The Improv Intrapreneur: How Learning to Let Go Could Offer Important Lessons for the Intrapreneurship Movement
It was only on leaving Accenture in 2016 that I realised how defined I’d become by my role. It’s an issue that affects many of us in business. I had to discover who I was, as opposed to what I did for a living. Since then, I’ve gone to task on the promises I made […]
PREVIEW #BFPOXFORD Keynote Profile: Monique Ntumngia, Winner of the Visa Everywhere Initiative
“But Madam, we do not have lights; how are we going to be able to study at night? “When we go into the bushes to search for firewood for cooking, we usually get raped. Madam, we need this to stop.” Aminata, the leader of a group of Muslim girls, presented these questions to my team […]
Purpose Goes Hungry Without Culture
Business Fights Poverty is currently asking: “How can we embed Purpose authentically into business.” But what can this look like in practice, and where do we go from here? First, the Purpose has to be worth embedding! In other words, it has to be inspiring and convincingly explain how the business creates value for itself […]
The Journey of Total to Inclusive Energy Solutions
Over the last decade, many multinational corporations (MNCs) have attempted to set up inclusive businesses of one kind or another, with varying success. Despite good intentions and the investment of significant resources, few of these pilots have been successful and an even smaller proportion has reached significant scale. Conversations with the intrapreneurs who have been […]
Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 Women’s Equality Zone Workshop: Preparing for possible new ILO regulation
CARE International UK are delighted to support the Business Fights Poverty Challenge on business and GBV and to host the Women’s Equality zone at the Business Fights Poverty Oxford conference on 11 July 2019. By the time this event takes place, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) are likely to have adopted a new international labour […]
Time For A Fresh Look At Inclusive Business
I remember the excitement in the early noughties when I first started hearing about big businesses such as Unilever, SAB Miller and Vodafone grasping the opportunity to reach huge numbers of people previously excluded from their supply chains. It seemed to be such a great win-win. Large companies – and multinationals (MNCs) in particular – […]
Supporting Business Solutions To Poverty
Over the past few decades, much progress has been made on a range of development challenges – including poverty reduction, preventable disease and access to education. Yet much remains to be done and the urgency of dealing with intractable, global problems that put these gains at risk has increased. With so much at stake, the […]
Business Briefing on Unpaid Care and Domestic Work
There is growing evidence that business leaders and managers understand that the unequal and heavy share of unpaid care and domestic work done by women and girls is an issue which matters for the effective (ongoing) operations of their firms. Some companies have already taken practical steps to address the issue by supporting employees along […]
How Can Businesses Foster an Enabling Environment that Unlocks the Potential of Social Intrapreneurs to Drive Commercial and Social Innovation?
Ivanka Trump Could Shape African Women’s Entrepreneurship
After decades of working with women entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa, I am hopeful that Ivanka Trump’s initiative will deliver change, provided the interventions are designed for lasting results. To effectively meet the program’s ambitious goal of supporting 50 million women in developing countries by 2025, we will need more than the usual generic, short-term approaches […]
Pakistani Businesses Need to Hire and Retain More Women to Flourish
Pakistan has made progress in boosting women’s education levels over the past several years—yet less than 8 percent of the country’s workforce are women. Closing that gap will represent a huge economic opportunity for our country. I’m excited that the private sector is taking steps to address the problem. At the Pakistan Stock Exchange on […]
Plan for the Future
This requires having a clear Purpose, which is authentic and inspiring, explains why the business exists and how it creates value for itself and for society. It is about having a comprehensive Plan, which minimises negative social, environmental and economic impacts, maximises positive impacts and covers all aspects of the business and extends into the […]
We Won’t Take This Lying Down: Women, Business and Equality in 2019
Based on the current rate of progress, it will take 202 years to close the economic gender gap globally, according to research from World Economic Forum. And so, it was with trepidation that I stepped into the University Women’s Club, London, to learn more about how the Foundation intends to close the gap, faster. If […]
Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019 – Last Chance to Register
The Unilever Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2019: Open for Applications Until 30 June
The , delivered by Unilever and the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, support and celebrate inspirational young people from all over the world who have initiatives, products or services tackling some of the planet’s biggest sustainability challenges. Now in their sixth year, the Awards have reached over 5,800 entrepreneurs, and provided tailored support […]
Corporate/ Impact Enterprise Partnerships – Part 2 – Now for the Hard Part
Last time, I talked about the considerable potential for partnerships between corporates and impact enterprises. In this blog, I’ll focus on the undoubted challenges. Again, I’m building on several published sources, my own experience, and conversations with entrepreneurs, corporate staff and investors. In the opening lines of Anna Karenina (“Happy families are all alike; every […]
The Best Kept Secret: The Role of Corporate Foundations in Building Sustainable Brands
For too long, companies have overlooked and undervalued the role of corporate foundations as partner for sustainability. Corporate foundations have been perceived as a nice social appendix to a company’s CSR report, or as a means to fulfilling the moral responsibility and stakeholder pressure of being a good corporate citizen. Lately, however, front-running companies are […]
Building Back Better in the Caribbean: The Clinton Foundation and Partnerships for Change
How do we empower communities – especially those furthest behind – to have a chance to succeed, improve their lives, and build a better future? There are several answers to the question – create economic opportunity, improve public health, and inspire civic engagement and service. These are the core elements that drive the work we […]
Most Brands’ Support Of Causes Is Not Breaking Through To Gen Z
Despite an influx of consumer brands more publicly supporting social cause platforms, most efforts are not resonating with Gen Z, according to a new study released Wednesday from DoSomething Strategic, the social impact consulting arm of DoSomething.org that helps brands engage young people around their purpose. Cause is Working, Your Marketing Isn’t: A Report on Brands Taking Stands 2019 found […]
Why Large and Small Businesses Need to Collaborate to Compete in Complex Markets
The expression ‘no man is an island’ could be re-phrased ‘no business is an island’ with just as much validity, as it is self-evident that individual businesses, wherever they are located, are just one small part of a complex ecosystem, which normally extends far beyond the immediate locality of their geographical base. But as in […]