Most companies want to grow, but very few companies manage to grow sustainably; and growth can cause great damage. Chris Blackwell has been a senior leader in two companies that achieved incredible AND sustained growth. They achieved this while having incredible engagement rates, and making a positive impact in the world. Chris has twice gone in as turnaround CEO where he has witnessed close-up the dark side of growth, and focused on repairing the damage. In this session Chris will share insights and lessons from those experiences.

Our purpose

Doing well and doing good are becoming increasingly interconnected in our rapidly changing world. The Purpose Collective is a trio of purpose pioneers with a shared passion. We want to create a buzz about making work meaningful so that each person feels energised by what they do, day-to-day. We want to build a network of leaders who have conversations about making a difference. We want to see positive change happen: in organisations, teams and individuals.

The Purpose Collective - Meet the team

Chris Blackwell’s passion is providing leadership development and consultancy to Scale-ups. Chris is an experienced CEO and has led organisations that have achieved incredible growth. Early in his career, he helped Ingeus grow from £4m revenue to £120m in ten years and subsequently helped MAXIMUS grow from £25m revenue to £170m in under four years. Those experiences inspired the S.W.I.F.T model for sustainable growth, which sets out the foundations for successful growth and the five key-skills and stages of growth. Chris’s first book, ‘Purpose First – the vital ingredient for swift and sustainable growth’ will be published at the end of 2021.

Sarah Rozenthuler has a passion for engaging teams to do great work. When a team becomes purpose-led, rather than dominated by a strong personality, it achieves extraordinary results. Sarah joined the Purpose Collective as Covid-19 took hold and made more conventional ways of working impossible. Sarah has discovered how purpose is a magnet for collaboration even when a team can’t get in the same room together. As the most potent unit of change in an organisation, Sarah loves to help teams go on the journey to become purpose-led. Her clients include BP, Discovery Inc and Standard Chartered Bank. Sarah is the author of two books: How to Have Meaningful Conversations (Watkins, 2019) and Powered by Purpose: Energise Your People to Do Great Work with a foreword by Paul Polman and an epilogue by Dr Victoria Hurth.

Alberto Gonzalez Otero is an optimist leader and entrepreneur who believes in Purpose as the driving force for positive change for individuals and organisations. He has spent almost 20 years in sales and commercial leadership roles working as Head of Sales, Director of Customer Experience and Customer Success at a different software start-up and scale-up companies building, leading and developing teams across different countries and continents, creating company cultures, designing strategies, implementing technology and processes. Today, Alberto helps organisations, leaders and teams discover their purpose, transform and maximise results through leadership programs, workshops and retreats.