Lead With We

Ashwin Cheriyan took the leap into entrepreneurship with his wife, Shiri Avnery, when he started the plant-based meal delivery service, Thistle, in 2013. He was a former corporate lawyer, and she was a climate scientist frustrated by how little people were talking about the environmental impact of reducing demand for animal products, let alone the impact on human health. They knew that getting people to shift their eating habits meant making plant-based meals more delicious and convenient. 

In this episode of Lead With We, Ashwin and I talk about how his personal connection to healthy food has sustained him through the inevitable ups and downs of entrepreneurship, motivating consumers to make better choices, and so much more. 

Ashwin Cheriyan

Ashwin Cheriyan is an entrepreneur, recovering corporate lawyer and a mediocre surfer. He is currently the co-founder and CEO of Thistle, a San Francisco-based modern, tech-enabled, organic food and nutrition company. He was also the co-founder of WeGoFair, a social enterprise providing ratings for hotels and restaurants reflecting their performance on social and environmental issues.

Prior to Thistle and WeGoFair, he spent 4 years in New York as an M&A associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. He received his A.B. in Economics from Brown University and his JD from The University of Texas School of Law.

Outside of Thistle, he spends his energy working with, advising and investing in startups, suiting up in neoprene to surf the "world-class" waves of Pacifica, and enjoying the abundant culinary delights the Bay Area has to offer.

Resources

Connect with Ashwin on LinkedIn

Learn more about Thistle

For case studies and other free resources about purposeful business, go to WeFirstBranding.com

Have you heard of the gut microbiome? There’s been a lot of buzz about scientific research about how the bacteria in our gut influences our overall health. And in this episode of Lead With We, I talk with first-time entrepreneur Marc Washington about how he launched a consumer nutrition brand called Muniq that uses gut health science to help people who struggle with health issues to take back control. We discuss the personal tragedy that led Marc down this path, his ambitious decision to launch the brand during a pandemic, and whether business is truly meeting the call to be more inclusive.

Marc Washington

Marc Washington is a seasoned executive & entrepreneur with deep experience in consumer businesses, with emphasis on health, wellness, nutrition, and fitness. He has extensive experience successfully scaling entrepreneurial businesses and advising startups and VC/PE firms.

Mr. Washington is Founder & CEO of Uplifting Results Labs (UR Labs), a consumer health and food tech company transforming human health with accessible products that work through the gut microbiome. The first product line for the company’s consumer brand, Muniq, is a nutritional shake with a proprietary prebiotic blend that strengthens gut health and naturally improves blood sugar levels. Muniq empowers those looking to regain control of their health and lives from underlying health conditions, through accessible products that people love.

Mr. Washington previously served as CEO of Irwin Naturals, a privately held $100 million nutrition & supplement company with products sold in over 90,000 retail locations. At Irwin, he developed & led a strategy to launch an extensive portfolio of CBD-based health products across categories including supplements, food & beverage, skincare, and pet nutrition.

Previously Mr. Washington served as President/COO of Beachbody, a $1B nutrition & fitness company with products including Shakeology, P90X and Beachbody-on-Demand digital fitness platform. He led Beachbody through explosive growth doubling overall company revenue during his tenure.

Prior to Beachbody, Mr. Washington worked for 9 years at The Wonderful Co., a privately held $4B healthy food & beverage business whose portfolio includes FIJI Water, POM Wonderful, Teleflora, and Wonderful Almonds & Pistachios. He served in a variety of roles at The Wonderful Co. including corporate CFO, divisional Head of Sales and CFO for Teleflora, VP Corporate Partnerships, and Director of Strategy & Operations for FIJI Water. Previously, Mr. Washington worked at McKinsey & Co. where he led strategic & operational consulting projects across industries in the U.S. & abroad.

Mr. Washington holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University. He played varsity football at Princeton, where he was the school’s 1st four-year letter winner, served as Co-Captain during his senior year, and was an Academic All-America honoree. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife & 3 children.

Simon Mainwaring

Simon Mainwaring is a brand futurist, global keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is best known as the author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World and the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that works with brands to define their business strategy, company culture, and brand communications.

This episode of Lead With We was produced and edited by Goal17Media.com and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Resources

Connect with Marc on LinkedIn

Learn more about Muniq

For case studies and other free resources about purposeful business, go to WeFirstBranding.com

Andrei Cherny has had a fascinating career. He worked with Al Gore in the early days of raising awareness about climate change and helped start the Consumer Protection Bureau with Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Now, he’s taking on the exact same issues through his company, Aspiration. It’s a pay-what-you-want financial services model that allows customers to divest from things like gun manufacturing and fossil fuels.

In this episode of Lead With We, Andrei chats with me about what led him down this path, some of the lessons learned, and how the role of money is changing. 

Andrei Cherny

Andrei Cherny is Co-Founder and CEO of Aspiration, a financial partner that puts its customers, their conscience, and the planet first. 

Andrei has worked for nearly twenty years to make the financial system more open and fair. He has been an advisor to Fortune 100 companies including some of America’s largest financial institutions, a senior fellow at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and at the Center for American Progress, a Navy reserve officer, and a financial fraud prosecutor. A former White House aide, President Clinton called Andrei a “critical part of the team” which brought about the economic successes of the 1990s. As the co-founder and president of Democracy journal, Andrei helped launch the fight for what became the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

His 2000 book, “The Next Deal,” outlined how technology was transforming the expectations of consumers and citizens. He is also author of the bestselling, “The Candy Bombers” about the occupation of Germany and the beginning of the Cold War. He graduated from Harvard University and from the University of California Berkeley law school.

Simon Mainwaring 

Simon Mainwaring is a brand futurist, global keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is best known as the author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World and the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that works with brands to define their business strategy, company culture, and brand communications.

This episode of Lead With We was produced and edited by Goal17 Media and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Resources

Connect with Andrei on LinkedIn

Learn more about Aspiration

For case studies and other free resources about purposeful business, go to WeFirstBranding.com

The B Corp movement was started by a group of conscious entrepreneurs in the early 2000’s who believed business should be about more than maximizing profits. Today, there are over 3,500 B Corps across the world. In this episode of Lead With We, I speak with Anthea Kelsick, the CEO of B Lab U.S. & Canada, which is the non-profit that certifies B Corps. We talk about the value of the certification process and accountability, how these companies collaborate on critical issues like reducing carbon emissions, and the incredible momentum around purposeful business today as we face mounting crises.

Anthea Kelsick

Anthea Kelsick is Co-CEO of B Lab U.S. & Canada, part of a global network of organizations responsible for stewarding 3500 companies around the world who meet the rigorous standards of the B Corp certification. She is a champion of business as a force for good, connecting companies to the tools and resources they need to operate in the interest of all of their stakeholders, and not just shareholders. She and her team then leverage the power of B Corps to inspire other business leaders, policy-makers, and the public to build an economic system that works for all people and the planet. She joined B Lab in 2018 as Global Chief Marketing Officer and led the organization's first campaign garnering international attention that called for the Business Roundtable to take action and live up to their Purpose of the Corporation statement of serving people alongside profits.

Prior to B Lab, Anthea spent an 18-year career in both management consulting and heads of strategy roles in Marketing & Advertising leading engagements for some of the world's largest brands. She is a proud alumna of Stanford University with an MBA from Wharton.

Simon Mainwaring

Simon Mainwaring is a brand futurist, global keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is best known as the author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World and the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that works with brands to define their business strategy, company culture, and brand communications.

This episode of Lead With We was produced and edited by Goal17Media and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.

Resources

Connect with Anthea on LinkedIn

Start your B Corp journey

For case studies and other free resources about purposeful business, go to WeFirstBranding.com

Thanks for joining us for another season of Lead With We. I couldn’t think of a better guest to kick things off than my dear friend, futurist Sally Uren.

Sally runs a leading sustainability non-profit called Forum For The Future that works directly with big brands and business leaders to create global change. Together we discuss the future of humanity (literally), and how we’re seeing very different trajectories play out simultaneously in real-time. And what I particularly love about this conversation is that Sally points to growing movements, such as regenerative agriculture and impact investing, as proof that we can build a positive future through our actions.

Sally Uren

Sally joined Forum for the Future, then a not-for-profit based solely in the UK, in 2002. Previously Deputy CEO, Sally was appointed Chief Executive in 2013. Since then, she has spearheaded Forum’s mission to create a more sustainable future by catalyzing transformational change in key global systems. Over this period, Sally has overseen Forum’s substantial growth into new markets while honing its focus on ensuring Forum makes a positive contribution to three global challenges: the climate crisis and ensuring the sustainability of our global food system and value chains.

Sally oversees the delivery of Forum’s programmatic work through a team of more than 80 sustainability professionals across offices in London, Singapore, New York and Mumbai. As part of this, she works with leading global players, including businesses such as Unilever and Olam, foundations such as the Laudes Foundation, and membership organizations such as Sedex, both in one-to-one partnerships, and also as part of multi-stakeholder collaborations designed to address complex challenges in systems as diverse as food, energy, apparel and shipping.

In December 2017, Sally received an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for services to sustainability in business. In 2019, she was ranked number one on Assent’s list of Top 100 Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Leaders.

Simon Mainwaring

Simon Mainwaring is a brand futurist, global keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is best known as the author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World and the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that works with brands to define their business strategy, company culture, and brand communications.

This episode of Lead With We was produced and edited by Goal17Media.com and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Resources

Connect with Sally on LinkedIn

Read Forum for the Future’s latest report: “From Systems Shock to Systems Change”

For case studies and other free resources about purposeful business, go to WeFirstBranding.com

Lead With We is back for Season 2 with new episodes every Tuesday! And to kick things off, I’m sharing my thoughts on 2021 so far. Things got off to a rocky start in January, but there are many reasons to be optimistic when it comes to the future of business, the planet and society. And that’s really what this show is about. I’m also sharing a bit about the amazing guests we have lined up for you this season. Together we’ll discover how to re-engineer business to be a force for positive change in 2021 and beyond. 

Simon Mainwaring 

Simon Mainwaring is a brand futurist, global keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is best known as the author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World and the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that works with brands to define their business strategy, company culture, and brand communications.

This episode of Lead With We was produced and edited by Goal17 Media and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Resources

Connect with Simon on LinkedIn

For case studies and other free resources about purposeful business, go to WeFirstBranding.com

Season 2 of Lead With We is coming soon, and I couldn’t be more excited about the new episodes we’re working on. But this week I’m sharing one we did last summer with Jeni Britton Bauer, the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Jeni’s Ice Cream. We were just a few months into the pandemic and people around the world were protesting for racial justice.

Jeni’s known for being super creative and also making sure that each and every one of her 800+ employees is connected to the impact piece of the business. We talked about creating community within the company and how the Black Lives Matter Movement has pushed businesses to engage in social justice.

Jeni Britton Bauer

Jeni Britton Bauer is an American ice cream maker and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the artisan ice cream movement, she introduced a modern, ingredient-driven style of ice cream making that has been widely emulated across the world but never duplicated.

As Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Jeni remains the beating heart of the company and is in charge of all creative output—from the ice cream itself to the supporting details that enhance the experience of eating it. Jeni is a 2017 Henry Crown Fellow and has been recognized by Fast Company as one of the most creative people in business today.

Resources

Jeni’s Ice Cream Website

Jeni Britton, LinkedIn

We First Website

Season 2 of Lead With We is launching soon! And I’m looking forward to sharing all-new conversations with purposeful business leaders as we move through 2021. 

We’ll announce our launch date soon, but until then please enjoy my conversation with Adam Lowry, Co-Founder of Method & Executive Chairman of Ripple Foods. Adam is a prolific entrepreneur, and in this episode we talk about how he’s changed the world through disruptive startups like Method, which makes eco-friendly cleaning products, and Ripple Foods, which uses technology to make high-protein dairy replacements that actually taste good. Listen to this episode to hear how Adam has persevered in the face of industry attacks, how he approaches branding, and why he helped found the B-corp movement. 

Adam Lowry

Adam Lowry is a former climate scientist and the founder of several circular economy businesses, including Method Products and Ripple Foods, both public benefit corporations and Certified B Corporations. Adam designs businesses with sustainability principles at their core, so that their growth produces positive social and environmental impacts. His businesses have eliminated more than a million tons of GHG emissions and thousand tons of plastic waste, saved more than 100 billion gallons of water, and created hundreds of green manufacturing jobs on four continents; all while creating more than a billion dollars in shareholder value.

Adam’s companies have been named #7 on the Inc 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in the US; #16 on Fast Company’s Fast 50 World’s Most Innovative Companies; and twice named to the Global CleanTech 100. Adam has contributed countless innovations to the sustainable business space, including the first 100% post-consumer recycled and recyclable PET packaging; the first packaging made from ocean plastic; several new green chemistries; a LEED Platinum certified factory in Chicago that is renewably powered, water neutral, landfill-free, and grows vegetables on its roof; and a number of innovative corporate governance structures that enable circular economy businesses to innovate & succeed. 

Adam has been honored as recipient of The Circular Economy Award from the World Economic Forum and the Global Citizen Award from the Clinton Global Initiative for his leadership in the private sector; and is a Catto Environmental Fellow at the Aspen Institute. Adam has served and does serve on a number of private company and non-profit boards and is the author of two books on sustainable business, including “The method Method, 7 Obsessions that Helped our Scrappy Startup Turn an Industry Upside-Down”.

This episode of LEAD WITH WE was produced and edited by goal17media.com and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Resources

Learn more about Ripple Foods and check out Adam’s previous company, Method

Connect with Adam Lowry via LinkedIn

Get free resources about purposeful branding at wefirstbranding.com

It’s a new year, but we continue grappling with the same big issues in 2021. For many, the events of last year made it impossible for business leaders to stand on the sidelines. But engaging with social justice issues is uncharted territory for most in the private sector. That’s why I’m re-sharing a conversation I had with Jay Curley, the Global Head of Integrated Marketing at Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s has been instrumental in paving the way for business to be a force for progressive change in the world. The iconic ice cream brand has taken bold stances on key social justice issues, from marriage equality to ending mass incarceration and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. So how does a company like Ben & Jerry’s manage to keep growing and earning loyal employees and customers while speaking out on such controversial issues? In this episode of Lead With We, Jay Curley gives me an insider perspective based on his twelve years inside one of the most socially conscious and beloved brands out there.

Enjoy the episode, and we’ll be back with new ones very soon!

Jay Curley

Jay Curley is the Global Head of Integrated Marketing for Ben & Jerry’s. Jay leads the development and execution of consumer marketing activities in the United States and global advertising and communications. These integrated programs bring Ben & Jerry’s progressive three-part mission to life in traditional advertising, innovative social media and digital engagements, retail shops, social activism, and live consumer experiences. Jay has been on the marketing lead for Ben & Jerry’s on campaigns focused on Climate Justice, Criminal Justice Reform, and Voting Rights.

Simon Mainwaring

Simon Mainwaring is a brand futurist, global keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is best known as the author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World and the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that works with brands to define their business strategy, company culture, and brand communications.

This episode of LEAD WITH WE was produced and edited by Goal17Media.com and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Resources

Learn more about Ben & Jerry’s delicious flavors and powerful campaigns by visiting their website.

Connect with Jay on LinkedIn.

Check out We First Branding for case studies and other free resources related to purposeful business.

Let’s face it, 2021 is off to a bit of a rocky start. And it can be easy to get bogged down in all the uncertainty and negativity, which is why I’m revisiting a conversation I had last year with Matthew Pohlson, the Co-Founder and CEO of Omaze.

Matthew inspired me because he’s a real-life example of how changing your mindset can unlock greater joy and success, especially if you’re an entrepreneur. In this episode of Lead With We, I talk with Matthew about disrupting charity, the personal reasons behind his work, and a near-death experience that transformed him and his company. 

Enjoy the episode and lookout for new episodes coming soon!

Matthew Pohlson

Matt Pohlson is the Co-founder and CEO of Omaze, the online fundraising platform that offers people the chance to win once-in-a-lifetime experiences in support of nonprofits around the world. Omaze has raised over $120 million for charities by making it fun and easy for people to give back. Omaze’s fundraising and awareness campaigns bring together influencers, nonprofits, and donors around the world to create real, lasting impact. Matt holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BA in economics and political science from Stanford University. Prior to launching Omaze, Matt worked as an executive producer for A Decade of Difference concert series, and at McKinsey & Company.

Simon Mainwaring 

Simon Mainwaring is a brand futurist, global keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He is best known as the author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World and the Founder and CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy that works with brands to define their business strategy, company culture, and brand communications.

This episode of LEAD WITH WE was produced and edited by Goal17Media.com and is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Resources

Learn more about Omaze

Reach out to Matthew on LinkedIn

Discover free resources about purposeful business at wefirstbranding.com