Please read Part I below before reading this post.
Vignette #2: Tuck Business and Society Conference
Sustainability is the talk around the world – and certainly is around Tuck. The Tuck BSC is an annual event and a student-run conference which highlights the issues and opportunities that surround the discussion on how businesses can be sustainable and profitable without compromising on either of them. Tuck Partners play a major role in helping organize this event and I would be remiss if I don’t highlight their contribution that is so critical to this conference’s success.
The BSC took place this past Thursday and Friday (11th and 12th of February) and it was excellent! There were panel discussions, speeches, networking events – quite a packed schedule for the two days. I will highlight two events which I felt epitomized what the conference had to offer.
First on my list is a panel discussion that took place on Thursday evening about Microfinance titled “The commercialization of Microfinance.” The topic was intriguing enough – since out of naïveté and ignorance, I had always imagined Microfinance as being not-for-profit. I decided to get to know what this was all about and I was glad I did!
The four panelists spanned the spectrum of the Microfinance rainbow – from the single-village-in-Africa focused non-profit entity to the multi-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars fund that invests in Microfinance Institutions and expects a return on that investment (which, I might add, has been very successful in its investments). The moderator was Richard McNulty, an adjust professor at Tuck and Executive Director of Tuck’s Career Development Office.
The regular reader of this blog might conclude that I am generally ebullient about all things Tuck, consider that I am always gushing, and hence think that I am prone to using superlatives. Well, I’ll set my thoughts aside, and tell you what I heard from the others who attended the panel discussion. I heard a number of comments that in effect said, “The moderator was fantastic! The way he pitted the panelists against each other and really made it a tense, yet very productive exchange of ideas was amazing.” (Continue to Part III above)
Read the full article: Vignettes from the past two weeks – Part II