New partnership to develop purposeful and ethical leaders

The Purposeful Leaders Initiative, supported by the Gourlay Charitable Trust, will drive systemic ethical change for Australian businesses.

Melbourne Business School has announced a new partnership with the Gourlay Charitable Trust to develop a Purposeful Leaders Initiative (the Initiative).

Led by Professor Will Harvey in his capacity as Director of the Sustainable Value Creation Institute, the Initiative’s vision is to develop purposeful and ethical business leaders to help secure a prosperous national economy.

The Gourlay Charitable Trust have a long-standing history with Melbourne Business School through the Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business endowment established with the University of Melbourne and Trinity College in 2004.

For over 20 years, the Trust has advocated that the application of ethical strategies to business activity and decision-making delivers enhanced, long-term business outcomes.

This new Initiative will build on this work and aim to enable system level change explained Professor Harvey.

“Purposeful leadership is the ethical strategies, behaviours and outcomes driven by leaders to ensure prosperity for their businesses alongside positive social outcomes for a wide range of stakeholders,” he said.

“This new Initiative will provide significant and tangible impact for Australian communities through elevating awareness and delivery of purposeful leadership in the workplace, helping to deliver on the Institute’s goal of fundamentally advancing sustainable value creation among Australian companies.”

The Initiative will have three, interrelated focus areas, research, capability building and thought leadership.

Melbourne Business School Dean Professor Jenny George thanked the Gourlay family for their continual support of the School’s purpose of developing leaders for a sustainable future.

“We are focused on creating leaders who are skilled, competent and driven by moral purpose to deliver long-term value," Professor George said.

“This initiative, generously supported by the Gourlay Charitable Trust, goes to the very heart of advancing this and creating lasting, transformative change for our society.”

“The Initiative is a continuation of the original purpose of establishing the Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business, which was inspired by a belief that the exercise of uncompromising integrity and morality, as well as being intrinsically desirable, delivers improved and more certain business outcomes,” Emma Harrison, Chair of the Gourlay Charitable Trust said.

“We’re excited to work with Professor Harvey and the Sustainable Value Creation Institute to enhance Australia’s leadership capability and ensure ethical business action that supports long-term prosperity.”