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Highlights from the conversation:My concern is not the big brands, it's the numbered companies. It's the invisible number of companies that are dumping chemicals into our water because we've never heard of them, we can't control themWhat you say is inconsequential. The real story you're telling your people and the world is your action.But today, everything is transparent. We've gone from an opaque world to a transparent world, that transparency means that everything you're doing is part of your story.Often the cumulative impact is so staggering that people are shocked by what they're actually doing. Because We're so focused on quarterly reports and monthly and daily results. We don't ever take a step back to say, what happens if we succeed.We have a right to exist, if we're contributing. And I think that's a mind expanding way of thinking about business to say, you know, you have a responsibility in your existenceIt's what I call life-centred design, which really puts life at the centre and we start to think

Highlights from the conversation:Purpose defines what you do when nobody's looking. Unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of posturing and gesturingWhat I've seen in the last three years is an obsession with the startup culture. On the other end of the pendulum, you've got an obsession with people who can now globalise and take their brands beyond national boundaries, but there's this missing middle. The narrative of business is growth, you know — you need to keep growing. And I think there's a very interesting conversation that I've started to hear of people going — well, what if we didn't need to grow? You know, what if we needed to grow to a certain size, and then that was okay, like that's enough?If we started measuring the profitability of purpose-led brands at a level which is at the scale of the JSE then you would start seeing businesses take this stuff seriouslyThe data is there that shows how, if we truly can support the efforts of female entrepreneurs, we can see the parallel effects and the growth of c

More about Tom An evangelist for conscious business, Tom Fels is the Founder and CEO of Animarem, an advisory focused on transforming business as a force for good, and the regional representative of the global B Corp movement in Southern Africa.Tom’s journey to purpose saw him guiding the world's top brands to growth as communication group Publicis Machine‘s Group Managing Director, supporting digital transformation as CEO of Nurun - the Publicis specialist technology agency – and then embarking on a role as CEO: Hospitality at the world-leading conservation tourism business, Singita.Tom is passionate about connecting people to powerful ideas that accelerate business and lead sustainable change.        Find Tom here:LinkedInWebsiteAnimarem Show NotesCompanies/Organisations:4WKS CoffeeBlackRockSingitaPatagoniaAll BirdsB CorpUnreasonable CapitalMiscellaneous:One Eyed Man with Tom Fels How can you help?There are four ways you can help us out.Give us your thoughts. Rate the podcast and leave a comment.Share this

Highlights from the conversation:I realised that if you want to touch people, just tell them a story and they will never forget youIt's easy for me to be in a business where I sell jeans and it's all about money-making. But when you have a big idea, a bigger purpose that's what keeps us going, that's what builds companies that's what builds big brandsWe had to upskill them. So we collaborated with a school in Amsterdam. I went to learn how to make a pair of jeans, brought the master tailor and the co-founder into the space and ran a programme that taught the ladies how to make a pair of jeans from start to finish, and they became master tailorsI know it's really one of the most expensive and hardest ways of doing business in this world. But I think it has much more impact. And I'd really love to impact more peopleWe decided that we were going to hire people from the community. So, the ladies that work in our atelier, walk to work — they don't have to spend their money on transportation or have taxi problemsWe

Highlights from the conversation:The foundation itself is a product of this process. This started a long time ago, and now we took the shape of an institution to really push this forward and really think about creativity as a tool to build our collective futureIt's important to create initiatives that are able to establish a basic level of knowledge that young people can have access to in order to really build their own creativity and build their own worldWhen you look at something like that [Wikipedia], you just realise that sometimes an open-source technological tool tends to recreate the power structure of the world.[We] want to do it by transforming young Africans from passive knowledge consumers to active knowledge producersIn order for that active engagement to really take off, it's rooted in a genuine place that you're coming from. So it's not a big company trying to sort of leverage something, it's this open conversation, which in a sense, encourages people to be activeThere could be no room for marke

Highlights from the conversation:Sometimes, I think people forget that what happens to us in the workplace really has far-reaching consequencesI don't believe in safe spaces. I believe in brave spaces where people can be brave and say what it is that they've been through.[On the Constitutional Court] I worked in an environment where there was a concerted effort to live up to South Africa's highest ideals. It wasn't perfect, but just the striving of it made me have the highest standards.Arriving to the office and seeing the culture where the judges know everyone by name, you know, not just the law clerks, but the cleaning ladies, the security guards, and all the support staff. You know, a culture where the judges themselves refer to each other as brother and sister, which is very much an African cultureThe court has the constitution, this document or this clearly articulated purpose, a dent that they're trying to make in the world, that they have to go after. And I think by having that so clear, everybody who

Highlights from the conversation:It's these little rituals in organisations that can often create a culture, and culture can often drive the behaviour and the success or failure of an organisation.The more shared meaning you build an organisation, the stronger your culture is.One of the most important things you can do is become part of somebody else's story.That's one of my big pet peeves with organisations — they keep trying to get customers to join their story.If you don't have a safe space where you can muck up and get it wrong, then you're never going to learn. So that's this idea of a community of practice where there's a safe space, where you can try stuff; if you don't get it right or if you fail, you can just get up, dust yourself off and go and try again.When we're building brands for people, words are important and language is important. So picking the right words for your brand, your community, and your people has meaning and importance.When a community is healthy it will grow. So don't care about

Highlights from the conversation:We've got such an unbelievable opportunity to define workplace 2.0.Our ways of working were an evolution from when we were factory workers.We are naturally diabolical at our communication. Despite our best intentions, it's one of the muscles of culture that every single organisation needs to focus on building.If you needed everybody in the same room at the same time for that to work, there are bigger questions that you should be asking.While the world is spinning out of control, being able to show up at your computer every day and contribute to something that you believe in, something that's meaningful; contribute to a dent in the universe — we can't overlook how powerful that is as an anchor. More about Andy Andy Golding is an employee experience specialist and co-founder of Still Human. Her primary focus and area of impact is businesses relevance in a rapidly changing world. To achieve this she works with companies to craft and build cultures that are always innovation ready

Highlights from this episodeIf I had sat down when I was 22 and actually retraced the steps of my life up until that point, there were clues along the way. I was Debating Captain at school, Alice in Wonderland in the school play, I used to read at church when I was little. So I was always in plays and drama, and I was talking a lot.I think that you are put on this earth to fulfil your purpose. And I think you have an obligation as a person to find out what it is, and be then to align your purpose with your career, because that's when you will be in flow and things will happen easily.We are often unconsciously competent. We just think that it's normal to have that specific thing, and it's only when someone says to you — you know, you do that so easily and so — that's always an instant sign.There are clues in the companies as to what's important to them — where they spend their time, the kind of people that they've pulled into the organisation, the kind of work they do, the way their clients talk about them.The

More about ErikInternational Speaker | Specialist Team Coach | AuthorErik has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physiotherapy from the University of the Witwatersrand as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Management and a Master’s Degree in Business and Executive Coaching, both from Wits Business School.Keynote Speaker Erik shares insights, stories, and research with audiences across the world on how to increase personal and team effectiveness.While his addresses are bespoke and carefully crafted according to the requirements of the target audience, his two most popular are “Seven lessons from a CEO coach on achieving high performance” and “How To Be Dangerous”.Specialist Team Coach & AdviserFor Erik, teams are front and centre of business.Erik regularly facilitates workshops for businesses and teams pursuing high-performance strategies like AON, Derivco, IQ Business, Mimecast and Nedbank.He has also designed his own framework for team coaching that is lightweight but still delivers maximum impact.Executive

As an entrepreneur, Conor has founded 5 companies and built the third largest fleet of private jets in Spain. But it wasn’t always smooth sailing — in 2009, Conor stared some of his biggest fears in the face — not having money to pay bills and going through a divorce, among others. Through his experience and lecturing and speaking on leadership, Conor brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this episode of the podcast.Conor is a sought-after keynote speaker on Leadership. He teaches Leadership Communications at IESE Business School and is the President of Vistage in Spain, part of the world’s leading CEO organisation.  As an entrepreneur, he has founded 5 companies, selling 16 private jets and building the 3rd largest fleet of private jets in Spain. He is a visiting professor at University College Dublin, the University of Montevideo and Permanent Faculty on Entrepreneurs’ Organisation’s Global Leadership Academy.Conor’s YouTube channel on Leadership and Influence has over 200K Subscribers and over 17

More about Andy Andy Golding is an employee experience specialist and co-founder of Still Human. Her primary focus and area of impact is businesses relevance in a rapidly changing world. To achieve this she works with companies to craft and build cultures that are always innovation ready as well as designing employee experience to ensure that people are being switched on and grown. She assists companies and leaders in businesses across diverse sectors from start-ups to established, century-old organisations to become places where the best talent wants to work, chooses to come to and where they thrive.Andy became fascinated about the impact that employee experience creates in performance, retention and business execution capability and this fascination led her to embark on a massiveresearch exercise that included spending time inside some of the best companies to work for, both locally and abroad. The findings hereof, combined with her personal experience working in different environments, culminated in her st

More about Andy Andy Golding is an employee experience specialist and co-founder of Still Human. Her primary focus and area of impact is businesses relevance in a rapidly changing world. To achieve this she works with companies to craft and build cultures that are always innovation ready as well as designing employee experience to ensure that people are being switched on and grown. She assists companies and leaders in businesses across diverse sectors from start-ups to established, century-old organisations to become places where the best talent wants to work, chooses to come to and where they thrive.Andy became fascinated about the impact that employee experience creates in performance, retention and business execution capability and this fascination led her to embark on a massiveresearch exercise that included spending time inside some of the best companies to work for, both locally and abroad. The findings hereof, combined with her personal experience working in different environments, culminated in her st

More about Louis Janse van RensburgLouis Janse van Rensburg is the CEO at Glengarry Capital, Founder of WonderClass, and a partner in Heavy Chef and the Chairman of the Heavy Chef Foundation. He is fascinated by the evolution of learning and its impact on helping humans flourish.Louis is also a Phd researcher on the future of learning and most recently spearheaded the launch of South Africa's largest study ever conducted on the learning habits of entrepreneurs. Creative, optimistic and pragmatic, Louis weaves storytelling with empirical data to challenge us to reimagine the way humans learn. He also is an amateur screenplay writer, pizza lover and known to hit a mean 4-iron.Find Louis here:WebsiteLinkedInHeavy Chef FoundationFind Glengarry Capital here:WebsiteFind Heavy Chef here:WebsiteInstagramTwitterFacebookYouTubeLinkedInHighlights from the conversation:08:40 — If you go a level deeper, you really start figuring out that's just the marketing message, that's just the story. What drives it? What motivation

Highlights - Defining a community: 02:07 The importance of finding what moves people: 06:28Lego, and how Lego Ideas came to be: 14:02Being able to give up some control of your brand: 16:49Obtaining new customers vs. making the most existing client bases: 23:55Being a good community partner: 25:40Providing structure as a way to support a community: 31:15Twitch, and how they’ve helped their community grow: 32:38More about Kevin and BaileyKevin Huynh and Bailey Richardson are founding partners of People & Company. Their mission is to help people get their people together.As a company, they advise organisations on how to build authentic communities. Through their work, they’ve coached, researched, and participated in hundreds of communities. Kevin and Bailey recently published what they’ve learned about bringing people together in the Amazon bestselling guidebook Get Together: How to Build a Community With Your People.You can find them laughing and talking shop with community leaders weekly on the Get Togethe

More about Fran Fran Luckin is the Chief Creative Officer of Grey Africa and a member of the ten-person Grey Global Creative Board.Fran started out as an apprentice copywriter at the Jupiter Drawing Room following an interview in which she managed to distract CEO Graham Warsop’s attention away from her dismal portfolio by talking about books. She became a creative director at TBWA/Hunt Lascaris and continued in this position at Ogilvy Johannesburg, where she was made ECD in 2008. In 2013 she went full-digital and joined Quirk Johannesburg (now Mirum) as ECD. There she learned (among other things) what UX is and why “viral” is a dirty word.She has judged international and local creative awards shows and in 2017 she served as JuryPresident of the Print and Publishing Jury at the Cannes Lions – the first female Jury President from Africa. Fran has an MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, which she claims, has been one of the best experiences of her life so far.She served 3 years as Chairman of the A

More about Uno Uno de Waal is owner and publisher of Between 10 and 5, South Africa's largest online creative showcase. He is also the recipient of the British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur award, has been included in the Destiny Man Power of 40 and GQ's Coolest Guys Under 35.10and5 is the winner of the African Blogger Awards: Arts and Culture, Gold Pixel Winner for specialist publisher at the Bookmark Awards and is listed as one of the 15 most influential blogs in South Africa. The sub-agency of 10and5, 5TUDIO, has worked on brands like Estee Lauder, Nike, Adidas, MINI, Heineken, Glenfiddich and more.Uno has previously spent time at DSTV where he consulted on KykNET, Channel O, MK and VUZU to help bring their digital properties up to scratch. After this, he joined the international digital ad agency Trigger/Isobar where he was instrumental in strategy for Nike, Nokia, Cell C and Red Bull.Uno also runs a pop-up supper-club/restaurant with his partner Lee-Ann that has received rave reviews in local publi

A little bit more about Mike Mike Stopforth is an entrepreneur, writer and speaker. He is particularly passionate about transformational leadership and organisational change, and enjoys helping fellow business owners, executive teams and CEOs get the best out of their people, especially in the midst of rapid political, environmental and socio-economic change. In this line of work he is often invited to offer business commentary for industry publications, on TV and on radio.In 2006, after a short and colourful career in sales (that included peddling welding machines and earth-moving machinery spares), he took the entrepreneurial plunge and started a company called Cerebra. With a specialist focus on digital content and engagement, Cerebra won numerous multinational accounts and grew quickly to become South Africa’s leading social media agency. In his role as CEO of the business, he had the privilege of working with Coca-Cola, Samsung, Toyota, Vodafone, AB InBev, Google, Ford, Huawei, Barclays, and many other r

More about Mike Mike Stopforth is an entrepreneur, writer and speaker. He is particularly passionate about transformational leadership and organisational change, and enjoys helping fellow business owners, executive teams and CEOs get the best out of their people, especially in the midst of rapid political, environmental and socio-economic change. In this line of work he is often invited to offer business commentary for industry publications, on TV and on radio. In 2006, after a short and colourful career in sales (that included peddling welding machines and earth-moving machinery spares), he took the entrepreneurial plunge and started a company called Cerebra. With a specialist focus on digital content and engagement, Cerebra won numerous multinational accounts and grew quickly to become South Africa’s leading social media agency. In his role as CEO of the business, he had the privilege of working with Coca-Cola, Samsung, Toyota, Vodafone, AB InBev, Google, Ford, Huawei, Barclays, and many other remarkable br

**More about Yossi ** Yossi Hasson is a South African Entrepreneur turned VC. After co-founding and later selling his stake in, SYNAQ, a leading cloud email service provider, Yossi launched and ran the Techstars FinTech accelerator program with Barclays as partner. The program was based in Cape Town and chose 10 promising FinTech start-ups from around the world for seed investment, mentorship, office space, and training. It was also Techstars’ first Accelerator program on the African continent. Since May 2018, Yossi has been the Managing Director of Alchemist Blockchain Techstars Accelerator, launching Techstars first dedicated Blockchain Accelerator in New York City. Through Techstars he continues to work with and invest in founders building the decentralized economy. Yossi is a co-founder of PAN-African coding school, WeThinkCode_, and crypto investment fund, Onchain Capital. He has invested in over 15 companies, throughout Europe, the Americas, and Africa. He is mainly focussed on open source software, cry