For decades, many companies behaved as if they had one purpose: Maximize Shareholder Value.
That idea became common sense after Milton Friedman famously argued that a corporation’s only social responsibility is to increase profits within the boundaries of the law.

It was a clean and simple message, which is probably why it spread so aggressively.
But clean and simple does not always mean right.

Today, that idea is not only outdated, it’s becoming dangerous.

Friedman’s argument assumes that:

1. Shareholders “own” the company,
2. Executives are their agents, and
3. The market will punish any company that deviates from profit-first thinking.

It sounds logical until you step into a real company.

As Lynn Stout reminds us, shareholders do not own the corporation. They own shares, contracts with limited rights. The corporation is a separate legal entity.
Directors don’t have a legal obligation to maximize short-term shareholder returns.
They have a duty to protect the corporation itself.

In practice, that means:

• Balancing Priorities,
• Making Judgment Calls,
• Managing Risk, and
• Thinking Beyond the Next Quarter’s Earnings Report.

When companies forget that the results can be catastrophic.

BP tried to save about $1 million a day by cutting safety corners. The Deepwater Horizon disaster erased more than $100 billion in value. That’s not shareholder value. That’s shareholder destruction.

So, if Friedman was the starting point, then common sense must evolve.

Some elements of the CEO’s job will never change. A CEO still has to:

• Understand Operations and the Business Model.
• Know the company from the Bottom to the Top, from cleaners to boardroom.
• Read a P&L, Manage Cash, Manage Debt.
• Set Direction, Steer the Ship.
• Communicate with Clarity and Conviction.

Those fundamentals are not going anywhere.

But in 2025 and beyond, they are not enough.

Our environment has changed. Social dynamics have changed. The expectations placed on companies have changed. People no longer trust institutions the way they used to. Employees and customers are not “resources” to extract value from, they are stakeholders with a voice, and that voice is getting louder.

Unionisation is Not a Threat.
It is often a sign that employees feel voiceless.

For leadership, that should be a warning light on the dashboard, not a target to eliminate.

The new CEO will have to lead in a world where profits and purpose have to work together, because pretending they are enemies is how companies lose both.

The modern CEO has to expand beyond financial engineering and operational control.
This is where Indra Nooyi’s thinking becomes hard to ignore.

Quarterly performance is not the finish line.

If every decision sacrifices tomorrow to look good today, the company is already dying, just slowly enough that no one sees it yet.

Long-term value demands investment in:

• People first…
• Systems
• Safety
• Innovation
• Community Trust

Profit is an outcome of those investments, not a replacement for them.

Modern companies operate under a license to operate granted by society.
Government, communities, regulators, and citizens all have influence on whether a company is welcome to grow.

A CEO who acts like regulation is the enemy will eventually discover that society can revoke that license.

Building a strategy in the U.S and forcing it on Namibia, Kenya, Brazil, India, or Spain without understanding context is not leadership, it is corporate arrogance.

Real global companies don’t “Copy and Paste Culture.”
They Learn it, Respect it, and Build with it.

The world is moving too fast for leaders who think asking questions is a weakness.

Technology, geopolitics, climate realities, social expectations, everything is evolving.
A CEO who can’t update their mental model becomes a bottleneck.

It’s better a CEO who learns than a CEO who defends being right.

5. Lead With Emotional Intelligence

This is not softness.
This is relevance.

Emotional intelligence is about:

• Reading the room
• Understanding culture
• Listening without ego
• Knowing what people are afraid to say

People follow leaders they trust. Trust Isn’t Earned Through Fear.
Trust is Earned Through Respect, Consistency, and Accountability.

Howard Schultz from Starbucks answers this better than anyone who has lived it.
Starbucks chose to act with humanity, stock options for baristas, health insurance before the industry thought it made sense, investing in communities.

This wasn’t charity.
It was strategy.

Values became a moat, and Trust Became Brand Equity.

Even when they made decisions that reduced short-term profits, they did so because they believed in something bigger than the quarterly report. In the long term, that belief paid off.

The message is clear:
Corporate Values don’t replace Shareholder Value; they create the conditions for it to last.

We see it happening already:

• Employees Walking Out.
• Customers Boycotting.
• Talent Refusing to Work for Companies that only care about Shareholders.
• Society Demanding Accountability Not Excuses.

This is not anti-business.
This is business evolving.

The world is telling companies:

|Earn Your Prosperity. Don’t Just Extract It.|

Boards cannot act like spectators.
They are the guardians of the corporation, not the cheerleaders of the stock price.

Boards need to:

1. Remove CEOs who can’t evolve,
2. Reward Long-Term Value over Short-Term Spikes, and
3. Clarify that the Goal isn’t just Shareholder Returns…

…it’s the health and continuity of the corporation itself.

Because if the corporation thrives, everyone can win:

• Shareholders
• Employees
• Customers
• Suppliers
• Communities
• The Environment

Shareholder value isn’t the purpose.
It’s the result of running a company with purpose

I’m not arguing that profits don’t matter.
They do. A company that can’t make money is not a company, it’s a charity project pretending to be a business.

I’m arguing that the purpose of business cannot be to burn everything else down just to get there.

The next generation of CEOs, MDs, and Presidents will need to redefine the job or the job will redefine them.

Please note:
I don’t think for one second that my account is a definitive account.
I offer it no more than an opening round in a conversation that I hope

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