Mo Ibrahim Quotes

We believe responsible business can be profitable business

As to the meaning of "corporate social responsibility," Friedman and I would agree: If a certain action improves the corporation's bottom line, there's no point in labeling it "socially responsible." It's just good business.

I wear two hats. The one is business and increasing my shareholders' value; the other is social responsibility.

Understanding how your business affects human rights and using that knowledge to shape appropriate policies and practices is crucial to achieving what should be the goal of all corporations - sustainable growth.

The role of business is to provide products and services that make people's lives better - while using fewer resources - and to act lawfully and with integrity.

It's easy not to bribe. But it's not so easy to keep a business running at the same time.

A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.

It is important to remember that all business has an impact on the lives of real people.

Sustainability includes how you run your business, and my bottom line includes how you treat your people. Sustainability starts with your staff.

So much business is based on the belief that we should do whatever we can within legal limits to make as much money as we can. Ben & Jerry's was based on values, and we try to operate a business that not just sells ice cream but partners with all our stakeholders - whether that's suppliers or customers - to bring about a more sustainable world.

We mean to make little business big, and all business honest, instead of striving to make Big Business little, and yet letting it remain dishonest.

Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

It is difficult but not impossible to conduct strictly honest business. What is true is that honesty is incompatible with the amassing of a large fortune.

Any business whose sole purpose is making money is not worth doing. Business must serve a larger purpose.

The pendulum of capitalism has swung way too far to only trying to maximize the profit of shareholders rather than many of the traditional other virtues and accomplishments of a company.

Alibaba spends money on improving the products and services, not on kickbacks. That's a good thing. It's called a value system, and because of that, we get more and more small- to medium-sized companies to support us in China.

It's not just about checking the box on corporate social responsibility. It's about hitting our bottom line.

Being good is good business

When you're building a business or joining a company, you have to be transparent; you can't have two sets of information for two sets of people.

Doing good business - being ethical, being transparent, being caring, implementing values in your business - makes a difference, and you make money at the same time.

I believe in conscientious capitalism; that's a kind of driving force with me.

We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich.

What is good for society is also good for business.

I think good companies can navigate being public and doing the right things for their customers.

Putting people before profits is how we've tried to operate from the beginning.