Creating shared value in the Big Apple

Chrysler Building from my bed

Spent much of the week in New York, primarily for the first meeting of the new Nestlé Creating Shared Value Advisory Board, of which I’m a member. More on the background here.

Strange feeling, looking out at the Chrysler Building from my hotel bedroom, with the company in the process of filing for bankruptcy. Truly the end of an era. But also magic moments when the sun came up and caught the great silver gargoyles atop the building, a profoundly Ghostbusters moment.  Today, we need the economic equivalent of that merry band.

On Wednesday, I dropped in on a number of people, among them Linda Rottenberg of Endeavor, Peter Knight of Generation Investment Management and Ed Hughes and Michelle Kahane at the Clinton Global Initiative.  Slightly distracted in the CGI boardroom when, looking past Ed and Michelle I saw a naked man disporting in a window of the Hilton hotel across the way.  Then in the evening I took the ‘F’ line to Brooklyn, visiting SustainAbility’s NYC office with Michael Sadowski, after which we walked back across Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan as the sun set – and had supper at an excellent vegetarian restaurant, Gobo, in Greenwich Village.

Chrysler Building, again Flags on Fifth Avenue One of the Creating Shared Value panels Yellow ribbons line church railings View from the other side of Generation’s offices – towards Statue of Liberty Me in the lobby of Clinton Global Initiative building Eight legs, or thereabouts Brooklyn Bridge