Fashion can be done ethically - Antonia Johnstone, CEO Sign of the Times

The rise in demand for local working spaces is very visible. It's unfortunate that the category was tarnished by WeWork founder Adam Neumann, whose fortune is dwarfed only by the lack of ethics displayed in building it. But it doesn't need to be so.An alternative would be to start to consciously build workspaces not only based on a pound per square foot and the distance to the nearest Waitrose, but rather on the basis of the communities in which they're located, and how they can best serve and integrate with those communities.That's very much the ethos behind Patch, a company building working spaces founded by my guest today, Freddie Fforde.Patch locations are designed and built on a foundation of community contribution, local and ethical sourcing, a local scholarship programme (early days), in-kind charity donations, 100 year thinking, equality of opportunity, sustainable design, and values which have been very clearly thought through and implemented.Three simple values:- Near, reflecting the desire to allow people to work in their local community;- Balanced, reflecting the flexibility to allow everyone to balance their lives appropriately without having work location be the key driver;- Build to last, reflecting Freddie's intent that the decisions the company and its team makes should be ones for a company that will last over 100 years.It's a wonderful set of values. We discuss how Freddie came to them, how they come alive in the company, and his vision for bringing Patch not only to the obvious affluent locations, but to all high streets in the UK's towns.As one of his investors with a background in the area says, " I'm only investing if you agree with me. We're not done until we're in Wigan."(I discuss with Freddie after the recording that they shouldn't be done even when they're in Wigan. I'd like to see one open up in Gaza!)This is a rich episode where we also discuss topics of privilege and the fact that although you can't change your background if it is privileged (which in the UK the vast majority of us have), you can become aware of that privilege and use it to help.Freddie's a thoughtful founder. Enjoy this episode._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

A company that makes lawyers wealthier? On the Karmic Capitalist podcast?Have I sold out?Stay with me. This law company,  Aria Grace, intentionally does the following:It offers a legal service on a par with the large law partnerships for less cost to its clientsIt pays the lawyers nearly treble the portion of the fees than in traditional firmsIt donates ALL of its profit to charityIt tackles the lack of diversity in the legal professionLindsay Healy has created a truly disruptive model for law firms with Aria Grace. He does away with the traditional model's payment of 1/3 of fees to partners, 1/3 to the company and 1/3 to the lawyers, and instead gives 90% of the fees to the lawyers, with the remaining 10% paying for the running of the company, and all profit going to charity.As a result of its work, Aria Grace won The Lawyer Awards' "Law Firm of the Year 2023" award.This is the legal equivalent of Best Movie at the Oscars. Which I guess makes Lindsay law's Leonardo di Caprio. Without the sleaze.(Allegedly, Lindsay, allegedly!)Lindsay has a real issue with the existing model for law firms.--- Feudal and the worst of capitalism. Inflated fees paying for the "Porsches and divorces" of the partners.--- Hugely unequal distribution of wealth. He talks a lot about Aria Grace's core concept of "wealthshare".--- Elitist and exclusionary. "What we don't want is a law firm that looks like me full of people like me because that's what your typical city law firms look like. We want a law firm that looks like the UK, reflective of all the cultures and the creeds and the denominations... We have pretty much every type of culture you can wave a stick at, and that's pretty cool."What he's building with Aria Grace is challenging all of these precepts and creating a new, and rapidly growing model.He talks me through this in this fascinating episode, punctuated with many a pot-shot at billionaires and partners, which makes it as fun as it is stimulating._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

"Move Fast and Break Things" is a terrible way to be anti-racist.This Karmic Capitalist podcast episode is FULL of gold.I talk to Javaughn and Jamey, VP of culture and CEO respectively of Agilian.com, a technology consulting firm that has absolutely nailed anti-racism and diversity to its mast.When, to his enormous shame, Jamey was shown data that the black female execs on his team were paid significantly less than the white male ones, and it was not attributable to performance, he raised the pay of all those underpaid execs in one fell swoop............ and hit the commercial reality that follows those kinds of easy but hard decisions (my words, not his).That profitability took a dive.Which in turn shone the light on the fact that Agilian's rates were also too low. Efficiency and rate alignments took care of the short-term hit to profits. While employee retention rose as the team saw how the leadership was prepared quite literally to put its money where its mouth is with its commitment to equality.Javaughn's perspectives are ones that everyone who cares about diversity, and especially white male CEOs, should make the time to listen to. It reminds me of this wonderful story:There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”The water in many workplaces is a systemic bias that's so built in that its beneficiaries don't even notice its existence. It's fascinating that even Jamey, who is as present and sensitive to racism as you could ask for, is continually learning.As was I.Javaughn's truth-bombs alone make this episode worth listening to. Add to that their combined perspective of the very real and practical journey that Agilian is on, how that shows up in sales, in recruitment, in ops and in delivery.Because it's not in the PR where anti-racism is made - it's in the work itself, how it's carried out, who does it, and the opportunities that are created.This is an amazingly insightful episode. Do give it a listen. Wherever you get your podcasts._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

Helping big companies be good, and good companies get bigger.Not quite EdenLab's motto, but not far off it.In this episode of the Karmic Capitalist podcast, I talk to Leo Rayman, founder and CEO, about his journey from agencyland to EdenLab - accelerating positive and sustainable ideas and the people who come up with them.Leo's premise, and the underlying one of EdenLab, is that with over 3 billion people working for companies worldwide, we should be harnessing the power of companies to help solve the climate crisis rather than throwing stones at them.Which leads us neatly to...Ecocapitalism...An oxymoron? Doesn't capitalism - predicated as it is on ever-increasing consumerism - have a fundamental design flaw at its very core which means we are destined to overuse and degenerate the planet?After agonising a bit over whether there can be a better model, we arrive to a conclusion that it's a hard question to answer.AND, that regardless of the answer, we need action.For Leo and EdenLab, that action includes engaging with big companies, because they're best positioned to quickly fix things at scale.It also means engaging with disruptive small companies that have the potential to scale rapidly. Which is where EdenLab plays a role in amplifying their voicesThis is an interesting conversation that goes system-wide, as well as looking at the actionable response that EdenLab has taken to deal with those system-wide issues.We settle on the fact that we need a positive vision of what business could look like if we're to build better.Enjoy._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

A founder who doesn’t see himself as a salesman, targeting purpose-led companies that don't identify that way, to tackle a problem that people don't think exist.Recipe for success...And exactly what Tom Greenwood did with Wholegrain Digital, the company he founded and which, in sustainability stakes, was a way ahead of the curve.Tom's concern for the environment started when it was still very much a minority sport. Certainly long before it became mainstream to talk about it, let alone make it the default business model.When he turned that concern to the business he founded, he did so with three goals in mind.First, to push making digital sustainable. The received wisdom at the time was that the internet and digital were benign actors in terms of environmental impact. Very early on, from his own research, Tom was aware that its environmental impact was anything but minimal.Second, to work with purpose-led companies to create a positive impact - to do good things with good companies.And finally, to do it all in a way that creates a sustainable business.What could go wrong!16 years on, he's only gone and done it!Wholegrain is thriving. Tom's authored and published a widely read book about the decisions technologists and designers can make to minimise the environmental impact of their web sites. And awareness of sustainability is rising.Tom is one of humanity's genuinely lovely people. He's making a difference in his own unassuming, determined and impactful way.And it was a real pleasure to hear his story on this episode of the Karmic Capitalist.Listen in._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

Very few businesses have the level or resonance and commitment from founders more than those whose origins came from personal tragedy.MyBabble was born after founder Faisal Shaikh's father sadly left home and didn't return. It transpired later that unknown to anyone, his dad had been dealing with loneliness.Faisal is a trained and practising psychiatrist, and was aware that this is a huge problem that needs a variety of different and complimentary approaches.Hi approach through the company he founded, MyBabble, is to build a community of those suffering loneliness, and those willing to support them by engaging in anonymous, structured 17 minute calls through the MyBabble app.In this episode of the Karmic Capitalist,Faisal details the issues surrounding loneliness, and the many ways it is being addressed and not. We then also go into the detail of being a highly motivated, values minded person setting up a company without prior experience, and Faisal is refreshingly open about the journey he's on.After a couple of development hiccups, the app itself has completed its MVP. While Faisal is recruiting into the community, it is now being developed for release.MyBabble is also hosting a conference in a week bringing together mental health practitioners, psychiatrists, supporters and those suffering loneliness. Attendance is open for those interested.This is a story rooted in tragedy, but which is turning that tragedy into a force for good.Listen in._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

"How can we collectively increase the quantity and quality of giving to nonprofits, to charities, so that they can raise more awareness, raise more funds, deliver more impact in their communities?"If there's a question that defines Lightful's work, I think Vinay shares it in this.My guest on the Karmic Capitalist podcast this week is Vinay Nair, co-founder and CEO of Lightful. Lightful uses technology to accelerate impact in the social impact sector.He'd just returned from an uplifting conference with the Gates Foundation (took some prodding to get this out - no easy namedrop from Nair!), and he shares with us how that works, and the amplification of good that comes from it.Having a for-profit organisation whose clients are mostly nonprofit can be quite a tightrope to walk, and Vinay shares how Lightful "positively correlate ours income and impact" and the importance of that positive correlation being structural to avoid conflict of interest.Vinay is also Resident Expert at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School (that's some mouthful!), and I probe into what he's seeing in the generation that is coming through Saïd.His shares an uplifting observation. When he's doing a session with students on impact investing or tech for good, they'll pretty much retort "of course, what else - Tech for bad? Non impactful investing?".For them, the default language is "as if it were ever thus or certainly how it must be from today going forward. And I find that powerful inspirational.Vinay is a thoughtful advocate. We run the gamut of business doing good and being profitable, of being a for-profit serving the nonprofit sector, the role of values, and much more.He's an engaging conversationalist. Listen in to this episode of the Karmic Capitalist._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

From the high-stakes financial environment of the now defunct Lehman Brothers ("buy-and-sell in its most aggressive manner") to putting on an exhibition of some of the most ethical and long-term thinking brands.That’s the varied journey which my guest, Hussein Allawi, has been on. He took plenty of lessons from those early days, days which he found very lacking in purpose, but which have informed how he's now actively pushing a sustainability agenda.Hussein is the co-founder and CEO of Frontier Events, the company behind the Sustainability Show where lifestyle, food, travel and finance brands with a perspective on sustainability come together to promote an alternative and more ethical way of living. And one that is accessible to people at all income levels.It's not how the company started. Like many in their early stages, the company's gone through a couple of pivots before finding its sweet spot as an events-driven hub for the many stakeholders involved in building a more sustainable future.This is a really broad conversation. We talk about those pivots...about the Middle East's not straightforward ESG story...about the ethical roots of Islamic finance and investing...about the regional drives for sustainability in the North of England...about how and if consumption can ever be sustainable...about running an events business during lockdown....... and obviously about the show itself which is Frontier's main offering today, with a roster of speakers including previous Karmic Capitalist guest Jarvis Smith.Hussein is a very eloquent and grounded advocate for sustainability. This was a really enjoyable conversation._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

"If going to a TGO gym can help unlock your potential not only for your life, but for your community, for your planet, that's the end game."Georgie Delaney MBE isn't short on a big vision. But critically - she's also not short on taking action.It was wonderful to talk to her about setting up and growing The Great Outdoor Gym Company (TGO). From a seed of inspiration seeing outdoor gyms in China after the Beijing Olympics, to high level backing in the London 2012 Olympics, to now having more than 2000 outdoor gyms globally. It's been a heck of a journey so far.Oh, and on the way, invites to exhibit at COP21 and COP22.And then there was the MBE...To be fair, a TGO gym is no ordinary gym. It generates power. It charges phones. It supports tree planting. It fosters community.And all while staying true to its mission and promoting inclusivity, unity and charity.This is quite a different episode. Of course, we talk about the specifics of the business journey Georgie's been on - the challenges and victories of going from startup to success and international scale.We talk about the role of luck, and how luck often has 2 bookends which are under your control. The first is continually taking action, which invariably creates more opportunities for luck to find you. And the second is what you do with the luck that's made its way to you.But we also talk about religion. Georgie is very much a Christian, and guided by Christian values which manifest in how she runs her business.Most visibly in love, and in community.Love sits at the heart of how she started and grew the Great Outdoor Gym Company. She founded it with people she loved, to serve a humanity she loves while serving a planet we all should love more.And that translates to community. The gyms often give opportunities for communities to form. She talks movingly about the interfaith community that's sprung up around one of her gyms in East London.Georgie's is a business with purpose and values very much at its heart. And it's a business that wears that heart on its sleeve.A deeper dive. And I think for both of us, a bit of therapy!Enjoy._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

So you're running an ethical agency. A criminal organisation posing as a listed company - let's call them Belgian Australian Tobacco - approaches you."We fund an 'anti-smoking education programme' along with some of our other friends. But the challenge is that it's not as easy to find us on the web as it is lung cancer charities. We need your help to rank better."The programme, as it says on the tin, is to educate people against smoking.Do you take the business? Critically, *how* do you decide?I paint it cynically, but there are many companies who are net detractors from society and environment, but who nonetheless undertake some positive initiatives.Would you work with them on their greenwashing / socialwashing projects which do deliver some good? Surely those anti-smoking charities are doing some good? Like the betting-control charities funded by the bookies?I thought it would be interesting to dive into the nuance in this detailed conversation of the Karmic Capitalist podcast with the founder of "Positive Digital Marketing Agency" Climbing Trees.Climbing Trees do NOT work with tobacco companies. In fact, they list the sectors they won't engage with.This was a really down to earth nuts-and-bolts chat with founder and CEO Alex Holliman. In his words, which I love, Climbing Trees is focussing on working with "companies that the world of tomorrow needs".And that's a virtuous cycle by definition if you do it well. You work in industries and with companies who you believe have a positive role to play in creating a better tomorrow. And if you're right, not only will they grow, but you'll play a part in that growth, and create more successful businesses that you can work with tomorrow.He's been on a journey of building purpose and values into the core of his agency, and that's surfaced a number of areas which they've explicitly tackled to continually make a better company. For their team, for their customers and for society and environment.It's a really interesting journey and discussion. We dive into intent and mechanics - how he's been addressing diversity, client selection, strategy. And the impact it's been having on culture as well as business model.And the ultimate question for client work..."Does it feel good?"Listen in - it's a great story, and Alex shares some very tangible learnings they've had along the way._______________I host a weekly online workshop with CEOs of SMEs (10 to 100 employees approx) about scaling up, allowing them to step back and do more strategic work, and doing it in line with their values. Max 6 per session so we can have a real conversation.If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.