Grad Student Champions of Ethics and Innovation

Thunderbird names its "Global Champions of Sustainable Innovation" earlier this month at the School of Global Management, yet another great academic exercise in the growing dialogue of innovative and good business leadership.

Closer to home for me, my alma mater hosted the 2nd Annual Graziadio Case Competition, a production of the Values-Centered Leadership Lab. The Lab is a student-driven organization focused on developing ethical and socially-entrepreneurial leaders within Pepperdine's MBA program. I was honored to serve as a judge in the first two rounds earlier this month and witnessed some fantastic team presentations on business cases like Ikea's past child labor issues.

In the finals, held November 16th in Malibu, the team of L2 (Aria Ziatabari, Lance Kawamoto, Adrienne Cohn, Tal Marom and Lance Yuhn) took first place. In other Pepperdine Ethics news, a team of MBA students (Liz Passaretti, Nick Merriam, Zach Pond and Alina Topala) brought home first place at Baylor University's National Case Competition in Ethical Leadership earlier this autumn.

Values-Centered Leadership: The Graziadio Case Competition

Quick plug for the upcoming 2nd Annual Graziadio Case Competition at the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University.

The inspiring event- a traditional case competition, but focused on ethical and socially responsible decision-making- is produced by the Values-Centered Leadership Lab, a student-driven organization focused on hands-on ethics and social entrepreneurship practice, of which I am proud to have been an early organizer.

The multi-round event was a great success in its first run last year under Case Competition founder Naveen Jethwani and is sure to top it this year under director Elizabeth Passaretti and Lab president Nicholas Merriam.