The men and women who control a third of the world's liquid assets come together to make inclusion and fairness the bedrock of global business
Equality, opportunity & responsibility lie at the heart of a unique London conference addressed by Clinton, Lagarde & Carney
-- The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism provides a pathway
to putting business and investors in the vanguard of
society's recalibration post financial crisis
-- Speakers: H.R.H. The Prince of Wales - Bill Clinton
- Christine Lagarde - Mark Carney - Lawrence H. Summers
- Paul Polman - Sir Charlie Mayfield - Jin Liqun
- Eric Schmidt - Lord David Sainsbury
-- 250 global delegates from 37 countries and 35 business
sectors represent assets under management worth
approximately $30 trillion - a third of the world's
investable income
An unprecedented conference bringing together leaders from the top institutional investors, asset managers, corporations, sovereign wealth funds and financial institutions from around the world will convene here today. The delegates of the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism share one purpose: to find practical ways to renew the capitalist system, making it an inclusive engine of economic opportunity and shared prosperity.
Since the financial crisis, a well-documented debate about the role and purpose of business has emerged. Leaders have questioned whether the public will continue to support a system which nurtures growing inequality, permits and even rewards unethical behaviour, and suppresses the importance of social purposes in favour of a primary focus on the next quarter's results.
Bold and co-operative responses are urgently needed from those with the power to make capitalism and free markets inclusive of society as a whole. The effects of rapid technological innovation, growing globalization of business and ideas, and increasingly constrained resources makes a unified response more imperative than ever.
Because of the stature of the individuals present and the scale of the resources they represent, the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism represents an epoch when business can step up to commit to collaborative action that transforms the status quo.
The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism supports all efforts to increase the social and economic benefits of all areas of commercial activity. However, there are three areas where the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism believes business can have significant and profound impact, and on which the Conference will focus:
-- Promoting responsible behavior that underpins the integrity
and fairness of the system and safeguards the interests of
people and companies working within it
-- Building ladders of economic opportunity through enhanced
education, skills training, job creation and innovation
-- Investing for the long term by focusing on the greatest
return for all those with a stake in capitalism's stability,
instead of just the quickest return for shareholders.
"The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism seeks to respond to the serious dislocations caused by developments in capitalism over the last 30 years: the fraying of public trust in business, worldwide increases in income inequality, increasing short-termism in capital markets, and a crisis in the integrity and values of the system. At its core, the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism is concerned with restoring capitalism's role as an engine of opportunity for all," said Lynn Forester de Rothschild, CEO, EL Rothschild and Co Host and Founder of the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism, "through the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism we will fight against the inequality of hope that exists in the system today."
Key note speaker, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, said: "In the past, economists have underestimated the importance of inequality. They have focused on economic growth, on the size of the pie rather than its distribution. Today, we are more keenly aware of the damage done by inequality. Put simply, a severely skewed income distribution harms the pace and sustainability of growth over the longer term. It leads to an economy of exclusion, and a wasteland of discarded potential. The recognition of this fact by the conference on inclusive capitalism is incredibly important for the long term prosperous future of all."
Conference delegate Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever commented, "The very essence of capitalism is under threat. We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest. This important gathering of global business and financial leaders provides us with the opportunity to reach a tipping point where business, government and finance work together to develop a new ethical framework for growth."
Fiona Woolf, Lord Mayor of London and co-host of the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism said: "Inclusive capitalism is not just a nice idea - it's a vital turn to make if capitalism is to survive. You don't have to be an economist to be worried by the direction of travel that inequality is taking. If capitalism is to retain its moral claim to serve humankind then it must find ways of including more people, in more ways, in its returns. This is our challenge - and we must accept it."
www.conferenceoninclusivecapitalism2014.com
