The University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management is building a community of socially conscious business leaders through a partnership with the City of Santa Fe and the business accelerator Santa Fe Innovates.
The Santa Fe-based Center for Responsible Entrepreneurship aims to support new and veteran entrepreneurs by providing training, resources and advocacy for policies that encourage corporate social responsibility, according to a news release.
Those policies include sustainable business practices around climate change, finance, innovation and social justice.
The center will also help business leaders learn stakeholder capitalism, a concept that puts society over profits, by connecting them with the Network for Business Sustainability, a global community of 200 business sustainability centers.
Robert DelCampo, Anderson’s executive director of corporate and community engagement, said Santa Fe is the best place for the center because it's a gateway to northern New Mexico.
"It's a market UNM has never penetrated," DelCampo said. "The message has always been 'drive to Albuquerque.' "
DelCampo said the Center's signature programs include a lecture series that is programmed through 2023. As well as a joint business accelerator with Santa Fe Innovates that will kick off in spring 2023.
Within the next 18 to 24 months, the Center will have a permanent location, but DelCampo said it was important to move programming around the city at first in order to provide access to several different populations.
“This partnership highlights the growing entrepreneurial-minded population in New Mexico,” UNM Anderson Dean Mitzi Montoya said in a statement. “The formation of this center enables Anderson to serve as an invested partner in progress to help this group of motivated leaders succeed and foster a more sustainable and inclusive New Mexico economy.”
Jon Mertz, Santa Fe Innovates founder and CEO, said in a statement he’s especially interested in the diversity and sustainability aspects of the center.
“The future of responsible business leadership is rooted here, and through the center, our impact will grow,” he said.
