Perhaps this puts me among the first to stop clapping, but I would argue it's not generational changes, and it's not activism, it's appeasement. A CEO is a job

Perhaps this puts me among the first to stop clapping, but I would argue it's not generational changes, and it's not activism, it's appeasement. A CEO is a job like any other, they aren't founders, and they can be replaced by their boards like any other employee. Their job is to stay on message and sustain narrative that returns value to their investors, and if they have to deal with brand pressure from activists, their job is to do the needful. A CEO isn't hired to be brave or risk a brand for some personal principle. It's also easier to affect concerned noises and gestures to appease domestic pressures instead of say, being principled about conditions in your foreign factories. It is a political job, and all politics is blackmail. The quesiton all CEOs and senior executives are made to ask themselves is whether they want pride, or power? The ones who survive are these activist CEOs who take a public stand for global justice, because discretion is the better part of valor.