A Profound Responsibility

When Jayson Lipsey (MBA ’08) accepted a summer internship at Parkway Properties — now Parkway Property Investments — the summer before college, little did he know he would end up as the firm’s CEO one day.

Lipsey credits Darden’s signature take on stakeholder theory for fundamentally changing his outlook. He sought an MBA after working in real estate at Parkway Properties for five years. At the time, he felt ready to continue his education, and he noticed the MBAs on the executive team’s resumes. Plus, he saw an opportunity to be close to his younger brother, who was finishing up his last two years at UVA as a football player.

The Darden experience turned out to be more than a resume boost.

“My view prior to Darden was probably not dissimilar from many people who basically view the role of business as creating profit for its shareholders,” he said. But encountering stakeholder theory in Professor Ed Freeman’s class changed his fundamental outlook. In every leadership role Lipsey took after Darden, he tried to define stakeholders and maximize value for all of them. He found using this mindset to guide important decisions led to a more thoughtful company and more deeply engaged teams. “For me, it has become the single foundation for how we run our company. And that came from a First Year ethics course.”

Lipsey said he was also heavily influenced in his approach to teams and hiring at Darden by Professor Jim Clawson. Leadership lessons from Darden became more relevant than ever when Lipsey returned to Parkway Property Investments as CEO in 2022 after a stint in private equity.

“There’s a profoundness to the responsibility of leading well,” he said.

He reconciles the pressure and responsibility by viewing his role as helping teammates succeed. “The real joy is in serving my teammates,” he said. “They're smarter than me. They're more capable than me. They're certainly more talented than I am. I think once you, with humility, accept that, it really makes your job clear.”

Lipsey also considers it his responsibility to use his position to make the world a better place. He is pursuing this mission in his professional life through real estate development and redevelopment that serves communities well. As a philanthropist, he’s supporting his goal by supporting the resources at Darden that helped reshape his view on the role of business.

“As a [Darden] alumnus, I’m probably most passionate about doing everything I can to support the Darden ethics program, specifically the Institute for Business in Society, because I know what a profound impact it has had on my life, on my career and how I view the world.”

— Molly Mitchell