Private Innovation in the Public Interest

Professor Jerry Davis has long advocated for clear and deep thinking about the ways in which corporations are changing, and the implications for the ways in which we live our lives. In this conversation, he talks with Anita about his book on taming big tech companies to serve the public interest. When Anita asks Jerry to imagine what he would do if he were in charge of everything, he wrestles with...

Leah Morris has as much experience in venture investing on developing science as anyone in her generation. At the same time, she has been tireless in her advocacy for the poor and vulnerable. What is changing now is that AI is permeating our lives comprehensively–whether we pursue it or not. And achieving the kinds of breakthrough science that will accelerate the next generation of AI requires a k...

Professor Tarek Ghani has devoted himself to studying how digital technologies can improve the lives of the most vulnerable citizens of fragile states, including especially Afghanistan. In this provocative interview, he describes how deepening our understanding of how the targeted recipients of aid with information that the aid is sitting in their mobile-money accounts increases its uptake from 40...

Professor Devin Stein is redefining what it means to serve the public interest effectively. In a recent study on fire prevention in Northern California, he demonstrates how local planning—such as geo-mapping available logging roads—can enhance the effectiveness of state and federal response efforts during a wildfire. More broadly, his work explores all the different ways in which each of us belong...

Professor Shon Hiatt has been devoted to accomplishing a transition to electrification, clean energy, and energy security for his entire career. What is it going to take to accomplish this at scale? Global conflict and persistent poverty in under-supported countries have raised the stakes considerably at the same time as AI, with its promise for driving economic growth, burst onto the scene demand...

Professor Sukhun Kang was motivated to turn from a promising career as a computer scientist toward studying the biopharmaceutical industry after his family member was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Why don’t we have enough drugs for devastating diseases such as the one that afflicted his relative, and why can’t we make those that we do have more widely available? Sukhun’s research shows that the co...

Professor Diana Jue-Rajasingh has devoted her entire career to understanding why great products designed for low-income settings in places like her Alma Mater, MIT, are not adopted.   As co-founder of a distribution and marketing company called Essmart Global, she learned that distribution infrastructure and consumer education are essential – but not enough to assure uptake.  As a scholar, she fou...

Professor Mark Desjardine is concerned about our generation’s obligations to preserve the environment for future generations – and the implications of them for corporations. What is sustainability, really? And how do companies deal with tradeoffs between short- and long-term value-creating goals? Mark’s answer to this question in part rests on insights about how advocates of different types can he...

Professor Andrew King devotes himself to the challenge of replicating the results of important empirical studies in the fields of ESG investing, sustainable finance, and corporate social responsibility. After discovering a raft of anomalies, he is now advocating for what he calls a “living conversation” in the journals on our findings. We need to publish more comments, more questions, and more met...

Catherine D’Amato is an internationally renowned leader in the food-security movement. Serving as CEO of the Greater Boston Food Bank for three decades, she invented and reinvented a model through which the GBFB advocates for 190 smaller, community-based partners with suppliers, distributors, technologists, and – remarkably – governments. Consistently ranked as among the most important leaders in...

Brennan Lake has pioneered the Data For Good movement since 2018 as Vice President of Social Impact & Enterprise Partnerships at Cuebiq. In a sector in which privacy concerns and data-sharing are notoriously intractable, he and his colleagues have found a way forward through an emphasis on mission, messaging, measures, and monetization.

Professor Peter Klein of Baylor University highlights the importance of long-standing relationships and trust in the kinds of collaborations that drive innovation in both the public and private sectors. To address major challenges such as the climate crisis, he argues that governments must establish large-scale guardrails that allow innovators to break down problems in ways that foster collaborati...

Professor Kate Odziemkowska of the University of Toronto has found in her research that social-change advocates are partnering with companies to help them innovate. In a far-reaching conversation with Anita, she describes trends in advocacy that go way beyond what Anita ever imagined as an undergraduate marching in advocacy rallies.

Professor Myles Shaver of the University of Minnesota works with students from different disciplines to turn their focus from changing the world to understanding each other.   By changing themselves, these students are changing the world.

Professor Nicolai Foss of the Copenhagen Business School and Anita have sometimes found themselves on opposite sides of debates about climate change and public policy, but today they concentrate on defining a shared agenda for making progress on the most important issues of our time.

Professor Yiannis Ioannou of the London Business School teaches about how the sustainability challenge disrupts even successful large companies. What will it take to make progress? Changing both corporate cultures and the financial system to ensure they reward sustainable impact.

Dan Cowen , Senior Consultant at InNova and the Build from Within Alliance, works with city leaders to foster local entrepreneurship. Dan is inspired by their deep enthusiasm to solve problems, seek understanding, and be effective. 

Professor Tima Bansal of the Ivey Business School discusses the imperative for systems change, emphasizing that it requires both governments and companies to develop the skills necessary to collaborate on critical solutions over both short- and long-term horizons. 

Professor Rudy Durand of HEC Paris, a pioneer in Corporate Social Responsibility, believes the focus is shifting toward a new approach to social impact. What matters now is corporate purpose. He emphasizes that creating a constructive social impact can no longer be seen as a secondary agenda.

Professor Shirley Tang of Bocconi University, a global citizen with experience in China’s oil & gas industry as well as academia, studies the paradoxes and dilemmas of transparency.  For example, she analyzes the opportunities these complexities create for companies to avoid accountability. 

Henri Hammond-Paul , Sante Fe’s Director of Community Health and Public Safety, explains how government actors often hesitate to rely on the promises of companies to accomplish important innovations. How can this be overcome? Through dialogue, trust, and a commitment to putting in the time.

Professor Daphne Baldassari of the University of Southern California shares her research on the Oscars So White and #MeToo movements in the film industry. How do we overcome persistently unequal outcomes despite significant efforts for change? Daphne and Anita discuss profound solutions to this pressing issue.

Professor and GIDMO Founder Tunji Adegbesan discusses the challenges that GIDMO faced in providing educational materials to hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Africa before, during, and after the pandemic. Through strategic pivots, he and the GIDMO team are now partnering with large companies that integrate GIDMO’s gaming software into their products, thereby enhancing educational outcomes alon...

Professor Raja Roy of the Stevens Institute of Technology, an expert on NASA's achievements, joins Anita to discuss the Space Shuttle, the world’s first reusable spacecraft. NASA successfully orchestrated the involvement of multiple companies working on different elements of the design, knowing that they would both compete and collaborate. How did this government agency pull this off? 

Professor Jasjit Singh of INSEAD argues that the skillsets taught in MBA programs are often too narrow and lack the ambition needed for today’s challenges. He emphasizes the importance of encouraging students to bring their full brainpower to the pressing issues in the world and to collaborate with corporations and key government actors to drive meaningful change. In other words, “Be bigger than y...