Judith Samuelson

Judith Samuelson

Founder/Executive Director, Business and Society Program Aspen Institute

Judith Samuelson is founder and Executive Director of the Business and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, driving the exploration of complex issues at the intersection of both.

Previously, Samuelson served as Director of the Office of Program-Related Investments at Ford Foundation, home of the Foundation’s $150 million social investment fund, targeting domestic and international investments in housing development, micro-enterprise, economic development and nonprofit infrastructure. She also helped launch the Foundation’s Corporate Involvement Initiative, a comprehensive effort to encourage private-nonprofit partnerships and facilitate business opportunities that promote long-term value creation for business and society.

Over the course of her career, Samuelson has held positions within business, government and nonprofit sectors.

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Judy Samuelson: The New Rules of Business

From her seat at The Aspen Institute, Judy Samuelson has led a 10-year campaign to disrupt Milton Friedman’s narrative that corporations solely exist to maximize shareholder value. The past two years have provided some watershed moments. In 2019, public statements from the Business Roundtable and World Economic Forum signalled corporate leaders were embracing stakeholder capitalism – a mission to serve customers, suppliers, workers, and communities, rather than solely shareholders. But 2020 has severely tested these principes, from the pandemic to racial unrest and political divisiveness. In the wake of all this, have CEOs’ actions supported their words? In this episode, Judy discusses how corporations have responded to current crises, what it means for the future of stakeholder capitalism, and how businesses can succeed in tomorrow’s economic and social landscape.