A tribute to Mark Meaney: Valued member of the PRME community

Mark E. Meaney, PhD, held the roles of Scholar in Residence and Faculty Director for UN Programming at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.

Mark led the way on the official establishment of the PRME Chapter North America (NA) and was elected as the inaugural Chapter Chair in October 2015. He hosted the Chapter at the Centre for Ethics and Social Responsibility (CESR) at the Leeds School of Business, of which he was the Director until January 2020.

During this time Mark worked collaboratively with other established and emerging regional Chapters and represented Chapters on the PRME International Advisory Committee in 2018-2019. With a strong academic and professional background in ethics and compliance, Mark’s expertise was invaluable and highly respected. He worked with other members of the Committee to represent the PRME community, raise issues of concern and collaborate on required actions. An example was conducting a comparative analysis of the 2016 and 2019 PRME Strategic Reviews.

Mark also worked with PRME colleagues on previous PRME Global Forums, notably at the 10^th Anniversary PRME Global Forum in 2017, where he was a discussion leader and organizer. As a colleague in the PRME Champions group, Mark worked on many different projects, including the PRME Blueprint for SDG Integration, which was launched in June 2020 as a key resource for business and management schools engaging with the SDGs in curriculum, research, and partnerships.

Mark was an enterprising, inspiring leader and educator. He was also a great connector and a generous-spirited individual whose knowledge and wisdom were sought by many across the wider responsible management education community, as well as business and public sector organizations. Importantly he was a kind, warm-hearted and thoughtful human being who was respected by all those who had the privilege to work with him, those who were taught by him and especially those who were fortunate to call him a friend.

PRME Chapter NA joins the global PRME Champions community in mourning the passing of Mark. His involvement in PRME was a natural fit with his training, interest and experience in ethics, compliance, graduate and undergraduate teaching, and passion for student development and mentoring within the business school. As the UN Global Compact became established and UN PRME was developing, Mark was drawn to the opportunity to impact management education in important ways and convened meetings of business school faculty in the US and Canada with the PRME Secretariat and other early PRME adopters in the US, to explore how this initiative could be implemented in North America.

Mark had a warm, welcoming, and engaging manner that inspired people to engage with PRME initiatives in a wide variety of ways, from conferences and research to high-level corporate partnerships or local Open Hiring practices. The work that Mark started in PRME Chapter NA is growing every year and will have a significant impact on management education in the US and Canada in the coming years. We are deeply grateful for Mark’s leadership, passion and friendship, and he will truly be missed.

We will miss Mark’s wise counsel, thoughtful input and steady thinking. We are all sincerely grateful for his service to the PRME community and his contributions over the years.

Compiled by Carole Parkes, Liz Collier and Jill Bogie