Karmic Capitalist - businesses with purpose

The rise in demand for local working spaces is very visible. It's unfortunate that the category was tarnished by WeWork founder Adam Neumann, whose fortune is dwarfed only by the lack of ethics displayed in building it. But it doesn't need to be so.An alternative would be to start to consciously build workspaces not only based on a pound per square foot and the distance to the nearest Waitrose, but rather on the basis of the communities in which they're located, and how they can best serve an...

A company that makes lawyers wealthier? On the Karmic Capitalist podcast?Have I sold out?Stay with me. This law company, Aria Grace, intentionally does the following:It offers a legal service on a par with the large law partnerships for less cost to its clientsIt pays the lawyers nearly treble the portion of the fees than in traditional firmsIt donates ALL of its profit to charityIt tackles the lack of diversity in the legal professionLindsay Healy has created a truly disruptive model f...

"Move Fast and Break Things" is a terrible way to be anti-racist.This Karmic Capitalist podcast episode is FULL of gold.I talk to Javaughn and Jamey, VP of culture and CEO respectively of Agilian.com, a technology consulting firm that has absolutely nailed anti-racism and diversity to its mast.When, to his enormous shame, Jamey was shown data that the black female execs on his team were paid significantly less than the white male ones, and it was not attributable to performance, he raised the...

Helping big companies be good, and good companies get bigger.Not quite EdenLab's motto, but not far off it.In this episode of the Karmic Capitalist podcast, I talk to Leo Rayman, founder and CEO, about his journey from agencyland to EdenLab - accelerating positive and sustainable ideas and the people who come up with them.Leo's premise, and the underlying one of EdenLab, is that with over 3 billion people working for companies worldwide, we should be harnessing the power of companies to help ...

A founder who doesn’t see himself as a salesman, targeting purpose-led companies that don't identify that way, to tackle a problem that people don't think exist.Recipe for success...And exactly what Tom Greenwood did with Wholegrain Digital, the company he founded and which, in sustainability stakes, was a way ahead of the curve.Tom's concern for the environment started when it was still very much a minority sport. Certainly long before it became mainstream to talk about it, let alone make it...

Very few businesses have the level or resonance and commitment from founders more than those whose origins came from personal tragedy.MyBabble was born after founder Faisal Shaikh's father sadly left home and didn't return. It transpired later that unknown to anyone, his dad had been dealing with loneliness.Faisal is a trained and practising psychiatrist, and was aware that this is a huge problem that needs a variety of different and complimentary approaches.Hi approach through the company he...

"How can we collectively increase the quantity and quality of giving to nonprofits, to charities, so that they can raise more awareness, raise more funds, deliver more impact in their communities?"If there's a question that defines Lightful's work, I think Vinay shares it in this.My guest on the Karmic Capitalist podcast this week is Vinay Nair, co-founder and CEO of Lightful. Lightful uses technology to accelerate impact in the social impact sector.He'd just returned from an uplifting confer...

From the high-stakes financial environment of the now defunct Lehman Brothers ("buy-and-sell in its most aggressive manner") to putting on an exhibition of some of the most ethical and long-term thinking brands.That’s the varied journey which my guest, Hussein Allawi, has been on. He took plenty of lessons from those early days, days which he found very lacking in purpose, but which have informed how he's now actively pushing a sustainability agenda.Hussein is the co-founder and CEO of Fronti...

"If going to a TGO gym can help unlock your potential not only for your life, but for your community, for your planet, that's the end game."Georgie Delaney MBE isn't short on a big vision. But critically - she's also not short on taking action.It was wonderful to talk to her about setting up and growing The Great Outdoor Gym Company (TGO). From a seed of inspiration seeing outdoor gyms in China after the Beijing Olympics, to high level backing in the London 2012 Olympics, to now having more t...

So you're running an ethical agency. A criminal organisation posing as a listed company - let's call them Belgian Australian Tobacco - approaches you."We fund an 'anti-smoking education programme' along with some of our other friends. But the challenge is that it's not as easy to find us on the web as it is lung cancer charities. We need your help to rank better."The programme, as it says on the tin, is to educate people against smoking.Do you take the business? Critically, *how* do you decid...