Shervin Pishevar Quotes

If you work for and eventually lead a company, understand that companies have multiple stakeholders including employees, customers, business partners and the communities within which they operate.

Corporate executives need to re-frame their responsibilities to include the interests of all the stakeholders in society at large; not just shareholders, but also employees, the citizens of our communities, and those who care about the environment.

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.

You have to decide who you are going to serve - stockholders or your customers.

Companies, to date, have often used the excuse that they are only beholden to their shareholders, but we need shareholders to think of themselves as stakeholders in the well being of society as well.

The question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.

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.

There's a myth out there that you have to genuflect at the altar of quarterly earnings. But it's a false choice that you can either be a good fiduciary or promote values such as environmental sustainability.

A corporation that is publicly traded, it has one goal: to make money. It doesn't have a soul. If it does have a soul, it comes from the people who run it.

P&G started in 1837, Nestle in 1857. These companies have been around for so long because they are in tune with society. They are very responsible companies, despite the challenges that they sometimes deal with, all the criticism they get.

If corporations are to remain a legitimate instrument of collective action, they must concern themselves directly with the well-being of those party to, and affected by, their actions.

I started a software company with a couple other folks. It went public. We made plenty of money. And I thought it was this incredible mission, but in fact, we sold software to Haliburton; we sold software to Frito-Lay and Pepsi and all these companies that didn't necessarily do good things.

I think we have moved from a shareholder society to a stakeholder society, and that has massive implications.

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.

Companies and leaders are role models - not just with the business community - but in the broader world.

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

Clinton has played a major role in giving companies like Cipla credibility, for which I will always be grateful.

He or she must be successful in economic terms, but always within an ethical framework. Whether his or her constituency is a corporation and its shareholders or the customers in a small and privately held business, his or her first responsibility is to serve that constituency.

Let's face it: we live at a time when government is less and less powerful, less and less effective, and the agent of social change, at least for the immediate future, is the corporation.

I pretty much believe, as everyone in the B Team does, that business must succeed beyond the bottom line. More important than profits is how you get to them. Measuring financial earnings and losses only is definitely not enough and has led us astray from creating a better world for all.

A company is not accountable just to its owners, but to its workers and its customers.

It took a generation for companies to recognise their responsibilities in terms of labour practices and another generation for them to recognise their environmental obligations.

Business practices and how we treat the planet are also in desperate need of re-humanization.

Millennials are more aware of society's many challenges than previous generations and less willing to accept maximizing shareholder value as a sufficient goal for their work. They are looking for a broader social purpose and want to work somewhere that has such a purpose.

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