The Insights for Action seminar series explores how researchers and practitioners within and beyond Oxford are using research insights for action. Join us to hear conversations between researchers and practitioners who are working across disciplines, sectors, and media to understand and create more equitable and just social, economic, environmental, and health systems.
In this seminar, Dr Aoife Brophy, Kaya Axelsson, and Charmian Love will discuss the leadership practices required of business and others to achieve Net Zero targets, within and between organisations.
Friday 28 January 2022, 15.30-16.30
Speaker bios:
Kaya Axelsson is the new, jointly appointed Net Zero Policy Engagement Fellow, working with the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and the Environmental Change Institute to support the practical application of net zero research insights. Kaya leads a team of researchers to aggregate and clearly communicate resources for defining and achieving net zero on a new digital platform for engaging businesses and policy makers. Kaya also hosts regular engagement events with the business and policy community. Kaya comes to this position from her post as the Vice-President at the Oxford Student Union where she helped to develop the University of Oxford’s own sustainability strategy, including its pathway to net zero. Kaya holds an Mphil in Comparative Government where she earned a distinction for her thesis on the success of unlikely renewable energy coalitions.
Dr Aoife Brophy is Departmental Research Lecturer in Innovation and Enterprise at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School and Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and Co-Investigator of Oxford Net Zero. Her research focuses on innovation in business models and in collaboration that can harness the power of business to address sustainable development challenges. She has led research projects on utilities in the energy transition, sustainable districts, circular economy collaborations and off-grid energy in sub-Saharan Africa. She co-directs the GOTO programme for the executive MBAs, and the recently launched Oxford Climate Emergency programme. Both programmes focus on equipping senior leaders with the skills to approach complex problems such as the climate emergency in ways that unlock opportunities for innovation. Aoife was previously a senior researcher at the Group for Sustainability and Technology (SusTec) at ETH in Zurich. She received her PhD from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and her MA from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University where she was a Fulbright scholar.
Charmian Love is Co-Founder and Activist in Residence at B Lab UK, where she supports the growth of B Corps across the UK (and beyond) and is Co-Chair of B Lab’s Global Climate Taskforce. She is also a Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, where she is guiding the development of the Regenerative and Circular Economy Lab and designed and teaches a popular MBA course on this subject; she is also Co-Director for the newly launched Oxford Climate Emergency Programme, has co-taught an Executive MBA course on Systempreneurship: Innovating for Impact, contributed to the core MBA class ‘Capitalism in Debate’ and is a regular tutor in the GOTO programme focused on equipping students with skills and tools to engage in system change. Charmian believes in the power of business as a force for good and has first-hand experience in what it is like to be an entrepreneur, an intrapreneur and a systempreneur.
Moderator bio:
Professor Marya Besharov is the inaugural Academic Director for the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, a diverse, equitable and inclusive learning community of academics, practitioners and students from around the world. The Skoll Centre pioneers global learning in Social Entrepreneurship, Systems Change and Knowledge Equity through world-class education programmes, action-centred research and catalytic collaborations.
She was previously on the faculty of the ILR School at Cornell University. An organisational theorist with a background in sociology, she studies how organisations and their leaders navigate competing strategic priorities to achieve both social impact and commercial success. Marya received a BA in Social Studies, an MA in Sociology, and a PhD in Organisational Behaviour from Harvard University. She also holds an MBA from Stanford University.
*This event will be recorded.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leadership-for-net-zero-tickets-225829701717
