Center for Social Value Creation: 2022-2023 Annual Report

THE ROBERT H. SMITH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

CENTER FOR SOCIAL VALUE CREATION

ANNUAL REPORT 2022 - 2023

DIRECTOR'S REMARKS

Dear Friends, Partners, and Impact-Driven Leaders,

This past year has been transformative for our Center. I am thankful to our team, partners, students, and greater community for helping us fulfill our mission. I am grateful for our dedicated Faculty Affiliates, CSVC Board, Staff, and generous donors who have enabled us to tackle the Grand Challenges of our time.

Our Center has always been dedicated to developing our students through experiential learning and curricular enhancement. This past year we came up with an ambitious goal of not only continuing to enhance the student experience but also growing our thought leadership. In order to do so, we expanded our team and added Stephanie Cantor, a Smith '12 Alum who helped found CSVC. Stephanie's expertise in Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Entrepreneurship, and Consulting allowed us to surpass our goals!

We hosted three conferences, released our first thought leadership piece, and continued our annual convening at our ESG Conference. Our Environmental and Social Value Creation report offered six impactful levers that industry leaders can utilize in order to serve both stakeholders and shareholders. Our conferences sparked important conversations surrounding impact. We are proud to build this inclusive space for knowledge creation.

We grew our Impact Consulting Fellowship and launched even more case competitions. A special thank you to Sigma Chi Fraternity’s Gamma Chi Chapter. With their partnership, we started a revolutionary new Value Creation Challenge Course that partnered Greek Life with Academia and increased alumni and community engagement in the classroom.

I am proud to see how far we have come in four years. The Center has grown, and so has Smith alongside it, but our work is not complete. Our future holds a place where we will work in tandem with the entire Smith School. Our partnerships will influence curriculum, research, and experiential learning to spread a positive impact to our greater community.

Smith will stand together to create a unified vision, centered around Social Impact in Sustainable Businesses. We can not achieve this vision alone. Our doors are always open to how we can continue to work together.

Nima Farshchi, MBA '20, '14 , Center Director

ABOUT OUR CENTER

Founded in 2009, the Center for Social Value Creation operates with a mission to educate, engage, and empower the Smith community and the world to create a better world through business. We do this through thought-provoking dialogue, thought leaderrship, and experiential learning.

We operate with the goal of creating long-term value for both people and the planet and strive to engrain that passion into the lives of future business leaders. Within the business school, we serve as a tool for students who are interested in creating value by helping them learn how to put that drive into action and tackle the grand challenges of our time!

ThisYearinNumbers

16,000+

Pro-bono consulting hours accumulated within our Impact Consulting Fellowship

7,500+

Individuals engaged through social media

3,000+

1,200+

150+

Readers reached through the Here&Now Newsletter

Event attendees across conferences + speakers

Student consultants in Impact Consulting Fellowship

Case competitions hosted 5

Thought leadership conferences hosted on ESG, B-Corps, and Experiential Learning 3

3

Impact-centered courses launched across departments

3

Valuable, educational speaker events/discussions

ESVC report highlighting strategic plans for creating value across nine industries

Net Impact chapter achieving gold status

SpeakerEvents

This year, we supported three speaker events with the goal of empowering students to think critically about issues surrounding Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and value creation.

Accountants Will Save The World

The Robert H. Smith School of Business had the unique opportunity to host four ESG leaders from KPMG and Grant Thornton. This speaker panel focused on the impacts of Accounting on ESG initiatives and the responsibility that accountants have to ensure a measurable change in businesses. Students and Faculty learned from these leaders the importance of public disclosure and what the future of business looks like with these new metrics and regulations.

Tata Innovation Dialogues

Every year we are proud to host the Tata Innovation Dialogues. This year Lina Klebanov, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, and Michael McCabe, Resident Director, shared their experiences in consulting and social impact during the event, "Engaging With Stakeholders to Leverage and Grow Impact: The TCS Way!" This event was a valuable chance for students to learn how to create and maintain a globally sustainable business. The event also offered students the valuable opportunity to network and build connections with impact-driven professionals. Students were also presented with Tata Global internship opportunities, encouraging students to lead impact-driven careers in business.

FiresideChats

This year, we continued an interactive way for students to learn from industry experts. Our Fireside Chats have created a platform for candid discussions around pressing topics and have also opened an opportunity for students to build lasting relationships with industry leaders.

Dr. Bill Longbrake, Executive-in-Residence

This year's Fireside Chat featured Dr. Bill Longbrake, Executive-in-Residence at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and member of our Center for Financial Policy.

Dr. Longbrake generously shared his wealth of knowledge and experiences with aspiring Smith students who are looking to better understand the intersection of finance, impactdriven investing strategies and ESG investment philosophies.

Bill Longbrake’s event was inspiring, engaging, and encouraging as he shared stories about his experiences and the lessons he learned along the way!

Faith LeBrun, Student Attendee

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ESGConference

On December 9th, 2022, we hosted our second annual ESG Conference themed around “The State of Our Impact.” This event brought together impact-driven leaders from dozens of industries who shared their thoughts on the state of ESG in industry. We are so proud to provide this space for thought leadership and are excited to see the impact that comes out of these events now and in the future. Thank you so much to all of our speakers partners and attendees for making this event such a success and collaborating on tackling these Grand Challenges!

WATCH RECORDED SESSIONS AT GO.UMD.EDU/ESGRECORDINGS

Keynote Speakers

Carolyn Berkowitz

As the President and CEO of the AACP, Carolyn has developed an astute knowledge of CSR, becoming nationally recognized as a corporate social impact leader. She graciously shared her learnings with us during her presentation on building a case for sustainability in businesses.

Orrin Marcella & Keesa Schreane

We had the fortune of hearing these two ESG leaders candidly speak on the state of impact in their respective industries. Orrin and Keesa offered real life examples of impact initiatives and discussed what the future of ESG looks like with the increase in discussion surrounding the field.

Breakout Session Speakers

Andrew Snowhite Chief Strategy & Sustainability Officer, Snowhite Strategies

Glenn Noble

Chief Executive Officer, ProudlyGive

Andrew Shaw Partner, Dentons

Alpana Mittal

ESG & Social Impact Strategist, Twilio

mily Hardin irector Credit & nderwriting, SC

Ben McGovern

Senior Manager, Global Consulting Solutions, CohnReznick LLP

Tracy Akinade

Associate Director, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

Sarah Mihalecz

Senior Director, Transaction Acceleration Group, Clean Energy Buyers Association

Matt Sekol Industry Advocate, WW Sustainability, Microsoft

Jenny Brusgul

ESG Practice Leader, CohnReznick LLP

Deepika Yadav

Project Manager: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, International Finance Corporation

Garrett Zink

Senior Manager of Social Impact, Marriott International

TheStateofEnvironmental&Social ValueCreationReport

More than ever before, consumers demand commitments to sustainability and social good from brands across every industry. These commitments appear in different mediums and under many names: CSR, ESG, sustainability, and more. We categorize initiatives like these as "environmental and social value creation," or ESVC. Through research, interviews, and an audit of hundreds of corporate initiatives, CSVC uncovered six ways companies can generate sustainable impact. We call them Levers which you can read in the report!

Industry Focused Sub-Reports

Automobile

Consumer Goods and Retail

Energy

Entertainment

Financial Services

Healthcare

Hospitality and Dining

Technology

Telecommunications

3 Key Takeways:

of companies report being driven by sustainable consumer behaviors

80% of companies have created a specialized committee to oversee ESVC issues

33% of companies identify investors as being a primary ESVC motivator

55%

Mid-Atlantic B Corps: Using Business as a Force of Good Conferences

Our Center Director, Nima Farshchi, served on the planning committee and led a session at the first annual Mid-Atlantic B Corps Research-Practice Workshop this year. At this event, nearly seventy academics and business leaders in the region came together and brainstormed possibilities for academia and industry to work together in the B Corp movement. We are proud to help drive research and accelerate the sustainable business movement.

Leaders of Experiential Project-Based Education Conference

The LEPE Conference was hosted by the Center for Social Value Creation this past July. This Conference helped seventy-five academics from thirty-five different Universities from across the globe better understand the term "action learning" and how to integrate it into the curriculum. We had the opportunity to share some of our best practices including our Impact Consulting Fellowship. Increasing these experiential learning opportunities is an exciting new way for professors to enrich their student's learning!

COMING SOON! The 6th Global Conference on Creating Value

OCTOBER 19-21, 2023

This Fall, the Center for Social Value Creation has the honor of teaming up to host the 6th Global Conference on Creating Value. This conference on Value Creation will bring together business leaders and academics from around the world to share perspectives on different approaches to creating value. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from one another and help address real-life challenges preventing value creation in organizations. Don't miss out on this amazing event to collaborate with individuals around the world on creating positive impact!

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

ImpactConsultingFellowship

Our Impact Consulting Fellowship (ICF) is one of our most esteemed and long-running programs. We completed three additional iterations this year. This unique program gives students across our campuses the opportunity to provide hands-on, pro-bono consulting services within a diverse team of MBA, Masters, and Undergraduate students for impactdriven organizations.

Throughout ICF, student consultants attend professional development sessions to assist in their learning of critical consulting skills. Students showcase their learnings in a final huddle presentation that concludes the program. All participants leave this program having gained hands-on experiences in consulting and having developed beneficial connections with other impact leaders. This year, 150+ students participated in the Impact Consulting Fellowship and engaged over fifteen organizations. Students provided creative marketing solutions, frameworks for new product launches, in-depth research results to solve complex business issues, etc.

Data-DrivenConsultingFellowship

This past summer, our Data-Driven Consulting Fellowship ran for its inaugural iteration. This fellowship showed significant success as it gave almost eighty students the chance to work in cross-functional student teams to provide impact-driven organizations with data-driven suggestions to improve their impact. This fellowship was another opportunity for students to gain hands-on consulting experience while providing valuable services to worthwhile organizations including Real Estate Investment Solutions, Smiths Detection, Pnetworks, and more!

OfficeofExperientialLearning

This year the Smith School launched the Office of Experiential Learning to help connect classrooms with alumni and corporate partners. This office creates valuable opportunities for students to solve real problems for real companies. If you are interested in having Smith Students help tackle any of your sustainability or other challenges, please reach out to Nima!

CaseCompetitions

We hosted a variety of case competitions throughout the year to provide real-world experiences for students both inside and outside the classroom.

CSVC X Affinity Organizations Social Impact Strategy Case Competiton

CSVC partnered with 7 on-campus Affinity Organizations to host a case competition with M&T Bank surrounding their Social Impact Strategy. Students of minority groups were challenged to help M&T Bank develop an innovative and impactful plan to redefine how banking affects diverse communities. This case was centralized around the disparate impact that social injustice has on minority groups and empowered students representing those communities to help tackle the problem.

Phi Chi Theta Case Competition

CSVC partners with Phi Chi Theta, a professional fraternity, every semester to host a case competition in which all new members participate. This competition provides early exposure to case competitions, encourages critical thinking on issues of value creation and sustainability, and typically is in partnership with a local non-profit or organization to provide real, positive change.

The Greater Cumberland Committee Case Competiton

In our BMGT485 Project Management course, The Greater Cumberland Committee (TGCC) led a live-case where students were tasked with creating a project management plan to create a corporate structure that would distribute metric-based ESG tokens. Philip Gottwals, ACDS Managing Director, provided students guidance as they developed a step-by-step process on the creation of the internal business structures required for a successful company launch. TGCC is currently in the process of creating this new organization and are utilizing the class' final products.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

CaseCompetitions

Impact Competition

Impact Competition is a collegiate case competition that addresses a unique social issue each year by directly partnering with and donating to a local non-profit. The competition provides a financial incentive for teams of students to brainstorm effective solutions for the most pressing issues affecting the communities they live in, with the winning team receiving a cash prize. This year, CSVC hosted its second annual Impact Competition at Maryland Smith, opening the competition up to teams within our Value Creation Challenge course that taught students how to effectively create value in businesses.

Students utilized the skills learned in this course to provide Youth Leadership Foundation (YLF) with a plan that helps address SDG #4: Quality Education. Students were tasked with creating a summer program that educated children on the uses and impacts of virtual and augmented reality. YLF is currently implementing many of the student's recommendations.

Smith Invitational Case Competition

The Smith Invitational Case Competition is an ESGfocused competition hosted annually during winter break by CSVC. This year, four teams of students were selected to compete for the chance to win a cash prize and advance to represent Maryland Smith on the national stage at the Milgard Invitational Case Competition on Social Responsibility. The case was centered on measuring social impact and providing strategic, longterm advice for a fictional company. We are proud of our students who took their talents to Milgard this year in Tacoma, Washington!

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN

Courses

BMGT468V/W:

Business Models & Methods to Affect Social Change

This course was previously known as the Social Innovation Fellows, but is still offered concurrently in the Fall and Spring Semesters. BMGT468V and BMGT468W help students both discover themselves and how businesses can create a positive social impact and enact lasting change. Through the teachings of Professor David Kirsch students learn about the role of social entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in driving positive social and environmental change in our communities while tackling the grand challenges of our time.

BMGT468G:

The Value Creation Challenge

Founded as a partnership with Sigma Chi Fraternity's, Gamma Chi Chapter, this course enables students to collaborate with peers across campus on consulting projects for purpose-minded organizations. In this class, thirty students learned from Professor Oliver Schlake about developing business models that tackle relevant social and environmental issues. Students culminated the course by participating in our Impact Competition.

ENES401:

Entrepreneurial Design Realization

In this first-of-its-kind, cross-campus course, students have the rare opportunity to interact with business and engineering students to bring sustainability projects to the public domain. This course creates a platform for innovation and teaches students the full life-cycle of product development and implementation.

AcademicPartners

We are thrilled to have worked with three diverse thought leadership partners throughout this year, each of which support and drive our mission forward.

THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS

FacultyAffiliates

Management & Organization

Nicole Coomber | Clinical Professor, Assistant Dean of Experiential Learning

Protiti Dastidar | Clinical Professor, Associate Area Chair

Paulo Prochno | Clinical Professor

James Sanders | Lecturer

Oliver Schlake | Clinical Professor

Rob Sheehan | Lecturer, Academic Director of the Executive MBA Program

Roy Thomason | Lecturer

David Waguespack | Associate Professor

Marketing

Rosellina Ferraro | Associate Professor, Associate Dean of MBA Programs

Judy Frels | Clinical Professor, Academic Director of MS Marketing Analytics

Mary Beth Furst | Associate Professor, Associate Area Chair

Amna Kirmani | Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Marketing, Area Chair

Roxanne Lefkoff | Clinical Professor

Rebecca Ratner | Dean's Professor of Marketing

Roland Rust | Distinguished University Professor, David Bruce Smith Marketing Chair

Logistics, Business & Public Policy

Jon Crocker | Clinical Professor

Rachelle Sampson | Associate Professor

Grace Tungtisanont | Associate Professor

Bennet Zelner | Associate Professor

Finance

Cecilia Bustamante | Associate Professor

Kenneth Fuller | Lecturer

Clifford Rossi | Professor of the Practice, Director Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium

Russell Wermers | Area Chair, Paul J. Cinquegrana Endowed Chair in Finance

Accounting & Information Assurance

Samuel Handwerger | Lecturer

Rebecca Hann | Dean's Professor of Accounting, Assistant Dean of Doctoral Programs

Michael McMillan | Associate Clinical Professor

Patrick McNamee | Lecturer

Decision, Operations & Information Technology

Anand Anandalingam | Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Management Science

M. Gisela Bardossy | Associate Clinical Professor

Margrét Bjarnadóttir | Associate Professor

Wedad Elmaghraby | Dean's Professor of Operations Management, Area Chair

CoalitionforBetterBusiness

Our Coalition for Better Business highlights and engages companies and organizations that prioritize the United Nations' SDGs, ESG Goals, have a keen interest in Maryland Smith students and believe in the good of people, planning, and profit. We are thrilled to have Tata as one of our founding members.

PhilanthropicSponsors

We would like to give a special thank you to our Philanthropic Sponsors. Generous donations from our Philanthropic Sponsors allow us to continue our mission of making a better world through business by creating classes, case competitions, new programs, and much more.

Robert H. Smith Family Foundation

Sigma Chi Fraternity, Gamma Chi Chapter Impact Competition Foundation

CorporatePartners

OUR TEAM

AdvisoryBoard

John Chickering, MBA '85

John Chickering advises boards and senior executives on strategy, technology, and operations. His career at Fidelity Investments spanned twenty-two years and included high-ROI solutions creating a longlasting financial and social impact. He is a published author, speaker, volunteer, with several community service organizations, and advocate for social value creation.

As the Head of Global Brand of GE Healthcare, Kristin Fallon recently executed the successful and historic 2023 company rebrand as part of their spin-off from GE. She is an International Advertising Association Board Member and a Founding Member of the Washington, DC chapter of Chief. Prior to GE, Kristin founded a consultancy based in Indonesia and began her career in the Peace Corps in Benin.

Kapil Sharma serves as the founder and principle of Kapstone Strategies, a consulting firm that provides an integrated approach to problem-solving for corporate executives. He is the Acting Senior Director and Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. He brings public policy foresight and expertise built over thirty years of working with organizations and leaders at the state, national, and international levels.

Steve Freishtat, '81

Steve Freishtat is the former CEO and Founder of the Next Day Blinds Corporation, gaining immeasurable experience growing a business from the ground up which he now shares as a small business advisor. He is committed to the progression of business toward cultural stakeholder primacy through conscious workplace leadership.

Kristin Fallon, MBA '11

Kapil Sharma

FacultyandStaff

ImpactConsultingFellowshipLead Sophomore-Economics&Finance

Ayman Bootwala

ConferenceLead

Junior-Economics&AppliedMathematics

ExperientialLearningStudentLead

Junior-InformationSystems

SDGsLead MSSCMCandidate

DigitalMedia&MarketingLead

Senior-Marketing&Psychology

Lee-Ellen Myles

GraduateAssistant

MBA&MPPCandidate

Alexia Ayuk Strategy&OperationsLead Senior-OMBA,Philosophy

Romir Chandra

Maura Friddle

Julia Giglio

Katie Manning

Collin Marcian Internal Strategy Lead Senior - Information Systems

Nima Farshchi Executive Director g

David Kirsch Faculty Director

SUPPORT CSVC

Give

With your financial support, the Center for Social Value Creation delivers more effectively on our mission to educate, engage, and empower Smith students to create a better world through business. Your gift ensures continuity of student programming, allows us to develop new initiatives, supports faculty research, and more. One-time and recurring donations are available. A gift of any size is appreciated and directly impacts students across the campus. Make a gift today at go.umd.edu/supportCSVC!

CorporatePartners

The Coalition for Better Business is a unique industry partner model that brings to life our mission. Coalition partners espouse positive business principles, ESG, SDGs, and engage throughout the school year in guest lectures, live cases, skills workshops, special events, community convenings, and more.

AlumniMentors

If you are a Smith alumnus applying your business skills towards ESG, SDGs, sustainability, and other ways of creating a better world through business, volunteer as an alumni mentor and help our students connect deeply with the prospect of social value creation. Reach out to csvc@umd.edu to get involved.

FeaturedGuests

Opportunities both inside and outside of the classroom for special guests, speakers, and presenters to engage on the subject of "doing well by doing good." If you enjoy public speaking and facilitation and want to connect with a student audience, send us a note to propose a topic and speaking engagement at csvc@umd.edu.

THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS

2022-2023Donors

Our donors make our programs, pro-bono consulting, case competitions, speaker events, and more possible for our students and the greater community. This year, with the help of our donors, we were able to raise a record-high amount for our center by the second highest amount of donors at Smith on Giving Day 2022. We thank each of our donors for their generosity and commitment to making the world a better place through business.

Wall of Fame Donors

Allison Baker

Stephanie Cantor

Melissa Carrier

John and Margaret Chickering

Matthew Chin

Nazat Dowla

Kristin Fallon

Hamid Farshchi

Nima Farshchi

Steven and Sheryl Freishtat

Kimberlee and Timothy Glinka

Dillon Hagius

Shirley Han

Dr. David Kirsch

Peterson Njamunge

Gregory and Patricia Schaub

Tal and Andrea Plotkin

Rebecca Winner

Anne Zappas

Annual Report Level Donors

Ashlee Albertson

Marni Aronson

Kathryn Balcerzak

Dr. Nicole Coomber

Michael Dowling, Jr.

Lisa Dunn

Scott Goodwin

Matthew Kannan

Dhivyan Karunakaran

Omer Kaufman

Firouzeh Khaje Nouri

Yvette King

Michael Kong

Kara Lawson

Matthew Leib

Fiona Machado

Gianna Mariani

Lee-Ellen Myles

Dr. Paulo Prochno

Isabella Roccograndi

Joseph Rotter

Teresa Russell

Megan Sanquist

Kushaan Shah

Ajay Shankar

Kevin Takiar

Omobolaji Vincent

Stephen Vitale

Multi-Year Donors

Heather Bacon

Benjamin Cutler

Christopher Dax

Shelby Kemp

Karen Qi

Victoria Shi

Alexander Stone

Isabella Wagner