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Actions not acronyms… Top executives are recalibrating their approach to ESG initiatives, moving away from symbolic gestures to focus on actions that have a measurable impact on the bottom line, according to the “Pulse on the Modern CEO Agenda” report from the Weber Advisory.
Companies are dumping things considered performative and focusing on what works. “Actions speak louder than acronyms, and it’s a moment for purpose with pragmatism,” said Jim O’Leary, CEO of the Weber Shandwick Collective North America and global president.
The report found an upswing in business-focused language to describe a company’s role in society. Those terms include “workforce development” and “responsible business.”
It found that almost half (48 percent) of respondents are “enthusiasts” who embrace social initiative as core to their business.
“Pragmatists” who want social initiatives to be backed by strategic action and not cultural pressures account for 45 percent of those surveyed.
Seven percent are “skeptics” who believe social actions go beyond what a company should address.
The upshot: companies are getting back to basics.
Consultant-speak run amok… Accenture plans to fire a lot of staffers who cannot operate in the age of artificial intelligence.
Or as CEO Julie Sweet said in a conference call: “We are exiting on a compressed timeline people where reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we need.” Say what?
Sweet didn’t spell out how many people are going to be canned. My hunch: a lot of them.
Let’s go to the numbers. Accenture had 779K employees at the end of August, which was down from 791K three months earlier. Only 77K are skilled in the ways of AI or data processing.
Sweet promises that Accenture’s headcount will grow next year. Or as she put it: “We are investing in upskilling our reinventors, which is our primary strategy.”
Power sponsorships… President Trump is adding a monster-sized ballroom alongside his residence that will be bigger than the White House. It’s the latest move to satisfy his massive ego.
According to renderings acquired by CBS News the gold-tinged ballroom will be a 90K-sq.-ft. colossus that will make the 50K-sq.-ft. White House look like a shack.
Corporate donors are bankrolling the $200M facility, which is supposed to be completed by the end of Trump’s term.
They include Google, which has been fending off antitrust moves; surveillance company Palantir; tobacco giant RJ Reynolds; and defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen Hamilton.
Those donations may be the best money spent in Trump’s Washington. Will they get their corporate logo on a plaque affixed to the ballroom, or how about rotating naming rights?
Slaughterhouse-20… Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has decided that the 20 soldiers who participated in the 1890 slaughter of Native Americans at Wounded Knee can keep their Medals of Honor.
An estimated 250 men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux were killed at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota after they had already surrendered to the US Army.
What’s next for Pete? Will he pardon Lieutenant William Calley who led his soldiers in the killing of more than 500 Vietnamese civilians in the 1968 My Lai massacre?
Exonerating and then expunging Calley from America’s collective memory would fit right in with Donald Trump’s plan to whitewash American history.
His “restoring truth and sanity to American History” executive order calls for highlighting the nation’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.”
Hats off to Federal Board chairman Jerome Powell for finally getting off his duff to stand up to his unhinged taunter-in-chief. A posse of central bankers from here and afar rally in support of Powell.
Whatever happened to the No. 1 enemy of the people? Donald Trump now loves the New York Times... Viceroy Rubio should let foreign reporters enter Venezuela to cover the occupation... Porter Novelli goes poof in Australia in sign of more things to come in bulked up Omnicom.
America’s political revolution ranks as the world’s greatest geopolitical risk in 2026, according to Ian Bremmer’s influential Eurasia Group... Russia's propaganda machine got it wrong on the looted Venezuelan
Donald Trump’s shouty December 17 speech delivered at warp speed began with a lie and continued to head south for about another 18 minutes.
The Emirates NBA Cup is a stain on the reputation of the National Basketball Assn. Commissioner Adam Silver should cut ties wih human rights-abusing United Arab Emirates... Trump hit an all-time low with his Truth Social post about Rob Reiner's murder... Pay attention, sceptics. Climate change cuts US income by 12 percent, says new report.
