Christine Lagorio-Chafkin talks with Kim and Tim Lewis, founders of Curl Mix, about their circuitous funding journey and landing at No. 93 on the 2021 Inc. 5000 after attaining more than 4,000 percent growth over the past three years.

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin talks with Rosie Mattio, founder and CEO of Mattio Communications, about saying yes and taking a risk on a burgeoning industry.

What do Millennials think about purpose? Do they actually buy and work for companies and brands that have activated purpose? Is this a real thing? And what should leaders know about this important generation? 

We’ve invited a couple of Millennials to chat about it. Fast Company’s Social Media Producer Christina Royster and Fast Company’s Associate Editor Yasmin Gagne from the podcast, Hit the Ground Running, are here to share their opinions and ideas about what purpose means to them.

The world of business leadership has shifted dramatically in the past few years – from stockholder capitalism to stakeholder. A higher purpose is what businesses need to be about and companies need to take a stand on societal issues.

There’s one big problem though: today’s leaders weren’t trained for this new world. There was no class for this in business school. In some ways, it’s the wild west – a new frontier with no map. And C-suiters are struggling to find the way forward.

As a result, there’s a vacuum in purpose leadership. Company purpose is often toothless and company social activism backfires.

How do CEOs navigate this new terrain? How do CHROs build this new culture of leadership into the employee experience? How do CMOs build purpose effectively into their brand?

Corporations feel like they have to take on social issues, but as we’ve been discussing, doing so isn’t easy.

Recent research from RepTrak found that 36 percent of consumers have "felt betrayed" by what a company stands for, and 47 percent have stopped doing business with the company as a result. 63 percent prefer to do business with companies that "stand for a purpose that reflects their values and beliefs, and will avoid those that do not."

We sat down with Laura Lane, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at UPS, who had some great food for thought on the topic.

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin talks with Evan Horowitz and Geoffrey Goldberg, founders of the Los Angeles-based brand-marketing firm Movers+Shakers. Movers+Shakers is #78 on the 2021 Inc. 5000 list.

To celebrate the launch of the 2021 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest growing private companies, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin interviews the co-founder and chief executive of Carbon Health, the startup aiming to make health-care more accessible and affordable--and which earned the No. 2 spot on the Inc. 5000 list with $45 million in 2020 revenue and an astounding 39,734 percent three-year growth rate.

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin talks to John Christakos and Maurice Blanks--two of the three founders of Blu Dot Furniture--about how they used their design thinking to build a business.

​​When she had the idea for an organization to elevate women in leadership roles and entrepreneurship, Cate Luzio didn’t even intend to start a company. Three years later, she’s built Luminary, a thousands-strong networking and career-coaching company that’s weathered the pandemic--and taken the opportunity to expand digitally and globally. She tells Christine Lagorio-Chafkin about the challenges she faced, and what she’s learned along the way.

On this episode, Christine Lagorio-Chafkin interviews Sarah LaFleur, founder and CEO of womenswear brand M.M. LeFleur.