Marcy Murninghan

Marcy Murninghan is a scholar, consultant, writer, and teacher on issues involving civic moral values, corporate governance, responsible equity ownership, and public policy. She is founder (1987) and president of The Lighthouse Investment Group, a consulting firm that addresses ways in which institutional investors can fulfill their fiduciary responsibility that balances private prosperity with sustainability and the public interest; this civic stewardship ethic lies at the heart of an economic ownership regime that also nurtures our American republican tradition of civic virtue. Dr. Murninghan's clients have included the Coalition for Environmentally Responsive Economics ("CERES"); the Coudert Institute; University of Massachusetts Boston; The Boston Foundation; the National Business Veterans Corporation; Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini & Co., Inc. ("KLD"); the Comptroller of the State of New York / New York State Common Retirement Fund; the Council on Foundations; the Minnesota Women's Fund; Kentucky Fried Chicken; Sterling Drug; and various college and foundation endowments, as well as state and local pension funds.

For five years Dr. Murninghan taught courses at the Harvard Divinity School on money, media, and morality; and responsible stewardship and the public interest. For ten years she taught courses on philanthropy and voluntarism at Babson College. From 1983 to 1987 she was President of the Social Investment Services Division of Mitchell Investment Management Company, Inc.; at MIMCO she was responsible for development and implementation of ethical investing and strategy planning services, particularly related to South Africa but also including other social issues. She is the author of numerous essays, articles, and reports on the integration of civic moral values into organizational behavior and public life; a special focus is the role of the media and journalism in cultivating civil society and democratic ideals. While at HDS, she designed and carried out a study of the spiritual values and commitments of a select group of CEOs in the financial services and media / entertainment industries; a monograph entitled Power & Principles: Leaders in Media and Finance Reflect on the Ethical Framework of Their Work, which is based on her research, was published by HDS in January 2002. In April 2002 she moderated a panel on "Money, Media and Morality" for Harvard Business School's first annual Möbius Leadership Forum on leadership, spirituality, and values in business; her panel featured renowned broadcast news executive Rick Kaplan, television producer Gary David Goldberg, and Inc. magazine editor-in-chief George Gendron.

Currently, Dr. Murninghan is in the process of revising her 1994 analysis of the constructive role institutional investors can play in promoting corporate accountability and social responsibility; the McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at UMass Boston published the 1994 monograph, entitled Corporate Civic Responsibility and the Ownership Agenda: Investing in the Civic Good. The sequel, titled Common Sense and Civic Virtue: Institutional Investors, Responsible Ownership, and the Democratic Ideal, is slated for publication in late 2002. More recently, she profiled a mid-Michigan politician renowned for her wise statecraft in an article entitled "Flower Power: Lucile Belen and the Politics of Integrity," appearing in the current issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy. As rapporteur for the Palm Beach-based Coudert Institute, she currently is at work on a monograph on the new media, globalization, and the public interest, based on an April 2002 conference with Institute participants and eminent communications specialist Newton N. Minow, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, PBS, the RAND Corporation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Dr. Murninghan holds a B.A. in religion from Albion College; an M.A. in organizational management from Antioch University; and an Ed.D. in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard's Graduate School of Education.