Purpose-Driven Leadership Strategies.

On May 8, 2024 at the Toronto Region Board of Trade we hosted the Board's inaugural event on purpose-driven leadership. It was a sold-out, full-day event with a significant waiting list. This bodes well for people interested in promoting the purpose economy in and around the GTA and it was my pleasure to help design and facilitate the event.

Gratitude to ...

Jon E Worren , Mary-Anne Laguna Meerasabeer and the Toronto Region Board of Trade for the vision and leadership to host this session, supporting SMEs to deeply understand the opportunities presented by clarifying and acting on your company's purpose.

To Sarah Saso, CSR-P Vice President ESG and Social Impact at Meridian for creating and sharing their integrated purpose and business strategy with us including these (5) pillars: the full report is available here .

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To Ryan Adams , Head Strategic Partnerships and Jasvir Nijjar , RVP Sales for sharing the latest data on the business case for purpose from the extensive experience of Benevity as a unicorn SAS provider and leader in advocating social purpose in business.

Note: the data is clear - the business case for purpose keeps getting stronger and stronger!

To Krista Pawley, Co-founder, Head of Program Design and Impact at Wavemakers who shared her incredible journey as a purpose-driven leader. Including the point that you can be a leader who advances purpose regardless of the sector in which you find yourself - from government to private sector to nonprofits.

Check out Krista's latest venture, Wavemakers to learn more, see you in the metasphere!

To Bruce MacDonald , President and CEO, Imagine Canada who shared compelling data on the state of the nonprofit and charitable sector from their research. Having run a Caring Companies program for many years, it was encouraging to see that over 90% of employees at these companies report their employer as being committed to community and that they were both more satisfied and loyal. Increased employee engagement is one solid reason for embracing a corporate purpose.

To Elizabeth Dove, MM, ESG-P Executive Director, UN Global Compact Network Canada who spoke about her work to advance the Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by employing a principles based approach. She shared four strategies for purpose-driven leaders in SMEs related to getting ready for pending regulations; tackling emission supply chain; the importance of not trying to do this alone; and to be grounded in your humanity - we need bold leadership, with stated corporate purpose, to to tackle our most complex challenges.

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To Martha Hancock Executive Director, CBSR which promotes business as a force for good. Martha spoke about double materiality assessments that identify areas that threaten your company's purpose and she encouraged us to integrate our purpose at every stage of our work. This slide is one example of how they work with companies to implement change.

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To Josee Thibault, MCM Director, Philanthropy, MaRS Discovery District who shared the research she undertook as part of her masters in communications with CEO's on how they see corporate purpose. 1. It starts with you - the CEO - and on the topic of purpose, your employees want to hear from you, directly. As Josee notes in the slide below, "purpose leadership is at the intersection of personal calling and strategic advantage." Love that! 2. Then bring your team along. 3. Then tell the world. Warning! Authenticity and transparency are non-negotiable.

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To Shayla Meyer Senior Consultant, Junxion Strategy who shared their definition of social purpose - a reason to exist beyond generating profits, to be an engine of good, creating social benefits by the very act of conducting business. Shayla grounded the room in the reality of the big challenges we are facing from climate change, wildfires, homelessness, poverty, and global conflicts. She shared some great case examples of companies who have embraced purpose, like Coast Capital Savings . And Shayla issued a call to action to get engaged with the Canadian Purpose Economy Project - see below.

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Josee and Shayla, also took to the time to remind us that ESG, CSR and purpose are not the same. As this field of "purpose" takes off, this is an important differentiator.

And thanks to Susy Martins , Founder & CEO, Advise2Rise and Moien Giashi, PhD , Principal GreenSky Ventures for our final fireside chat. They did a great job of sharing their extensive experience of advancing purpose in their work with teams - all around the globe; bringing passions together across fields (science and tech) to make an impact; and the importance of government investment to advance this work and so much more!

And special thanks to everyone who was able to join us (and my apologies for missing anyone). Not only did you take full day to focus on this work, you brought your corporate purpose with you so we could get grounded in who was in the room - we appreciate you sharing your WHY with us! Ciara H. Mike Daser, PHRi Andrea Milosevic Eliana Trinaistic Emad Amin Hany Mikhael James Prince Liz McBeth Louise Kent, MBA Malay Shodhan Maryam Atoyebi Melanie Cote Michael Smith Nicholas Buccheri Ravinder Brar Saloni Kochar, CFA Sandeep Persaud, MBA shohreh sabaghpour Wesley Gee

To keep the conversation going, please check out the Canadian Purpose Economy Project to see how you can get involved. We need all kinds of voices to advance this work!

And finally, please reach out to any of these people and organizations if you want to work with them - you know where to find us - on purpose!