When civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975, Kamel Mohanna, a pediatrician, knew medical help would be needed in the area — no matter which side of the conflict a patient might be on. Three years later, at the peak of humanitarian need, Kamel decided to take action to support the physical and mental health of displaced people in the region. Within a year, he had reached out to humanitarian organizations and health care professionals to found Amel Association International to provide emergency services and satisfy basic needs for refugees and asylum seekers. Over time, Amel Association International became one of the largest NGOs in Lebanon, with 28 medical centers, six mobile medical units, two mobile education units and more than 1,400 workers and volunteers.

At Kamel’s feet during Amel’s early years was his son, Assaad, who, by 11 years old, was assisting his dad and other volunteers — working with families and playing with the children who had left their homes. Young Assaad grew up to pursue a career in the oil and gas industry, but the Amel Association was always in the background. After following work to Dubai and Saudi Arabia, he came to Houston and used the lessons he learned from his father to establish the Houston Chapter of Amel Association International. The new chapter served as the impetus for a capstone project for Assaad and his fellow classmates in the Professional MBA program — Rice students from India, Colombia and the Middle East.

“As entrepreneurs walking into a new market,” says Assaad, “we identified the needs of underserved populations in Houston and figured out what we wanted to offer these communities.”

Like the “mothership” organization, as Assaad calls it, Amel Houston sought to support the mental and physical health of refugees, asylum seekers and more, but the group also saw a gap in the services needed in the American city. “We didn’t want to just reproduce what was being done in Lebanon,” says Assaad. “Rice helped us realize that this is not one size fits all.” In Lebanon, for example, Amel Association International assists with the fundamental integration services of refugees — access to food, shelter, health care, employment — and there are already plenty of Houston organizations offering those services. What Amel Houston could offer would be leadership coaching to underserved high schoolers — the very people who would go on to build the fabric and future of Houston.

Assaad and his team knew from their experience with the CoachRice program through the Doerr Institute for New Leaders that mentorship may be familiar to high schoolers, but leadership coaching is different — proactive instead of reactive. “Leadership coaching is more of an iterative, collaborative process between the coach and the coachee that identifies critical areas for improvement,” says Assaad. Rather than merely advising students — as a mentor may do — a coach will work with students to address areas of their lives or work that are hindering a student’s growth and potential.

As graduates of the CoachRice program, the Amel Houston team knew that they had the opportunity to assist not only high schoolers, but their peers as well. Rice students participating in CoachRice earned 60 hours of training time through the modules but needed 100 additional coaching hours in order to be accredited by the International Coaching Federation as a certified coach. It was a win-win: leadership coaching through Amel Houston would help high schoolers in economically challenged communities realize bigger dreams in the U.S. — like college or a career in business — all while giving CoachRice participants the hours they needed to realize their own dreams.

Amel Houston recently launched their second cohort — and the stories of empowerment help Assaad know he’s holding up his father’s legacy. He points to one student who signed up for the pilot program after being nominated by his school administration to participate. Due to his family and job search obligations, the student often missed class and gave little attention to his academic performance. But things took a positive turn when he was paired with his coach, Christoph. After the student attended several one-on-one coaching sessions on the school campus over a period of four months, his teacher made a point of visiting with the Amel Houston team to give heartfelt feedback. Her student had become more energized, present and confident. The student put it this way: “I feel like I have matured and expanded. I no longer get stuck. Instead I know I can find a solution,” he said. “I am more focused on what matters to me, and I am making progress with my goals”.

Amel Houston’s work is supported by three principles. First: Support local communities by empowering underserved communities and giving them equal opportunities to grow. Second: Step up DE&I efforts in companies by widening the talent pool in Houston. Successful firms are organizations where employees feel comfortable being themselves and take an extra effort toward making their workplace great. And third: Amel Houston hopes to make an impact on the future workforce and on the city.

MBA programs are nearly reaching gender parity with more than 41% women enrollment

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Ashley Ward ’24, a fellow with the Forté Foundation, an organization focused on career development and business education for women, and Ashleigh Rogers ’24, talk about what it means to be a woman in business.

“I knew that if I was going to go back to school, I would need support financially, and wanted to see what scholarships were attainable for Black females,” says Ward. A scholarship, she says, made her “dream a reality.”

“It’s about making sure people are supported if they want to pursue financial roles that typically are extremely male-dominated,” said Rogers.

Jan. 27, 2023 | Sydney Lake

A Florida proposal parents agree on: banning cell phones in classrooms

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Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Management – Marketing, weighs in on a recent proposal from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) supporting cell phone restrictions in schools. His conclusion: As polarizing as DeSantis has been, in education specifically, parents would be on board with this one.

From Mittal: “According to a 2022 study of 10,897 parents with a child in school, 61 percent agree they would support banning cell phones from classrooms. Support is high among Asian (64 percent), Caucasian (61 percent), African American (55 percent) and Hispanic/ Latino (56 percent) parents. Parents from low (60 percent) and high (61 percent) socioeconomic status support a ban.”

Jan. 26, 2023 | Vikas Mittal

MBA Salaries & Bonuses At The Top 30 U.S. Business Schools

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MBA salaries and bonuses were at record or near-record levels for the Class of 2022. Rice Business had a 14.9% increase in starting salaries in the last year.

“Starting salaries for MBAs graduating from the top 30 business schools flat-lined between 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, and 2021,” wrote Ethier. “But a year later, salaries and signing bonuses are looking robust, with new school records aplenty, whether those B-schools measure in averages or medians.”

Jan. 25, 2023 | Marc Ethier

Peak Gasoline Heralds Price Shocks for Drivers, Inflation Headaches

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Ten-year-old sustainability initiatives may be taking hold, signaled by the prediction that gasoline demand has peaked. Good news for the environment, maybe, but consumers are in for a bumpy ride. “In the next several years, the fuel industry is poised to cut supply faster than the drop in demand, with more plants due to shut or convert to smaller biofuels facilities,” reports Bloomberg writer Chunzi Xu. “The result could be production crunches for gasoline, price spikes or even limited outages because of the mismatch. Paradoxically for drivers, it’s gasoline’s slow death that will make it painful.”

Peak gasoline will "have significant implications for consumers, inflation, politics," said Mark Finley, an energy fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. "All in all, a big deal — over time."

Jan. 20, 2023 | Chunzi Xu

‘There’s definitely an accountant shortage out there’: MBAs have become the go-to degree and companies are struggling to hire enough CPAs

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Ben Lansford, accounting professor and director of the Master of Accounting program, discusses the reason accounting is a major in decline at schools across the country — and why it’s worth the time.

“Accounting is difficult,” he says. “It’s just a tough subject area, and you need a fifth year of college education to qualify to sit for the CPA exam.”

Even so, says Lansford, accounting is a “rock-solid foundation” and a career path in demand: while there was a 17% drop in employed accountants in auditors from 2019 to 2021, according to Bloomberg Tax analysis, companies’ needs for accountants hasn’t budged.

Nov. 10, 2022 | Sheryl Estrada

See All the Latest News from Rice Business

What music pumps you up?

Time to check in with students from each of our degree programs to collect their final impressions before the end of the school year. What kind of music is motivating them these days — to study, work out, relax or get it done? Their varied responses give us a glimpse into the hearts and minds of our students.

“Roar” by Katy Perry

Taylor Anne Adams
Full-Time MBA ’23

Movie soundtracks by Hans Zimmer

Patrick Blonien
Ph.D. Candidate ’24

Tropical house music

Megan Lund
Professional MBA – Evening ’23

“We Will Rock You” by Queen

Rupesh Nigam
Executive MBA ’23

Mahler’s 5th Symphony

Sarah Wang
Undergraduate Business Major, Finance
Computational Applied Mathematics Major ’25

“Summer” by Hisaishi and the London Symphony Orchestra

Stuart Bell
Professional MBA – Weekend ’23

Deep house set by Tony McGuinness

Miguel Marquez
MAcc ’23

My own music that I write and record

Chinenye Ozougwu
MBA@Rice ’23

With every new program, student, staff and faculty member, I see incredible promise for the school and for the businesses and organizations our alumni will contribute to and lead.

Throughout the past six years, the one constant has been strategic growth. We’ve grown steadily while raising our standards in order to improve our degree programs and our scholarly impact on the world of business education. We’ve navigated issues like COVID and Hurricane Harvey and still managed to increase enrollment and add new programs to now include an undergraduate major, a Ph.D. in organizational behavior and a Hybrid MBA, and we’ve made plans to expand McNair Hall too.

While the final design for McNair is still being refined, we hope to break ground for the addition in early 2024 in order to accommodate our growth in enrollment along with the incoming faculty and staff who will support those new students.

With every new program, student, staff and faculty member, I see incredible promise for the school and for the businesses and organizations our alumni will contribute to and lead. It is through this magazine that we get to share that promise with you. Once again, I’m proud of the stories we are able to tell.

I hope you enjoy this issue and feel proud of your connection to Rice Business and to all the incredible people who teach, learn and work at your school.

— Peter

When Suman Khatiwada and Trevor Best decided to call their cleantech startup Syzygy Plasmonics, they knew the seemingly made-up name would meet resistance from the folks in marketing.

“But we didn’t care,” Khatiwada says from the company’s headquarters, located in a nondescript office park just a few miles south of Rice University.

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For one thing, there was nothing made-up about it. Though plasmonics might not sound like a real word, it in fact refers to a core element of the company’s technology. Similarly, the term syzygy describes an alignment of three or more celestial bodies, though in this case its three y’s represent the alignment of energy, technology and sustainability — the animating ideas behind the startup, which uses science and engineering to remove carbon emissions from industrial chemical processing.

And in a crowded cleantech market, having an unusual name turned out to be helpful.

“Once people got it, they seemed to gravitate toward it,” says Khatiwada, who earned a Ph.D. in materials science and nanoengineering at Rice in 2013 and is now Syzygy’s chief technology officer. (Best is CEO.)

That may be an understatement. Since launching in 2017, Syzygy has raised $106 million in capital. Much of that comes from strategic partners that represent some of the biggest players in the global energy and chemical industries, including BP Ventures, Chevron Ventures and LOTTE Chemical.

Their interest, explains VP of finance and corporate development Murtuza Marfani ’19, stems from Syzygy’s attempt to decarbonize the “trillion-dollar value chain” of the chemical industry. The first link in that chain involves turning feedstocks such as petroleum and natural gas into base chemicals like hydrogen and ammonia, which can be used to manufacture everything from fuels and fertilizers to plastics and cosmetics.

As important as that value chain is — and much of modern life depends on it — it is also highly carbon intensive. Industrial chemical processing relies on catalysts to increase the rate of chemical reactions. But conventional catalysts require huge amounts of heat and pressure to do their work (temperatures inside a chemical reactor can exceed 1500° F). And the easiest and cheapest way to generate that heat and pressure is to burn fossil fuels.

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As a result, chemical production currently accounts for 1 gigaton, or roughly 3.6%, of global greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing those numbers would represent a significant step toward combating climate change and a major boon to energy companies and chemical manufacturers that are navigating the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Syzygy has found a way to slash emissions from this hard-to-abate sector. Using novel light-driven catalysts developed at Rice and an electrified, light-powered reactor of its own devising, the startup can process chemicals such as hydrogen and ammonia without having to cook them at high heat and pressure. If the reactor draws electricity from renewable sources like wind or solar, fossil fuels can be cut out of the picture entirely.

Just as importantly, when operating at commercial scale, Syzygy’s clean approach to chemical processing promises to compete on price with conventional methods — a key factor when courting venture capitalists and industry partners whose eyes are focused on the bottom line.

Syzygy will enter field trials of its system in the U.S. and Asia this year and intends to prevent 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by 2040. But the company’s leadership is already thinking even bigger.

“For us, the ultimate ambition would be to completely eliminate emissions from any refinery complex,” says Marfani. “If we are able to get there, the world has a fighting chance against climate change.”

Syzygy was born when Khatiwada and Best both worked for Baker Hughes, one of the world’s largest oil field services companies — Best as a manager, Khatiwada as a research scientist. But Khatiwada, for his part, was no stranger to cleantech.

While earning his doctorate in materials science and nanoengineering, Khatiwada took classes on the side at Rice Business and participated in business plan competitions run by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. He now mentors cleantech founders at the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator.

“I wanted to see what MBAs actually learned,” he says.

He caught on fast: In 2013, with support from the alliance’s OwlSpark Startup Accelerator, Khatiwada and some friends founded Big Delta Systems — now called EnPower — a startup devoted to commercializing the cutting-edge lithium-ion battery technology they had developed at Rice.

At Baker Hughes, Khatiwada and Best discovered a shared interest in new, sustainable business models and eventually decided to find one they could develop on their own.

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They began by scouting the latest technologies to emerge from top research universities, applying a framework they called TMI, for “technology, market, impact.” Their goal was to identify something that was based on solid fundamental science, had global market potential and could contribute to the greater good.

In 2016, the two found what they were looking for. That year, Rice researchers Peter Nordlander and Naomi Halas unveiled a new breed of photocatalyst that could drive chemical reactions by harvesting energy from light. By using so-called plasmonic nanoparticles to energize other nanoparticles made from traditional chemical catalysts, Nordlander and Halas discovered they could make and break chemical bonds without high pressures and temperatures. And because their novel photocatalysts could be “tuned” to many different chemical reactions, they had any number of potential applications.

“It checked all the boxes,” says Khatiwada, who set up a meeting with Nordlander to pitch the idea of pairing the researchers’ invention with a fully electrified, light-driven chemical reactor.

Nordlander was sold, as was Halas. The two joined Khatiwada and Best as co-founders, and Syzygy Plasmonics was born.

According to Marfani, who worked as a derivatives trader and investment banker before joining Syzygy in 2021 and who holds a B.A. in mathematical economic analysis from Rice, the startup will generate revenues by selling its reactors, licensing its technology, and providing service and maintenance to its customers, who will be able to use the platform as they like.

The startup’s strategic partners have already been quite clear about the applications they are most interested in, however. And Syzygy has been quick to respond.

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Initially, says Khatiwada, the company’s goal was to extract hydrogen from methane. In addition to being the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen produces zero emissions when burned or used in fuel cells and is regarded as one of the building blocks of a low-carbon future. Unfortunately, the conventional method of separating hydrogen from methane generates large quantities of carbon dioxide, some of which comes from burning fossil fuels and some of which comes from the process itself. Using its electrified reactor, Syzygy reduced those emissions by 43%.

Over time, however, the startup’s industry backers let Khatiwada and his colleagues know that they were more interested in making hydrogen by splitting, or “cracking,” ammonia. Although it is chock-full of hydrogen, ammonia can be stored and transported far more easily and cheaply, making it a convenient hydrogen carrier. The chemical reaction that separates hydrogen from ammonia does not generate any CO2. And depending on how it is treated, ammonia itself can serve as a low-emissions or zero-emissions fuel.

A grant from ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy) allowed Syzygy to develop an ammonia-cracking process, and last fall the company announced that it was partnering with international chemical heavyweights LOTTE and Sumitomo to deploy and test an ammonia-cracking reactor powered by renewable energy in South Korea later this year. Khatiwada expects this upcoming field trial to produce perhaps 250 kilograms of hydrogen per day, whereas a large conventional plant might turn out 50 to 60 tons of the stuff. But if things go well, he anticipates ramping up to commercial-scale production within two to three years.

Industry investors also signaled interest in using Syzygy’s multipurpose platform to turn CO2 into something useful. With support from the National Science Foundation, the startup developed a method of transforming CO2 into syngas, a key ingredient in synthetic fuels and other products. This past January, the company announced that it would launch a field trial of the process in North Carolina aimed at making low-carbon fuels. If it succeeds, Syzygy could help decarbonize the transportation sector — which generates nearly a third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions — by replacing conventional jet fuel, diesel and gasoline with sustainable, CO2-derived fuels.

Syzygy is also pursuing efforts to crack hydrogen sulfide — a smelly, toxic chemical produced by petroleum refineries and sewage treatment plants — and synthesize ammonia. Making ammonia in Syzygy’s electrified reactors would allow customers to manufacture the chemical in places like North Africa and Australia, where wind and solar power are cheap and plentiful, and then ship it to markets in Europe and Asia, where it could be converted into hydrogen and other useful substances.

Taken together, these various initiatives would allow industry to reduce emissions without paying a green premium — and allow Syzygy and its allies to make money while mitigating climate change.

“That,” says Khatiwada, “is true disruption.”

Professionals seeking an MBA appreciate and value in-person instruction but require flexibility to accommodate work schedules, travel and family life. “Our charge, and our challenge, was to figure out how to balance those often opposite desires,” says Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business. “We knew that Rice could provide high-quality remote education and high-quality in-person instruction through a new Hybrid MBA program.” 

The Rice Business Hybrid MBA, the first of its kind at the university and in the state of Texas, is a 22-month, 54-credit program that begins with a weeklong in-person immersion. After that, classes meet once per month on campus, and in the weeks between, they meet online. Tuition includes residence at a hotel close to campus to help foster connections with peers and faculty while students work and study in McNair Hall. 

Rodriguez recently spoke with us about the Hybrid MBA program, how it will expand our impact both nationally and regionally, and the value of networking across professions and MBA programs. 

Hybrid MBA

a Q&A with the Dean

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What made this the right time to launch the Hybrid MBA program?

It’s the right time because people have adapted to the great work-from-home experiment, which coincided with the great online education experiment during the Covid-19 pandemic. What we learned is how many students would benefit from and enjoy a hybrid program. We also knew we could deliver it very well and thought it would help us adapt to the market. People have much more flexibility in being able to work wherever they want. One hypothesis is that they would be even more interested in a face-to-face traditional education, but the truth is they want a little bit of flexibility everywhere, and that includes their education. What we learned from Covid and from extensive market research is that a once-per-month program — with online delivery in the weeks between — would be a great combination to add to our portfolio of programs and help us reach more students outside of the Houston region.

When it came to designing this program, what lessons did you take from the great work-from-home and online education experiments?

One of the things we learned — and it’s not just from that experiment, but also from our fully online program that launched in 2018 — is that people highly value face-to-face, in-person meetings. But it’s difficult for a lot of our target population to be present in those meetings. Our new program has all the online components, which can be live or asynchronous, on Thursday evenings. It’s outside of working hours, and it’s only one evening, so people can pace their week and set aside time. One of the questions we had was, “who’s going to be most attracted to this program?” and our early hypothesis was that it would be students who live far away from the Rice campus. But we also found that work schedules are a challenge, even for people who live within a few miles of campus, so the idea was appealing to local students as well.

How does this program position Rice in the national business school landscape?

One of the things that makes you more visible in the national landscape is having student populations from lots of different geographies and many industries. Being able to reach more students who are part of the expansion of high-tech and software-related jobs in Austin, or part of the diverse manufacturing and service economy in Dallas, will help us. We’ve also had students from Mexico and from across the U.S. inquire. In the MBA@Rice program, we have students from Boston, Los Angeles, New York and other cities in the U.S. That has added to the quality of discussions we have and to the geographic expansion of the Rice Business network. I think that will help us to serve existing students in our other programs because there will be alumni and other students that they can connect with in these vibrant commercial centers, and not just in Houston. Working professionals bring contemporary problem sets from the organizations they work in, and we’ll be able to bring in students with those experiences from great organizations around the country and the big metro areas of Texas.

The program emphasizes the two weeklong immersion opportunities on campus and the opportunity to participate in the Professional MBA-Weekend electives. What makes those immersive weeks a core part of the program? 

What we find is that some really special things happen when you spend more than 48 hours together. The weeklong immersions and the Professional Weekend MBA electives get people much more closely associated and comfortable as they learn more from each other, and they set the groundwork for having deeper discussions. That kind of connection enriches everyone’s education. It’s important to share meals together, to share ideas between class and down time together, to share study time together, and to be removed from some of the challenges of our daily lives. It’s also important for them to do that with our faculty.

So much of professional life is about making those face-to- face connections.

You’re 100% right. In our lives, we meet a lot of people who do what we also do. It’s harder for engineers to know physicians and salespeople and people working for not-for-profits. 

We just don’t intersect as often with people outside of our own industries. Intentionally creating those new connections is valuable to our students and helps deepen their understanding of global business.

The program ends with the weeklong Global Field Experience opportunity. What kind of benefits do students get from that week out in the field? 

A component of any high-quality business education is the ability to work in national and global contexts other than your own. It isn’t that business principles don’t cross borders well. Most of them do, but the context in which businesses conduct them and the values that people have across different cultures vary. A lot of the ways we think about problems and issues exist within our own culture and environment. What we want to do is ensure that every student has a chance to test those assumptions and see where they no longer hold true or how they’re challenged by an environment that’s highly relevant but may be very different than their own. 

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In terms of the curriculum, are there any plans to adapt it or introduce new elements specific to the Hybrid MBA program?

We plan to introduce new elements, but they’ll be available to both the Hybrid MBA and weekend MBA programs. We will be delivering the in-person portion of this program on the same weekends as our existing weekend programs so that we can give both groups of students more electives. We’re offering some new energy transition electives that focus on decarbonization and optimizing the use of different energy sources, particularly renewables, in operations, as well as electives related to the business of health care. 

What are you hearing in terms of feedback so far from applicants or people who are interested? What’s the buzz that’s building around the program? 

There’s some really positive early buzz. Within one month of the program’s launch, we received hundreds of requests for further information. Applications have started coming in, and for the most part, they seem to be students who were not already planning to come to Rice. We have a newer audience that we had not reached previously. For example, we’re hearing more from medical professionals interested in the program and from prospective students in other cities. 

What most excites you, personally, about the Hybrid MBA?

I’m most interested in reaching students whom we have missed before — students who have not been able to take part in a Rice Business education. We have some students who live in Houston, but they often have to work for extended periods far away. Sometimes that’s just in Midland or Odessa, but it could also be the Middle East, and they’ve also expressed an interest in the program. This flexibility means that even if their life changes during the two years of the program, they should still be able to participate fully. 

I’m excited about what it will do to our weekend offerings in general. We will have a very broad, diverse group of people from many areas participating at Rice, and that’s exciting. Not long ago, our reach was quite good, but it was relatively narrow geographically. Now we can really expand. I’m excited about the students and the organizations they represent. I’m excited about the ways it will help our faculty become even better teachers. Students and faculty will get to have conversations with people who think about problems from different vantage points — and that will be wonderful for the Rice Business community at large.

Outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia is perhaps one of the best examples of a company synonymous with purpose. Soon after Yvon Chouinard founded Patagonia in the 1970s, he realized the climbing spikes he was making hurt rock surfaces. So, he created a more environmentally friendly alternative. He also started supporting “clean climbing,” building awareness about how climbers can take better care of the planet.

Most recently, Chouinard and his family turned over ownership of Patagonia to a trust and non-profit organization. All profits will fund efforts to help with climate change and wilderness preservation. Chouinard said in a letter on the company’s site that “instead of going public” by selling shares to investors, “you could say we’re going purpose.”

More and more of today’s companies are embracing this type of purposeful stance. They’re leaning toward the idea that a successful company is more than a profitable bottom line. Businesses are going back to the basics by redefining why they exist and how they want to make an impact in the world past profit. Some companies have adopted “purpose as a business driver” as a strategic priority, rather than just a nice-to-have.

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But the conversation around purpose is complicated. Often the term “purpose” is used synonymously with “brand activism” — and there are important differences between the two. First, a company’s core purpose answers the question, “What impact are we trying to make in the world?” A company’s purpose is often inclusive of its values and impacts the company’s approach to corporate social responsibility — an effort on the company’s part to do its best for its employees, its customers, its investors, its supply chain and even the planet and the communities in which it operates. But those values don’t necessarily work their way into marketing or an externalized “voice” or point of view on broader issues. Brand activism, on the other hand, is the use of the brand to comment on social, political or global issues that the brand believes are important.

Indeed, there is some research that shows that, in theory, global consumers are more likely to trust, buy, champion and protect companies with a strong purpose.

“Some consumers want to know that their money is going toward a product with a bigger purpose, whether it’s sustainability, ethical supply chains or community impact,” says Duane Windsor, Rice Business Lynette S. Autrey Professor of Management.

One study by communications agency Zeno that evaluated 75 brands found that when consumers think a brand has a strong purpose, they’re four times more likely to buy from the company, six times more likely to protect it in the event of a misstep, and 4.5 times more likely to recommend it to friends and family.

In practice, however, factors like price and quality still come out on top when consumers make purchase decisions. A Deloitte study of 11,500 global consumers across industries found price and quality at the top of purchasing criteria between 61% and 86% of the time.

So what’s a company to do?

In addition to Windsor, we spoke with Vikas Mittal, Rice Business J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Management; Doug Schuler, professor of business and public policy; and Bethany Andell ’01, CEO of branding and culture-building company Savage Brands, about the latest trend of companies stepping back to rediscover and define their purpose — and the ways in which brand activism does (or doesn’t) increase the bottom line.

Is Conscious Capitalism Good for Business?

Conscious capitalism involves what businesses want for others, not what they want from them, says Andell. “We don’t typically have business conversations that start from that place,” she adds. Conscious capitalism — a relatively new term in the business world — flips the conversation.

Proponents believe businesses need to act ethically by equally serving the interests of all stakeholders — not just management and shareholders. Companies that embrace conscious capitalism take a human-centered approach and hire based on values rather than solely on skills.

“You’re changing the legacy, the ‘profit first’ way of thinking, and remembering that profit is the outcome of a good business,” Andell says.

Instead, you approach your business from a conscious place of care for each of your stakeholders and look at your company as a living, breathing entity. Leading with purpose delivers better performance, and better performance results in higher quality and better profits, Andell says.

Conscious companies start out by creating a map that outlines their stakeholders (customers, employees, shareholders, and suppliers) and shows how they’re interdependent. Business strategy is then based on decisions that satisfy the highest number of stakeholders, whenever possible — creating a win-win vs. a zero-sum model, she says.

“The sustainability of the organization is a result of your employees staying and being safe, your customers wanting to come back, and suppliers wanting to work with you,” according to Andell.

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How much does ESG play a role?

ESG is the acronym for environmental, social, and governance. It is a way in which companies evaluate the robustness of their governance mechanisms and how well they manage their environmental and social impacts. ESG responsibility is difficult to define, says Windsor, especially when it comes to who should cover the costs. For example, in recent years, major airlines have offered customers the option of paying more for their ticket to help offset the carbon emitted by their flight. “Is that my responsibility or the airline’s though?” Windsor asks. “Maybe the company ought to take it out of their profits.” Often, even if consumers have strong convictions, in the end, they’re unwilling to pay more. “The customer may well want green products,” says Windsor. “The question is how much are they willing to pay for greener products? The producer wants the customer to pay for the enhancement. The customer wants the enhancement without paying for it.” One danger of sustainability promises, however, is “greenwashing,” which occurs when a company touts their sustainability through marketing — leaning toward brand activism — but isn’t doing anything meaningful toward helping the environment.

For example, consumer goods company Unilever drew criticism from a shareholder after it declared Hellmann’s mayonnaise as a brand that fights against food waste. The shareholder said management had “become obsessed with publicly displaying sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on the fundamentals of the business.” Mittal agrees with the criticism, and cites his research, which has found that ESG-focused companies do not necessarily do better in the market than other organizations. Mittal suggests that Unilever is actually lagging its peers as a result of putting ESG ahead of profits.

Must leaders always be an extension of the brand?

CEOs and other leaders often struggle when it comes to publicly weighing in on social, national or global issues. On the one hand, employees may demand it, Schuler says. On the other, speaking up risks alienating some customers. 

“Maybe what companies should be doing is thinking about how these social trends might be associated with either their product or their general reputation,” he says. “Are there certain issues where perhaps there’s some advantage?” 

For example, Patagonia leaders speaking up on environmental issues important to their core customer base can serve their brand well.

But generally, Mittal says, personal opinions on issues and political agendas should remain private. “For a CEO to pick sides is eventually a losing battle.” The real test of a CEO’s strength is to stay neutral even when provoked by employees or external forces, he adds.

Andell, for her part, doesn’t make political statements.

“I believe very much in diversity, equity and inclusion,” she says. “All voices and perspectives are important, so, I don’t take a specific, public stand on political issues.” Instead, she would rather demonstrate her stance through action, or rather inaction — for example, by choosing not to work with companies that do not share her company’s values.

What should be at the center of my company — my people, the planet or company profit?

Mittal argues that companies that build a brand around putting employees first are misguided. The academic literature shows no consistent support for employee satisfaction correlating with a firm’s financial performance, according to Mittal. However, there’s consistent evidence that customer satisfaction and financial performance are linked. On the other hand, Andell argues that engaged employees deliver a better customer experience — the interdependence between the two makes sense in service industries, for example, in which the customer experience is part of the product.

“At the end of the day, customers are the largest and most stable source of cash flow for any company,” Mittal says. “A brand can only be healthy if it starts with a customer focus.”

It is possible to be customer-focused while holding true to your values around your employees or ESG initiatives, he suggests, but if key customer needs aren’t met — like quality and price — don’t expect an uptick in profit solely as a result of happy employees. Any initiatives “have to improve customer value first and foremost,” Mittal says.

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For example, airlines have worked toward paperless ticketing because it’s more convenient for passengers and helps fulfill their purpose of providing a seamless travel experience. But it also helps the environment. For a company that makes goods, a customer-focused approach to sustainability would be to invest in materials that don’t need to be recycled rather than creating objects that are wasteful and putting the added burden on customers to recycle, he adds. As another example, French cosmetics giant L’Oreal recently unveiled a new handheld makeup applicator that helps people with limited mobility or tremors apply makeup on their own. It’s a great example of a company using their customer focus to have purpose, Mittal says.

The debate around purpose continues and brings up critical questions in today’s competitive business environment. Doing the hard work of rediscovering and shaping one’s purpose and values is mission critical. “Any business that wants to still be here in 20 years is going to have to take a hard look at their character,” Andell says.

But when purpose veers toward activism, tread lightly. According to Mittal and his research, “Customers’ perceptions of a brand’s political activism do not translate into higher purchase intention or customer satisfaction,” he says, “and they hurt consumers’ willingness to pay for the brand.” In short: If the goal is profit increase, a company needs to place customer values and needs, including quality and price — not activism — at its center.