In this Fiduciary Investors Series podcast Amanda White talks to Henry Richards, who is the project lead on the Future of the Corporation at the British Academy. The discussion is part of our exploration of purposeful companies and the premise that we need to redefine business in the 21stcentury to build trust between corporations, investors and society.
 

Henry Richards, who is the project lead on the Future of the Corporation at the British Academy, the UK’s national body for the humanities and social sciences – the study of peoples, cultures and societies, past, present and future. The Future of the Corporation programme calls for a fundamental shift away from the idea that the sole purpose of business is to increase profit. In its place, it argues for a new framework of defined corporate purposes, commitment to trustworthiness, and enabling cultures.

 

About Amanda White
Amanda White is responsible for the content across all Conexus Financial’s institutional media and events. In addition to being the editor of Top1000funds.com, she is responsible for directing the global bi-annual Fiduciary Investors Symposium which challenges global investors on investment best practice and aims to place the responsibilities of investors in wider societal, and political contexts.  She holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Masters of Art in Journalism and has been an investment journalist for more than 25 years. She is currently a fellow in the Finance Leaders Fellowship at the Aspen Institute. The two-year program seeks to develop the next generation of responsible, community-spirited leaders in the global finance industry. 

 What is the Fiduciary Investors series?
The COVID-19 global health and economic crisis has highlighted the need for leadership and capital to be urgently targeted towards the vulnerabilities in the global economy.
Through conversations with academics and asset owners, the Fiduciary Investors Podcast Series is a forward looking examination of the changing dynamics in the global economy, what a sustainable recovery looks like and how investors are positioning their portfolios.

The much-loved events, the Fiduciary Investors Symposiums, act as an advocate for fiduciary capitalism and the power of asset owners to change the nature of the investment industry, including addressing principal/agent and fee problems, stabilising financial markets, and directing capital for the betterment of society and the environment. Like the event series, the podcast series, tackles the challenges long-term investors face in an environment of disruption,  and asks investors to think differently about how they make decisions and allocate capital.

Further reading

Reforming business for the 21st century: a framework for the future of the corporation