The B Academics Teaching Roundtable is back!
This October, join us for our 2026 Teaching Roundtable, a virtual event that invites educators and practitioners alike to share how they are navigating the importance and value of business sustainability education. This year’s theme, “A Roadmap for Leveraging the Power of Purpose in Business and Beyond,” will center how organizations can influence industry and encourage growth by developing systems that integrate purposeful, ethical, stakeholder-focused policies. From investing your organization’s time into understanding the new B Lab Standards, to evaluating and overcoming the systemic obstacles of developing stakeholder-oriented business, there’s real value in business for good – and we can’t wait to break it all down.
We are thrilled to announce that Eric Ries, entrepreneur and New York Times best-selling author of The Lean Startup, will be joining us as our keynote speaker! He’ll be bringing years of industry insights and valuable perspective on how to ensure sustainability-centered businesses can actually keep sustainability at the center, regardless of success. Check out his latest book Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great and follow @ericriesactual on Instagram!
When? Friday, October 23rd
Where? Virtual
What time? 11AM-2PM EST
Who should attend? Faculty, Students, Staff, B Corp representatives, aspiring B corps, community members, B Lab employees and anyone interested!
Agenda
11:00am – 11:10am Introduction & Welcome
Reflecting on Our History: 10 Years in Action w/ B Academics President, Summer Brown
11:10am – 11:35am B Corp Movement Trends & Insights Mini-Keynote
Featuring Ryan Honeyman, founding partner of LIFT Economy and coauthor of The B Corp Handbook! Session content to be announced.
11:35am – 12:00pm The New B Lab Standards Mini-Keynote
Featuring Erik Kivimäki, Director of Certification Program Development at B Lab! Session content to be announced.
12:00pm – 1:00pm Keynote Presentation featuring Eric Ries
For our featured keynote presentation at the Teaching Roundtable 2026, B Academics is thrilled to welcome serial entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, and Incorruptible, Eric Ries! Drawing on two decades of work with founders, CEOs, and investors, Eric Ries reveals the forces that make companies vulnerable to destruction from within and without. Then he offers solutions that safeguard against them for the long-term.
As a sought-after business speaker and the originator of the Lean Startup Methodology, Ries is bringing expert insight on the relevance of the B Corp Movement and business for good to our virtual gathering as one of the final stops of the Incorruptible tour. Attendees can expect a dynamic keynote presentation focused on how to balance profit with the uplifting of mankind, and how building a resilient organization goes hand-in-hand with building an ethical organization, followed by a Q&A led by the B Academics Teaching Committee.
Learn more about our featured speaker here, and check out Ries’ newest title wherever you buy books – Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad… and How Great Companies Stay Great!
1:00pm – 1:55pm Experiential Learning Panel
Featuring Executive Director of B Local San Diego Abraham Chen as our moderator, and experts on the value of experiential learning from the lens of both academic and practitioner methodologies, including:
- Kelley Ellis, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at Drake University
- Nima Farshchi, Executive Director of the Office of Experiential Learning at the University of Maryland
- María Ballesteros-Solas, Associate Professor of Management at California State University Channel Islands
1:55pm – 2:00pm Closing Remarks
Looking to the Future and our Call to Action w/ B Academics Executive Director, Jessica Yinka Thomas
Planning Committee
- Kristin Joys, University of Florida
- Saheli Nath, University of Central Oklahoma
- Allen Gunderson, Greater Victoria School District
- Avi Mayerhoff, University of Illinois Chicago
- Nima Farshchi, University of Maryland
- Jessica Yinka Thomas, NC State University
- Rachel Haynes, NC State University
- Rayna Phillips, NC State University
