Purpose is not a destiny. It's a journey.
If a fortune-teller told 19-year-old Debbie Haski-Leventhal that she’d one day become a professor of purpose and impact, she’d have asked for a refund.
A tragedy led her family to join a cult when she was five, escaping it at 19 just before an arranged marriage. Higher education and volunteering transformed Debbie’s life, and she has since devoted her entire career to studying the prosocial behaviour of individuals and companies, creating ripple-effect impacts.
Today, Debbie is an award-winning and well-published professor of business management at Macquarie University, Australia. With over sixty academic articles, six books (including the best-selling “Make it Meaningful”), a TED talk, and media mentions by The New York Times and Forbes Magazine, she dedicates her teaching, research, and speaking to creating impact and enabling others to find meaningfulness and purpose.
Talking Points
Purpose Without Platitudes
Escaping a cult helped me discover my purpose and meaning. Here is how you can create yours and turn purpose into a meaningful, measurable impact.
Purpose Without Platitudes
Why Engagement is Broken and How to Reconnect People at Work
An evidence-based reframing of engagement that builds on human connection, shared purpose, and powerful meaning.
Why Engagement is Broken and How to Reconnect People at Work
Meaning Is Not a Luxury
Why purpose and meaningfulness are a strategic necessity during uncertainty, disruption, and moral fatigue.
Meaning Is Not a Luxury
Doing Good Well
Many companies want to be responsible, but only a few do it well. How adopting the holistic approach to net positive impact can make you a force for good.
Doing Good Well
Raising a Generation That Cares
A powerful talk on purpose, responsibility, and the power of education. Using purpose-driven education to enable the next generation of change makers.
Raising a Generation That Cares
Video
Professor Debbie Haski-Leventhal | Saxton Speakers
Professor Debbie Haski-Leventhal shares a powerful, personal perspective on purpose, impact, and what it means to be “best for the world”. Drawing on her journey from adversity to becoming a global authority on volunteering and corporate social responsibility, Debbie challenges audiences to stop waiting for purpose and start creating it. In this reel, she reframes success from employability to impactability, offering a clear, practical call to action for individuals, organisations, and leaders who want to use their talents to create meaningful change.The purpose-driven university | Debbie Haski-Leventhal | TEDxMacquarieUniversity
Universities and higher education institutions need to discover how they can create societal impact beyond educating students and generating research. Based on the concepts of purpose, life-purpose and organisational purpose, Debbie discusses the emerging movement of purpose-driven universities, in which leadership, faculty and students work together to shift from being best in the world to being best for the world. Debbie Haski-Leventhal is a Professor of Management at Macquarie Business School, an expert of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and volunteerism. Together with the United Nations PRME, she conducts studies on responsible management education. She has published over 100 papers and her work was covered many times by the media, including the New York Times. She is the author of ‘Strategic CSR’ and the upcoming book, 'The purpose-driven university'.Debbie Haski-Leventhal | Women who Change the World | Macquarie University
In it's 8th year running, Professor Debbie Haski-Leventhal of Macquarie Business School hosts Women Who Change the World 2020. The annual event sees a remarkable and inspirational line up of female social leaders and entrepreneurs share their journeys of becoming change makers, and the macro level impact they've made in the world.‘Business as unusual’: Patagonia’s owner donates company to fight climate change | ABC News InterviewABC News
The founder of outdoor clothing business Patagonia is giving away the ownership of his $4.5 billion company to fight climate change. Prof. Debbie Haski-Leventhal says the decision to transfer the company to a non-profit is ‘quite extraordinary’ and ‘business unusual’.Everyone felt truly inspired by your talk and your heartfelt participation at this new-style sundown. ... keep reading AusCam Freedom
Professor Haski-Leventhal is an outstanding scholar of purpose-led universities at a time when that cause was never more important. As a voice standing up for change for good from higher education for all in our world.
She was phenomenal!
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