LEAD WITH WE reveals how brands survive in a crisis, thrive in a fast changing market, and accelerate growth in a challenging future.
Discover how the world's top companies and entrepreneurs are driving growth and impact that employees and customers now demand. What worked, what didn't and what you need to do to get everyone to build your business.
Your host, Simon Mainwaring, CEO of We First and New York Times bestselling author, dives deep with CEOs and CMOs to reveal the mindset and actions that put them ahead of the competition.
Whether you're a start-up, high growth company or large corporation, you'll learn how to build your reputation, increase employee productivity, and inspire customers to promote your brand. Engaging, entertaining and actionable, this is your chance to listen in and learn a lot about how business does well and does good.
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Latest Episodes
“Ecopreneurship” At Scale: Tim Christophersen – Vice President of Climate Action at Salesforce
May 30, 2023
A passion for nature-based solutions is what drives Tim Christophersen– Vice President of Climate Action at Salesforce, an industry-leading cloud-based software company providing software and applications for customer relationship management across companies of all sizes around the world. In this episode, he shares how to leverage new strategies and tools to track and control your carbon footprint to better serve your business and our future. And how we as companies across the private sector and with public sector partners, can address the climate emergency at ever increasing scale to meet the moment and realize a brighter future for all.
“Philanthro-activism” for the Planet: Justin Winters – Co-Founder & Executive Director of One Earth
May 23, 2023
Imagine an online marketplace that puts you in the driver’s seat of real worldwide change– allowing you to take direct control and make an impact on the causes you care about most– simply with the click of a mouse. That’s what Co-Founder & Executive Director Justin Winters and her team are building at One Earth, a global organization working to galvanize science, advocacy, and philanthropy to drive collective action on climate change. In this episode, she shares how science has revealed a solution to the climate crisis and how each of us can take action to course correct our future in our own lifetimes.
Wearing Your Brand Values: Gavin Thompson, Senior Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Canada Goose
May 16, 2023
Sometimes the best way to stay true to your brand values is, counter-intuitively, to make some changes. That’s why one company is forging ahead on a mission to keep the planet cool– while keeping the people on it warm. Gavin Thompson is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Citizenship at Canada Goose, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of extreme weather outerwear dedicated to purpose-driven innovation and values-driven, sustainable growth. In this episode, he shares how to level up your sustainability credentials in ways that build brand reputation, trust, and sales, and how to engage suppliers, employees, and consumers to inspire your whole industry to raise its game.
The Price of “Living Nature”: Ralph Chami, Assistant Director of the International Monetary Fund
March 14, 2023
How do you put a price tag on a blue whale? According to Ralph Chami, Assistant Director for the International Monetary Fund, it’s worth around $2 million if not more. But how does that translate to real-world economics, with wide-reaching implications for business success? In this episode, he explains how an unusual encounter motivated him to explore the nexus of sustainability and profit in the hopes of creating a “nature-based” economy. He tells us how businesses can spearhead the creation of markets that serve nature and its restoration in ways that solve for the climate crisis. And what the future of business can look like so humanity and nature work together to reward investors and stewards of the planet alike.
A Compass for Sustainable Business Development: Nicole Sparshott, CEO of Unilever Australia & New Zealand
March 1, 2023
It’s not easy to take an enterprise and reconfigure its purpose and values. But doing so can open new opportunities at the nexus of purpose and profit. Nicole Sparshott is the CEO of Unilever Australia & New Zealand, one of the world’s leading suppliers of beauty, personal care, home care, and food and refreshment products, with the goal of making sustainable living commonplace and accessible for everyone. In this episode, she shares how a complex enterprise with a wide portfolio of brands balances purpose and profit to drive growth and impact, and how all stakeholders can collaborate to make a positive impact through what we buy and how we live to better our shared future.
No Borders for Purpose-Led Businesses: Josué Delgado, CEO of INCmty
February 21, 2023
We’re at the apex of a monumental shift not only in how successful businesses are run, but also where innovation and transformation are coming from. Right now, Latin America is the fastest-growing region for startups in the world. But that comes as no surprise to those who are already working in that region to foster the next generation of purpose-led leaders. Josué Delgado is the CEO for INCmty, a intercontinental technology, entrepreneurship, and business platform promoting international networking and partnerships, and providing inspiration and action for new businesses building value in Mexico and around the world. In this episode, he shares how to foster the critical entrepreneurship, innovation, and impact needed to solve today’s pressing social and environmental challenges and how to leverage collaboration to drive extraordinary returns and much needed sustainable solutions.
Meet Your Host
Simon Mainwaring is the founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that accelerates growth and impact for purpose-driven brands. He is a member of the Advisory Council of Conscious Capitalism LA, the Advisory Board of Sustainable Brands, The Forbes Business Council, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London.
Simon was a finalist for Global Australian of the Year in 2015 and interim CMO at TOMS, received the MAKE CHANGE, ‘Conscious Leadership’ Award for 2016, a finalist for the Conscious Company Leadership Awards in 2017, and a Real Leaders Top 100 Visionary Leader in 2018. His company We First was included in Real Leaders list for the Top 100 Impact Companies in the United States for 2018 and a We First was a B Corps ‘Best for The World’ Honoree in 2019. He is a Jury Member of PRWeek’s ‘Purpose Awards’ in 2020 and a Jury Member at the Cannes Lions Festival for the Sustainable Development Goals in 2021.
Simon’s book, We First: How brands and consumers use social media to build a better world is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestseller. It was named an Amazon Top Ten Business Book, 800CEORead Top Five Marketing Book, strategy+business named it the Best Business Marketing Book of the Year, and Sustainable Brands listed We First as one of their Top Sustainability Books of the decade. It has been translated into Russian, Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean. Simon also writes of the popular ‘Purpose At Work’ blog in Forbes.
Simon is a sought after international speaker with engagements including the Cannes International Advertising Festival, Royal Society of Arts, SXSW, TEDxSF, NAB, Promaxbda, Conscious Capitalism, Necker Island with Sir Richard Branson, Aspen Institute, Sustainable Brands, SOCAP, 3BL, Social Good Summit, National Speakers Association, 1440 Multiversity, National Press Club, Harvard, USC, UCLA and the United Nations Foundation. He has delivered keynotes at Google, Coca-Cola, General Motors, VF, Samsung, VSP Global, Toyota, SAP, Gucci, JP Morgan Chase, Timberland, VW Group, the NHL, and Patagonia. He has presented at the Harvard Business School Association, UCLA, USC, University of Oregon and University of Chicago. He was interim CMO at TOMS, voted a Top 5 Marketing Speaker by speaking.com for 5 years in a row and featured on the cover of the National Speaker’s Magazine.
Prior to starting We First Simon spent 15 years as an award-winning writer, Creative Director, and Worldwide Creative Director at many of the world’s top creative advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden & Kennedy, and Ogilvy working on brands such a Nike, Coca-Cola, Toyota, and Motorola, as well as consulting on dozens of F500 brands for leading advertising, production, and digital companies. He was the writer on the U.S. launch of the first three generations of the Toyota Prius, the largest national service campaign for the Entertainment Industry Foundation that brought together all four major TV networks for the first time in U.S. television history, and multiple award-winning campaigns for Nike. He has received over 60 awards at major advertising festivals including the Cannes Advertising Festival (Europe), the One Show (U.S.), the Clio’s (U.S.), the Kelly Awards (U.S), British Design & Art Direction Awards (U.K.), and AWARD (Australia), among others.
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