Community: A Conscious Capitalist's Approach to Corporate Finance

After decades building Panera Bread into the most successful fast-casual restaurant chain in the industry, Ron Shaich, Founder & Chairman of Panera Bread, shocked many when he announced that he was taking the company private in July 2017. Panera was the best-performing restaurant stock over the past 20 years, delivering a total shareholder return of 8600% from July 18, 1997, to July 18, 2017, when it became a private company. In this important talk, Ron will explain why he took this step, and what we must do to counteract the extremely damaging short-termism and narrow agendas that now permeate our capital markets.

Date and time: Thursday, April 12, 2018, 6:00 – 7:45 PM

Location: Glavin Chapel @ Babson College

RSVP: Raj Sisodia, FW Olin Distinguished Professor of Global Business rsisodia@babson.edu.

Part of the Conscious Capitalism Distinguished Speaker Series at Babson College.

About the Speaker

Ron Shaich is the founder and chairman of Panera Bread, a groundbreaking restaurant brand that today has more than 2,360 bakery-cafes, over 100,000 associates and nearly $6 billion in annual system-wide sales. Ron also served as Panera's CEO from 1984 to 2010 and again from March 2012 to January 2018. Ron is highly respected for his ability to recognize and capitalize on marketplace opportunities. In addition to founding Panera, which established the high-growth fast-casual restaurant segment, Ron earlier in his career founded and grew Au Bon Pain, establishing the bakery-cafe segment. With both brands he disrupted an existing industry paradigm and found new pathways to building companies of value and with values. The result: Panera was the best-performing restaurant stock of the past 20 years, generating annualized returns in excess of 25% over the past two decades and delivering a total shareholder return 44 times better than the S&P 500 from July 18, 1997 to July 18, 2017 (when Ron led a take-private transaction for Panera). Ron is also a co-founder of No Labels, an organization that promotes bipartisan political problem solving and the development of a long-term strategic plan for the country. Ron received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School.