David Stern, the commissioner emeritus of the National Basketball Association, received Columbia Business School’s 2014 Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics during a ceremony on Tuesday, September 9 at Uris Hall.
Every year, the Botwinick prize is given to a business leader who has displayed exceptional professional and ethical conduct. The prize is organized by the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics, the umbrella for leadership and ethics research and activities at Columbia Business School. “Under David’s leadership for the last 36 years, the NBA has grown from a small, rather parochial organization to become one of the most successful, diversified entertainment entities in the world,” Ed Botwinick a graduate of Columbia and the son of Benjamin Botwinick, the prize’s namesake, said.
During Stern’s time as commissioner, “the NBA… also made major societal contributions, most notably in the area of race relations.” Stern’s tenure was marked by dedication to social causes, and he was the driving force behind the creation of NBA Cares, the league’s global social responsibility arm. Other major achievements during his career included the launch of the Women’s National Basketball Association and the NBA Development League. Under his steady hand, the NBA added seven franchises and enjoyed a 30-fold increase in revenue. “If you want to engage the entire world in conversation, you can do it with sports,” Stern told an audience of Columbia MBA students. During the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Stern says he was “caught up with the idea that we could really make a difference,” despite the fact that “nobody believed it.”
In 1993, Stern visited the new, post-apartheid Olympic committee in South Africa, as well as soon-to-be-president Nelson Mandela. Shortly thereafter the NBA began organizing community events in South Africa, with the goal of fostering new communal bonds. “Sports has a special role to play, and it will always engage the world in a single conversation,” Stern said. “Milton Friedman was wrong — the business of business is not just business. The business of business is doing well for the shareholders, but [also] doing well for the employees, the consumers, the community, and the greater community…if there’s one thing I want to impart to you, that’s it,” Stern continued.
The Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics was established with a generous endowment from Columbia Business School alumnus Benjamin Botwinick, BS ’26, and his wife, Bessie. Previous recipients include: Michael Hershman, president and CEO of the Fairfax Group, Barbara Krumsiek, chair, president, and CEO of Calvert Investments; Mikael Ohlsson, president and CEO for the IKEA Group; Peter Blom, CEO of Triodos Bank; Craig R. Barrett, retired CEO and chair of Intel Corporation; Jeffrey Immelt, CEO and chair of General Electric; Patrick Cescau, group chief executive of Unilever; James Sinegal, president and CEO of Costco; and Joan Bavaria, founding president and CEO of Trillium Asset Management.
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