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