PURPOSEFUL GROWTH
The pressure on leaders to create new growth has never been higher, yet many of the traditional approaches are struggling to deliver: 72% of executives can’t relate to their company’s strategy, 80% of employees are disengaged, 60% of companies struggle to innovate meaningfully, and consumers wouldn’t mind if 78% of the brands they use disappeared tomorrow. This isn’t simply a crisis of strategy, technology or efficiency. It’s a crisis of meaning.
Purposeful Growth is a new best-selling business book by Philipp Reker and Helen Trickey, making the case that one answer has been hiding in plain sight: Purpose. Not as philanthropy, CSR or a corporate statement, but as a practical tool for creating clarity in leadership, energy in culture, ambition for innovation and meaningful differentiation for brands. It draws on their work with Gap Inc., Coca-Cola, Mattel and Sephora, helping leaders turn Purpose into new opportunities for growth. Order a copy on Amazon here.
BUILT IN THE REAL WORLD
The ideas and strategies in Purposeful Growth come from our own work with and conversations across some of the world’s most relevant and successful companies.
Leadership: Defining what matters most. Purpose creates greater clarity, meaning and focus around where the organization is going and why it matters.
Culture: Turning meaning into performance. Purpose gives employees something worth committing to, strengthening engagement, alignment and organizational performance.
Innovation: Unlocking creativity and opening new markets. Purpose focuses innovation on meaningful and often underserved human needs, while creating the conviction and energy to pursue more ambitious ideas.
Brand: Boosting meaning and differentiation. Purpose creates meaning that technology cannot manufacture, strengthening relevance, preference and enduring loyalty.
how purposeful growth works
Purpose creates value differently across the organization, and we have identified four key Purposeful Growth drivers through our work. Together, they create the Purposeful Growth flywheel: a system in which each driver strengthens the next and growth compounds over time.
PURPOSEFUL GROWTH IN PRACTICE
Our work for pioneering companies across the world is designed to create leadership that inspires, organizational cultures that perform, innovation that breaks through and brands that matter. Check out our examples of Purposeful Growth below.
GAP INC. - REIGNITING A HOUSE OF ICONIC BRANDS
Purpose became a leadership North Star connecting enterprise direction, culture and renewed relevance across some of America’s most recognized brands.
SEPHORA - HOW INCLUSIVE GROWTH OPENED MARKETS NO COMPETITOR COULD SEE
LVMH’s global retail brand has leveraged Purpose to expand markets, fuel innovation, and drive growth. Here we share the success principles.
Mattel/Barbie - From declining relevance to cultural icon
A sharper sense of Purpose helped guide product innovation, brand reinvigoration and organizational transformation, and it created the foundations for renewed growth.
Project Management Institute - Turning Purpose into organizational momentum
A clear Purpose helped connect strategy, leadership, community and brand around a shared ambition for growth.
UNLOCKING PURPOSEFUL GROWTH FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION OR BRAND
Purposeful Growth becomes essential when something important isn’t moving: a strategy that isn’t creating belief, a culture that lacks energy, an innovation agenda that struggles to produce breakthrough ideas, or a brand missing meaningful differentiation.
Often, the best place to start is a conversation: to understand where the biggest opportunity sits, what may be getting in the way, and whether Purpose can help unlock it.
We work with leadership teams through:
Executive and leadership team conversations
Keynotes and fireside chats
Team workshops
Purpose discovery and activation
Culture transformation
Innovation strategy
Brand strategy and activation
Longer-term consulting engagements
You don’t need to know the answer before getting in touch. Start with the business challenge. We can explore whether Purposeful Growth has a role to play.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Philipp Reker
Philipp’s perspective starts with the business: how leaders create clarity, meaning and focus to unlock new growth. A former VP at Mattel, he has worked with companies like Gap Inc., Sephora and Coca-Cola through pivotal moments of strategy, transformation, culture change and reinvention.
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Based in Los Angeles, Philipp has built a global career at the intersection of strategy, culture, brand and transformation. His perspective has been shaped by working across both client and consultancy environments, and by a longstanding fascination with the tension between left and right brain, art and science, big-picture ambition and disciplined execution.
As Vice President of Culture and Transformation at Mattel, Philipp led the company’s Purpose transformation journey, helping lay the foundation for Barbie’s remarkable comeback as a cultural icon.
His career has also spanned leadership roles client-side at Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler and Jeep, and agency and consultancy roles at DDB Worldwide, Siegel+Gale, and as Managing Partner at global purpose consultancy Conspiracy of Love.
Philipp works with companies including Coca-Cola, Sephora, LG, Gap Inc. and Continental to leverage Purpose as a force for business growth and transformation. With a unique mix of strategic clarity and bold imagination, he partners with corporate functions, brand teams and leaders across marketing, communications, HR, innovation, ESG and DEI to create big ideas and actionable programs that unlock new value for people, businesses and the planet.
Philipp lives in Venice Beach with his wife and two daughters.
HELEN TRICKEY
Helen brings a deeply human lens to growth: how organizations understand what people need, and create products, experiences and brands that matter. Helen connects business performance with human realities, grounded in work for some of the most meaningful brands in the world, including LEGO, Sephora and adidas.
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Having worked all over the world with mega-brands like adidas, Sephora, The Coca Cola Company, LEGO and the United Nations, Helen believes in business as the force for effective societal change. She dedicates her work to helping companies & brands find their Purpose and a clear role in society; and turning that Purpose into impactful action that has genuine (real-life!) cultural, societal & commercial value.
Helen heads up her own consultancy, Purposeful Futures, after learning her trade as Managing Partner at Global Consultancy Conspiracy of Love. There Helen headed a group of 70 consultants across 10 markets / 14 timezones, working through complicated business questions like "what is a soda brand's societal role as it relates to reducing sugar consumption, whilst also growing the business?"
Helen has also worked as a Consultant for the United Nations and led the team that created the most watched UN speech in history, leading to an updated & unprecedented change within the Paris Climate Agreement agenda.
In addition she owns and runs women's adventure festival Camp VC - giving women the freedom and safety to explore. From motorcycling, to whitewater rafting, to skateboarding.
Prior to all this she worked at Adage Agency of the Year, Anomaly for many years and went on to open Activista Los Angeles - an AdAge Purpose Led Small Agency of the Year.