Purpose and Profit with Kathy Varol Kathy Varol

Melissa C. Potter honed her expertise in the topics of Race, Identity, Culture, and Equity working in both the social justice and entertainment worlds. Today she is the Vice President of Strategy and Impact at Paramount, upholding the company’s commitment to the long-term social impact of cultural shifts in society as driven across a diverse collection of brands including CBS, SHOWTIME, MTV, BET, and Nickelodeon. 
Melissa is also responsible for the MTV Entertainment Group’s Culture Orientation program. Working in collaboration with the country’s leading racial and social justice organizations, this initiative unites shared values, increases understanding, and amplifies learning to empower the entire creative community to tell stories that reflect the diversity of Paramount viewers.
Part of Paramount’s mission is to increase representation on both sides of the camera through their Content for Change initiative. 
In this episode we discuss:
●      The power of media to break down narratives that enable intolerance, hurtful stereotypes, and systemic racism
●      The importance of multidimensional storytelling
●      How MTV is addressing mental health and inspiring civic action
Key Takeaways:
●      Melissa’s career journey is a great example of the magic that can happen when you follow your interests—even when those interests don’t clearly overlap or immediately present an end destination. It might be that the end destination doesn’t exist yet, but you’re developing your unique skills so that you’re ready when it does. Melissa’s background in entertainment, PR, communications, social justice, and sociology isn’t something found on most resumes. But it’s this specific combination that makes her the perfect candidate for leading strategy and impact for Content for Change at Paramount, a role that didn’t exist until 2020.
●      Our impressions can be influenced by the status quo, as well as our internal and systemic biases. This is why measurement is so important. Data enables us to move beyond the lens of bias to understand where we currently stand so that we can figure out how to get to where we want to go. Paramount’s analysis of its content was a critical first step to developing a strategy around Content for Change.
●      Stories are powerful. They have the ability to capture our attention, to draw us in, to make us feel seen, understood, and less alone. Stories also shape our perspectives. They have the power to expand our understanding of others, and consequently increase our capacity for empathy and compassion. But stories aren’t inherently good. Stories can just as easily cause damage, increase misunderstanding, reinforce damaging stereotypes, and promote intolerance. The stories we tell are important. They shape us. We must handle them with care. 
References:
●      Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn
●      Paramount
●      Content for Change
●      Learn more about MTV Entertainment’s Culture Orientation program here
●      Learn more about the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative here
Connect & Share:
If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading them!
If this episode resonated with you, I ask you to send it to a friend. Help bring even more visibility to these leaders that are using business as a force for good!
Subscribe to the Purpose and Profit newsletter to make sure you don’t miss future episodes.
This podcast is for you, the listener. I’d love to hear what resonated with you, or if you have a suggestion on who would be a great guest for this show. Please send me a note at info@KathyVarol.com.

Mike Salguero is the founder of ButcherBox, the leading high-quality, direct-to-consumer meats brand. Since its launch in 2015, the company has grown to become a $600 million business, all while putting an emphasis on animal welfare, the environment, and supporting farmers and fishermen. ButcherBox is a certified B Corporation, signaling the brand’s commitment to using its business as a force for good.
In 2020, Mike was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year® National Award winner by Ernst & Young. 
In this episode we discuss:
●      Lessons from a failed start-up that informed the approach to building ButcherBox
●      What it looks like to develop the whole human (personal and professional) at work
●      How Mike would like every employee—past, present, and future—to feel about their time at ButcherBox
Key Takeaways:
●      ButcherBox relies heavily on suppliers to support its business. Not just farmers and fishermen, but also box manufacturers, website developers, and many other service providers. Often businesses will choose to create these things in-house, but there is beauty in ButcherBox’s approach. First, it enables ButcherBox to focus on what they’re good at. Second, by going to suppliers with a request for a sustainable box (for example), ButcherBox causes a ripple effect by creating demand for goods and services that will benefit many other companies. This approach reminded me of the African Proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” It’s the “together” piece that’s needed to create systemic change.
●      I can’t help but see parallels between common-day cubicle life and feedlots. Both were created to maximize efficiency, with a sole focus on profit. Both are unnatural habitats. Both have damaging consequences. The basic principle of the feedlot is to confine the animal in order to fatten it up as quickly as possible. The cramped quarters make animals distressed and prone to disease. In cubicle life, employees are confined for better management oversight. Research shows that cubicles result in less productivity, because of constant distractions. Plus, the uninspired environment reinforces a message that each employee is a replaceable cog in the machine (not great for mental health).  Trying to liven up corporate environments with foosball tables and free drinks is like adding disco balls to feedlots to drive cow happiness and engagement. Broken systems need a complete overhaul. A shiny disco ball band-aid won’t make cows healthier or workers happier.
●      Regenerative agriculture moves away from conventional mono-crop farming (which takes from the soil without giving much back) to mirroring mother nature in its design. Regenerative agriculture embodies a natural cycle of give and take that improves soil health, biodiversity, and climate resilience. As Mike shared his leadership approach, I couldn’t help but think of it as regenerative leadership. Here’s why. The relationship between an employee and an employer usually resembles this: the employee gets a paycheck for showing up to perform a mono-function. The employer is taking energy out of the employee, and mainly replenishing through a transactional payment. It’s lopsided. Mike talked about developing both the professional side and the personal side of his workforce. Not compartmentalizing—only investing in the “work version” of employees—but investing in employees to grow holistically as individuals.   
When you compartmentalize, you show up as less than yourself, a fractional compartment of who you are.  
I’m willing to bet that regenerative leadership results in a more healthy, more innovative, and more resilient workforce. 
References:
Follow Mike on Twitter and let him know what you think about this episode
Connect with Mike on LinkedIn
ButcherBox (New members can get $30 off their first box by e

Andrew Winston is one of the most widely read and respected writers on sustainability. The author of four books and hundreds of articles, his work has been published in many outlets including the Harvard Business Review and the MIT Sloan Management Review. In 2021 Andrew was named a top 50 management thinker in the Thinkers50 list.
Andrew's latest book is, Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take. It was co-authored with Paul Polman, the legendary ex-CEO of Unilever. This book is a must-read.
In this episode we discuss:
●      What Net Positive means and why it’s crucial for business
●      How ESG got tied up in American Politics
●      The difference between ESG and Sustainability
Key Takeaways:
●      There’s a big difference between the ambition of 1) minimizing the damage your company causes to humans and the planet, versus 2) becoming neutral, and causing no harm, versus 3) making the world better through your operations. Where we set our ambition anchors our thinking (in psychology this is referred to as the anchoring effect). In business, we create company ambitions to anchor the entire organization and orient employees in the same direction.  The ambition you set will determine how inspired your organization is to reach it, the types of innovation they develop to attain it, and ultimately your ambition will influence how far you go. Take a look inside your organization. Where have you set your ambitions? What are you anchored against?
●      ESG and Sustainability are not the same things. They were created for different reasons. ESG, at its most fundamental level, was created to assess the risk of investments, mainly by understanding how the future of a business could be affected by environmental and social issues. It includes an additional lens on whether a company has good governance in place to manage those risks. Sustainability, on the other hand, looks at how a company impacts the world and society, not limited to the lens of business risk.
●      As humans, we have a cognitive bias toward hiring people similar to ourselves. We also know from sound research that diversity makes the strongest teams. How can we help overcome our cognitive bias in hiring? Next time, before you start interviewing to fill vacant spots on your team take a moment to do this visualization. Close your eyes and imagine your workforce filled with clones of you. Honestly assess: what you would be good at and what are your known weaknesses and blind spots. Then mentally scan each of your current team members to determine which of your strengths are reinforced, and which of your weaknesses are compensated by them. Now you know what you and your team already bring to the table, and more importantly, what’s missing that a new hire could offer. Knowing this will help intentionally shift your focus from the common “culture fit” question, which is often a disguised way of asking “is this person like me and do I want to be friends with them”, to instead asking “is this person adding to our Super Hero Marvel Team, bringing what none of us have to the team?”
References:
●      Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn
●      Andrew’s website
●      Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take by Andrew Winston and Paul Polman
●      Paul Polman’s website
●      “ESG Is Going to Have a Rocky 2023. Sustainability Will Be Just Fine.”, MIT Sloan Management Review, February 7th, 2023
●      “2022: A Tumultuous Year in ESG and Sustainability”, Harvard Business Review, December 21st, 2022
●      Learn more about Edelman’s research and reports on trust here.
●      You can read BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s most recent letter to investors here.
Connect & Share:
If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review

Today’s episode is extra special. 
On the Purpose and Profit podcast, I interview business leaders that are innovating new approaches to business. These changemakers are marching to the beat of their own drum, paving new paths that others will follow.
To be a changemaker requires having the courage to do things differently. Yesterday, my husband Ozan Varol released a new book called Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary. This is a practical guidebook for impractical people. People that are determined to carve new paths as leaders and creators. In hindsight, we call these people geniuses, as if they’re another breed. But genius isn’t for a special few. It can be cultivated. This book shows you how.  
In this episode, I share the introduction of Awaken Your Genius, to inspire you on your changemaker path. 
Some of the insights Awaken Your Genius shares are:
●      The secret to stop overthinking and start doing
●      A completely counterintuitive practice that the best thinkers use to generate original ideas
●      The one question you can ask to identify hidden time-sucks that clutter your brain and create overwhelm
●      Why you’ll never feel “on top of everything” (and what to do about it)
References:
Awaken Your Genius: Escape Conformity, Ignite Creativity, and Become Extraordinary by Ozan Varol
Visit Ozan’s website here 
Connect & Share:
If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading them!
If this episode resonated with you, I ask you to send it to a friend. Help bring even more visibility to these leaders that are using business as a force for good! 
Subscribe to the Purpose and Profit newsletter to make sure you don’t miss future episodes.
This podcast is for you, the listener. I’d love to hear what resonated with you, or if you have a suggestion on who would be a great guest for this show. Please send me a note at info@KathyVarol.com.

Brad Liski is a social entrepreneur and the CEO of British Columbia-based Tru Earth, a global household cleaning product company focused on biodegradability and the elimination of single-use plastic waste.  In 2022, Tru Earth partnered with Ocean Wise to launch the American Shoreline Clean-up Program.
 
Brad was recently named a Sustainability Leader by Canada’s Clean50 for 2022. Other awards Brad and Tru Earth have received include B.C.’s CEO of the year, B.C.’s Top Exporter of the Year, and Best Eco-Friendly Household Product Company 2022.
 
To learn more about the TruEarthMovement, go to tru.earth.
 
In this episode we discuss:
●      The most sustainable innovation in laundry detergent (ever)
●      Why Tru Earth manufacturers in North America
●      Tru Earth’s secret for attracting top talent
●      The recipe behind Tru Earth’s record 4-year growth
 
 
Key Takeaways:
When you create a product that aligns with consumer values, makes life easier, and fixes a market need for both consumers and retailers, magic happens. The market rewards smart solutions, and we need more smart solutions like Tru Earth’s eco-strips across industries. What we measure shows what we value. Brad talked about the two main metrics that Tru Earth uses to measure success: 1) how many plastic bottles Tru Earth has eliminated from shelves, homes, and ultimately landfills; and 2) how many loads of laundry they’ve donated. These metrics have incredible power because they are meaningful. These metrics are a reason to get out of bed in the morning, a reason to innovate new solutions, and a reason for employees to engage deeply with work. What are you measuring at work? We sell our potential short when we set our sights too low. Focusing only on extrinsic metrics, like revenue and market share, is setting your sights too low. But when you tap into someone’s intrinsic desire to make a difference, when your metrics show a deep meaning for why your company exists in the world, you unleash a force more powerful than anything found in a traditional business model. Recycling plastic is not going to solve our plastic waste problem. Only 5% of plastic is recycled, which means 95% of plastic—year after year—ends up in landfills,  polluting our waters, or being incinerated (which hurts our air).  This is a call to action for changemakers across industries to innovate solutions that eliminate plastic, especially single-use plastic. This type of innovation is not only important and meaningful, but it can also be incredibly profitable.   
References:
●      Tru Earth
●      You can learn more about polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and its use in dishwashing detergent pods here.
●      The Greenpeace report on plastic recycling can be read here.
●      Ocean Wise
○      Shoreline Cleanup conservation program
●      entrepreneurship@UBC
 
Connect & Share:
If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading them!
 
If this episode resonated with you, I ask you to send it to a friend. Help bring even more visibility to these leaders that are using business as a force for good!
 
Subscribe to the Purpose and Profit newsletter to make sure you don’t miss future episodes.
 
This podcast is for you, the listener. I’d love to hear what resonated with you, or if you have a suggestion on who would be a great guest for this show. Please send me a note at info@KathyVarol.com.
 

After 2 years of speaking with some of the most innovative leaders in the ESG space today, this week’s Purpose and Profit is extra special. It’s my very first solocast! 
In this episode I take you behind the scenes, sharing part of my journey in creating the global purpose strategy for adidas, a $22 billion company. My experiences shaping how adidas positively impacts people and planet catapulted me on my mission to re-purpose business into a force for good. I also let you in on why purpose is essential for your people and your company, and I share the most common mistake businesses make on the path to purpose. 
A couple eye-opening facts:
●      The average lifespan of an S&P 500 company has plummeted from 61 years to less than 18 years
●      85% of millennials in the US would switch brands for a good cause
●      The highest-ranked companies on social and environmental performance have a 7% higher return on equity compared to the Russel 1000 Index (i.e. the largest companies in the USA based on market capitalization)
Here’s a little of what I cover in this episode:
●      The big mistake we made at adidas (even though we were a leader in retail sustainability)
●      How to generate the best marketing there is—word of mouth
●      How financial maximization damaged the long-term value of companies
You don’t have to do it alone! If you need help transitioning to become a purpose-led company, or innovating new ways to bring your purpose to life, I’d love to help you.
References:
●      Sustainability at adidas
●      Parley for the Oceans
●      Run for the Oceans
●      Dow Jones Sustainability World Index
●      2019 Business Roundtable statement on moving away from shareholder primacy
●      JUST 100 
Connect & Share:
If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading them!
If this episode resonated with you, I ask you to send it to a friend. Help bring even more visibility to these leaders that are using business as a force for good! 
Subscribe to the Purpose and Profit newsletter to make sure you don’t miss future episodes. 
This podcast is for you, the listener. I’d love to hear what resonated with you, or if you have a suggestion on who would be a great guest for this show. Please send me a note at info@KathyVarol.com.