Denise Webb, 20, is a CoGenerate Senior Fellow. She’s a student at Berry College and a seasoned activist, working with organizations including United Way, Partnership for Southern Equity and The Sunrise Movement. She is the co-author of Why Aren’t We Doing This!...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
What Young Leaders Want — And Don’t Want — From Older Allies
We know from our nationally representative study with NORC at the University of Chicago in 2022 that 76% of Gen Z and 70% of Millennial respondents wish they had more opportunities to work across generations for change. In a new report, What Young Leaders Want — And...
Two Oscar-winning Films Shine a Light on Intergenerational Connection
Despite the ongoing drumbeat of generational conflict (a hate story), right in front of us is evidence of a new narrative of cross-generational connection and collaboration (a love story). That love story was on full display at the Grammys, most visibly in the Tracy...
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Michael Connor
Purpose Prize Fellow 2014
This journalist marshaled shareholders of big media companies to press them to disclose details about government surveillance programs.
“Business ethics” Isn’t that an oxymoron” I heard that joke a lot in 2004 when I bought Business Ethics , a magazine about corporate responsibility. But more than 40 years as a business journalist and media executive taught me that corporate secrecy can be a threat to the bottom line and to democracy.
In 2007 I took my personal conviction a step further, when I helped launch Open MIC, a nonprofit that marshals the power of shareholders to push publicly held media and telecommunications companies for more open and responsible business practices. The Open MIC investor coalition now has combined assets under management (AUM) of about $170 billion.
Our work is groundbreaking because we use shareholder activism to create societal change, which we believe hasn’t been tried before in the media and telecom industries.
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Shareholder coalition has $170 billion in combined assets under management (AUM)Â
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Helped force telecoms to come clean about NSA privacy violations
After Edward Snowden blew the whistle on NSA snooping, in September 2013 I rounded up a coalition of major investors, including the $160-billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, to urge telecom companies to disclose data about the customer information they shared with the government.
Major players like Verizon and AT&T refused – until we filed shareholder proposals arguing that they put their franchises at risk by failing to make serious and long-term commitments to protecting customer privacy.
By December 2013, both Verizon and AT&T folded and agreed to publish transparency reports. That was a big victory, affecting hundreds of millions of people. In separate Open MIC initiatives, we also convinced Apple, Amazon and eBay to consider privacy and data security as material risks.
Organizing for Open MIC can be challenging. Social justice advocates are often not comfortable with the language of capital markets, and the companies we target are almost always skeptical of our motives. I straddle the line. That’s exactly where I need to be.