Notre Dame and NDDCEL continue to inspire ethical business leaders with fall forum for early career professionals

Written by Courtney Ryan

For actionable insights for use in your workplace, check out our free downloadable guide for early career professionals and their managers

What would you do if your employer asked you to do something that conflicted with your values? How do you show up as your authentic self when the work you’re performing doesn’t feel meaningful? What can you ask during a job interview to help gauge whether a company values business ethics? How can you raise issues or concerns about ethics without offending leadership?

These were just a few of the questions pondered by early career professionals and emerging leaders at the Future Forward forum hosted by the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership (NDDCEL). Held at the University of Notre Dame Chicago Campus on October 3-4, the forum convened members of industry and academia to engage in lively discussions about values-driven business practices. It was also an opportunity for young professionals to apply scholarly research and innovative thought leadership to their post-academic careers.

Many participants were Notre Dame alumni. “Part of what I loved most about Notre Dame was being able to read, analyze, discuss and debate different types of concepts,” said attendee Cristin Pacifico (BBA ’15), who has served as a director for TechNexus Venture Collaborative’s strategy and venture investment team for the past five years. “Oftentimes, when we're in a work environment, it's very easy to become submerged in what you're doing. Having an immersive experience like this where we were able to purely focus on the different types of ethical dilemmas we may encounter in the work environment and how to navigate those has given me great context that I can bring back to my job and my role.”

The NDDCEL forum is the second in a series of three convenings this year. The series began with a leadership event in September for business students from eight universities that was co-sponsored by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. A third event for senior executives will be held in the spring.

“Our events this year represent the journey of ethical leadership starting with studying business, then moving to early career and then to senior leadership,” said Jessica McManus Warnell, Rex and Alice. A. Martin Faculty Director of the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. For each event, McManus Warnell shares insights from attendees of the previous event, culminating in a final content analysis to better understand ethical leadership experiences at different stages of academic and professional life.

“As this group is ascending to leadership positions, we want to hear what's important to them,” she said. “What are their companies doing well? What would they like to see improve? And then give them tools they can take with them to their roles.”

Over two days, Future Forward attendees discussed case studies and research highlights from Notre Dame faculty, including McManus Warnell, associate teaching professor Kelly Rubey, teaching professor Brian Levey, Professor of Philosophy and the Rev. John A O’Brien Collegiate Chair Meghan Sullivan and Gary Lamberti, Nieuwland Professor Emeritus of Aquatic Science. They also heard from business practitioners such as Cecelia Bolden, executive vice president and COO of EC-United, who spoke about inclusive leadership, and Lori Pressler, chief ethics officer at Deloitte. Betsy Besanceney, managing director of risk and financial advisory at Deloitte, gave the keynote presentation.

“A big part of my ethical leadership journey has been coming back to my authentic self because I think we're most successful when we're being ourselves,” said Besanceney. “We can be influenced sometimes by stress or pressure or a need to please, and that's when we end up straying from who we are. So I encouraged participants to bring their authentic selves to whatever they do because I believe inherently each of us is good and we want to do the right thing.”

Besanceney was particularly inspired by the active Q&A discussion that followed her keynote. “I’ve had the opportunity to speak to a lot of different groups, but I've not been asked [these] questions before. So that was very energizing,” she said. “Emerging leaders are our future, so the more we provide them with tools and opportunities to discuss and ponder these concerns the more we arrive at solutions.”

Along with participating in the forum itself, attendees were given a collection of relevant reading materials, including a copy of Giving Voice to Values by trailblazing business ethicist Mary Gentile. A member of the NDDCEL advisory board and consultant for leaders in academia, business, government and non-governmental organizations, Gentile also delivered a lecture based on her award-winning curriculum and book series. She developed the innovative Giving Voice to Values curriculum as a practical tool after years of witnessing repeated examples of corporate misconduct.

“I speak to different audiences, and young professionals like in this group are at an ideal point in their careers to implement Giving Voice to Values,” said Gentile. “They've perhaps started to feel some of the pressures to go against their values in professional settings, but they aren't disillusioned yet.”

Gentile’s research explores how people create behavioral patterns and the potential to build what she describes as “moral muscle memory” through rehearsal and peer coaching. Giving Voice to Values serves as a guide for individuals seeking to act on their values despite pressures that are barriers to ethical behavior regardless of where they are in their careers.

“People early on in their career are so concerned about establishing their credibility and looking good to their colleagues and their boss in particular that they sometimes censor themselves,” said Gentile. “But I want them to feel like they have more choices than they realize. There are ways to raise issues that can be seen as trying to improve the organization rather than make enemies within it. And I think if they learn to use that skill around ethical issues, they can use it around anything and it just makes them better leaders in general.”

The forum was also an opportunity for Notre Dame Deloitte Doctoral Scholars Marialena Bevilacqua and Jefferson McClain to showcase their research. Bevilacqua, a Ph.D. in Analytics candidate at Mendoza College of Business, delivered several timely insights from her analysis of artificial intelligence and ethical risks and whether algorithms should ever be tasked with making moral decisions. One insight that seemed to stick with attendees was that humanitarian organizations that use AI receive fewer monetary donations than organizations that don’t. “Humanitarian organizations should keep the human part,” remarked Bevilacqua.

Lauren Bock (ND ’23), a consulting analyst in the human capital practice at Deloitte, was especially intrigued by this statistic. “AI is such a buzzword right now and being in human capital, it's interesting that the research shows people and companies still want to invest in people doing the work,” said Bock. “It was refreshing to come back to Notre Dame and put an ethical lens on my work, and seeing the Ph.D. students present their research made me optimistic for the future.”

McClain’s research explores the power of perception and how it impacts meaningfulness at work. The Ph.D. in Management candidate presented a project on how romanticizing skills or a particular job doesn’t just create a cognitive understanding of meaningfulness, but can actually lead to experiencing meaningfulness in a more integrated sense. “This small act of learning how to change the pattern of our thoughts enables people to find more meaning in their work, which can help attenuate burnout, unethical tendencies or stress and can help promote positive outcomes for both the individual and the organization,” he said.

For Allan Njomo (BBA ’22), who now works as a health consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and was student body president during his time at Notre Dame, the forum itself served as an opportunity to shift perceptions around daily work after leaving the more idealized world of campus life.

“After being away for two years, this is such a great reminder of the education I had at Notre Dame and how the central question of our education is not how we can serve ourselves or advance our own agendas, but rather how we can serve others and build community,” he said. “What all these sessions put together have shown me is that there's always the question of how your work impacts others and society as a whole. This has been a reminder that even when your work may not necessarily seem like it has implications, it does have implications.”

This synthesization of the forum’s discussions was reciprocal, as its key takeaways also benefited corporate and academic presenters. McClain explained, “Now I'm working to take the challenges I heard discussed in the forum back to my research so that I can help find impactful solutions.” NDDCEL will also be publishing a resource through its website illustrating key learnings from the forum that will be available to business people anywhere.

Such cross-cultivation is purposeful for  NDDCEL, which seeks to create opportunities for ongoing dialogue at the intersection of scholarly research and corporate practice. Along with forums and lecture series, and the doctoral scholars program, the Center is planning to broaden its reach by launching custom online courses for learners located anywhere in the world.  

“All you have to do is turn on the news and you see there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the world,” said McManus Warnell. “I think scholarship is wonderful for scholarship's sake, but it also needs to inform the way people actually live and work. And I’m optimistic that the NDDCEL can be a place that contributes.”