At Be Leadership, we help organizations bring their social purpose to life through their people. One organization that is committed to this approach is BNP Paribas. BNP Paribas is a French-headquartered international banking group with a presence in 72 countries and more than 200,000 employees worldwide. As a global leader in social responsibility, BNP Paribas has made a strong public commitment around positive banking for more than two decades. Having a positive impact is emphasized in the bank’s shared values, mission, and vision.

As a client of Be Leadership since 2015, BNP Paribas lives its mission by offering training for their leadership talent through the Social Enterprise Hackathon program. This program, which we have designed in collaboration with the bank, combines leadership development and corporate social responsibility. Over the last five years, we have run nine, soon to be ten, experiential workshops joining over 350 of their senior leaders with more than 50 social enterprise partners.

The first five cohorts of this program were held in locations around the world, including New York City, Paris, and Mumbai. During the pandemic, the participants have come together virtually, in small group settings, to develop solutions for the real challenges the social partners are facing, through a series of Action Learning sessions with our certified Action Learning Coaches. The virtual environment allows employees from around the globe to collaborate outside of their business areas, with colleagues they might not otherwise meet, to work on impactful social enterprise issues. This practical yet transformational training allows the participants and the social partners to immediately apply their learning to their day-to-day roles. The Virtual Social Enterprise Hackathon helps social partners gain new, breakthrough insights on their challenges, while at the same time developing participants’ leadership skills.

“The Virtual Social Enterprise Hackathon was really well organized, with a perfect balance between global information, sharing with peers and chatting with other colleagues, breakout sessions, collaborative and productive session,” said one participant in November 2020. “Even if a ‘real’ physical event would have been great, I could not imagine that it could be such high quality.”