We talk a lot about business on this show, and what it takes to be successful in business. On this edition of Out to Lunch Stephanie focuses on an aspect of business that doesn’t typically get so much attention: the ethics of principle versus profit.

Aaron Beam

Aaron Beam is a former executive who travels around the country lecturing on ethics in business. It’s a topic he knows well. In the late 1990s, Aaron participated in a 2 billion securities fraud scandal at Health South, the extremely successful Fortune 500 company he had co founded in the 1980s and helped lead as CFO. When the fraud was discovered, Aaron had opportunity in prison to reflect on what he had done. In the years since, he has taken those lessons learned and now tries to help others avoid making the same mistake.

Coming Down On The Side of Principle versus Profit

Professor Tom Ryan

Tom Ryan is Professor of Theology and Ministry at Loyola University in New Orleans, and Director of the school s Institute for Ministry, which has an extension program in Baton Rouge. Tom is an expert on the Catholic Church and its teaching and has been nationally recognized for his research on the history of biblical interpretation, the history of spirituality and faith, and popular culture.

Professor Ryan also speaks regularly on Pope Francis, who recently published a document on the Call to Holiness in Today’s World. In that document, the pope makes a special point about the call to holiness in business and the marketplace.

Aaron Beam, Tom Ryan. Stephanie Riegel

Stephanie Riegel takes an unorthodox but fascinating pause for reflection in this lunchtime conversation at Mansurs on the Boulevard.

Photos by Karry Hosford.

Balance this conversation with two Baton Rouge business women.