Making Waves On Purpose

Jim Hanna has held corporate sustainability roles with Xanterra and Starbucks and is currently at Microsoft and working with Fractal CSOs . He is a great guy with a ton of useful insights. However, one area that he focuses on relentlessly is making the business case. While for many, that is a complex process, he nails it with simple questions: What keeps your leaders up at night, and what are they...

56% of people beleive that capitalism does more harm than good. 70% of Americans would not help a neighbor of a different political party. What is the role of business in an increasingly polarized world? Climate, DEI, and nature are critically important issues, but so too are the institutions that support human flourishing and getting those right, and given the trusted role business has, it needs...

A rich discussion with Lena Pripp-Kovac, former Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) for Ikea. I love the idea she presents of the CSO as an  interpreter .  Lena said, "During my journey in sustainability, it has become clear that one of the key roles in leading change is that of being an interpreter. I am fortunate and thankful for the many amazing people who have shared their experiences to better...

Gabriel Grant is someone whose work you should know about.  Over the past fifteen years, he has provided coaching and training for more than one thousand purpose-led leaders and world-class change agents, including founders and board members, and c-suite executives and directors from more than 150 major brands.  I am fascinated by his thinking on what makes companies tick, especially his ideas aro...

In conversation with Jill Dumain of Fractal CSOs.  Jill offers this:  What a fun opportunity to look back on some of the many experiences that I have had that led me to this place. So many people to thank who have mentored and partnered with me with some of the craziest of ideas. But now I can see how all the individual experiences add up to this new position. I feel as though I am in a good posit...

  In this episode of Making Waves on Purpose, I am in conversation with Jill Dumain, Lena Pripp Kovac, Chad Dorgan and Jim Hanna, all partners, together with me, Jeff Senne, in Fractal CSOs.  Fractal CSOs is a network of practitioners that coach companies and organizations of all shapes and sizes across various industries to move forward faster and stay on the path, whether you're  just getting st...

One of the hats I wear is as the volunteer Team Guardian for Global Purpose Leaders (GPL). This is a close-knit group of purpose practitioners that work on individual, organizational and societal change.  In this podcast, I speak with Brandon Peele. Brandon has been a driving force in GPL for years and in the purpose space even longer. He has a deep understanding of the space, its practice and its...

Kyle Santos joined me in a great conversation on various issues and a focus on something that we in the corporate responsibility space often get wrong - celebrating small wins. Hi rightly points out that given the gravity of what we seek to address, climate change, inequality, ecosystem restoration...small steps often feel not worth celebrating. This is likely to get worse as a result of the ESG b...

I have been super busy with clients and travel, so my podcast frequency has suffered. But I am picking up steam again, and this is an excellent conversation with Grady Lee. Grady is the Co-Founder of Give to Get, which engages companies in bringing their purpose to life, and Social Marks, which works to create definitions around action-based metrics on the social side of ESG. His focus is on actio...

In this my first podcast of the year, I am in conversation with Sharoni Rosenberg. Sharoni is a leader, maybe "the leader" in the purpose space in Chile. She and I met when we both worked at PwC, and she ran PwC Chile's purpose and ESG work. She is a courageous leader, passionate about personal and organizational purpose and committed to advancing the role of business in society. Last year, I was...

In this episode of Making Waves on Purpose, I am joined by Daryl Brewster, the CEO of CECP. With over 200 affiliated companies, CECP is at the forefront of a number of ESG / corporate responsibility issues and approaches. And Daryl and his team bring a very successful business-centric approach, given their previous roles in the private sector.  Daryl and I discuss a wide range of issues, including...

I skipped the queue for this episode which I recorded last week with Momo Mahadav from Maala, The Israeli Business for Social Responsibility organization.  I have known Momo for many years and admire him and his work, and that work has taken on a new importance in the last month. Momo shares how companies' efforts in building DEI programs and understanding have helped them during this tragic and d...

On this episode of Making Waves on Purpose, I am joined by Gregory Unruh. I have known Greg for 20 years, and during that time, he has always impressed me with his take on corporate responsibility and sustainability. And this conversation was further confirmation of his insight and unique viewpoint. We talk about a wide range of subjects, including standard assets, changing the rules of the game,...

In this Making Waves on Purpose episode, Andrew Winston talks about going beyond the business case. While ESG, CR, and sustainability efforts have always demanded a business case, I have been thinking of what my friend  Michael Spenley said to me some 15 years ago: "Don't over-rely on the business case; sometimes it is not there, and we still need to act." ESG, in its original form, is all about f...

In this episode of Making Waves on Purpose, I speak to Lisa Hrabluk. I connected with Lisa via my good friend Christy Cook. Lisa leads Wicked Ideas, a consultancy focused on solving complex problems and the power issues surrounding them. She has a fantastic background, a super sharp mind and a fabulous ability to communicate complex ideas in understandable ways. We discussed power, status quo, cha...

This podcast is the first episode of season two of Making Waves on Purpose. In it, Jennifer Davis, of the Jennifer Davis Media Group, turns the tables and leads the two of us in conversation. It was a fabulous and fun conversation and outlines much of the thinking I will flesh out in season two. I am so grateful to all the guests who joined season one: Georg Kell Lane Jost Celina Gorre Craig Beatt...

Jared Chung is a name you should know. Jared is the Founder of  CareerVillage.org a technology nonprofit that crowdsources career advice for youth at a massive scale. They engage an online volunteer corps of tens of thousands of working professionals in building a huge online repository of answers to every career question you can imagine. Like Donors Choose, and Khan Academy, Career Village is an...

Olivia Albrecht  is CEO at  Aspiration , a climate finance and solutions company. While carbon offsets are a controversial topic, if we are to hold companies' feet to the fire on scope 3 emissions, they need to have all the tools available to them, including offsets. It is simpl y not conceivable that we can meet the need without them. Responsible offsets also drive a wide number of co-benefits, b...

In this episode, I am joined by Nanadika Madgakar, the Senior Director for Strategy and Growth for CECP.   Nandika has years of experience in ESG, corporate responsibility and purpose, having worked for companies and non-profits.  She also worked as a journalist in India.   Her work with CECP and the CEO Investor Forum has given her a front-row seat to how company leaders and their teams are worki...

I have been amazed and grateful for how many great thinkers in the space have come on the podcast and openly shared with me. It has been a real privilege and this conversation with Erika McMullen the CEO of Moxie Consulting Group proves the point. We discuss DEI, cancel culture, engaging the majority and more. I was especially grateful for her open sharing of times when she got it wrong. With so m...

In this episode, I am in conversation with Bree Fram, Lt Col of the US Space Force. Bree is one of the highest-ranking transgender members of the military. I recently met her at the CECP summit in Boston and we struck up a conversation which we continued on the podcast.  In my opinion, one of the biggest problems we face in the world is "othering." We are tribalizing our local, national, and globa...

Neil Edwards of  https://www. neiledwardscoaching.com , works at that intersection of personal and organizational purpose, values, and optimizing potential. He believes that both organizations and individuals need to focus on building trust & creating the future, which requires profound intimacy. I have always been impressed by Neil. I find him thoughtful, calm, insightful, and just a really inter...

Lots has changed for me in the last year and a half. Most profoundly, I began to meditate and it has been a revelation. Mandar Apte found meditation nearly 20 years ago and committed his life since then to teach meditation practice and support others on their transformational journeys including over 2000 executives at Shell, where he worked. Since leaving Shell he has integrated this inner develop...

Bea Boccalandro is special. She has the energy, enthusiasm, and intellect to tackle big problems and has recently focused on job purposing. She published a book on the topic, Do Good At Work , and recently spoke at a TED event.  I recommend both as she has a knack for taking ideas and making them practical and ring true with the real-world experience many have at work. A great conversation with a...

Zeev is the CEO and Co-founder of Landmark Ventures. I worked with Zeev and his team for many years while I was at PwC and they are really quite amazing. 5 or 6 years ago Zeev and I were talking about the evolution of corporate responsibility (insert whatever term you like best here) and he said that he thought this was all going to where we would have red companies and blue companies.  He was rig...