LA's Global Stage: Crafting a New Playbook for Cross-Sector Leadership

LOS ANGELES, CA – June 30, 2026 – While the world's attention turns to Los Angeles for the spectacle of the FIFA World Cup, a quieter but more structurally significant gathering is taking shape. Next month, Loyola Marymount University’s College of Business Administration will convene a weeklong series of conferences, dubbed “The World Comes to L.A.” On the surface, it’s an academic event. But look closer, and you see the blueprint for a new model of global problem-solving being drawn up, with Los Angeles positioned as its primary laboratory.

This isn't merely about academic discourse. As the city gears up to host the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it faces immense pressure to solve complex urban challenges related to infrastructure, sustainability, and workforce development. The LMU conference series suggests that the solutions won't come from government, business, or the nonprofit sector alone, but from a radical fusion of all three. It’s an early indicator of a systemic transformation in how progress is engineered, moving beyond siloed expertise toward integrated, cross-sector leadership.

The Tri-Sector Imperative

The most telling component of the week is “The Convening: Tri-Sector Innovation,” a summit that explicitly brings together leaders from business, government, and civil society. This reflects a growing consensus that the world’s most intractable problems—from healthcare access to climate change—are too multifaceted for any single entity to tackle. The old engines of change are stalling, necessitating a new, hybrid model.

This approach is championed by figures like Jens Molbak, founder of NewImpact and a featured speaker. His work focuses on building a “tri-sector economy” where collaboration is not an occasional tactic but the core operating system. The presence of partners like the World Trade Center Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, alongside speakers such as L.A. Care Health Plan CEO Martha Santana-Chin and Chamber CEO Maria Salinas, grounds this theory in reality. L.A. Care, the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan, is itself a quintessential example of a tri-sector entity, operating with the scale of a major corporation, the public mandate of a government agency, and the community-focused mission of a nonprofit.

This convergence is a direct response to systemic failure. For decades, we have relied on market forces to drive innovation, government to provide a safety net, and nonprofits to fill the gaps. That model is breaking down under the weight of global complexity. The LMU convening is an acknowledgment that a new architecture is required—one where a healthcare provider, a chamber of commerce, and a university don’t just coexist but actively co-design solutions for sustainable cities and workforce resilience.

Beyond the Bottom Line: A New Value Proposition

Underpinning this structural shift is a profound re-evaluation of purpose, particularly within the business world. The conference series is a signature event of LMU’s College of Business Administration’s centennial, “CBA at 100.” For a century, the Jesuit institution has espoused a mission to develop leaders with “moral courage” who see business as a “force for good.” What was once a niche, values-driven philosophy is rapidly becoming a mainstream strategic imperative.

The inclusion of the 31st annual International Association of Jesuit Business Schools (IAJBS) World Forum and a keynote by Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, a key architect of the Catholic Church’s dialogue on social and environmental challenges, is highly significant. It signals that the conversation about the future of business is incomplete without a robust ethical and moral framework. Cardinal Turkson’s work on “integral ecology” and human development argues that economic health cannot be divorced from social equity and environmental sustainability.

This is the “why” behind the global rise of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) principles. It’s not just about compliance or public relations; it’s a recognition that long-term value creation depends on a stable society and a healthy planet. The conference’s focus on Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), a UN-backed initiative, further cements this idea. Business schools are retooling their curricula not just to teach profit maximization, but to cultivate leaders who can navigate the complex trade-offs between financial returns and societal well-being. This is the new, non-negotiable cost of a social license to operate in the 21st century.

Los Angeles as a Global Testbed

It is no coincidence that this conversation is being hosted in Los Angeles. The city is a microcosm of the global challenges the conference aims to address: a sprawling metropolis grappling with housing shortages, traffic congestion, water scarcity, and vast economic inequality. Simultaneously, it is a world-leading hub of innovation in technology, entertainment, and logistics.

As LMU College of Business Administration Dean Dayle Smith noted, “At a time when organizations are grappling with complex social, economic, and environmental challenges, the need for principled, collaborative, cross-sector leadership has never been greater.” The upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games are not just international events; they are immense, real-world stress tests of the city’s ability to function and innovate. Success will require unprecedented collaboration between public agencies, private corporations, and community organizations.

“The World Comes to L.A.” is therefore more than a conference; it’s a strategic intervention. It leverages the city’s global moment to pilot a new governance model, using the high-stakes environment of mega-event preparation as a catalyst. By bringing global leaders from Jesuit business schools, tri-sector innovators, and sustainability advocates to its campus, LMU is positioning itself as the intellectual engine for the city's—and perhaps the world's—next great transformation. The weeklong event is an assertion that the future will not be built by lone visionaries, but by the disciplined, difficult, and essential work of building coalitions across once-impenetrable institutional walls.