Steve Farrell – Host
Chris Laszlo
Ervin Laszlo
Hiroo Saionji
Thursday 9:00 – 10:00 am Pacific
This panel brings together the four NGOs that initiated the Conscious Business Declaration in 2015. Humanity’s Team, The Club of Budapest, The Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of Public Benefit out of Case Western Reserve University and the Goi Peace Foundation spent over a year creating the Conscious Business Declaration. Their aim in creating the Declaration was to bring truly transformational process to business in a systemic way so that business anywhere in the world serves the health and well-being of communities and the planet. Panel members will share their vision for how things will unfold in the global business economy in the months and years ahead as consciousness takes hold as an essential feature in business and civil society.
At the end of this panel there is a short interview with Dr. William Spady about the “Five Cs” which encompass Conscious, Creative, Collaborative, Competent and Compassionate leadership.
Chris Laszlo is Professor of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management where he is the faculty director for research and outreach at the Fowler Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit. He is the author of Flourishing Enterprise: The New Spirit of Business(2014), Embedded Sustainability (2011), Sustainable Value (2008), and The Sustainable Company (2003, paperback 2005). His work over the last decade has helped launch mainstream management approaches to sustainability for value and profit. In 2012, he was selected a “Top 100 Thought Leader in Trustworthy Business Behavior” by Trust Across America™. In 2015, he was elected Fellow of the International Academy of Management.
Dr. Ervin Laszlo is generally recognized as the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory. His work in recent years has centered on the formulation and development of the “Akasha Paradigm,” the new conception of cosmos, life and consciousness emerging at the forefront of the contemporary sciences. He serves as President of the Club of Budapest, Chairman of the Ervin Laszlo Center for Advanced Study, Chancellor of the Giordano Bruno New-Paradigm University, and Editor of World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm Research.
He is recipient of the highest degree in philosophy and human sciences from the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, as well as of the coveted Artist Diploma of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Budapest. Additional prizes and awards include four honorary doctorates.
His appointments have included research grants at Yale and Princeton Universities, professorships for philosophy, systems sciences, and future sciences at the Universities of Houston, Portland State, and Indiana, as well as Northwestern University and the State University of New York. His career also included guest professorships at various universities in Europe and the Far East. In addition, he worked as program director for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). In 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Canadian International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.
For many years he has served as president of The Club of Budapest, which he founded. He is an advisor to the UNESCO Director General, ambassador of the International Delphic Council, member of both the International Academy of Science, World Academy of Arts and Science, and the International Academy of Philosophy.
Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (2004, 2005), he got Goi Peace prize (2001). He has authored more than 70 books, which have been translated into twenty languages, and has published in excess of four hundred articles and research papers, including six volumes of piano recordings.
Hiroo Saionji is the president of the Goi Peace Foundation and the World Peace Prayer Society. Together with his wife, Masami Saionji, he travels around the world promoting dialogues on peace and leading World Peace Prayer Ceremonies at the United Nations and at other international organizations.
Mr. Masahisa Goi, who initiated this movement, believed that progressively making human thoughts more hopeful and peaceful is the key to building world peace, and that if the number of peace-loving people who pray for peace increases throughout the world, it will pave the way to world peace. “May Peace Prevail on Earth” expresses the greatest wish of humanity to foster harmony between humanity and everything around it. This prayer is one of the brightest and most positive thoughts and energy that a human being can radiate. It can be practiced at any time, anywhere, and by anyone, irrespective of religion or ideology.
Hiroo Saionji is an Ambassador to the World Wisdom Council and active in its activities. He was a principal founder of The New Civilization initiative with thirteen partner organizations, including Kosmos Journal, in November 2005.
Steve Farrell co-founded and led two high-growth technology companies based in Silicon Valley in the 1990s that were featured in INC 500 Magazine. His companies included some of the brightest minds in the technology corridor. Steve walked away from the Valley because he felt a deeper calling to transform an emerging vision into reality. At its core, this vision was about a shifting paradigm where business attunes to the interconnection among all stakeholders, including stockholders, employees, and the community, as well as with the sacred inherent in all life.
Steve now leads the Humanity’s Team non-profit organization based in Boulder, Colorado, which he founded with Neale Donald Walsch, the bestselling author of the Conversations with God series of books. The organization is focused on helping people throughout the world awaken too their deeper Self and the interconnectedness of everything in the Universe. Humanity’s Team also co-founded the Conscious Business Alliance that created the Conscious Business Declaration, as well as the Conscious Business Initiative that provides training, certification and consulting services. The organization also sponsors the annual Global Oneness Day Celebration Event, along with various other programs that advance its mission in the world.
