Join the IGNITE Team now - apply till March 27th 2016!
K
een on discovering your unique purpose?
P
assionate about having a positive impact on society?
I
nterested in learning how to become an outstanding leader and create a strong company culture?
Welcome, to the IGNITE Conference. How do you define success? And how will your actions impact the world?
IGNITE aims at inspiring purpose-driven businesses. We believe that doing good and performing well go hand in hand. What sets apart the businesses we seek to bring together is their unique leadership values, company culture and impact on society.
The IGNITE Conference brings together business leaders and student participants with pioneers in the field to share and challenge best practices, and to develop new ideas on purpose-driven business.
We strive to be more than a conference by setting up a permanent platform of exchange to further this way of doing business and keep track of practices that meet the demands of current and future generations.
Because after all… it only takes a spark to ignite a fire.
More about the idea: the movementThousands of companies around the world believe that business should have a higher purpose. We want introduce you to companies that have decided to do business according to unique values, companies with a strong company culture that use business as a force for social good while being financially strong.
Throwback 2015: Speakers
Our successful business leaders come from a wide array of industries, including consulting, finance, manufacturing, retail and tourism. The more diverse points of view we have, the merrier.
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Omid Aschari
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Salem Samhoud
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Donn Boyer
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Hermann Arnold
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Pa Sinyan
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Luis Fernando Sanabria
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Anju Rupal
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Benoit Greindl
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Violet Lo
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Guillaume Taylor
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Nadene Canning
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Ernst Von Kimakowitz
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Omid Aschari
A Professor of Strategic Management and Managing Director of the globally top-ranked Strategy and International Management (SIM) program
[FT 2014] at the University of St.Gallen (Switzerland) since its inception in 2003. He is the founder and chairman of ASG Strategy Group AG, a professional service firm advising and developing leaders, management teams and organizations since 2005. -
Salem Samhoud
Founder of &samhoud, a Netherlands-based consulting firm, specialized in change management and company culture. With his integrative way of doing business the company won No. 1 Great Place to Work for in Europe in 2010 & No. 1 in Netherlands four times. What fuels &samhoud’s energy is connecting its employees: “Together we build a brighter future, we achieve breakthroughs by inspiring and connecting people”.
Website &samhoud -
Donn Boyer
Director, Global Organization Development and Learning at Barry-Wehmiller, bringing forth the skills and passion of the people to transform its culture, the lives of its team members, and the business itself. Barry-Wehmiller Companies are a manufacturing company group with 8500 employees. They implement the so-called “truly human leadership” - a people-centric leadership manner focused on creating an environment where team members can develop their gifts and feel that they and their work matters.
Website Barry-Wehmiller -
Hermann Arnold
Founder of Haufe Umantis, a Swiss talent management software company, focused on employee-focused operating systems empowering everyone in an organization to work more productively. Haufe Umantis is famous for its corporate democracy taken into account in strategic decisions. After an employee vote Mr. Arnold stepped back from the CEO position to give the place to the newly elected Marc Stoffel.
Haufe-umantis -
Pa M. K. Sinyan
Gallup delivers analytics and advice to help leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems. Combining more than 80 years of experience with its global reach, Gallup knows more about the attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers, students and citizens than any other organization in the world. Gallup is characterized itself by 95% active employee engagement through implementing their own tips.
Gallup -
Luis Fernando Sanabria
Fundación Paraguaya, founded in 1985, is a self-sustaining, non-profit social enterprise based in Asunción, Paraguay. With more than 380 staff, 25 offices, and 4 financially self-sufficient agricultural schools in Paraguay, its mission is to develop and implement practical, innovative, and sustainable solutions to eliminate poverty and create decent conditions for all families. Fundación Paraguaya’s vision is for its work to be an example and inspiration to others around the world. It seeks to be financially self-sustaining: it generally runs a small surplus in its microfinance program, which it reinvests in its other social programs: entrepreneurship education for clients and their children, financially self-sustaining schools that combine traditional and vocational training, and the Poverty Elimination Stoplight, an innovative self-evaluation tool of 50 indicators of multi-dimensional poverty with the aim of guiding clients towards solutions to their poverty problems.
Fundación Paraguaya -
Anju Rupal
Abhati Suisse - through the vehicle of ethical business, this B Corporation tackles sanitation and gender inequality issues in India by crafting beautiful, naturally-derived beauty products based on time-honoured Indian wisdom. This is the story of how the seeds of ancient knowledge can be sown and harvested through innovative, ethical business practices to be re-planted in the place from whence they came, to grow into life-changing sparks of empowerment for generations to come. This is how, through the audacity of re-imagination, shift happens.
Website Abhati Suisse -
Benoit Greindl
Montagne Alternative works to create a world where people are connected to the earth that they are living on. Hotel guests can expect to find their stay refreshing and inspiring. More importantly, Montagne Alternative hopes to reconnect guests with their inner selves and with nature in order to awaken their potential and their responsibility as human beings.
Website Montagne Alternative -
Violet Lo
Inclusive Business & Leadership. Impact investing. Social Innovation. After 14 years at executive positions in investment banking, Dr Violet Lo is now devoting her time to Transforming Capitalism, Inclusive Business & Leadership, Impact Investing and Social Innovation. In 2014, She founded Inclusive Business Social Lab, a global initiative aiming to bring dignity to the less advantaged people by creating (economic) opportunities through the global value-chains “from seeds to stores”, hence addressing the systemic poverty and rich-poor gap issues. And the key is to develop next generation of inclusive leaders who are ethical, purpose-driven and global-minded.
LinkedIn Profile Violet Lo
Violet Lo directly address the systemic poverty and rich-poor gap issues by mainly in Asia but not only by:
(1) developing next generation of ethical, purpose-driven and global-minded inclusive leaders;
(2) working in partnership with business and across all sectors to create global inclusive value chains. -
Guillaume Taylor
Guillaume is the founder of Quadia Finance, a company specialized in social and environmental finance. With more than CHF 100 million invested in over 20 ‘significantly impactful companies’ Quadia is a leading and pioneering impact investor. It’s core investment thesis centers on sustainability as a pillar of risk management and economic valuation.
Website Quadia Finance -
Nadene Canning
For facilitator Nadene Canning people are the agents of change. That´s why she has dedicated her professional life to coaching, advising and inspiring people on leadership and strategy in the business, non-profit and academic world alike. In addition to being the founder of AllSystemsGO! And VIA2 she is also the author of “La force de l´equilibre” as well as a teacher at Business School Lausanne. B Corps are a new type of companies that use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B-corporation is a movement including more than 1000 companies. These are certified by the B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. They are ranked according to the value they bring to their community, their employees and their environment.
B-Corp -
Ernst Von Kimakowitz
Dr. Ernst von Kimakowitz is Director and co-founder of the Humanistic Management Center. His work is focused on advancing the center by developing thought leadership, engaging in higher education activities and providing advisory services on impactful business conduct to private and public sector organizations. He is a lecturer in leadership skills at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland where he is teaching courses on the management of stakeholder dialogues. He has given guest lectures and speeches at universities around the world including Stonehill College, Easton MA., USA, EAN University, Bogotá, Colombia and SOKA University, Tokyo, Japan.
Website Humanistic Management Center
Partners
We would not be able to ignite our participants´ passion without our partners. Therefore, we are deeply grateful for their unique support. Our partners help us make our vision a reality with their generous consulting, networking and financial support.
Vision Partners
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About
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We are students
Team
We are a team of highly motivated undergraduate students with the common goal of organizing an inspiring and thought-provoking conference on the topics of company culture, leadership, values and the power of business as a force for good.
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Gabriel Cretier
"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."
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Boryana Milova
“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.”
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Meike Pauletzki
“Outside of love, the most sacred thing a person can give is labor... Any time that you can combine labor with love, you’ve made a good merger.”
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Victor Morgan
“In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.”
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Dario Röösli
“The role of the CEO is to enable people to excel, help them discover their own wisdom, engage themselves entirely in their work, and accept responsibility for making change. (164)“
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Camile Chauvin
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”
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Nicolas Werner
"The ability for a group of people to do remarkable things hinges on how well those people can pull together as a team."