Catholic Social Thought in Business Education

Before joining the Catholic University of America Nick Schmitz spent a decade on Wall Street. He was as Partner and Portfolio Manager in charge of two successful Japanese funds at Verdad Advisers, a quantitative hedge fund. His work involved regular, direct and on-the-ground friendly engagement with his portfolio holdings in Tokyo. Before joining Verdad, Nick worked at Goldman Sachs as an Investment Banker. Nick served as a Captain and Infantry Platoon Commander in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan and taught on the Political Science Faculty at the US Naval Academy. Nick started his professional career when he dropped out of high school to enlist in the United States Marine Corps as a Private when he was 17. He earned a BS from the US Naval Academy, a Masters of Philosophy from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Nick has also published academic articles on constitutional law, drafted amicus briefs, and testified before Congress on his research.

David Cloutier (B.A., Carleton; Ph.D. Duke) is Professor of Moral Theology with a concurrent appointment in the Business, Ethics, and Society program of the Mendoza College of Business. He is the author of a number of books, including the award-winning The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age (Georgetown UP) and Walking God’s Earth: The Environment and Catholic Theology (Liturgical Press). He has written for Commonweal, America, and writes a quarterly column on Catholic social ethics and everyday life for US Catholic. His current writing project aims at articulating more fully a Catholic social imaginary for contemporary society, beyond partisan divisions.

Andreas E. Widmer is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and the director of the Art & Carlyse Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship at The Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business.

Previously he co-founded The SEVEN Fund, a philanthropic organization promoting enterprise solutions to poverty. Widmer is a seasoned business executive with experience in high-tech, international business strategy, consulting and economic development. He served as CEO of the business strategy firm OTF Group (formerly part of the Monitor Group) and helped lead web content management pioneer Eprise Corporation, speech recognition pioneer Dragon Systems, and internet pioneer FTP Software. He has worked extensively in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, has brought more than 100 leading-edge technology products to market, and was an executive in residence at Highland Capital Partners.

Andreas is the author of The Pope & The CEO: Pope Saint John Paul II’s Lessons to a Young Swiss Guard, a book exploring leadership lessons that Widmer learned serving as a Swiss Guard protecting Pope John Paul II and refined during his career as a successful business executive.

An author on the connection between entrepreneurship, economic development and spirituality, Andreas contributed two chapters to the book In the River They Swim: Essays from Around the World on Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. A chapter entitled “Ministering to the Pioneers of Prosperity” was recently published in Springer’s Ethical Economy series book Free Markets and the Culture of Common Good. He has authored articles and been featured in various business and general interest media including The Financial Times, CNN, NPR, ABC, Wall Street Journal Live, Huffington Post, Fortune, The Washington Times, Boston Globe, Bloomberg News, FastCompany, SiriusXM, Vatican Radio, EWTN, Al Jazeera, First Things and many more.

Andreas is an advisor to the Zermatt Summit, an annual business leadership event that strives to humanize globalization. He also serves as an advisor to Transforming Business, a research and development project at the University of Cambridge, UK. He is on the board of directors at the New Paradigm Research Fund, and Virtual Research Associates.

Widmer served as a Pontifical Swiss Guard from 1986-1988, protecting Pope John Paul II. He holds two business degrees from Switzerland, plus a B.S. in International Business from Merrimack College and an M.A. in Ministry from St. John’s Seminary in Boston. A citizen of Switzerland and the United States, he speaks English, German, Italian and French. Andreas loves to spend time with his wife and son. He is an eternal student of fly-fishing, enjoys skiing, and is an avid reader.

Martin Schlag is the Holder of the Moss-endowed Chair at University of St. Thomas and the Director of the John A. Ryan Institute.

Schlag’s research focuses on the tradition of Catholic social thought in political and economic questions. Specifically, he studies how the Christian faith over the centuries related to markets, trade and exchange, money and interest, and private property and social justice. The focus is on how to promote principled business leadership for the common good and to overcome poverty by including the poor into the market economy.

Schlag’s research is published in a series of books and chapters in edited books. Many of them are the fruit of conferences he has organized in various parts of the world. His experience as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in Rome has given him a unique insight into social and human challenges worldwide.

Schlag is passionate about making his students think about the “big picture” and the deep meaning of truth, goodness and beauty in their work. Business is a noble vocation when it is part of an aspirational narrative made up of dreams, virtues and values that give business purpose and meaning. As a Catholic priest, he wishes to help students live a life worth living.