Shareholder vs Stakeholder Value

A new impact economy is being built, one where businesses prioritize and consider their impact on all the stakeholders they impact—including communities, workers, customers, and the environment. Ignite Sweden and Innovation Pioneers now team up for three joint iX Sessions in 2021 on the theme ”Shareholder vs Stakeholder value”. The goal is to share, learn and co-create a shift for our member companies to a stakeholder focus to benefit more sustainable and profitable business models.

”With organizations around the world facing similar challenges, there is strength in coming together to share and learn how to navigate the new society. With the current shift to all-digital events, it felt like a great opportunity to bring Innovation Pioneers’ and Ignite Sweden’s members together to understand the importance of having a stakeholder-focus for the future,” says Susanne Fuglsang, CEO of Innovation Pioneers.

Ignite Sweden and Innovation Pioneers are two of the leading innovation platforms in Sweden. Ignite Sweden is a non-profit initiative that aims to foster innovation and accelerate commercialization by connecting startups to large companies and public organizations. Innovation Pioneers is a social network and learning platform founded by innovation leaders and practitioners with over fifty member organizations from a wide cross industrial background of companies, organizations, government agencies, academia and research. 

“Our networks complement each other with a shared focus on innovation but from different perspectives. We believe the startup and corporate worlds can learn from each other when preparing for the future. Corporates can learn to adapt a startup mentality and move faster, while startups can benefit from the structure and worked-up global network of corporates. Bridging our networks for these iX sessions on the shareholder economy has the potential to create true impact, says Sara Hamlin, Business Developer at Ignite Sweden.

The first iX Session on March 10 will be on the theme “Global impact” and take a bigger focus on financing, the impact economy, and how companies are affected by a mind shift from shareholder to stakeholder. The upcoming two sessions will be hosted on June 9 on “Digital innovation” and on September 22 on “Sustainable innovation”.

”Globalization, digitization and sustainability put pressure on that the shift from shareholder to stakeholder needs to happen now. In a way, the pandemic has helped us make this shift quicker, as we see a different maturity in the digitalization of organizations today. We are now more prepared to look ahead and take responsibility for the future”, says Sara Hamlin.

”The iX Sessions will highlight the importance of focusing on all stakeholder perspectives for the business, not just when working with innovation but within the whole organization. We’ll also have members from both networks share their own shifts to a stakeholder focus, to set the foundation for truly taking action going forward”, says Susanne Fuglsang.

iX Session participants will take part in research and learnings on the impact and stakeholder economy to understand the importance of involving all parts within an organization’s ecosystem in the business model. The main focus of the sessions will be on open sharing between members, with discussions, collaboration and shared reflections.

The iX Sessions will be open exclusively for Ignite Public & Corporate Members and Initiators & Members of Innovation Pioneers.

Click here to secure your seat now for the Session 1 on Global Impact on Business that will be held online on March 10.