Blagov, Director of the PwC Center for CSR at GSOM SPbU, took part in the 2nd  international round table on value creation, organized by the Academy of Business in Society (ABIS) in cooperation with the Antwerp Management School. Yury Blagov acted as an invited moderator of the Value Creation Applications session. 

The session "Practical Aspects of Value Creation" was devoted to the study of how exactly companies not only create shareholder value, but also actively engage in solving social and environmental problems, which is particularly relevant at the time of the Covid-19 health and economic crisis. The session featured a dialogue between practitioners on various models that businesses have developed and applied to move towards more integrated and sustainable value creation. 

According to Yury Blagov, the session clearly demonstrated the need to deepen cooperation between companies and the academic community, which is actively developing practice-oriented concepts of creating value for business and society. In turn, the importance of interacting with the world's leading companies on the permanent discussion platforms presented by specialized international associations, such as the Academy of Business in Society (ABIS), is growing for the business schools. It is indicative that the second online session of this roundtable, "Value Creation Methodologies", aroused great interest both for the business and academia representatives. This session was attended by world-famous scientists — authors and co-authors of the most popular and relevant concepts - M. Kramer ("shared value"), J. Emerson ("blended value"), S. Hart ("sustainable value"), W. Visser (“integrated value”) and R. Phillips (“stakeholder value”). 

The discussion on Practical Aspects of Value Creation was also attended by Claudia Mariconda, Head of Sustainable Transition, Port of Antwerp; Peggy Van Casteren, Head of Community Impact Benelux, Johnson & Johnson; Andre Jakobs, Senior Advisor Strategy & Sustainability, ABN Amro; Christian Heller, Vice President, BASF and CEO, Value Balancing Alliance.

The Academy of Business in Society is a global network of over 100 companies and academic institutions whose expertise, commitment and resources are leveraged to invest in a more sustainable future for business in society. ABIS' mission is to advance the role of business in society through research and education.