What does a better business world look like for you?
What if we focused on the things we can change?
What if we seize the moment and take action?
The Better Business Summit will seed new ideas, feed your imagination and help you grow – your business, your impact and the better business movement. We’ll be talking about a range of innovative new ideas and approaches and discussing how we can create systemic change through collective action, education and support.
The theme for our inaugural summit is ‘innovation’ – but this isn’t about big whizzy technology and the space cowboys. This is about everyday innovation and how the collective impact of a thousand micro-innovations creates systematic change.
We’re working in partnership with the Better Business Network and Manchester Metropolitan Business School on an exciting, thought-provoking day at the iconic Manchester Metropolitan University. If you’re passionate about building a business that leaves the world better than you found it, this is the event for you.
From leadership and finance to activism, impact and empowerment, a diverse range of subjects fit into our three main themes: seed, feed and grow.
Join us for the Better Business Summit on Thursday 19 January – a full day to discover new ideas, explore different approaches and learn how to take action. Start your year of action here.
Our programme
Seed
The future of leadership: The world we work in has changed over the last 2.5 years and many working environments are different places to the ones we left in March 2020. As we learn to navigate remote and hybrid working, what does that mean for future leaders? What are the qualities that we need to build responsible, resilient, future-proofed businesses and how do we seed these ideas? How do we make sure that people with lived experience of social issues are able to contribute to solving them? What is the next generation demanding from the businesses it supports? And how do we make sure that entrepreneurs now and in the future have the skills to take us forward?
Money: We’re in a cost-of-living crisis that will soon impact anyone earning under £30k. But we’re reluctant to talk about money; how to get it, what it means and what things really cost. How do we communicate the ‘true’ costs of products and services to people? How do we make access to money more equal? And can new technology and fintech address inequalities?
Activism: Now, more than ever, consumers expect the brands they buy from to stand for something. Yet, at the same time, audiences are increasingly savvy about greenwashing, sport washing and other fluffy distractions. So how do brands decide where to make their stand? And should they? How do you start carving out an activist streak? And how do you make sure it fits in with your wider strategy? Or, indeed, should you? What are the pros and what are the pitfalls?
Feed
Impact: Profit is vital to businesses. Without the sustainability that generating a profit brings, no brilliant idea or life-changing intervention will survive. But what a business chooses to do with those profits is the key difference. At a time when energy and water profits are going through the roof, we ask what profit is for? Should we cap director and employee salary multiples? We hear from some businesses doing brilliant things with their profits. And ask how we can each make more impact – both individually, and collectively.
Empowerment: Ideas come from all over; but most of us exist in a relative bubble. How do we acknowledge the structural inequalities that mean that growth and opportunities aren’t open to all? And how can we address them to make our workplaces more diverse, empathetic and intelligent?
Grow
Action: What have we learnt today? And how can we take action now to create change? What are the quick wins and ways of working that promote change and where is our energy best spent if we want to make a difference in the world?
Head to thebetterbusiness.network/better-businesssummit and grab your ticket now.
Ethos readers get a 30% reduction on Better Business Network membership for the first three months, which brings a range of benefits, including ticket discounts. Just use the code ETHOS.
