‘You Can Actually Make a Lot of Money and Do a Lot of Good in the World’

Peter Henry (North Carolina and St. Catherine '91)
Interview by Andrew Goldman
New York Times Magazine

You write in your book, “Turnaround,” that you were drawn to economics because you wanted to “help people in developing countries like my native Jamaica.” Wouldn’t you be better off, say, heading up an NGO than becoming dean of a business school? 

There’s shareholder value, and there’s stakeholder value. The banking industry is worried about shareholder value, and NGOs are primarily interested in stakeholder value. But things that drive up shareholder value can actually be very good for society at large. We have to have a different way of thinking about the role of business in society.
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