The Changing Role of Global Leaders
In November 2010, to big fanfare at Unilever's London headquarters, chief executive Paul Polman boldly articulated a new strategy . The company would double the size of its business, he said, by channeling its efforts toward achieving eight ambitious goals by 2020 — among them, doubling the proportion of Unilever's portfolio that meets the highest nutritional standards, and halving the water associated with the consumer use of its products.
To most of us, this did not sound like typical corporate strategy, but Polman's reframing of what it means to succeed in business is not an isolated example. It is indicative of a new generation of leadership emerging at the top of many of the world's largest organizations.
Over the past few years, we've all become much more aware of the forces that will powerfully shape global society over the next decade. We see billions of people around the world striving to improve their quality of life, and ideas about what constitutes an improved quality of life shifting. (For many people it's about better access to food, water, and shelter and less vulnerability to disease, but for others it's about better governance, freedom from corruption and oppression, and respect for basic human rights, as we saw in the Arab Spring. For many more it's about healthier lifestyles, mental health, self-esteem and wellbeing, and better family and community relationships.)
Our film infrastructure across the UK is the envy of the world, but in changing times it must be sustained, informed and supported by awareness and strategic intervention at the sharp end of the wider international business.
Marx, Capital, 776-81; Rudolf Hilferding, Finance Capital (London; Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981); Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932); VI Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capital (New
