Behind the Impact

Alice Damasceno shares how Lenovo is using technology, partnerships, and cross-functional collaboration to create meaningful social impact. Drawing on her engineering background, Alice discusses Lenovo's Powered by Humanity initiative, efforts to improve technology accessibility, and partnerships that expand STEM education and opportunity. She also shares lessons on building effective collaborations, educating business leaders, and balancing business relevance with community needs to create lasting impact.

Elyse Cohen, Chief Impact Officer at Rare Beauty and President of the Rare Impact Fund, shares how the Selena Gomez-founded company has embedded social impact into its business from day one. Drawing on her experience working with Michelle Obama on the Let's Move initiative, Elyse discusses the importance of business acumen, cross-functional collaboration, and understanding different audiences. She also takes us inside the Rare Impact Fund, which has raised more than $30 million toward its $100 million goal for youth mental health, sharing lessons on building a philanthropic fund, strengthening nonprofit partnerships, and measuring impact beyond donations. The conversation also explores how practitioners can demonstrate business value, secure leadership buy-in, and build impact functions that go beyond traditional philanthropy.

Tina Lee shares what she’s learned from nearly eight years building and evolving social impact at Dropbox. She explores how practitioners can connect impact to business priorities, build stronger cross-functional relationships, and continually demonstrate value as leaders and priorities change. Tina also shares lessons from building the Dropbox Foundation, incorporating risk and governance into impact strategy, and why durable impact functions must become increasingly integrated into how the business operates. Pasted text

Sunya Norman, Senior Vice President of Impact at Salesforce, takes us inside Salesforce's approach to corporate impact. She shares how her team builds buy-in, aligns impact strategy with the business, embeds execution across functions, and uses AI to strengthen its work. Sunya also discusses Salesforce's AI for Impact accelerator, the importance of listening before telling, how practitioners can think about business value, and the skills impact leaders will need as the field evolves.

Teresa Pelletier, Vice President of Community Relations at Fidelity Investments, shares lessons from more than two decades in corporate impact. She explores how Fidelity balances community need, employee interest, and business value, why impact strategies should build on a company's unique capabilities, and how employee volunteering can become a strategic business initiative. Teresa also discusses the skills practitioners will need in the years ahead, from relationship building and adaptability to data and business acumen.

In this episode of Behind the Impact, Aimee Gilbreath, President of PetSmart Charities, shares what she's learned about rebuilding an impact strategy, influencing without authority, and creating stronger integration between impact and the business. From transforming PetSmart Charities' strategy to spending years helping the American Red Cross integrate pets into disaster response, Aimee offers a practical look at what it takes to create meaningful change inside complex organizations.

In this episode of Behind the Impact, Jean Shia, Managing Director of the Autodesk Foundation, shares how the foundation approaches corporate philanthropy and impact investing, including building trust with partners, measuring impact with intention, connecting philanthropy to the business, and using catalytic capital to help promising solutions scale.

In this episode of Behind the Impact, Angie Ruddell, Social Impact Manager at Lockheed Martin, shares lessons from her journey from the nonprofit sector to corporate social impact, including how practitioners can build influence across the organization, connect their work to business priorities, communicate impact more effectively, and develop the curiosity and entrepreneurial mindset needed to navigate an evolving field.

In this episode of Behind the Impact, Sirene Abou-Chakra draws on her experience at Google, the City of Detroit, Dataminr, and Airbnb to unpack what it takes to build a durable corporate impact function -- from aligning impact directly with business goals and earning internal buy-in to building the human skills practitioners will need in an AI-powered world.

In episode 63 of Behind the Impact, Miles Anderson, Head of MaintainX.org, shares how he turned an unexpected opportunity in sales into a career building corporate impact functions, and what he's learned about earning executive buy-in, connecting impact to business outcomes, and building programs that companies continue to invest in.