Monica Moisin - Integrity and values matter

In this episode Monica Moisin, a lawyer and founder of the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative, talks about the importance of integrity and values. 

Leadership isn’t just about accomplishments but about setting a path for others to follow.  She says that: “Leadership is not only about getting things done, but it’s also about creating a vision for where we want to get. The vision is extremely important, being able to dream a bit more than we can reach… that’s always important. But there has to be balance: it cannot just be vision and dreaming; there has to be accountability.”

The purpose that a leader shows must be backed by a strong sense of integrity. Monica urges listeners to: “Find one mission of social impact that you invest in. We are here today all together to find a way to move forward: a system where the wellbeing of people is at the forefront; where profit is not the only measure of success.”

Today’s informed consumers are more likely to hold brands to account when they don’t behave ethically. “Today more than ever, transparency and integrity in business are of paramount importance. Business models that do not value every actor across the supply chain are doomed to fail, and this includes artisans, craftspeople, custodians of traditional knowledge,” Monica says.

Transcript

Monica Moisin FINAL

Thu, 4/21 3:22PM • 6:09

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

fashion, cultural, exploited, intellectual property rights, work, fashion industry, initiative, monica, biz, podcast, traditional, share, community, today, produced, fin, world, custodians, business models, legal

00:01

Hello, and welcome to the fin biz 2030 building resilience podcast series. This episode features highlights from the leadership purpose and ethics webinar, hosted by Kara huffy, and indie healthy. In this episode, we hear from Monica moisten a fashion attorney and advocate of cultural intellectual property rights. She is introduced here by Kara

00:25

I will not hear from Monica and Weisen, who's repeating a Tegrity at the core of her life's work. She is a cultural intellectual property and fashion lawyer, a cultural sustainability consultant and founder of the cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative. She is dedicated to protecting, protecting craftsmanship and the rights of craftsmanship in what she does. Monica, let's hear from you.

00:53

Thank you very much Cara for this kind introduction. I'll jump right in. As the One Young World ambassador and founder of the cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative to share with you why I launched this initiative. And what is our action portfolio. Separating as we affectionately call ourselves came around from the need to eliminate cultural appropriation in the fashion business, and to offer extra legal alternatives to the current legal system that seems to fail to protect indigenous people and local communities who are custodians and transmitters of traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions. What often happens in the fashion industry is that these expressions that belong to cultures worldwide, are taken and, and exploited without consent without credit and without compensation. The cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative act therefore, as a mediator between the interests of the fashion business and those of indigenous people and local communities, what we try is to bring them together on the same platform to create benefit sharing business models that work in line and focus on the Sustainable Development Goals. Eight of the 17 goals focused specifically on cultural sustainability, but that is very little spoken about, and opportunities in the sphere very little exploited. We have developed extra legal tools such as the three C's rule framework, credit, consent, compensation, and the cultural trademark, to support communities to be at an equal at a power level, with fashion stakeholders in negotiations and discussions. Despite the current pandemic, our team, which is spread across four continents, is implementing projects based on the three C's role in India, what Amala, Germany, Laos and Romania, we've been more active than ever, being a close knit framework, a close knit community that that works from the distance with online tools as well. What shocked me in my work as a cultural intellectual property and fashion lawyer has been the prevalence of a colonial mindset, both in the legal space especially when we look at the notion of public domain and what it means and in the definition of the fashion system itself. The fashion system itself is built on the divide between the global north and global south. And this has been a divide that has been systemically replicated in the way fashion is produced around the world and distributed and consumed the notion of public domain currently puts inside of it, terms like traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, meaning that these elements are free for everyone to exploit, often in the detriment of communities that live in most in a lot of parts of the world under the poverty line. Today, more than ever, transparency and integrity in business are of paramount importance. business models that do not value every actor across the supply chain are doomed to fail. And this includes artisans craftspeople, custodians of traditional knowledge indigenous communities around the world. We see it in the fashion industry very well today. Consumers are more inquisitive. They challenge the business models, they challenge the transparency of the supply chains, they know they have become impact investors themselves. They ask for a redefinition of the fashion system and how the industry operates. This work is no longer just a work of activism, but it's a work of community. It's a community endeavour. If there's one piece of advice that I would like to share with the audience, I'm not an accountant. I'm not very experienced in the finance field. My father is but I'm not. But what I can share with you I could ask for you if you want is to find one mission of social impact that you invest in. Because we are here today all gathered to find a way to move forward away a system where the well being of the people is at the forefront, where profit is no longer the only measure for success. This is what I had to share. Thank you very much for your time and attention.

05:31

To hear more podcasts or to find out more about fin biz 2030 Go to fin biz 20 thirty.com. Join the conversation using hashtag fin biz 2030 in base 2030 is a joint initiative between One Young World and Chartered Accountants worldwide. This podcast is produced by Big Top multimedia. The original webinar series was produced by B their productions and Big Top multimedia Special thanks to pexels.com