TOMS Shoes CEO to Deliver Lecture on Business Ethics at Gonzaga

Jim Alling, CEO of TOMS Shoes, will present Gonzaga University’s 7th annual Aram Lecture on Business Ethics at 6 p.m., Sept. 14 in the Jepson Center’s Wolff Auditorium. The free lecture is titled “TOMS: Improving Lives through Business.”

Embedded in TOMS’ business model is the ethos to make a positive difference in the world. To that end, TOMS helps address need and advance health, education and economic opportunity for people worldwide, according to a press release.

Alling has more than 30 years general management and marketing experience in consumer packaged goods and consumer retailing, having served as an executive at four top global companies: Starbucks, T-Mobile, Nestle and most recently TOMS, for which he was named CEO in April.

The endowed lecture serves as a tribute to John Aram, a former Gonzaga Trustee and benefactor whose long and dedicated service to the forest industry spurred Weyerhaeuser Company, Boise Cascade Corp., Potlatch Corp., the George F. Jewett Foundation, and many industry associates and friends to establish John L. Aram Chair of Business Ethics at Gonzaga. The lecture is designed to provide students with a better understanding of business and government ethical issues.

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Tracy Simmons

Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.