The Future We Want

On this episode Raphael is joined by Peter Ambler, the executive director of the gun safety organization Giffords. Since co-founding Giffords with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Navy Captain – and now U.S. Senator – Mark Kelly, Peter and their team have faced unimaginable tragedy with courage, determination and grace, and they’ve worked together with people from all walks of life to lead the way toward meaningful progress on gun safety.

In our conversation, Peter shares their remarkable story, offers advice for brands on how to affect public policy for good, and how he maintains his personal energy to keep fighting for change in the face of so much challenge.

You can read more about BBMG’s branding work for Giffords at https://bbmg.com/work/giffords/.

To help unpack the themes from our new report “Leading Regenerative Brands,” Raphael is joined by dear friend and BBMG’s Futurist in Residence, Sanjay Khanna. Together they share headlines from BBMG’s latest global research with GlobeScan and explore five paradigm shifts to help brand leaders thrive in a world in flux.

Tune in for highlights of our conversations with an amazing community of youth activists, issue experts, business leaders and elders who bring their distinct perspectives to the moment we’re in and help show us the way toward the future we might all want to be part of.

Guests:

• Lorna Davis, global ambassador for B Corps
• Alexis Saenz and Yulu Fuentes of the International Indigenous Youth Council
• Dilan Gohill of Extinction Rebellion Youth
• Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO and chief catalyst at the B Team
• Dave Rapaport, Global Social Mission Officer at Ben & Jerry’s

The Future We Want is back with a powerful conversation with our friend, colleague and inspiration, Shawn Outler. As Chief Diversity Officer at Macy’s Inc, Shawn is helping the iconic retailer harness the power of social purpose to transform the business from legacy to leadership with its new purpose platform Mission Every One.

For more than 15 years, Shawn has held virtually every role in the industry, from buyer to merchant to operations to fashion forecasting to the C-Suite. In 2011, she pioneered The Workshop at Macy’s, the retail industry’s longest running vendor development program dedicated to elevating, supporting and growing the next generation of diverse-owned merchants and vendors.

Tune in to learn what it takes for a brand to commit to bold representation and Shawn's personal journey to arrive at this moment.

For more on BBMG's work developing Macy's Mission Every One, check out the case study: https://bbmg.com/work/macys-inc 

In this episode of The Future We Want we head outside and ask some big questions about the outdoor industry, what it means for everybody to feel welcome, safe and inspired outside, and the role of brands in shaping our relationship with nature. Raphael is joined by co-host Amanda Yogendran, BBMG Senior Strategist and our resident outdoorswoman. 

Our Guests: 

Teresa Baker is the Founder of the In Solidarity Project and the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge. She helps us understand the context for why it’s essential to diversify the outdoors, how we got here, and what matters most now.  

Sarah Crockett is the CMO of Backcountry after leading marketing for brands like Burton, REI and Vans. She’s also a board member of the B Corp outdoor brand Rumpl. Sarah shares her perspective on how brands are making the outdoors more inclusive.  

Vincent Stanley is the longtime leader and Director of Philosophy at Patagonia. He reflects on the moment we’re in, what’s at stake, and where we go from here to create a radically better future outside for all of us.  

Visit our blog for more perspective on how brands are Transforming the Outdoors for True Inclusion.

This season’s first episode is dedicated to one of our favorite topics: food! We touch on themes from our recent Radically Better Food report and interview brand leaders from Danone working on regenerative agriculture, Impossible Foods on their mission to eradicate animals from our diets, and next-generation food vehicle Desert Bloom working to re-shape our food environments. 

Our Guests: 

Hans Taparia is co-founder of Tasty Bite, and more recently, Desert Bloom, a new food investment company that's reimagining the system by focusing on the food environment. He’s also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Business and Society at NYU Stern School of Business. Learn more about his visionary work reshaping our food environment at desertbloomfoods.com. 

Gabby Hernandez Galindo, a Global Sustainability Director at Danone, and Jeanette Coombs Lanot, Sustainability Advocacy Lead at Danone, are two inspiring leaders who are pioneering their business and brand transformation for a regenerative future. In this episode they share what it takes to design manifesto brands and their vision for a food system that can actually restore nature and unite humanity. Plus their take on what really is the best taco. 

Jessica Appelgren is Vice President of Communications at Impossible Foods where she's bringing a powerful perspective on what it looks like to challenge the status quo with more empathy, more ambition, and a laser-like focus on impact.  

Download BBMG and GlobeScan's free Radically Better Food report at bbmg.com/radically-better-food

William McDonough is recognized around the world for developing Cradle-to-Cradle design, launching the green building movement, and designing some of the most iconic, beautiful, and sustainable solutions in history – from buildings that function like forests to consumer products that are pure enough to eat.  

In this episode, William shares the joy and the human side of sustainable design with personal stories from what it was like to grow up in post WWII Japan to the inspiration of his mentor, the legendary photographer Walker Evans, to a call to imagination for a new generation to design a future we all might want to be part of.  

Learn more about his work at McDonough.com and follow William on Twitter at @billmcdonough

For young people under 30, the words used to describe 2020 reflect both profound challenge as well as powerful hope for change. In this special episode of The Future We Want, we go deep into findings from BBMG and GlobeScan's new global survey of 27,000 people, and we share the voices and visions of a new generation, their expectations for brands, and how together we might radically reimagine the future after one of the most transformative years for humanity in the last century. 

To read the full Radically Better Future: The Next Gen Reckoning for Brands report, visit http://bbmg.com/radically-better-future/

Media activist Palika Makam has produced video advocacy campaigns and trained activists all over the world – from South Africa to Ferguson, Missouri to The West Bank. As the US Program Coordinator for the human rights nonprofit WITNESS she helps activists and communities use video to document human rights violations and advocate for social justice, human dignity and truth.

In this episode we talk about what it means to center the voices and experiences of people and communities in the fight for human rights and pass the mic (literally) in order to pass the power.

Learn more about WITNESS (witness.org), the Youth Speak Truth event (https://blog.witness.org/2017/08/youth-speak-truth/) and follow Pali on Twitter at @PaliMakam and on Instagram at @PaliPocket

As Executive Director of Einhorn Collaborative, Jenn Hoos Rothberg works with a wide range of cultural influencers, community leaders and funders to help Americans build stronger relationships, embrace our differences and rediscover our common humanity so that we can solve our most urgent challenges, together.

In this episode we speak with Jenn about our current national crisis of connection and how as individuals, and as institutions, fostering belonging and pluralism can help elevate the best of our humanity and bridge divides.

Learn more about Einhorn Collaborative (https://www.einhorncollaborative.org/), the Nurture Science Program (https://nurturescienceprogram.org/), Greater Good Science Center’s Bridging Differences Playbook (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Bridging_Differences_Playbook-Final.pdf), Othering & Belonging Institute (https://belonging.berkeley.edu/) founded by john a. powell, and read Jenn’s blog post: Welcome to the Relational Era (https://www.einhorncollaborative.org/post/relational-era).

Follow Jenn on Twitter at @jennrothberg