Capitalism under pressure: Why CEOs rethink corporate purpose

When Susan McPherson first came to New York in 2003, she never dreamed she’d be at the vanguard of a movement to reshape the core principles of American capitalism.

In her “nine lives” as a communications executive in various fields, she says, she’d always valued the importance of “giving back” to her community over the years. Her mother worked in public broadcasting and her father was a professor of history at a women’s college, and she says both had instilled in her the value of a career with a wider social purpose. 

“But when I moved to New York City, I didn’t know anyone, so as I was throwing myself into working full time, I also looked into nonprofits just to meet people,” says Ms. McPherson, now the CEO of her own communications consultancy in Manhattan, where she advises businesses how to be both sustainable and a “force for good.”

She wasn’t necessarily trying to rethink the powerful and elegant economic theories that for decades

Duties beyond earning profitsMere ‘virtue signaling,’ or more?New voices shaped by a crisisOne motive: building long-term value