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ESG + CSR = BS? Straight Talk on Business for Social Good with Tariq Fancy

Former BlackRock executive explored how pushing Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG targets misses the mark, and how to achieve change on social and environmental issues.

Event Details:

Tuesday, February 7, 2023
12:00pm - 1:00pm PST

How to fix capitalism? How to fix the rules of the game? How can we (as non-government people) address this? 

Tariq Fancy, former Chief Investment Officer for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, has critiqued the concept behind the "sustainable investing" movement, stating that the "rules of the game" established by elected officials and government regulators are most important to achieve systemic change on climate and other ESG (environmental, social, governance) topics. By comparison, he states, socially-minded practices by individual businesses are self-serving, ineffective, and even destructive to the causes that they claim to champion. Bethany McLean joined Mr. Fancy in conversation to explore how ESG and Corporate Social Responsibility miss the mark; the importance of establishing strong, fair "rules of the game;" and the role of good-faith private sector leadership in pushing for meaningful change on key social and environmental issues.

Speaker

Tariq Fancy headshot

Tariq Fancy founded The Rumie Initiative after a career at the intersection of finance, technology, and emerging markets. His successful business career and the unique decision to found Rumie has been chronicled in case studies and profiles published by both Harvard Business School and INSEAD Business School.

Prior to Rumie, Tariq led a successful career in finance, beginning as a Palo Alto-based technology investment banker in the group that led the IPOs of Google, Amazon, and Cisco. He next joined NYC-based private equity firm MHR Fund Management, where he became the firm’s youngest partner in 2006 after leading numerous successful turnarounds of technology companies. He subsequently spent two years at Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in Toronto, Canada, helping to create and invest in new credit strategies for the growing platform.

In 2004, after trips to Central and South America and months of due diligence, Tariq led early work to bring mobile phones into emerging markets as a "leapfrog" innovation – back when the idea of the masses from Cairo to Calcutta skipping landlines altogether to go directly to mobile phones sounded far-fetched to many. Tariq sees a similar "perfect storm" of market forces enabling a pragmatic, market-based solution to the global skills gap that will usher in another watershed moment in international development. Since being founded in 2013, Rumie is now used in over 100 countries.

Tariq has appeared on CNBC, ABC, BNN, the CBC, has spoken at the United Nations, and has guest lectured at Harvard Business School. He has been published in USA Today, The Globe and Mail, and Financial Post, and his work has been featured in Bloomberg, Reuters, The EconomistFinancial Times, Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, and Forbes. In 2017, he was named one of Canada’s Top 40 under 40.

Tariq holds an Honors BA with distinction from Brown University in the US, spent one year studying at Oxford University in the UK, earned a master’s degree in Economics and Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris (L’institut d’études politiques de Paris) in France, and an MBA with distinction from INSEAD in France and Singapore.

Moderator

Bethany McLean

Bethany McLean is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, a columnist for Yahoo Finance, and a contributor to CNBC covering corporate governance issues. Her 2001 Fortune piece, "Is Enron Overpriced?", was one of the first skeptical articles about the company. After Enron collapsed into bankruptcy, she co-authored (with Peter Elkind) The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. A documentary based on the book was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006. More recently, Bethany McLean has been covering headline corporate news such as Tesla, Wells Fargo, or the Shale gas revolution in the US. She is also a regular guest on CNBC TV.

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