Tuesday, January 16, 2018
On January 12, Lawrence Fink, CEO of BlackRock – a $6 trillion dollar asset manager -- sent a letter to CEOs of public companies with a surprising message: he told them that their responsibility was not just to deliver profits, but to make a positive contribution to society. He wrote that the public sector is “failing to prepare for the future, on issues ranging from retirement and infrastructure to automation and worker retraining. …As a result, society increasingly is turning to the private sector and asking that companies respond to broader societal challenges.” The New York Times described this letter as “a bracing example of the evolution of corporate America.”