The Conference Board was established in 1916 amid events such as, the 1910 dynamite bombing of the Los Angeles Times plant, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and union versus management strife were all clear harbingers of labor unrest and shady management practices coming to a violent end. Caught in the middle, the public was losing confidence in the entire business community.

A group of concerned business leaders, representing a variety of major industries, concluded that the time had arrived for an entirely new type of organization. Not another trade association. Not a propaganda machine. But a respected, not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization that would bring leaders together to find solutions to common problems and objectively examine major issues having an impact on business and society.

The Conference Board's stature and credibility have grown far beyond what any of its founders imagined. But it has remained faithful to its original ideals and mission.

Start Small... Think Big

Magnus W. Alexander, our founding president, was an engineer with the General Electric Company. By the turn of the century, engineers were becoming the greatest single source of trained leadership in American industrial management. It was not surprising that GE gave Alexander responsibility of employees at the 5,000-worker West Lynn operations and oversight of the employees' mutual benefit association. During his time in this position, Alexander saw numerous committees all trying to set standards but never sharing their findings or activities. This lack of cooperation and communication made making any real change or improvement difficult. He decided to create a network among the committees he was involved with so that sweeping changes could be made for the better of both employees and employers.

Focusing specifically on worker conditions and to only limited audiences, he took his findings to other businesses. He had specific conference boards on worker safety, sanitation and worker training. Seeing the success and acceptance of these initial conferences, he saw that there was a bigger need to address more diverse workplace topics and reach a wider audience. Together with other influential businessmen, he formed The National Industrial Conference Board.
 

Celebrating 90 Years of Insights

In 2006, The Conference Board celebrated ninety years of helping business strengthen their performance and bottom line while maintaining ethical business practices. The Conference Board has always strived to illustrate and will continue to prove that a sustainable, symbiotic relationship between business and the world community is not only possible but preferable.

Today, The Conference Board continues to stand for the folowing principles:

• The belief that business's efficiency and value to society is always enhanced by better understanding of the changing complexities of enterprise and the environment in which it functions.
• Sound decisions need to be founded on fact, not guesswork, partisan dogma, or untested theory.
• Those with relevant experience are the best sources of practical information on any of the myriad policies and practices of business.
• The Conference Board is a network of thousands of business leaders all over the globe who share, through The Conference Board, hard-earned experience in order to help themselves, each other, and, in the broadest sense, humanity.