At a time when the world is experiencing an accelerated global and technological revolution, Católica Porto Business School, in partnership with Seal Group, has decided to organise a series of lunches called Beyond Business, which will bring a national or international guest to address the selected topic. For the first edition, which took place yesterday, 1 April, guests had the presence of the chairman of the board of the Serralves Foundation, Isabel Pires de Lima.
The dean of Católica Porto Business School, João Pinto, gave the opening speech. "This initiative is part of the extension of the Executive MBA Corporate Club to Católica Porto Business School", he began. "But it's also an initiative that aims to foster an even greater connection to practice, create a positive impact on society and companies, and debate new ideas and ways of looking at reality", he concluded.
The theme of this first edition centred on the valuable nature of leisure and imagination, with Isabel Pires de Lima beginning her speech with "the evolution of society towards a subordination to the acceleration in which we live, which is an endogenous form of violence". For the former Minister of Culture, this acceleration "prevents the enjoyment of moments of suspension, due to the feeling of guilt the individual has for not doing what they should be doing".
For this reason, Isabel Pires de Lima emphasised that "the humanities and the arts can occupy a place of resistance" in a healthy questioning that must exist in resistance to this fast pace, movement, and robotic hyperactivity. "We can slow down, take breaks, question. Yes, we can", she followed up before emphasising that young people are also affected by the difficulty of integrating "new knowledge into the previously known world. We have to be able to offer them stories, narratives that stimulate their inner enlargement and their relationship with others".
In conclusion, Isabel Pires de Lima quoted Eça de Queirós in "The Correspondence of Fradique Mendes": "Illusion (...) is as useful as certainty". The next Beyond Business lunch, which aims to create a space for trust, sharing, networking and debating strategies and ideas centred on the future of business, will be announced soon.
