The CEO Of MBAxAmerica On Stories, Speeches, and Small Businesses

MBAs Across AmericaWhat’s your pie-in-the-sky vision for MBAs Across America?

I’m not scaling the program. I’m scaling answers to questions. The two central questions that drive everything we do are:  Number one: Can we create a generation of business leaders who are a central force for progress in the world? Our summer program is one way to do that. I think we’re going to scale it and that there are other things we can do as well. Number two: Can we create a country or a world where every entrepreneur in every community, not just the chosen few, have the resources and support they need to thrive.

Getting the country’s best resources out into the heart of America over the course of a summer and then providing support is one way to do that. There are plenty of other ways, and we’re going to explore them all. My big plan is to find the answers to those questions and then to scale those answers as quickly and as successfully as possible.

What do you say to critics who contend that your goal is overly optimistic?

I love Teddy Roosevelt, he has this quote: “It is not the critic who counts…The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

I love constructive criticism, and I want us be as introspective and honest as possible. But more than listening to the critics who say it can’t be done, I see people every day who are committing their lives and their careers all to solving real problems and to creating a sense of hope and optimism in this country and around the world.

So I really don’t pay much attention to the people who cynical.  I think the world is too tragic for cynicism already, and so I’m happy to be on the frontlines of the optimist movement.

Can you tell me more about funding for MBAs Across America? I understand you’re running a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo?

We have had fantastic partners. General Motors is sponsoring us this summer with brand new Chevy Volts, Holiday Inn is sponsoring us with rooms across the country, all six of our schools have provided funding. We’ve gotten great individual donors.

What’s powerful about crowd funding is that it represents in financial terms the movement that we’re trying to build. It’s not just the $60,000 donor that matters but the person who only has $5 dollars and wants to commit that $5 to this movement. The crowd-funding campaign that we launched on Indiegogo has a little under 30 days left.

What’s your take on social enterprise and social entrepreneurship? Is it a lasting movement or a passing fad?

Every business is a social enterprise: Either you’re making a positive social impact or a negative social impact.  There is no impact-neutral business on the face of the planet. So what we’re saying is that if every business is a social enterprise, then how do we help every business improve their social impact? I  think whether you talk to the CEO of GE or the head of Goldman Sachs, the vast majority of business leaders around the globe want to make a positive impact through their work and their lives. And so I think we need to pull social enterprise out of the corner and really realize that it is the whole story.

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