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HRchat Podcast
Listen to the HRchat Podcast by HR Gazette to get insights and tips from HR leaders, influencers and tech experts. Topics covered include HR Tech, HR, AI, Leadership, Talent, Recruitment, Employee Engagement, Recognition, Wellness, DEI, and Company Culture.
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HRchat Podcast
Ethical Leader of the Year: Winner Annouced at SHRM with Brian Peckrill, William G. McGowan Charitable Fund
Yesterday at the 2025 SHRM Annual Conference & Expo in San Diego, the William G. McGowan Charitable Fund named Brian Moynihan, CEO at Bank of America as this year’s Ethical Leader of the Year Award winner.
Brian Peckrill, Executive Director of the McGowan Fund, presented the award and praised Ethical Leader of the Year Award winner Brian Moynihan's commitment to ethical leadership. With this honor, Brian Moynihan joins an esteemed group of past recipients, including Prudential Financial CEO Charles Lowrey and Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian.
In this special HRchat episode, recorded live at SHRM25, Brian Peckrill returns to the show to reflect on the evolving role of HR in championing ethics and purpose in today’s organizations.
Host Bill Banham and Brian also dive into the Ethical Leader of the Year Award itself - what makes it special, the qualities of its recipients, and what’s next for the McGowan Fund.
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Speaker 2:It is day three of SHRM annual. Hello everyone. This is Bill Bannam, host of the HR Chat Show. Yesterday, at SHRM in San Diego, the William G McGowan Charitable Fund announced the winner of this year's Ethical Leader of the Year Award. Brian Peckrell, executive Director of the McGowan Fund, presented the award and praised the winner's commitment to ethical leadership In this special HR Chat episode recorded. Shortly after presenting the award, brian Peckrell returns to the pod to reflect on the evolving role of HR in championing ethics and purpose in today's organisations. We also dive into the Ethical Leader of the Year award itself what makes it special, the qualities of its recipients and what's next for the McGowan Fund. If you care about ethical leadership, purposeful business and the role of HR in shaping a better future, and the role of HR in shaping a better future, this episode is one for you. Brian, it's my absolute pleasure to welcome you back to the HR Chat Show. You and I were chatting before we hit record just now. I think this is your fourth appearance on the pod. How are you doing? Welcome back.
Speaker 3:Bill, it's always a pleasure to talk. I think this is our fourth time and, as always, I enjoy our conversations.
Speaker 2:So, for those folks who have been remiss and they haven't tuned in to our previous chit chats, why don't you take a minute or two and introduce yourself to our audience?
Speaker 3:Sure, I'm Brian Peckrill, the executive director of the William G McGowan Charitable Fund. We are a family foundation located in Chicago, and our core, our core work is addressing poverty through grant making and education, health access and human services and shelter, healthy food, workforce development. In addition to that, we have a focus on promoting ethical leadership in business. That we have a focus on promoting ethical leadership in business. We do so through the McGowan Fellows Program, a partnership with some of the top MBA schools across the United States. But today we just gave away the 2025 Ethical Leader of the Year Award. This is our fourth iteration of the award and it's our way of honoring a CEO who's not just just a prolific business leader, but also benefiting business and society.
Speaker 2:You were kind, then, not to mention that winner's name, and we're going to continue to not mention their name just yet. We're going to. We're going to tease our listeners just a little bit more instead. Instead, before we get there, I just want to highlight a recent post, a very recent post that you shared on LinkedIn, in which you wrote at the McGowan Fund, we believe that organizations thrive when they lead with values and put people at the center of decision making. That belief is at the heart of our fellows program and the Eth leader of the year award. Brian, my question for you is what do you mean by that, and what does it mean to put employees at the center of decision making?
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people, when they think of corporate leadership, they're thinking about, you know, shareholder capitalism, putting the shareholder at the front and foremost part of the business decision-making process. The McGowan Fund we believe in stakeholder capitalism, that when you're making business decisions, it really involves not just thinking about how to make as much money, but how can you grow alongside your people, your customers. But how can you grow alongside your people, your customers, but also your employees? These types of long-term decisions ultimately are good business. Over the long term, the organizations that have done this have been proven to be some of the most profitable ones, and it's our belief that ethics in business is not just good for people, but it's also good business.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good, I think I can hear a drum roll in the background. Brian, because now is the big moment. This year's honoree is Brian. Why don't I let you tell everyone who the star of the show is?
Speaker 3:So I had the honor, just about 30 minutes ago, of presenting the 2025 Ethical Leader of the Year Award to Brian Moynihan, the Chairman and CEO of Bank of America. He's a deserving winner. I'd be glad to tell you why.
Speaker 2:Please. I mean, why was he selected? What sets the Bank of America apart? Tell us more, please.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think his story begins back when he became the CEO of Bank of America in 2010. I think many of your listeners need not be reminded about 2010, but we were at the height of the Great Recession and there was just widespread distrust in banking and the financial institutions, in banking and the financial institutions. That is the context in which Brian Moynihan stepped into as the newly minted CEO of Bank of America, and over the past 14 years, he has really rebuilt trust in his organization as well as the financial institutions. These institutions are absolutely crucial in our country for building intergenerational wealth and ensuring that individuals thrive, and one of the core initiatives that he launched, or one of the core visions that he launched at Bank of America is this framework for responsible growth, which truly emphasizes that, for Bank of America to be successful, they're growing financially, but they're growing alongside their clients, they're creating real opportunities for their employees and they're sharing success with their companies, and one of the core areas that distinguished him from the competition this year is how he went about implementing this responsible growth strategy. On the community side, moynihan has committed $1.25 billion to advancing small business development, affordable housing, workforce development and health in the communities in which Bank of America works In the customer side. They have a goal to mobilize $1.5 trillion in sustainable finance, leading to develop environmental and social projects that benefit people and society by 2030. And truly, what he has done in the area of workforce development is spectacular.
Speaker 3:Right now, the minimum wage for Bank of America for high school graduates is $24. When he started in 2010, it was $10. Next year they're committed to moving that number to $25. It increased by 150% in 16 years. On top of that, they've created pathway programs that help individuals from low-income families and communities enter into long-term career roles. Right now, of their 200,000 employees, over the past seven or eight years, they've hired 20,000 people from these backgrounds into these life-transforming positions. Bank of America has over 200,000 employees. They're the 18th company on the fortune 500. He has shown that ethical leadership doesn't just have to be a nice thing that, uh, small social impact organizations do, but it's something that can scale and the largest organizations in society can take on, and when they do that, it helps our society flourish.
Speaker 2:I would love to get him on the show and ask him about his retention rates as a result of paying his people properly. Uh, kudos to him. Okay, very good. Um, so once again, you partnered with sherm to co-host the awards. Uh, fourth time around. Everybody knows who sherm is. It's the biggest hr association in the world. This is the biggest HR event that you're currently at in the world. Uh, what? What does that partnership mean for the William G McGowan charitable fund brand? But also, you know the flip side. What do you think SHRM gets from associating with uh, with you guys and with the concept of recognizing ethical leadership?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I fundamentally believe that. Well, first and foremost, I believe that SHRM is known as a deeply ethical organization that puts values in front and center of all the decisions they make. But really, when it comes to ethical leadership, it begins in HR. Hr isn't just around managing people. It's about establishing an ethical culture. It's how an organization shows up in the world and with whom they show up. So when we are talking about ethics with SHRM, I think that this is how we establish ethical organizations by instilling the culture at the very top and having it percolate throughout the entire organization. So I really believe that our partnership is just a perfect match.
Speaker 2:We're living through rapid change of course. How do the principles championed by the McGowan Fund apply to the challenges of the workplace in 2025? I mean, the world is a very changed place to only a year ago.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and you know, I just finished watching Johnny Taylor's keynote address and he addressed this head on. I think the first piece is to do what is compliant to follow the law, and with that, it's important to know what your values are. Your values shouldn't change from one week to another. They shouldn't change if the sky is red or blue. Values stay the same and so long as your values are compliant and aligned with the law, it sets up a framework for you to lead from and it sets up a framework for you to stay steady and make core, human-centric business decisions that should benefit your people, benefit business and hopefully set you apart from the competition. Uh, so right now there's a lot of uncertainty in the world. I would encourage the listeners of this podcast to to not look outward but look inward to determine what they believe and how they can actualize that in business decisions and when we last spoke, at that moment, you were preparing for your annual symposium, I think, brian.
Speaker 2:Uh, have you got? Have you got another one coming up soon? If so, what's in store for folks? Can you walk us through the format and some of the intended outcomes for 2025?
Speaker 3:absolutely. We're still working on some of our speakers, but our symposium this year will be at the end of October at the University of Pennsylvania Warden School, and our theme this year is around responsible innovation with AI as a case study. So I think people are looking at artificial intelligence right now but also wary about the destruction that it's causing. I think the opportunity to use AI as a case study to understand that we always are existing within cycles of innovation and that values based decision making the values that you hold true can provide a framework so that we responsibly innovate in a way that puts people in society at the front and center, and I hope that we're going to look back at this conference at some of the other cycles of innovation that we have from the industrial revolution onwards to better understand how to navigate this moment.
Speaker 2:Two more questions for you before we wrap up for today. Brian, Looking ahead, how do you see both the McGowan Fund and the Ethical Leader of the Year Award evolving in?
Speaker 3:June of 2026. But I think what's kind of interesting about this award is that the criteria doesn't change. We're not every single year reinventing what is an ethical leader. We're looking for leaders that act with integrity, are resilient to difficult times, are accountable to their customers, their clients and their employees, and they're courageous in making difficult decisions. And every single year we kind of stick true to that model. It doesn't change. And those leaders that adhere to their values and are aligned with ours, they're the ones that rise to the top.
Speaker 2:Excellent, and Brian, just finally, how can folks learn more about you? You're always very generous in terms of sharing your contact details on our show, so, if you don't mind doing that again in terms of connecting on LinkedIn or whatever else you would like to share there. And, of course, how can they learn more about the William G McGowan Charitable Fund and the foundation as well, which does fantastic work?
Speaker 3:Absolutely I. You know I direct all the listeners to William G McGowan Fund dot org. That's our Web page and you can learn more about the ethical leader of the year award as well as the rest of our grant making there. And for anyone that's interested in connecting, please go to my my LinkedIn. Brian Peckrell and I'd be glad to connect and continue this conversation.
Speaker 2:Brian, I always enjoy my chats with you on this show. I know you're a busy man. Today You're deep in it, you're recording this live from SHRM and you've got lots more interviews to do and whatnot. So thank you very much for your time today. It's much appreciated.
Speaker 3:Bill, it's always a pleasure. I hope to see you next year.
Speaker 2:And listeners as always. Until next time, happy working.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette and remember for what's new in the world of work? Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media and visit HRGazettecom.
