MLARI symposium spotlights governance and shared responsibility

Leaders from governance, ethics, technology, healthcare and public service gathered in Alhambra, California, on Sept. 19 for the 2026 MLARI Annual Symposium. The event focused on how organizations can stay accountable while navigating complexity, with discussions on ethics, crisis leadership and AI literacy.

Why it matters: - The symposium centered on how organizations can keep accountability, ethics and human judgment at the core of decision-making as pressure grows from technology, crises and competing stakeholder demands. - The discussion mattered for board members, executives, educators and public leaders trying to balance performance with responsibility to employees, customers and communities.

What happened: - Leaders, scholars, professionals, students and community members gathered at The Alhambra in Alhambra, California, on Sept. 19 for the Management as a Liberal Art Research Institute’s 2026 Annual Symposium. - The symposium title was “Governance and Shared Responsibility in Organizations and Society.” - MLARI and the California Institute of Advanced Management partnered on the event. - Scott Mitchell, founder of OCEG, delivered the keynote. - Mitchell founded the organization behind the Governance, Risk and Compliance concept and a global community of more than 225,000 members.

The details: - Panelists included Vera Cherepanova, Stanton J. Rowe, Dr. Carol J. Geffner, Jill Ingram, Dr. Kristine Kawamura and Bob Zukis. - Cherepanova is executive director of Boards of the Future® and an ethics and compliance expert whose work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Thomson Reuters. - Rowe co-founded Percutaneous Valve Technologies and helped develop transcatheter heart-valve technology before Edwards Lifesciences acquired the company. - Geffner directs the Executive Master of Leadership program at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. - Ingram became the first woman to serve as city manager of Seal Beach and led the city through major crises and more than a decade of organizational and community change. - Kawamura serves as academic director for Societal and Global Impact at Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker School of Management. - Zukis founded and leads Digital Directors Network and previously served as a senior partner at PwC. - Zukis was named to the Financial Times Agenda Digital 50 for digitally savvy corporate directors. - The afternoon sessions covered ethics versus compliance, ethical culture, long-term responsibility versus short-term pressure, board performance during crises and the need for digital and AI literacy among leaders. - Dr. Karen Linkletter, MLARI’s research director, and Dr. Maria C. Akopian, CIAM’s associate vice president of marketing and chief marketing officer, moderated the symposium. - Linkletter studied under Peter Drucker at Claremont Graduate University and later co-authored Drucker’s Lost Art of Management with Joseph A. Maciariello. - Dr. Jack Paduntin, CIAM president, delivered closing remarks and presented Certificates of Distinguished Contribution to each speaker.

Between the lines: - The speaker lineup connected corporate governance, healthcare, academia, city management and digital oversight, signaling a broad push to treat governance as an interdisciplinary issue rather than a narrow boardroom topic. - The repeated focus on ethics, shared responsibility and AI literacy suggests leaders are being pressed to make governance more practical in a world shaped by faster change and more public scrutiny. - MLARI’s use of Peter Drucker’s management philosophy frames the symposium as part academic forum, part leadership workshop.

What's next: - MLARI and CIAM said the annual symposium is part of a continuing effort to advance Management as a Liberal Art through research, education and interdisciplinary dialogue. - The organizations said they will keep exploring responsible leadership, ethics and the role of organizations in society through future scholarship and collaboration. - CIAM says it continues to offer its management model through its graduate programs, while MLARI points to ongoing work centered on human-centered management principles.

The bottom line: - The symposium made a straightforward case: governance is no longer just about oversight, but about how leaders exercise authority, build trust and serve the people their institutions affect. - Event partners included the Regional San Gabriel Valley Chamber of Commerce, Boards of the Future®, IEEE Women in Engineering – San Fernando Valley, Armenian Engineers and Scientists of America, California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, Armenian American Medical Society and the City of Glendale. - CIAM was founded in 2011 and is a nonprofit, WSCUC-accredited graduate institution. - More information is available at CIAM and MLARI.