About making purpose work

Frank Jensen, COB of Søren Jensen, on making purpose work Léon de Bakker We had the great pleasure to interview Frank Jensen on how he makes purpose work. Frank is chairman of the board of Søren Jensen, a family-run consulting engineering company, founded in 1945 to help bring relief after the devastation of war. This mindset of positive impact is still very much present today as the company helps clients to reduce their carbon footprint.Frank shares his insights on the importance of a generational timeline, the success that came after financial downturn by focusing on sustainability, increased agility after moving to a team-of-teams model and fostering thought leadership and client driven innovation. He also speaks about the benefits of being able to benchmark on positive impact, coupling planet and profit and embedding sustainability.Read, watch or listen to the full interview at www.makingpurposework.com/blog.

We had the great pleasure to interview Andy Last on how he makes purpose work. Both at his own company, Mullenlowe Salt, as well as for his clients such as Unilever and Kimberly Clark. Andy talks about his connection to purpose, key aspects to positive impact, the benefits and challenges of becoming and being a B-Corp and about how their tool called Swords and Shields helps navigate positive impact journeys. You can also watch or read the interview on www.makingpurposework.com/blog. If you want to learn more about Andy’s thinking, you might want to check out his book: Business on a mission. The second edition: ‘How to Build a Sustainable Brand’ will be published by Routledge later this year, featuring a number of the models and examples featured in this podcast, new interviews with leaders from Unilever and BlackRock, and new chapters on the impact of COVID-19 on purpose and sustainability and the growing pressure from investors for companies to improve their ESG performance. The first edition was described by Paul Polman, former Unilever CEO, as “A timely reminder that the primary purpose of business has always been to serve a clear social need, brilliantly combined here with a well-illustrated roadmap of how we can get back to that essential objective.”

Our planet and society are facing big challenges. Stakeholders expect companies to make a difference. Some of your stakeholders are your clients, suppliers, investors and employees. Their power has changed your landscape. Making organizational purpose and positive impact a necessity. Rather than a luxury.So, success is on the side of organizations that have a positive impact on planet and society. Now what should SME's actually do to make it happen? This podcast channel is dedicated to people that deliver on purpose and positive impact. Through a series of interviews we’ll learn how they overcome barriers and set the wheels in motion. Subscribe to be the first to access our latest thinking. More content will follow soon. In the meantime, please do visit makingpurposework.com and learn more about accelerating your positive impact journey.