The Future of the Corporation, Economy and Society

Debate overview

The Future of the Corporation is a major new initiative by the British Academy that is addressing the purpose of business and asking what its role in society should be. It is led by Professor Colin Mayer FBA, Professor of Management at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. Queen’s University Belfast are delighted to host one of a series of events exploring this issue.

Date & Time
Monday 21 January, 4.30pm - 6.30pm Doors open at 4.30pm, seats to be issued on a first come, first served basis
Location
Council Chamber and Canada Room, Queen’s University Belfast Refreshments served following the debate

Speakers
Sir Paul Collier FBA Professor Colin Mayer CBE FBA

Event Details

4.30pm: Doors open to Council Chamber (seats to be issued on a first come, first served basis)
5.00pm: Debate begins
Speakers:
Sir Paul Collier FBA
Professor Colin Mayer CBE FBA; Panel question and answer session
6.30pm: Drinks reception in the Canada Room

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Debate details

Speakers

Professor Sir Paul Collier

Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Professor Sir Paul Collier’s research covers fragile states, a topic on which he is co-directing a Commission of the British Academy; restoring growth in African economies, on which he worked for the 2017 G20 at the invitation of Germany’s Minister of Finance; the implications of group psychology for development, on which he is co-managing a research network led by Nobel Laureate George Akerlof; migration and refugees, which are the subject of his two most recent books; urbanization in poor countries, a program which has just won challenge funding from the Foreign Office; and the crisis in modern capitalism, which is the subject of his book, The Future of Capitalism, published in 2018.

5 books published since 2007, including The Bottom Billion which won the Lionel Gelber, Arthur Ross and Corine prizes and was the joint winner of the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book prize, and his latest, Refuge, which is an Economist ‘book of the year’. Received a knighthood in 2014 for services to promoting research and policy change in Africa and has been listed as one of the hundred most influential public thinkers in five of the past ten years.

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Professor Colin Mayer CBE FBA

MA PhD (Cambridge), MA (Oxford), HonFISSR

Colin Mayer is the Peter Moores Professor of Management Studies at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He is a Professorial Fellow and Sub-Warden of Wadham College, Oxford and an Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford and St Anne’s College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the European Corporate Governance Institute. He is a member of the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal, the UK Government Natural Capital Committee, the International Advisory Board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, and the Board of Trustees of the Oxford Playhouse. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to business education and the administration of justice in the economic sphere.

Colin Mayer was the first professor at the Saïd Business School in 1994, the Peter Moores Dean of the Business School between 2006 and 2011, and the first Director of the Oxford Financial Research Centre between 1998 and 2005. He was a Harkness Fellow at Harvard University, a Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England, the first Leo Goldschmidt Visiting Professor of Corporate Governance at the Solvay Business School, Université de Bruxelles, and has had visiting positions at Columbia, MIT and Stanford universities.

Colin Mayer was chairman of Oxera Ltd. between 1986 and 2010 and assisted in building the company into what is now one of the largest independent economics consultancies in Europe. He is a director of the energy modelling company, Aurora Energy Research Ltd. He advises companies, governments, international agencies and regulators around the world, and he leads the British Academy enquiry into “the Future of the Corporation”.

He is the author of Firm Commitment: Why the Corporation is Failing Us and How to Restore Trust in It and his forthcoming book Prosperity: Better Business Makes the Greater Good will be published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

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