A DePaul University professor recently named as one of the world’s most influential business ethicists is partnering with a founder of the first accredited MBA degree in sustainable management to launch a new workshop series at DePaul University to help Chicago executives develop organization-wide strategies for increasing socially responsible business opportunities.

Patricia Werhane, Wicklander Chair in Business Ethics, and Ron Nahser, senior Wicklander fellow and a sustainable management expert at DePaul, will host an informational open house April 6 to reveal more details about the executive education program, which they will teach beginning in June at DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business.

The free open house for corporate, civic and non-profit leaders will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Michigan Room of the University Club, 76 E. Monroe St., Chicago. The agenda will feature a short presentation by Werhane and Nahser, following by a question and answer period and reception.

The series of two-to-five-day executive education workshops is the brainchild of the Institute for Business at Professional Ethics (IBPE) at DePaul, which Werhane directs and where Nahser conducts research. The initiative is part of the institute’s corporate outreach mission to foster knowledge-sharing among scholars and business leaders about ethical decision-making and poverty reduction through for-profit enterprises, Werhane explained.

"Recent events have increased demand for corporate sustainability, from the ethical lapses tied to the financial meltdown, to the growing scrutiny international corporations face for their impact on global warming and world poverty," Werhane said. "The institute’s workshops will help executives explore a number of issues that converge under the heading of sustainable management, including how business organizations can support both profits and core values through long-term global business strategies that address climate change, preserving energy supplies, human rights and alleviating poverty."

Nahser said the workshops will encourage participants to "view our social and environmental problems through the lens of organizational opportunity, overcome the long-standing division between social concern and the profit motive, and apply business creativity, imagination and energy to solving the pressing challenges we face as a society and as a world."

Werhane was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics by Ethisphere magazine in December, joining a list that included President Barack Obama, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, and the late activist Alexander Solzhenitsyn and actor/philanthropist Paul Newman. The magazine hailed Werhane’s role in developing an ethics requirement at DePaul’s business school and her leadership of key ethics organizations. She is a founding member and past president of the Society of Business Ethics and past president of the American Society of Value Inquiry.

The renowned management professor has taught and researched ethics and directed the IBPE at DePaul since 2003. She also is the Ruffin Professor of Business Ethics and a senior fellow for the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics at the Darden School, University of Virginia. Werhane graduated from Wellesley College with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and received her doctoral degree in philosophy from Northwestern University. She has published numerous articles and is the author or editor of 15 books

Nahser previously served for four years as provost (now provost emeritus) of the Presidio School of Management, San Francisco, where he lead the rebranding of the school, a 10-fold increase in enrollment and the school’s launch of the first accredited MBA degree in sustainable management. He is the former chairman, president and CEO of The Nahser Agency of Chicago, with advertising clients that included The Quaker Oats Co., CNA Insurance, Harris Bank, Merlin’s 200,000 Mile Shops, Solo Cup Co. and Florsheim Shoe Co. In addition to his work at DePaul, he manages CORPORANTES Inc., an outgrowth of The Nahser Agency, and lectures and consults internationally on business values, vision, marketing strategy, branding, social responsibility and sustainable management. He has authored two books on business pragmatism.

Nahser has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, a master’s degree in religious studies from Loyola/Mundelein College and a doctoral degree in philosophy from DePaul, where he also served as the first executive in residence at the business school.

For more information and registration for the open house, titled "Creating Sustainable Value for These Challenging Times: Stretch Your Thinking for What’s Possible," and the upcoming workshops, contact Summer Brown at the IBPE at (312) 362-8786 or sbrown15@depaul.edu.