Al Hammond

Big Thoughts on How to Reach the BOP

My colleague and first mentor in BOP business strategies, Stuart L. Hart, is one of the world’s authorities on the implications of sustainable development for business strategy. Stu is S.C. Johnson Professor of Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, from which post he teaches, does research, and runs the Base of the Pyramid Co-Laboratory. With C.K. Prahalad, Hart wrote the pathbreaking 2002 article ?The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,? which provided the first articulation of how business could profitably serve the needs of the four billion poor in the developing world. Now Stu has taken the subject further with his new book, Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World’s Most Difficult Problems (Wharton School Publishing, 2005). Over the next week, I’ve asked Stu to respond to a series of questions about the ideas in the book and their implications for companies and for business strategies that can alleviate poverty–first my questions, then I hope your questions and comments.

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