“I can't live my life creating the illusion of
meaningfulness when deep in my heart I know that every five
seconds a child is dying.” So says Tex Gunning, president
of Unilever Bestfoods Asia and one of today's most innovative
corporate executives. The Dutch-born Gunning has backed up his
heartfelt conviction with bold initiatives centered on lofty
social goals–initiatives that have been conceived and
implemented from within the profit driven framework of a large
multinational company. His story has become the stuff of
corporate legend and is chronicled in the book, To the
Desert and Back: the Story of One of the Most Dramatic Business
Transformations on Record.
In this interview with WIE senior editor Elizabeth
Debold, Gunning speaks about the inner workings and complex
interrelationships of the capital and social markets, his
groundbreaking work at Unilever, and the spiritual core at the
heart of his life and work. At a time when multinational
corporations are often denounced as the root cause of economic
inequality in the world today, it is refreshing to hear this
veteran corporate insider describe exactly why a competitive
edge can also work for the common good, is able to create wealth
where none existed before, and can manage to do it all whilst minding
the bottom-line. Big business has the power and the influence to
do big things—what Gunning and those like him are proving
is that with the right vision and motivation, it uniquely
possesses the ways and means to tackle some of the most crucial challenges facing humanity today.
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Recorded on: 8/13/2004
Business And Spirituality