The Economy of Communion As Stakeholder Capitalism: Exploring Religion’s Evolving Influence on Business—Session 4

In 2019, the Business Roundtable redefined the purpose of a corporation to promote “an economy that serves all Americans.” In 2020, the New York Times endorsed this redefinition of corporate purpose fifty years after Milton Friedman’s editorial and amid protests for recognizing and including all. This year the Fordham University School of Law’s Institute on Religion, Law, and Lawyer’s Work and Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding invite you to explore how business can accomplish these humanistic goals. The Economy of Communion (EoC) is an economic model created within the Catholic tradition positing that business exists for the benefit of all people who make up a workplace, workforce, and marketplace. Religion has long influenced the norms and practices in which business is conducted, iconically with the Weberian “work ethic” informing capitalism. This conference will explore the continuing evolution of its relationship with business from a religiously diverse lens over four one-hour sessions each Tuesday in October. There will also be two Thursday sessions for reflection and networking.

Session IV: The Every Day of Communion

Exploration by and for ERG leaders and chief diversity officers of the application of the EoC in their work.

Speakers

• Denise Breaux Soignet is the director of the Tyson Center for Faith-Friendly Workplaces and an associate professor of management in the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. She earned a Ph.D. in organizational behavior and human resources management from Florida State University and is a certified professional for the Society for Human Resource Management.
• Sadaf Parvaiz has more than 20 years of experience in the private sector as an inclusion and diversity industry leader. She works at GHD as the first-ever global enterprise inclusion and diversity leader. Parvaiz is leading the D&I strategy across GHD with more than 200 offices globally. Parvaiz and her team were responsible for ensuring all EY talent and business processes are designed from a D&I lens.
• Teresa Ganzon took over an ailing family rural bank, Bangko Kabayan, in the ‘70s and, together with her husband, Francis, turned it around to not only become a viable, relevant financial institution but a regional private development bank, today serving the needs of micro, small and medium enterprises in the Philippine countryside. Their inspiration and guide have been the economy of communion, which they tried to integrate into current management practices through the past 40 years. Retiring in 2018 from active management, Ganzon is a current member of the board of directors of Bangko Kabayan and heads the BK Foundation, which serves as the social arm of Bangko Kabayan today. She is also a co-convenor in the EOC Asia Pacific network.
• Wael Metwally has served as the global co-Lead of the Interfaith EBRG since 2018. His passion revolves around supporting employees from diverse religious, spiritual, and cultural backgrounds to bring their whole selves to work. Over the years, Metwally supported the expansion of the interfaith organization within Merck & MSD across the globe, mentoring many D&I leaders.