{"id":37,"date":"2016-09-02T15:29:57","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T19:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/semba\/?p=37"},"modified":"2016-09-12T15:49:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T19:49:12","slug":"37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/2016\/09\/02\/37\/","title":{"rendered":"The Leaders We’re Looking For"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Joseph Fusco,\u00a0<\/em>Vice President, Casella Waste Systems, Inc., and Chair, SEMBA Advisory Board<\/em><\/p>\n

You should know this about the company I work for: it is a mundane business. We are not superstars in the sustainability movement. Our name certainly wouldn\u2019t escape from your lips should you be asked to name a fashionable triple bottom line company.<\/p>\n

\"uvm-2016-0812-0167\"However, a few years ago, we had a moment of clarity. Suddenly, we realized our entire existence was based on a business model that was simply unsustainable.<\/p>\n

We had to ask ourselves a very important question: what will the world — the planet, our markets, our customers, our communities — expect from us in twenty or thirty years? What will we get paid for?<\/p>\n

You should know we came to this simple conclusion: we\u2019ll get paid by helping to solve the problem of the world\u2019s limited resources. At that moment, nearly everything changed — the way we hire, build, and treat people, the investments we make, the way we work with customers, the risks we embrace.<\/p>\n

Simply put, all our problems are centered around resource limits — natural, environmental, people, time, capital, and so on. All of our opportunities — profit, growth, contributing to society, creating shareholder value — come from our ability to solve those problems better than anybody else. To do that we have to embrace sustainability. We have to become a different kind of company.<\/p>\n

And that transformation calls for a different kind of leader.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s my insight: our mundane company will scratch and claw our way over other companies to hire people who are great at solving the problems of resource limits, and who embrace sustainability.<\/p>\n

We need you. And there simply aren\u2019t enough of you to go around.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re not alone — everyone\u2019s problems have changed, everyone\u2019s business model is being threatened. Every company, whether it likes it or not, and whether it knows it or not, faces the challenges of limited resources on every level.<\/p>\n

Our company will scratch and claw our way over other companies to hire people who are great at solving the problems of resource limits, and who embrace sustainability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because of this new reality, there is a desperate need for leaders whose experience and education have uniquely prepared them to make products and services sustainable, and focus on the planet and people, as well as profit. There is a desperate need for leaders who think and act like entrepreneurs, who can creatively destroy outdated business structures, and innovate.
\nUnless you are this kind of leader, you are useless to us, and to more and more organizations.<\/p>\n

In fact, I think it\u2019s increasingly inevitable that we — and companies like ours — won\u2019t hire anyone for a leadership position who doesn\u2019t bring us two important qualities:<\/p>\n

a genuine belief that \u201csustainability\u201d extends to every corner of the enterprise, from the products and services we sell, to the way we manage limited natural, human, capital and social resources, to the way we liberate our people to love the work they do.<\/p>\n

an education and set of skills that has prepared them to live differently, lead differently, profit differently.<\/p>\n

The challenge for us will be to find these leaders, and to be confident they\u2019ve been taught and nurtured in a program that builds expertise in all areas of sustainable entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re confident that we\u2019ll find them at the University of Vermont\u2019s Sustainable Entrepreneurship MBA. You should be confident that SEMBA will offer you the education to be the kind of problem solver our company and many others will scratch and claw our way to hire.<\/p>\n

Sustainable and socially responsible businesses know what we want, and what we need from our leaders. UVM\u2019s SEMBA is one of the programs in the country that is building the type of leader we want. It\u2019s is a tightly woven partnership between innovative companies and educators who share a passion to reinvent the way leaders and entrepreneurs are built for the long-haul, and who share a unique \u201cDNA\u201d for sustainability.<\/p>\n

The business of the future — our business — demands exceptional students and business leaders who are able to master a different, more sustainable way to pursue profits, create value, and leave a significant economic, environmental and social impact.<\/p>\n

Our business, and almost everyone else in business I know, is looking for people not content to do things they way they\u2019ve always been done — who know there\u2019s a better way to do business, to build companies and organizations, to build leaders.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re looking for people who think differently — and who are ready to embark on a business education that will prepare them to live differently, lead differently, profit differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joseph Fusco,\u00a0Vice President, Casella Waste Systems, Inc., and Chair, SEMBA Advisory Board You should know this about the company I work for: it is a mundane business. We are not superstars in the sustainability movement. Our name certainly wouldn\u2019t escape from your lips should you be asked to name a fashionable triple bottom line … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Leaders We’re Looking For”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3919,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46457,8582],"tags":[41478,4433],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jobs","category-leadership","tag-innovation","tag-sustainability"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8b9n0-37","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/si-mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}