The Impact Files

Sarah Jordan, our guest this week, is the founder and CEO of Y.O.U Underwear, an ethical underwear brand created in 2016. Her mission? ‘Changing the world, one pair of pants at a time’! While volunteering with the Uganda International Marathon, Sarah discovered that girls were missing up to 25% of their education because they didn’t own a pair of underwear. The realisation that something many of u...

Our guest this episode is Sophie Howe, CEO of Comtec Translations. Comtec was established in 1981 by Sophie’s mother, Dr Isabella Moore. The company was sold at one point, but Sophie and her husband later bought it back, and have led it together since 2007. Today, Comtec operates with an internal team of 16 project managers and a global network of around 4,000 linguists, reflecting both the breadt...

Our guest this episode is Douglas Hansen‑Luke. Douglas is the  founder and Executive Chair of Future Planet Capital, an impact‑led, profit‑first venture capital firm. Douglas has spent over 20 years working across emerging markets, sovereign wealth funds and new asset classes, always with a belief in the ‘efficient deployment of capital’. It was reading Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save which c...

Our guest this episode is Adam Garfunkel, Partner and Chief Impact Officer at Junxion Strategy, whose career spans more than three decades of campaigning, communications and impact consulting.  Adam’s route into sustainability began unexpectedly. After moving to Canada in his early twenties, he took a job as a door‑to‑door canvasser for Greenpeace, expanding the canvassing operations over time. Re...

Our guest this episode is Will Silverwood, whose career has taken him from commercial strategy through leading sustainability at Whitbread PLC, one of the UK’s most recognisable hospitality groups. Today he brings together decades of experience in transformation, operations and organisational change to help large businesses navigate the realities of decarbonisation. Will shares the story behind hi...

Join us in getting to know Tom Cotter, founder and CEO of OCEANR – a fast‑growing sustainable apparel company expanding its product portfolio and working with some of the world’s most recognisable hospitality destinations, private islands and adventure brands. Tom shares the story behind OCEANR’s evolution. What began as three friends in West Cork spotting an overlooked product category – the humb...

Our guest in this episode is Geoff Hucker, a former Emirates pilot whose life underwent a dramatic change after a visit to a small Franciscan orphanage in Addis Ababa, at the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The harsh reality of children dying because families couldn’t afford monthly fees for lifesaving medication, set Geoff on a new path and resulted in co-creation of Beyond the Orphanage, a mode...

Meet Jay Light, Director of PACT Dogs – a fast-growing membership and education organisation shaping professional standards for dog trainers and behaviourists. Jay shares the story behind PACT’s growth. Four and a half years ago it had just a few dozen members and one course. Today it has more than 400 members across the UK and internationally, delivering accredited training and influencing the fu...

Meet Darren Aston, Managing Director of Aston and James - a long-established family business helping organisations make their workplaces work, from office supplies and furniture to workwear, branded goods, and facilities essentials. Darren shares the story of a business built over 35 years, shaped by family and a strong sense of care, humility, and responsibility - now central to how it approaches...

Meet Dean Connelly, founder of Latte - a specialist PR and social media recruitment agency working across London, Sydney and Melbourne, at the sharp end of the communications job market.  Latte is one of three recruitment agencies globally to have pledged against recruiting for agencies with fossil fuel clients, instead championing roles that use comms as a force for good.  Dean shares what it’s l...

Meet Nick Billingham, Managing Director of Charity People - a recruitment business serving the UK non-profit sector, built around impact, employee ownership, and long-term thinking. Nick shares his route into charity recruitment, moving from a more traditional path to finding a better fit in the non-profit world. Ten years on, he leads a business working across charity, education, and social impac...

Meet Amanda Powell-Smith, Chief Executive of Forster Communications - a purpose-led agency working at the intersection of communications, sustainability, and social change for nearly 30 years. Amanda shares the story behind Forster’s founding in 1996, inspired by the Body Shop era and the belief that business can be a force for good. That ambition still shapes the agency’s work, client choices, an...

Meet Josh Pitman, Managing Director of Priory Direct — a sustainable packaging supplier — and a kite surfer turned accidental entrepreneur. Priory Direct is a £10 million packaging business helping more than 16,000 UK e-commerce businesses ship products to customers — with as little waste as possible. We hear how they’re taking on one of e-commerce's most overlooked problems. Secondary packaging —...

Season two kicks off with a short introduction to co-host Ruth Davis. Ruth is co-founder of Oxygen, an Oxford-based creative agency and certified B Corp working with purpose-led organisations. Their work spans brand, design and websites, with a growing focus on low-carbon web design.  In this short episode we learn how Oxygen started as the marketing team at Oxford HR, a leadership consultancy ser...

What does it take to build a social enterprise that truly sustains itself - financially, environmentally and socially? Ally and I had a wonderful chat with Adrian Sell, Chief Executive of Oxford Wood Recycling, a social enterprise turning waste timber into valuable items while helping people facing barriers to employment rebuild confidence, skills and working lives. Oxford Wood Recycling collects...

Meet Dr Karen Cripps, Associate Professor of Responsible Management and Leadership at Oxford Brookes University Business School.   Karen has spent her career exploring the intersection of business, sustainability and education. Today, her focus is clear: green skills - and why every job is now a green job.   We talk about what that really means in practice. Not just specialist sustainability roles...

Meet Tom Cox, founder and MD of Decent Energy , and host of People Planet Pint in Cambridge. Tom’s idea is simple: if you want people to live more sustainably, make it easy and make it affordable. Decent Energy’s platform cuts carbon and saves users money. And Decent Energy only gets paid when customers do. Tom explains their first product, Shîfter - software that helps households optimise when th...

“Sustainability is about running a business well” Meet Ali Peck , Head of Communications and Engagement at a net-zero committed pension fund. We hear how an £8bn public sector pension fund, responsible for around 100,000 members, thinks about climate change not as a moral add-on, but as a material financial risk. Flooding, heat, supply chains, stranded assets – if investments aren’t resilient, pen...

Meet Emma Wellstead, founder of Warwick Events and genius organiser of B Corp’s Louder Than Words festival, which pretty much took over my home town of Oxford for two days in 2024. I volunteered there and it was a highlight of my professional year – brilliantly organised and with an eye to detail and sustainability that’s rarely seen at corporate events. In this episode we discuss Emma’s personal...

Meet Andy Bedwell, owner and MD of Point of Difference Workspace, the boutique office and co-working business behind some of the nicest places to work in Bicester and beyond. From serviced offices to shared housing, Andy’s built a business that cares about people, place and long-term value. We discuss Andy’s journey from consultancy into property, and how he’s grown the business while deliberately...

Welcome to the first episode of The Impact Files - conversations with leaders balancing purpose and profit.  In this short episode you’ll hear how the podcast came about and the types of guests we chat with: business leaders working to meet near-term financial needs while creating lasting wellbeing for people and planet. You’ll also meet Season One co-host Ally Dunnett. Ally’s a sustainability con...

Can businesses balance their short-term financial needs with positive long-term impact on people and planet? And what's the role of marketing, media and communications in all of this? I'm on a mission to find out by talking to business leaders who are balancing purpose and profit. I'm Ned Wells and this is the Impact Files podcast.  Join me as I chat with leaders from across business, exploring th...