Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management

�Let us choose to unite the power of markets with the authority of universal ideals. Let us choose to reconcile the forces of private entrepreneurship with the needs of the disadvantaged and the requirements of future generations.� � Kofi Annan

The Case|Weatherhead Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit responded to the Secretary General�s call by working with the UN Global Compact to design and lead a summit for 500 CEOs and world leaders. It was the largest corporate citizenship meeting of its kind ever held at the UN. Annan later singled out one of Case|Weatherhead�s strengths in fostering business and society impact saying, �I would like to commend you for your methodology of Appreciative Inquiry and to thank you for introducing it to the United Nations. Without this, it would have been very difficult, perhaps even impossible, to constructively engage so many leaders of business, civil society and government.� The Case team was made up of MBA and PhD students. It was a prime example of our action learning commitment, bringing students from finance and strategy and other disciplines into the frontiers of the CSR field.

The mission of the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit�launched in 2004 with an award of $1.8 million-- is to advance extraordinary business and society innovation, revolutionizing the way the world eradicates poverty, restores the biosphere, and creates global understanding and peace. Dean Myron Roomkin of the Weatherhead School of Management has declared its work as one of four strategic priorities, and, it is a cornerstone of the Case President�s vision��to be the most powerful learning environment in the world �.so people are prepared and engaged to serve humanity.� Within the management school the Center has been designated by the Dean as a �school within a school�, such as the Woodrow Wilson School, where it will offer a major concentration in sustainability. Fundraising for a $20 million endowment is underway, while core building blocks are already in place: the AI Certificate Program on Business and Society Change (for MBA�s and leaders of change); the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise; the Executive Doctorate in Management; the Masters in Positive Organization Development; the Center for Regional Economics; and the Institute for Information and Sustainable Design. And, in addition to popular electives such as �Leadership and the Global Agenda� every MBA student is today required to take LEAD� Leadership Assessment and Development course�where ethics and social responsibility are developmentally connected to each student�s learning plan for the �ideal self�.