Welcome to AFR BOSS

JUNE issue out now!

It's often said that the best ideas flourish in periods of disruption. So let's start the conversations about how we'd like to shape business and society for when we emerge from the financial crisis and recession, even as we navigate through sharply changed social and economic circumstances.

This was the frame for our annual Big Ideas special (our sixth). In this issue, we enlisted some leading Australian thinkers to survey possible futures in finance, work, technology, behaviour, education, and social responsibility. Among them, associate professor John Armstrong, philosopher-in-residence at the Melbourne Business School, describes what we've experienced as capitalism in adolescent crisis. "We have given ourselves an economic system that is a magnificent achievement but which we are not yet ethically and emotionally mature enough to deal with." Check our website for extended versions.

In this vein, associate professor Rakesh Khurana, from Harvard Business School, offered some tough-minded thoughts to help the development process. Khurana wrote From Higher Aims to Hired Hands, a 2007 book that discussed the unfulfilled promise of management education. Harvard and its ilk matter because they've seeded so much of the educational and corporate elite. The issue has sparked an intense blogging debate about the degree to which "greedy" MBAs contributed to the financial crisis. Khurana lays part of the blame at the dominance of neoclassical economics and functional disciplines, at the expense of reflective experiential learning.

Our cover story this month stems from the opportunistic merger that has reshaped Australia's retail banking sector. Andrew Cornell has a rare sit-down with Westpac boss Gail Kelly about her plans for St George. Sheer determination is a core part of "coach" Kelly's constitution. She reflects on her transition from the emotional rawness of being a first-time mum in South Africa, to overseeing the multi-brand strategy for the merged banks under her watch.

 

Narelle Hooper
Editor

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