Summa & Friends

If you really want to form a high-performing team, says Stefan Beiten, entrepreneur, lawyer, film producer and public speaker, one that’s normative, collaborative, and takes accountability on all levels, you need conscious leadership.

“To move consciously from the I to the We and utilize the collective wisdom and collective intelligence that gives us, whether that's in your own organization or in the local community, or on a hig...

We're not formed as one individual with no ability to change, says Adam Grant, organizational psychologist at Wharton and best-selling international author, we can retrain, we can all grow and change, we can all find our hidden potential. The question is, what do we need to do to bring out the best in ourselves and those around us? 

In this episode of Summa & Friends, Adam discusses boundary setting, why we need a netwo...

If your workplace is all love and hallelujah, says Gianpiero Petriglieri, Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD, and one of the 50 most influential management thinkers in the world, then it’s a cult. If you want your organization to be high performing, you need some friction and debate, because we can’t always be real and feel good. 

“My passion is this idea of humanizing leadership, of making space for all that is...

Norway plans to be a low carbon economy by 2050, but the transition to get there keeps getting delayed, says Martin Skancke, Chairman of the Norwegian government's commission on transition to a low carbon economy, and Chairman of PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment) and board member in several companies. 

We’re thinking too short term, says Martin, we aren’t looking at a long time horizon and therefore we’re increasi...

We need strong private equity leaders to tackle the current challenges in the private equity investing space, says Tanya Carmichael, systems thinker, private equity investor, and return-on-impact advisor for ESG in PE & Pension Funds. And that leadership has to be authentic and genuine, inclusive and open. 

In this episode of Summa & Friends, Tanya discusses how investment leaders can amplify their impact, how they ...

Over 20% of Europe’s CO2 emissions are a result of a linear economy, a number which can be reduced by 55% if we transition to a circular economy, says Bertrand Camus, former CEO of French multinational utility company SUEZ, now partner at Summa Equity. 

But that’s not the only reason to make the change… Moving to a circular economy has a potential value creation opportunity of between EUR 1-2 trillion, not to mention all th...

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been described as a business plan for the world, highlighting 17 broad problem areas for which the world needs to find solutions. While originally intended for governments, the UN SDGs is also a powerful framework for investors who have both financial and sustainability objectives. 

Creating truly sustainable portfolios is hard and requires a fundamental ret...

How do you make your money? Does your business have morals? The world is changing, says Alison Taylor, Clinical Professor at NYU Stern School of Business and Executive Director at Ethical Systems. People care, consumers care, employees care, everyone has started caring more. And if you want to futureproof your organization, you need to put morals back into it. 

It's not about how much money a company makes now, it's about h...

Imagine playing a video game where data about you in the moment is being collected with sensor technology, performance metrics, emotional responses, body movements, brain activity. And this is all used in real time to guide the environment you're experiencing, personalizing both the challenges and rewards to improve your cognition. 

No, this isn’t the plot of a sci-fi movie. 

We’re in the midst of a cognition crisis...

Sir Ronald (Ronnie) Cohen, a preeminent philanthropist, venture capitalist, private equity investor, and impact pioneer is driving the global Impact Revolution. Ronnie's nearly two decades of initiatives in impact investment have catalyzed global efforts towards social and environmental good, through business and investment.

With advances in technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, Ronnie says the impact revolu...

Why does it matter that we learn to navigate failure? Because, says Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School and author of global bestseller, Psychological Safety, and soon, her upcoming book The Right Kind of Wrong: The science of failing well, the only mistake we make in this life is not trying. 

“We live in a time of increasing uncertainty and interdependence. Either o...

Collaboration is key to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), says John W McArthur, co-founder and co-chair of 17 Rooms, an innovative method for advancing helping people take the Sustainable Development Goals into their own hands, driving action through cooperation at all scales of community. 

Right now, says John, while positive progress is being made on some of the SDGs, elsewhere others are...

How do you lead despite ambiguity in the world of sustainable investing? That’s the question Zoe Bulger, Impact Manager at Summa Equity is discussing on this episode of Summa & Friends. 

With more traditional actors entering the Impact ESG space, and lots of regulatory movement as well, Zoe shares some of the challenges and shifts defining this moment

With a background in the social sector focused on supporting missi...

If you focus on trying to change the lives of just five people it will bring you meaning, says Roberto Verganti, Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics, and Design Theory and Practice at the Harvard Business School, but you won’t bring about much change on a large scale. 

But, if every one of the eight billion humans living on this planet changes the lives of five people, we can change t...

Are you paying enough attention to the future needs of your children? Your grandchildren? That is the question driving Conor Kehoe, Chair of the IIRC Council, Senior Adviser and former Senior Partner at Mckinsey & Company. 

Striving to make integrated reporting and accounting practices mainstream, Conor is concerned that while Millennials are in the driving seat, demanding corporations have a positive purpose, are they ...

With COP 27 just around the corner, what really is sustainable development and what does the world need most right now to achieve it?

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway, and chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Commission, which produced the The Brundtland Report, explores this very topic on Summa & Friends. 

From how she achieved full conse...

Having taken over the helm of the family business, LGT, in 2006, H.S.H. Prince Max von und zu Liechtenstein founded LGT Venture Philanthropy in 2007 and subsequently Lightrock, a pioneering impact investment firm.

But what drove this prominent member of the Princely Family of Liechtenstein, a family that has been entrepreneurial for centuries, to focus so heavily on impact investing?

In this episode of Summa & Friends...

They say be the change you want to see in the world. And one year ago, Tariq Fancy, a former Wall Street investor turned nonprofit founder, wrote an essay sharing how he had gone from evangelizing sustainable investing for the world's largest investment firm, BlackRock, to actually criticizing sustainable investing as a dangerous placebo that harms the public interest.

In doing so, he challenged business leaders to prove him wro...

Conscious capitalism is the new way of doing business. But how can it create better leaders, better business, and a better world?

In this episode of Summa & Friends, founding member and global leader of the Conscious Capitalism movement, and author of The Healing Organisation, Raj Sisodia, shares insights on what conscious capitalism is and how it can help us build a better world. 

So, if you’re looking for a way to ...