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The Role of Virtue in the Workplace

with keynote speaker

Andreas Widmer

Member of the Swiss Guard for Saint John Paul II

International Author and Speaker

Director of Entrepreneurship Programs
Catholic University of America
Busch School of Business and Economics

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January 14, 2017 from 9:00 a.m. to 12 p.m.
following the 8:30 a.m. Mass

(Check-in, Breakfast, and Networking from 9:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.)

St. Peter Chanel Catholic Church in McNamee Hall
11330 Woodstock Road, Roswell, Georgia 30075

Sponsored by

The Aquinas Center of Theology at Emory University
The Integrated Catholic Life
Belmont Abbey College
EWTN Global Catholic Network
The National Catholic Business Conference

Hosted by the St. Peter Chanel Adult Education Major Speakers Series

Please Register online Now — Seating is Limited

Registration is fast, simple and safe. Do not log in or set up a profile. Simply
enter the number of tickets you want to purchase and press continue.

Cost: $20 online / $25 at door ($10 for students age 24 and under)


This year’s Conference examines the role of virtue and ethics in the workplace.

Keynote, Andreas Widmer will discuss how virtue can improve workplace culture and performance, helping your organization to produce goods that are truly good and provide services that truly serve. Mike Bickerstaff will offer practical lessons for success through ethical choices built on a foundation of virtue.

widmerKeynote Speaker: Andreas Widmer, Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at Catholic University of Americas’ Busch School of Business & Economics. His experience spans the fields of high-tech, international business strategy consulting and economic development. A frequent speaker around the world on issues related to entrepreneurship, business leadership, productivity, business ethics, and the challenges of executive management, Widmer appears frequently in the media.

Andreas is a Research Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the Acton Institute and an advisor to the Zermatt Summit, an annual business leadership event in Switzerland that strives to humanize globalization. He currently serves on the advisory boards of Catholics Come Home, a Catholic TV evangelization campaign, and the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship at Notre Dame University alongside several other non-profit organizations.

Prior to his work in these areas, Andreas co-founded the SEVEN Fund, a philanthropic organization focused on enterprise solutions to poverty. He has held numerous executive roles over the last twenty-five years, helping to build up and lead various successful companies.

Andreas’s publications include: In the River They Swim, Free Markets and the Culture of Common Good, and Faithful Measure, as well as The Pope & The CEO: Pope 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 Saint John Paul II and refined during his career as a successful business executive.

Andreas is a graduate of Merrimack College where he earned a Bachelor of Science in International Business, and from St. John’s Seminary where he earned a Master of Arts as well as two business degrees (sales management and general business management) from Switzerland.

Talk Description: “How to make your workplace grow in virtue” — What virtues would help your company or workplace? What excellence should your team pursue? Let us together explore these and related questions to help you grow in holiness at your work and enable your company to more completely satisfy its customers and other stakeholders by producing goods that are truly good and providing services that truly serve.


bick-at-ncSpecial Guest Speaker: Michael Bickerstaff, is the founder and president of Virtue@Work, a consulting firm specializing in Executive Coaching, Mentoring, and Organizational Relations in the area of Virtue, Ethics and Workplace Values. Mike is also an ordained Catholic Deacon of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, currently serving the people of St. Peter Chanel Catholic Church in Roswell, Georgia.

He has over thirty years’ management consulting experience working for major firms, including Towers Perrin, Alexander & Alexander, and Hazlehurst & Associates. For more than twenty years, he served as the Executive Vice President of Integrated Benefit Systems, Inc., a national software consulting firm specializing in Qualified Retirement Plan administration and compliance.

Talk Description: “Workplace Values & Ethics: The Importance of Building on a Foundation of Virtue” — We know that in order to be successful business professionals, we must continually improve our natural human talents, develop our professional skills, and grow and nurture our professional networks. But true success and fulfillment requires that we also develop and practice the higher human excellences—including honor, integrity, caring, compassion and dependability.

This talk will offer practical lessons for success through ethical choices built on a foundation of virtue.


The Atlanta Catholic Business Conference is intended for all Christians, especially those in the Catholic business and professional community, who wish to more deeply understand the role of faith in the workplace; learning how to integrate their lives and let their Christian faith guide their actions in the secular business world.

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