About Rebecca
Providing solutions – and hope – for a world in crisis. We must change the rules to bring business back into balance with the planet.
It is possible to create a better, more sustainable future. But only if we act with urgency – and in concert with one another. This belief has driven Rebecca’s work for the last ten years and is at the heart of her latest endeavor: “Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire,” (Hachette, 2020) a soon-to-be-published book that spells out how business can become a critical ally in the battle to rethink capitalism.
A prominent economist and influential professor (The John and Natty McArthur University professor at Harvard), Rebecca is one of the world’s most articulate, insightful and persuasive scholars focused on driving large-scale change. A leading authority in organizational and strategic change for more than thirty years, today her research, teaching and speaking centers on purpose-driven capitalism and the role that business leaders at every level can play in reimagining our current system.
In the classroom, Rebecca inspires her students in “Reimagining Capitalism,” the most successful MBA elective course launched at HBS in the last five years. She also teaches in HBS’ Executive Education program. Additionally, she is a Research Fellow at the National Bureau for Economic Research, a sustainability advisor to several of the world’s largest companies, and a board member at Amgen and IDEXX Laboratories, both S&P 500 Companies. Now she’s bringing her ideas mainstream. “Reimagining Capitalism” (Hachette, 2020) offers both a new intellectual framing and a plausible path forward for a capitalism that has lost its commitment to freedom and prosperity in the single-minded pursuit of maximizing shareholder value.
Books
Ideas for advancing innovation, sustainability and economic transformation
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Reimagining Capitalism (2020)
It’s the most successful economic system to have ever existed, but capitalism is in danger of destroying itself – and our world. Reimagining Capitalism gets to the heart of what’s wrong with modern capitalism and lays out a pragmatic roadmap for how business can help to catalyze the systemic change we need to build a capitalism that works for everyone.
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Leading Sustainable Change: An Organizational Perspective (2015)
Business leaders are increasingly pressured to transform their companies into sustainable organizations – not just by an environmentally conscious public but by investors as well. Through a sequence of case studies, including IBM, DuPont and Cemex, this book shows readers how to lead impactful change.
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Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors (2011)
From agriculture to IT, our world has seen many transformations that have improved our quality of life. This National Bureau of Economic Research report shows how a mixture of government policy and private sector initiatives have driven rapid change across a wide range of industries, and how a similar set of policies can be used again to transform our energy markets, addressing the looming threat of climate change while making energy more sustainable and affordable over the long term.
Links
Connect with Rebecca
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Talking about hope reminds me that I had a lively conversation with @StewFriedman, a Prof at Wharton who hosts the podcast Work and Life, about whether and how tackling the big problems might lead to real engagement at work. It’s up today: https://t.co/kJ9DLiRbD1
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…and were blown away as he talked about how the firm has become a central player in the #CircularEconomy. It was a sobering reminder of how hard it can be to imagine a positive future. Humans can do amazing things. But we have to believe they are possible.
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We had @Erik_Osmundsen in class yesterday for our case about Norsk Gjvenning. The best kind of discussion – most of the students thought Erik’s quest to remake the waste collection business in Norway was only moderately likely to succeed…
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Competitive #electricvehicles ARE coming. It is inevitable. In my course Reimagining Capitalism, I teach @HarvardHBS MBA students how to use #scenarioanalysis to make the case for change BEFORE the org is blindsided by #disruption. https://t.co/LjLIAUilRg
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Love seeing innovative approaches to climate change like this. This is how entirely new #businessmodels come to fruition with the potential to #disrupt entire industries: https://t.co/SbrhHtO1O2 #consciouscapitalism
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It was a pleasure participating! @BizRadio132 @StewFriedman https://t.co/Cef3gVkI8d
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Tannenbaum’s move demonstrates what the #finance industry knows perhaps most acutely — that global portfolios cannot diversify away from #ClimateChange https://t.co/I0CMMZsS1B
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It can be frustrating to see climate progress backslide at the federal level, but that’s why it’s so important to remember that change is happening in so many places — states, cities, and companies all looking to battle this #climateemergency https://t.co/DScyLR5gTB
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Hopeful signs that US public opinion is finally shifting. #ClimateChange is moving out of the realm of the hypothetical and increasingly becoming a day to day reality for most Americans. Great work by @YaleClimateComm and @Mason4C https://t.co/se9bYdaG82
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Even using the industry’s own projections, the demand for #oil is bound to decline. A powerful lesson here: when change is inevitable, #scenarioanalyis doesn’t lie.
https://t.co/d8TdiYP0JT https://t.co/8Ta75qROsP
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