not choose between profit or good; rather, we must choose to profit from good. And that requires connecting what we do with a purpose beyond profit - a reason to exist that meets our shared sense of 'doing good.'

The companies that are the most influential and most successful are the ones that care about impact and the influence they have on the world.

Businesses can lead with their values and make money, too. You don't have to simply be purely profit-driven. You can integrate social and environmental concerns into a business, be a caring business, be a generous business and still do very well financially.

I truly believe that philanthropy and commerce can work together.

One of the main lessons I have learned the last five years as Secretary-General is that the United Nations cannot function properly without the support of the business community and civil society. We need to have tripartite support - the governments, the business communities and the civil society.

I like to bring people together so we don't waste opportunities and resources and keep doing the wrong things when we know better. Corporate America makes great things and things that can hurt us. They have to be part of the solutions. There's nothing to say you don't make a profit by doing good.

What is good for society is also good for business.

Businessmen need to understand the challenges of society and contribute to solving them.

There's a lot of good that's done for society in building businesses, but it's also great to be involved in those things where you can be connected to the community, to the world, and think about how you can use what you're creating, both in terms of your personal skills as well as your products or services to do good things for others.

The thing we should all be looking for are people who want to make a difference. I'm a big believer in the Silicon Valley religion of the power of markets. But I also believe in our obligation to give back, and to give back in the way we do business, to create more value than we capture for ourselves.

It is time for corporate America to become 'the third pillar' of social change in our society, complementing the first two pillars of government and philanthropy. We need the entire private sector to begin committing itself not just to making profits, but to fulfilling higher and larger purposes by contributing to building a better world.

What helps people, helps business.

Businesses need to proactively create models that make a difference in society and let everyone else use them, talk about them, emulate them - and build on them.

I've been very inspired by Virgin's model of business as a force for good.

I believe in 'business has a force for good.' You know, business has an impact on society. Of course, it creates jobs. It creates prosperity, but on the other hand, we also leave a negative footprint behind.

It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large.

We now see numerous examples of brands working together to address issues such as environmental degradations, climate control, pollution, poverty and disease.