Verizon's Kathy Brown on Personal Integrity and Creating Long-Term Value
Verizon's Kathy Brown, Senior Vice President, Public Policy Development and Corporate Responsibility, recently addressed students at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.
In her speech, she challenged the students to eschew careers based on short-term profit-taking, and instead take the harder, but more rewarding, road to careers that create long-term sustainable value.
Brown says that taking this road isn't a simple choice, and it takes more than one person's guts and good will to stay on that path for a lifetime. It takes the support of a business culture geared toward creating business and social value and rooted in a sense of stewardship and trust. And it takes leadership that is focused on the long term.
Just as the students at Notre Dame are at a crossroads in their careers, America is at a crossroads as an economic democracy, and after this lingering financial crisis, we are facing a once in a generation opportunity to start anew. We need to rethink what is expected of American business and what would define a successful career in it. And the issues that the students at Notre Dame are tackling – how to meld personal integrity into a larger entity and build something of lasting value to the country and the world – is exactly what has to be done.
