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Alliance Manchester Business School launches groundbreaking new programme

05 Jun 2018

Alliance Manchester Business School has launched a new executive education programme focusing on the private sector’s growing responsibility towards human rights

The programme will be delivered by the School’s Business and Human Rights Catalyst and will provide senior executives with an in-depth and innovative understanding of the challenges and opportunities for improving business performance and human rights.  

Programme lead and Alliance MBS’ Research Director, Professor Ken McPhail, comments: “When organisations today have more reach than governments - take McDonalds for example, a business with more employees than Latvia has inhabitants, or Facebook, which has a constituency three times bigger than the US - the influence of senior corporate executives extends well beyond the health of balance sheets.

“They have the ability to significantly impact the welfare of the societies they’re operating in and those which provide them with labour resources. The programme looks at the risk management associated with this and the positive benefits it can deliver for corporates as well as communities.”

Co-ordinated by Alliance MBS’ Dr Lara Bianchi, the programme combines world-leading research with the practical insights of human rights experts closely involved in the development of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. A selection of seminars will be hosted by Gerald Pachoud, the former special advisor to the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie; and Andrea Shemberg, who led the UN Special Representative’s work on foreign investment. 

The programme will bring world-class research into teaching with expertise from across Alliance MBS, plus external speakers including Philip Jordan – former Senior Vice-President Ethics at Total Group; Ron Popper – former Global VP for corporate responsibility at ABB and Trustee and Advisory Council member of the Institute for Human Rights and Business; and Nicole Bigby – a Partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, specialising in global risk management frameworks.   

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