Episodios

  • Managing a Changing Environment With Noah Miller

    Managing a Changing Environment With Noah Miller
    Nov 26 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Noah Miller, CEO and head of ESG Advisory Services at Rho Impact about what ESG is and what it means for business and the world as a whole. KEY TAKEAWAYS ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) refers to a management frame work – a structured approach to managing the risks and opportunities of a changing environment and environmental conditions, changing society and stakeholder expectations, and what that requires of leadership in order to manage that from a governance perspective. Clearly with the billions of dollars of climate destruction, the governance blunders of corporate leaders, labour strikes and walk-outs that are costing economies billions of dollars, now this work has become front and centre to the finance/capital discussion. Philosophically we’re all here from a similar compass that guides us; this work is important, we want to support the natural world and society. But the professional in me still says we live in a capitalist society and an economy that requires an attention to margins. From a professional context, we always focus on the commercial elements of this work because if it doesn’t create commercial opportunity/financial incentive it’s really hard to sustain. Carbon emissions used to be peripheral to running a business but in the past few years ESG regulations, net zero commitments, and mandates coming from capital providers means that businesses have to show their receipts now and have assurable, transparent, traceable data to show they are doing and have done what they say they have. It’s gone from a ‘nice to have’ to a necessity. You can’t do business without showing your ESG credentials in today’s market. BEST MOMENTS ‘The shifting tides of the environment, society, and the broader economy requires a company to address issues that, up until this point, were considered non-financial issues.’‘A significant shift in the past five years has been from carrying out carbon offsetting to now denouncing them and moving into legitimate emission reduction planning.’‘Rho Impact is completely focussed on the numbers first and then the narrative, to make sure we avoid any box-ticking which can lead to greenwashing.’‘People are realising that there’s a massive financial opportunity in creating these solutions. We’re lucky to move away from too much corporate performing and into the real work where the solutions are being made.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Noah Miller is the Chief Advisory Officer and Head of ESG Advisory Services at Rho Impact. With over a decade of ESG consulting experience, Noah has held multiple leadership roles including Senior Director for Summit Strategy Group's ESG Consulting Services practice and serving as interim ESG Director for multiple public and private companies. Website ABOUT THE HOST Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand. In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet. CONTACT DETAILS Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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    36 m
  • Behavioural Change with Josh Cleall

    Behavioural Change with Josh Cleall
    Nov 19 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Josh Cleall, CEO of Jump – a company that helps other companies train their staff in more sustainable behaviours, about his career journey from intern to CEO, as well as behavioural change and sustainability. KEY TAKEAWAYS Our gamification tool and platform incentivises and rewards staff members and people to make tiny changes to their lifestyle, both at home and at work. These little changes all add up to a big impact which saves companies money, carbon, and can be demonstrated through the impact the staff have. With behavioural changes you need to show people exactly why they need to be doing it. For society in general you can’t expect people to change their behaviour if the result is that makes the job or whatever they’re doing slower, more inefficient and expensive, thereby reducing their quality of life and increase their expenses. That’s clearly never going to work. You need to highlight and encourage people by showing the small actions they can take which will have positive benefits in their lives. A great example is sustainable commuting. Fashion is an area where no one has solved this yet. You can encourage people to buy more expensive garments, or repair and fix things. There has been a slight change in this area, especially with apps like Vinted where you can buy good quality, second-hand clothing at a much cheaper price. But it’s not the answer for everyone, there’ll be lots of people who would never entertain that thought, who want high-end luxury items. We have 300 positive behaviours that people can pick from, those behaviours have a points attributed with them: The more difficult ones have a higher points value and lower difficulty ones have lower points. Every month we publish a leaderboard with how the clients have done and the top 10 or 20 individuals each month can pick a prize. A lot of the brands we work with for these prizes have to be aspirational, not consumerist, they have to be as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible. BEST MOMENTS ‘By encouraging people to be more active in their commuting that has a benefit on them (their costs and health), that’s the sweet spot for sustainability and behaviour change.’ ‘There are some behaviours that are really carbon intensive but which you’re never going to encourage people away from, but there are lots of examples where it’s perfectly possible.’ ‘Luxury fashion brands are slowly starting to change their purchasing habits, what materials they’re using, and using repurposed materials more and more.’ ‘It’s human nature that we respond well to badges that we earn, whether it’s on DuoLingo or the Playstation, they spark joy. That’s the approach we take at Jump.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Josh Cleall is CEO of Team Jump, a company that supports a variety of initiatives in the sustainability industry using technology to engage individuals and teams. He says: “Smart use of technology is at the heart of what we do, but making this technology work for our people is how we ensure real change happens. We’re constantly looking at ways we can help users learn more about what it means to be sustainable or improve their wellness and the steps they can take to achieve this. “I joined Jump in 2013 and found that my experience in e-commerce and a MSc in Sustainable Development were a good foundation for the work that we do. I love the challenge of applying our innovative platform to different clients and workplace cultures to ensure they get the most engagement as possible, rewarding those who achieve the most is fun too!” Website ABOUT THE HOST Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand. In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet. CONTACT DETAILS Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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    30 m
  • Building Effective Teams with Doug Betts

    Building Effective Teams with Doug Betts
    Nov 12 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Doug Betts, an HR expert, about how founders can build more effective teams and the lessons that he has learned while growing his business. KEY TAKEAWAYS There’s a lot of things that happen on a daily basis in the corporate world that, when the pandemic happened, just didn’t make sense any more. I wanted to think about doing things in a different way and being a bit more of a positive disruptor in how I worked. For example, it seems pointless going to an office 5 days a week. If you allow a bit of flexibility you’ll benefit a lot of people’s lives. I’m working with some contractors on my business, so I don’t have employees. But I do have external support, where I need it, from experts who can do lower-level tasks that I can’t do myself or don’t enjoy doing. A lot of founders hit a sense of overwhelm, no matter how good you are, it can be a little bit too much and you’re not quite sure which thing to do first. Or it can be feast or famine where work can be so manic that you don’t concentrate on things like marketing and finding new business. Be on top of your numbers, because then you know when you can start to outsource tasks. You need to find people whop align to you business and have similar values to you, and not just about how you work. Ask some behavioural questions when you interview them not just competency-based questions, seeing how they react and what their behaviours are like will let you know if you can trust them or not. Don’t manage them but give them regular ongoing feedback. BEST MOMENTS ‘My motivation for getting out of bed in the morning and doing this is that I like helping people and solve problems.’ ‘Lockdown gave me a good opportunity to reassess and think about what I was going to do next and think about my skillset in a different way.’ ‘As a founder, the business is you and ultimately you’re accountable for everything, so make sure you have a clear vision, mission, and goals for your business and communicate those to your team.’ ‘You’ve got to show up every day in your business, even if you’re not physically there. Your team will look up to you as the motivator and inspirer.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Doug Betts is a visionary HR leader with over 20 years of experience across various sectors, but with a particular interest in Charities/not for profits. Website ABOUT THE HOST Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand. In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet. CONTACT DETAILS Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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    25 m
  • Turning Your Business Model Circular With Elin Bergman

    Turning Your Business Model Circular With Elin Bergman
    Nov 5 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Elin Bergman, the circular economy queen of Sweden, to talk about her company, cradlenet, as well as her career in sustainability. KEY TAKEAWAYS I our ‘Circular Friday’ meetings we teach businesses about the latest news in the circular economy, we invite speakers, experts and scientists. It’s unique that we meet our members every single Friday. On top of that we hold regular member’s meetings where we go deeper into subjects like standards and legislations, so they know what to do. We also do projects and write reports as well as pushing a lot of content out on social media and our website. Sweden has clean streets, and we’ve fought a lot of environmental problems successfully, but it’s extremely not sustainable, we push things out of sight and out of mind. We have fantastic wate systems and so on, but when it comes to circularity, we really destroy the precious resources we have and emit a lot of carbon. The reason for that is that we’re quite rich, we can afford to have big, heavy cars, we buy clothes like crazy people, every time we move somewhere we rip out perfectly fine kitchens because we want to put our own stamp on things, and we have multiple houses with the country house standing empty for most of the year. We’re destroying many of the precious resources we need for the renewable energy transition. We only have a certain amount of gold, copper, aluminium and so on, but right now we’re acting as if it will never run out. But prices are going up, there’s less to dig up out of the ground, and at the same time we’re wasting it by dumping it in electronic waste dumps and burning it. We really need to fix this system and the circular economy is a great way of doing that. BEST MOMENTS ‘Finland is much better at the circular economy than other countries.’ ‘The planet is only 7.2% circular, and that number is going down. In Sweden it’s even worse: Only 3.4% circular, which means we’re one of the 20 worst countries in the world when it comes to circularity and over-consuming.’ ‘If we don’t take care of the way we consume and produce things then we’ll have a problem.’ ‘Recycling is the last thing you should do in the circular economy, it’ about resource efficiency and looking after the precious resources that we have. New things are coming into the circular economy every day, I’m never done learning about it.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Elin Bergman: I am passionate about accelerating the transition to a circular economy that enables humanity to live in harmony with nature. I have over 16 years of experience working in sustainability, working at organisations such as WWF, sustainability consultancies and the Haga Initiative. I currently work as the Chief Operating Officer, Vice Chair and spokesperson of the leading business network for circular economy in Sweden - Cradlenet. In that role I also serve as an advisor for various initiatives and being part of the reference group of the Swedish Delegation for circular economy, and the Circular Economy Coalition. In 2018 I co-founded the Nordic Circular Hotspot, a platform that connects and showcases circular economy actors and initiatives in the Nordic region and beyond. The organisation now has managing partner organisations in all Nordic countries. ABOUT THE HOST Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand. In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet. CONTACT DETAILS Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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    31 m
  • Sustainability in Construction with Chloe Wynn

    Sustainability in Construction with Chloe Wynn
    Oct 29 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Chloe Wynn, director of Maven Design Studio, about sustainability in traditionally one of the most environmentally impactful and wasteful industries: construction. KEY TAKEAWAYS Unfortunately, the construction industry is incredibly wasteful. Similarly to fashion trends come and go quite quickly in interior design. In our homes we’re encouraged to revitalise with a new kitchen every 5-10 years. What do we do with all that stuff that gets thrown away? Maybe it goes to a second-hand selling site, but sadly a lot of it is cheap, disposable items that people don’t have an emotional connection to, so they don’t care what happens to it next and it ends up in landfill. Most of my work is in the commercial space and a lot of the briefs I get are from development managers who say they need to change things because their customers need to see something different as a reason to visit the premises, just for the sake of it. One of the trigger points for me falling out of love with the construction industry and wanting to change it to become more sustainable was a time when we wanted to reuse a granite work surface. The contractors accidentally cracked it, so I told them to find out how much it would cost to be fixed and the cost was more than buying a new piece of granite that was extracted from Italy and shipped to the UK. I was infuriated. It’s not just about carbon, it’s about water pollution, air quality, what are we doing about waste, what are we doing about labour exploitation, mental health pressures from capitalism. We need to find a better way of doing things. BEST MOMENTS ‘If we’re refurbishing sites every 5-7 years, which is the standard cycle is, we’re just getting a bigger and bigger pile of chairs for example, because they’re not cost-effective to take apart.’ ‘It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility. I can see the problem and I choose to try and do something positive about it.’ ‘Good maintenance is a huge factor of being sustainable, if you look after things they last longer.’ ’10-15 years ago no design studios were talking about sustainability, whereas now it’s really encouraging the amount of studios, architects, and even some clients talking about it, because it’s important to their customers.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Chloe Wynn is a designer inspired by nature, culture, and the senses, with technically considered solutions and circularity in mind. Website ABOUT THE HOST Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand. In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet. CONTACT DETAILS Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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    39 m
  • Diversity In Fashion With Richard Lue

    Diversity In Fashion With Richard Lue
    Oct 21 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Richard Lue, a fashion consultant, about fashion and working with big, global brands KEY TAKEAWAYS I studied accounting and finance, and I got into fashion by accident. I started modelling at 16 years old and I saw a sign in a window of a Benneton shop, so I applied and got the job as a sales assistant. The brand was very prestigious at the time and the brand put its name to a lot of worthy causes and I was proud to be part of the organisation. At 17 or 18 I got to go to Italy to buy clothes for the new menswear department. Diversity is better in fashion, for gender than in almost any other industry, there are a lot of female bosses. When you look at people of colour or from different ethnicities, it feels like the ‘Guinness effect’ where it's brown at the bottom and at the top it’s very, very white, which is a shame. It has to do with the hiring process where people hire people who look and sound like them, but if you want to go into new markets and understand them you need people from those markets who understand that culture to give you the extra step to overcome those difficulties. In the 20-plus years I’ve been working with these big brands there have been multiple times where I’ve had to speak up and say “That sounds racist, that shouldn’t be happening in a business meeting.” All those things were passed off as “it’s not their first language, maybe you heard it wrong”, they always made it out that the things that I heard that were absolutely racist I’d taken the wrong way. After a while, you get a little bit nervous about being seen as the complaining person. Finally, I reported it and we had to go to court to sort it out. At the top level, everybody believes in the overarching themes, but when you get to middle management, people who are trying to hit targets and controlling their budgets, that’s where it’s in completely different hands and the ownership of culture gets lost. It’s a lot better now and now I can speak about it at that same company’s Black History Month events and they have protections in place. BEST MOMENTS‘It’s important we have community in all these spaces because things can go wrong when you have the wrong network.’ ‘These brands are so big and creating so much that even if they produce 10% of their collections sustainably, it would still be a drop in the ocean.’ ‘At the end of the day being sustainable doesn’t mean not being desirable, I’m always working on let’s make desirable product and find a sustainable way of producing it.’ ‘Who are you targeting? What are you trying to produce? What are the price points? Create a bible so that anyone working in the organisation can see what the brand stands for.’ ABOUT THE GUESTRichard Lue has over twenty years of experience delivering exceptional business results for premium and luxury brands like Benetton, Guess, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein, his consultancy specialises in creating bespoke solutions for new, emerging, and established brands looking to develop clothing and business strategies in a sustainable way.LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOSTTze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.CONTACT DETAILSWebsiteFacebookInstagramTwitterLinkedIn
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    28 m
  • Digital Clothes Swapping with Maria Remy

    Digital Clothes Swapping with Maria Remy
    Oct 14 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Maria Remy about circularity and fashion. KEY TAKEAWAYS The problem in the UK is there’s often quite a long time between swapping events where you don’t know what to do with your clothes, you want to consume more because of the fast pace of fashion but you may not have the chance to do so. We created a digital platform to be the bridge between the events. CLOSWAP is a Tinder-based model, swiping right and left releases dopamine, you then match with people and you can choose to meet up with them or ship the items to them via same-day bike delivery. People who are in fashion are often artistic people, they care about the purpose and the mission, which is great – that’s what sells the product. But, if you make that a business that can sustain itself the impact will be larger over the long term. Most people only care about themselves, which might sound pessimistic but it’s reality, so you have to match the behaviours that are there: Over-consumption, dopamine-hit-requirement, short attention spans. Circularity is one of the only solutions to prolong the lifecycle of clothing. BEST MOMENTS ‘CLOSWAP is Tinder for clothes and Eventbrite for swapping events combined.’ ‘Swapping is probably the least financially viable business to get into, we’ve never hosted an event that was profitable!’ ‘Impact is the mission I want to pursue throughout my life.’ ‘Apps like Vinted take too long, when I buy something I want it right now.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Maria Remy is a former professional athlete turned marketing specialist, creative director and founder of CLOSWAP, winner of the Mayor's Entrepreneurship Award 2024 and a top 700 startup & social venture (according to Hult Prize) pioneering in circular fashion. With a background in fashion styling and a passion for social impact, she leads with creativity, strategy, and a commitment to change. Maria is also the president of the Women in Business, driving diversity and innovation in the industry. ABOUT THE HOST Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand. In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet. CONTACT DETAILS Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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    27 m
  • Ecological Coaching With Adela Mei

    Ecological Coaching With Adela Mei
    Oct 7 2024
    On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Adela Mei, founder of Jackdaw Coaching, to talk about ecology, conservation, business coaching, the rainforest, and more. KEY TAKEAWAYS I was running a bar, watching people drinking and I had this moment where I asked myself what I was doing. I ended up seeing a counselor by accident and he asked me what it was I wanted to know, and I said I wanted to find out how it all works. He said that was called ecology and I went off to university at the age of 25 to study ecology and conservation and went on to do a master's. Over the last 20 years, things have got better and worse. Eco-tourism, the idea that by bringing tourism to the rainforest you also bring income to indigenous villages, in theory, was fantastic: Villages worked in the biological research stations making handicrafts to sell, and some were taught English and worked as guides. The downside of that is that local people were earning significantly more money than they’d been used to and they spent it on alcohol, so it had a devastating impact on the communities, especially the young. While I was in Peru I got interested in web design and marketing because I was doing that while I was there. When I came back to the UK I started building websites for other wildlife conservation projects. That side of my business grew for quite some time and though I couldn’t get back out to the rainforest I really love technology and I bring all of that into my work now. We are intrinsically connected to the planet. It may not be obvious to everybody, but the air we breathe, and the water we drink, are all connected and underpin that belief. We must protect the planet and do our best. BEST MOMENTS ‘For my dissertation I went to Peru for three months with a friend to study emergent trees in the rainforest, and I got the bug. Over the next three years I was out there most of the time.’ ‘When people talk about “nature bathing”, this was full immersion in the rainforest.’ ‘Seeing clear-felling broke my heart. What was pristine rainforest that was thousands of years old decimated in days.’ ‘I work mainly with positive impact projects – businesses or business owners who deeply care about the environment and who want to be a forced for good.’ ABOUT THE GUEST https://jackdawcoaching.com/10-steps-to-build-a-sustainable-business/ Adela Mei helps business owners take simple steps to sustainable business success, with digital strategy and business coaching. With her wealth of experience in web design, digital marketing, and online platforms, she helps business owners streamline their online presence, creating consistent and clear messaging, so they can attract more clients. Adela set up her own company Jackdaw Coaching Ltd in 2020 to support small businesses grow sustainably, through digital strategy, personal branding and business coaching. ABOUT THE HOST Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand. In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges. Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company. Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet. CONTACT DETAILS Website Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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    42 m