Leadership Dialogue Series with Asia Philanthropy Circle

The Leadership Dialogue Series (LDS) is a platform for senior industry figures share their perspectives and experiences with students as part of their holistic learning experience. In the second LDS, we invited Mr Laurence Lien, Co-Founder and CEO of the Asia Philanthropy Circle to talk about why having a civil society matters. He is also an MBA alumnus of the School.

In his talk, he explained that a civil society is made up of individuals and groups who desire to better the lives of a wider community in different ways.

Such a society has also been viewed as getting the people to have a greater sense of ownership of the country as they engage in social issues and helping the needy.

Louise Reodica, MBA Year 1, who was the emcee of the event, shared her thoughts about Mr Lien’s talk:

A lot of people may view the government, business, and non-profit sectors as three separate entities operating in isolation, but Mr Lien said that the non-profit organisations can complement the initiatives of the state, while businesses can create greater social value.

If we can learn to widen our perspective, then we begin to see an abundance of resources available, in the form of wealth and people, to help solve social challenges.

I believe that the most relevant message to students like me was about how commercial and social value are increasingly intertwined.

This is something that we must bring with us as we grow in our future careers so that we can maximise our capacity to effect change, not just within the organisation, but on society as a whole.