Public-Private Collaboration — Finding the Intersection between Impact and Profit - Brian Turner
Last year, I attended 2 amazing conferences the Concordia Summit and Social Innovation Summits that have me thinking a lot about the barriers to public and private collaboration. Both conferences featured some of the most progressive public and private minds in solving critical issues around access to healthcare, talent development, security, AI, supply chain, and environmental sustainability. As a private sector leader who wants to make a bigger impact, I see more clearly some of the barriers…I just don’t know how to solve them…perhaps you do?
Think Globally, Act Locally. I had lunch with several key philanthropic organizations at the Social Innovation Summit. We often hear the phrase “Think globally, act locally.” What I appreciate about these philanthropic organizations is that they filled in the gap between a complex global issue and the progress that they felt they could make and the metrics to set to measure progress. As a private sector leader, I was mostly looking for things that would impact my income statement and positioning in the marketplace. My learning from these philanthropic organizations is that they were able to connect the two — the complex global issue and the levers that drove company performance.
Differences in Time Horizons for Value Creation. Several panels at both conferences emphasized the complexity of driving enduring change for improved healthcare, security, sustainability, etc. I appreciated the directional beacons that many of these leaders were establishing. They are working with issues that play out over the years, sometimes longer. And, they conflicted with my own value creation horizons — knowing as a private sector entity, value creation is often measured in quarterly performance — making innovation and contribution much more complicated. My takeaways are to take an agile approach — start small and stay focused, move through ideation/design/execution in iterations, learn, and scale.
Being Vulnerable in What You Need. The thing I appreciate about many of the sidebar conversations I had in both conferences is the recognition of what each party — private, public, and non-profit needs. For me, I was looking for ways to innovate and differentiate that tied to what my organization did. For the non-profit, the big emphasis was on funding. For the public leader, the big emphasis was on building a movement/staying true to a directional bearing and accreditation on the market value of the initiative. I don’t know how to solve it yet — but I remember my most successful conversations in both conferences resulted when I was most transparent. I recall talking to university technology program administrators about my company’s needs for technologists and the opportunity to tap into different national and international talent pools. The conversations got more interesting when I realized that I didn’t have the professional development programs already in place to onboard and assimilate technologists and I was tight on budget. That introduced different ways to think about the university programs contributing to my organization’s efforts.
I could use some insight here from you — on what you see, resources that have bridged the public-private partnerships well, and what has been most effective in getting the right people at the table talking about the right issues with the right amount of executable clarity and focus.
Brian is a transformative leader with over three decades of experience in guiding organizations through transformative change. Known for his pragmatic, human-centered approach, he collaborates with CEOs and executive teams to address complex challenges and drive meaningful impact. Dedicated to developing future leaders, Brian actively engages in community initiatives, mentorship, and fostering partnerships across sectors.
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