What an exciting time for today's MBA graduates. Their challenge is to strategically run their businesses – whatever their business is – in a socially responsible way. We applaud both the business schools who are working to train and challenge business students for this new reality and the Aspen Institute for shining such a bright light on these issues.

 

While big businesses all over the world have historically supported their communities by contributing to charitable causes, generally – in America , at least – this was a side-show, separate from the real business. Back when I graduated, many people subscribed to economist Milton Friedman's idea: a corporation's only social responsibility is to maximize profits.

 

Key issues like global warming, corporate fraud, etc. have made investors and consumers realize that if businesses are not responsible, they can destroy more value long term than they create in the short term. And the information age means that no business can hide irresponsible practices for long.

 

Additionally, we have learned that if you do good, you should do well. A recent study of 602 companies indicates that shares of companies with good sustainability records perform better than those of their less socially responsible competitors. A socially responsible business strategy is not longer a “nice to have”. It's a “must have”. It is an obligation as well as an opportunity.

 

At EY, we look at this way, We provide audit, tax, transaction and risk advisory services. That's what we do. But, it is not how we think about our business. We think in terms of what we accomplish as an organization. We do this in three buckets:

 

First, we develop the people of tomorrow. We are one of the world's great training organizations but, many employees don't stay with us. They go on to be CEO's, CFO's, regulators; financial leaders in the world's capital markets. So we are creating a base of people who hopefully, take our training, experiences and our value system into the financial markets of the world.

 

Second, we are serving the companies and markets of tomorrow. We when think about what we accomplish, we don't only serve the world's largest companies, we also serve the entrepreneurs that are going to be the global leaders of tomorrow. In fact, as we speak, the Entrepreneur of the Year conference, with thousands of the next generation of leaders is going on in Palm Springs . We are a founder and longtime sponsor of this event. In helping entrepreneurs, we work in the emerging markets to help those markets strengthen their regulatory regimes, so that they will grow to be strong economies. This helps today's global companies operate in those emerging markets with the confidence to invest – and, this helps the people in those economies to attain their potential.

 

Finally, we focus on strengthening the communities of tomorrow- using our people all over the world, 120,000 of them in 140 countries, and helping them devote their energies and their financial competencies to doing good in the places where we live and operate.

 

This is a different way to look at an accounting firm. We are not alone in embedding our social responsibility into business strategy. We came to this through needing to understand ourselves differently after the financial crisis earlier this decade. We now know that we have to view our firm and indeed all companies as engines of change, economic change, social change, policy change, because, they are.

 

No longer is it the regulators holding our feet to the fire on our obligation to use our power to make a positive difference in our society. It is the people who come to work for us every morning. They increasingly want to work for an organization that is making a positive difference.

 

This generation, Generation Y is looking at what we are doing in addition to what we are saying. And the people you are graduating are becoming us. The more you can help them with an architecture to understand their businesses in a socially responsible way, the more you are doing for society – indeed, fulfilling your obligation as educators. For many of us, we are learning as we go. You are studying are attempts, bringing together the best practices, lessons learned, new methodologies to approach business and giving a great gift to these students. You are helping them to help business to make the world a better place.

 

Thank you.