Meet the Equitable Growth Advisory Group for the UK B Corp movement
Annie Olivier, Head of Growth, and Joanna Adjetey, Customer Success Coordinator introduce the individuals that form B Lab UK’s Equitable Growth Advisory Group.
After a rapid increase in the number of UK B Corps in 2022, we’re now in a position to grow the community in a more purposeful way — into one that is representative of UK society. Towards the end of last year, we announced that we’re forming an Equitable Growth Advisory Group to help us achieve our growth ambitions. This group will help us design, test and evaluate programmes and other interventions to improve accessibility of B Corp Certification and ultimately improve the diversity of our community. Read our previous blog for further context.
We put a call out for anyone who was keen to get involved in the pilot — specifically asking women (trans and non-binary inclusive) and/or people of colour. And we were thrilled with the number of people who stepped forward!
And now, it’s official – B Lab UK has an Equitable Growth Advisory Group formed of 9 members. We’re delighted to take this step towards growing the UK B Corp Community in a way that represents UK society. Read on to meet the individuals who’ll play a crucial part in this work and click on their name to visit their LinkedIn profile.
Sabrina Nguyen, General Counsel, Danone UK & Ireland
Sabrina has been a passionate B Corp community builder since 2016 as part of Danone’s Global B Corp team, helping 40+ companies achieve B Corp Certification across 30 countries. She’s currently General Counsel of Danone UK and Ireland – a proud member of the B Corp community. Her previous work experience includes roles in seven countries, five continents across consumer goods, private equity, and law.
Gihan Hyde, CEO & Founder, CommUnique
Gihan is the award-winning CEO & Founder of CommUnique, a B Corp Certified and one of the UK’s fastest growing ESG Strategy and Communications Advisory Firms. Gihan is LinkedIn top ESG Voice, UK “CEO of the Year” by CEO Magazine, one of the “40 over 40” most influential communications professionals in the world, and a NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center Mentor.
Adele Barlow, Founder, Copy & Co
Adele has spent over a decade leading comms, content and campaigns in the B2C and B2B tech space, including the UK’s first Women in Software Power List. Some of her projects include working with The Guardian, United Nations HQ, General Assembly and she’s also authored multiple books.
Rupa Wincell, Founder & CEO Kri Skincare
Rupa strongly champions inclusiveness and equality in the workplace, frequently challenging the common cultural stereotypes that she herself experienced in her career. As well as being the CEO of Kri Skincare, Rupa is also a mentor with Impact Hub’s New Roots — a business startup programme supporting entrepreneurs from underserved communities.
Bridget Banton, Founder, Dear Creative Gurl
Bridget is an entrepreneurial strategic thinker with 15+ years Management and Creative Leadership experience. She is renowned for inspiring a sense of ambition, enabling creativity and coaching teams to achieve success.
Benita Matofska, Co-founder, Futuretivity
Benita is a global award-winning social entrepreneur, speaker and climate change consultant to some of the world’s most forward-thinking businesses. A changemaker, social innovator and author of ground-breaking book Generation Share, she is renowned for her insights on sustainability, diversity and business transformation.
Artiq’s mission is to provide paid opportunities to artists and other creatives, specifically targeting creatives from underrepresented backgrounds and young artists at the start of their career. Katie also chairs a networking group for under 35s in the industry, running regular events and comms to enable young people in the industry to build their own network.
Bonnie Chiu, Owner & MD, The Social Investment Consultancy
Bonnie is an award-winning social entrepreneur, gender equality advocate and social impact consultant. Recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30, she is also a Senior Contributor on Forbes writing on gender and diversity.
Debora Chobanian, Founder & CEO, WorldlyWise Interpreting
At WordlyWise, Debbie leads a team of trusted linguists, and delivers and manages simultaneous translation and interpreting projects in various languages for onsite, hybrid and online events. Debbie is an alumni of the Female Founder Accelerator (Hatch Enterprise) and 10KSB (Goldman Sachs).
So, what’s next?
Over the coming months, the Equitable Growth Advisory Group will be looking at introducing interventions to tackle the barriers to B Corp Certification. The first session will focus on ideation, then decisions will be made about what intervention(s) to focus on. Group members were chosen based on their diverse expertise — we’re hoping each member will bring their unique expertise to co-design a strategy for purposefully growing the B Corp community, making the group as effective as possible.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be spotlighting each group member on our LinkedIn, so you can learn more about them and why they joined the Equitable Growth Advisory Group.