André Hoffmann
Company: Roche- Title: Vice Chairman
- Industry: Healthcare
- Founded: 1896
- Family generation: Fourth
- Turnover in 2019: 55.1 billion euro
4 big takeaways
Define and pursue your purpose
There's more to life than money. Living happily and prosperously means respecting everyone and everything on the planet. But before a business can start doing good, it first needs to define its purpose. Then the business needs to focus all its efforts and activities on pursuing it.
Work out your metrics
Businesses need a new system of measuring and accounting – one that looks beyond profits and captures every positive action. This will help focus businesses on the issues at stake – and ensure the business stays true to its purpose. If your business has experience measuring impact, why not help find a solution? Put your brightest minds on the case. Collaborate with others. And who knows? You might be the key to a world where businesses value and reward doing good.
Go further than philanthropy
The philanthropic activities of family businesses make a big difference. But try not to make them your sole focus. Put your business at the heart of your sustainability efforts. Philanthropy is about spending money the right way, but your business should also be making money the right way – sustainably.
Benefit the many, not the few
Every day, new technologies and innovations seem to arrive on the scene, offering exciting opportunities to change the world. But we shouldn't let these advances create more inequality, making a few wealthy, while leaving others to struggle. If you're in the business of innovating, try to ensure your strategies benefit all your stakeholders – including people and the planet – and not just shareholders.
We need to change how we measure impact. We measure profit. But profit is just a concept and a system we've invented to define success. If we only measure money, we're only capturing a fraction of human activity. We're missing all the unpaid positive work we do, like running clubs and caring for our children. These activities are the essence of our social fabric. But no one's measuring them.
