Fiona Ras-Jones shares advice on building mission-led businesses, with a focus on connecting a company’s social or environmental purpose to the products and services it sells.
Fiona Ras-Jones shares advice on building mission-led businesses, especially how a company can connect its social or environmental purpose to the products and services it sells.
Their posts argue that purpose and profit can reinforce each other when selling more directly advances the mission.
They develop that idea through examples including Tony’s Chocolonely, Notpla, OceanSaver and Wholegrain Digital, and explain how to choose a problem for a business to address and make its purpose specific.
Ras-Jones makes mission-led business strategy easier to examine by turning broad claims into practical tests.
They contrast balancing purpose against profit with aligning them through the business model, then name reasons alignment may fail: an unclear purpose, no strategy to deliver it, or a team that does not see the link to profit.
In another post, they ask readers to list their industry’s negative impacts and respond to doubts about whether a problem is original, important enough, or theirs to address.
The examples make the advice concrete.
Follow them for accessible explanations and prompts for thinking through mission and business strategy.
Fiona Ras-Jones writes about mission-led business: companies that pursue a social or environmental purpose through what they sell rather than alongside it.
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The recurring arguments across the posts are that purpose and profit should be aligned rather than balanced, that the impact has to be built into the product instead of attached as a donation, and that a purpose only drives decisions when it names a specific problem. Ras-Jones also offers a four-part diagnosis for companies still fighting over purpose internally, and a short exercise for finding a problem worth working on.
Align purpose and profit; do not balance them
Fiona Ras-Jones distinguishes between two claims about how a business works: "balance" and "alignment".
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Balance puts purpose on one side and profit on the other, so more of one costs you the other.
The post spells out the symptoms: friction, internal battles and ambiguity.
Alignment means delivering impact through the products and services themselves, so the more the business sells, the further it advances its purpose.
That distinction shifts the conversation from how much purpose a company can afford to how its business model is built.
Three examples carry the argument: Tony's Chocolonely (the more chocolate sold, the less slavery in the supply chain), Notpla (the more seaweed packaging sold, the less plastic in the ocean) and Wholegrain Digital (the more low-carbon websites sold, the smaller the internet's carbon footprint).
Impact has to be in the product, not added on the side
Fiona Ras-Jones distinguishes an aligned model from donation-style schemes such as "buy one, give one".
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Here, the impact comes through the sale itself: each unit sold reduces a named harm compared with the ordinary alternative in that category. That gives customers something to check, rather than a charitable gesture attached to a purchase.
OceanSaver cleaning products are described as reducing plastic and harmful chemicals in the water system compared with standard cleaning products; Wholegrain Digital is described as reducing the internet's carbon footprint compared with standard websites.
Broad claims about doing good — "building a better world", "making tomorrow better than today" — are too general to drive a business and end up as company values rather than purpose.
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The post defines purpose as the reason a company exists beyond profit, and puts forward a specific problem as the strongest candidate: it unites the team, gives focus and gives people something to act on.
Ella's Kitchen is linked to the problem that one in four children are overweight or obese by the time they start school; Ocean Bottle is linked to plastic in the ocean.
The posts move from aligned business models (Tony's Chocolonely, Notpla, Wholegrain Digital) to how a company chooses and names the problem its purpose addresses. Ask for post dates if chronology matters.
When a company still feels tension between purpose and profit, Fiona Ras-Jones rejects the idea that it is inevitable and identifies four common causes: the company has a cause but not a purpose; the purpose is not well defined; there is no strategy to deliver it; or the team does not understand how the purpose connects to profit.
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Each is presented as fixable, turning a frustrating conflict into a diagnosis the team can work through.
The post opens with a B Corp contact arguing that tension between purpose and profit is simply how business works. Fiona Ras-Jones disagrees, then cites Tony's Chocolonely, OceanSaver and Wholegrain Digital as cases where the sale itself delivers the purpose.
One post turns the ambition into an exercise: list your industry's negative social and environmental impacts, then work through the doubts that follow.
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It addresses three objections: the problem feels unoriginal, it is not big enough, and "who am I to do that".
The replies: slavery in the chocolate supply chain and ocean plastic were not original problems either; the response can be.
A solved problem is a good outcome.
And, quoting Marianne Williamson, playing small does not serve the world.
If the problem still feels too large, get closer, start smaller and experiment.
The post sets out a written exercise readers can complete with pen and paper, starting with their own industry's negative impacts rather than an abstract purpose statement.
Start here for the idea underpinning the rest of the work: the difference between trading off purpose and profit and designing a business where selling more advances the mission.
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Fiona Ras-Jones distinguishes two words usually treated as synonyms.
In this post, balance means purpose on one side and profit on the other, so more of one costs you the other.
Alignment means impact comes through the products and services themselves, so the two grow together.
The post names the symptoms of the balance model in plain terms — friction, internal battles, ambiguity — and says they are not unavoidable.
Three examples make the argument concrete: Tony's Chocolonely (more chocolate sold, less slavery in the supply chain), Notpla (more seaweed packaging sold, less plastic in the ocean) and Wholegrain Digital (more low-carbon websites sold, a smaller internet carbon footprint).
They give readers something to test the logic against rather than a slogan to accept.
For brands planning a campaign
Useful as the concept layer of an educational collaboration: the balance-versus-alignment distinction is easy to illustrate in a short video or diagram, and the three named companies give a brand concrete cases to discuss on camera.
Answers the question that stops many businesses before they start: which problem, and why should it be ours to solve?
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This post turns an abstract ambition into a pen-and-paper exercise: list the negative social and environmental impacts of your industry, then work through the three doubts that usually follow.
First, the problem may feel unoriginal.
The reply: slavery in the chocolate supply chain and ocean plastic were not original problems either; the response can be.
Second, the problem may not seem big enough.
The post argues that solving a problem is a good outcome, and that most issues turn out to be larger once you dig in.
Third: 'who am I to do that'.
The answer is a Marianne Williamson quotation about playing small.
If the framing still feels too big, the post advises starting smaller and experimenting.
For brands planning a campaign
A ready-made workshop or lead magnet: the industry-impact list and three objections give a brand a session outline participants can complete themselves and bring to a follow-up conversation.
Read this if your organisation has a purpose statement but still argues about it internally: the post names internal causes rather than external ones.
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The post opens with a B Corp contact stating that tension between purpose and profit is simply how business works; Fiona Ras-Jones disagrees.
The point is not that tension never happens, but that friction is absent in mission-led businesses when the model is aligned.
The post revisits Tony's Chocolonely, OceanSaver and Wholegrain Digital, describing what each sale achieves.
It then lists four causes of the tension that remains: the company has a cause but not a purpose; the purpose is not well defined; there is no strategy to deliver it; and the team does not see how the purpose connects to profit.
Each cause is presented as fixable, shifting the reader from accepting the clash to diagnosing it.
For brands planning a campaign
A strong fit for a diagnostic angle: the four causes can become a self-assessment checklist, while the opening exchange offers an honest hook for content aimed at sceptical leadership teams.
Explains why so many purpose statements sound fine but change nothing — and what to put in their place.
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The argument: broad statements about doing good — 'building a better world', 'making tomorrow better than today' — are too general to guide decisions, so they function more like company values than purpose.
The post says they lack a problem.
It describes purpose as the reason a company exists beyond profit and argues that a problem is the strongest candidate.
Three examples make the case: Ella's Kitchen, paired with the statistic that one in four children are overweight or obese by the time they start school; Tony's Chocolonely, paired with slavery in the chocolate supply chain; and Ocean Bottle, paired with plastic in the ocean.
Naming the problem gives each company focus.
For brands planning a campaign
Effective for content aimed at brands rewriting their purpose statement: the post offers a clear test — if a purpose does not name a problem, it is a value — and examples that give clients concrete before-and-after comparisons to debate.
Recurring proof points and a shift toward problem-led framing4
A consistent post structure built to support consulting4
Purpose and profit are aligned, not balanced2
Impact has to be built into the product, not added on the side2
A purpose without a problem is just a value1
Diagnosing the friction: four fixable causes1
Turning a reader into a participant: the industry-impact exercise1
Purpose and profit are aligned, not balanced
Fiona Ras-Jones's central argument is that mission-led businesses do not trade purpose off against profit; they design a model where the two move together, so selling more of a product advances the mission.
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They open by challenging the idea that tension between the two is simply how business works, then contrast it with brands such as Tony's Chocolonely, Notpla and Wholegrain Digital, where each sale reduces a named harm, from slavery in chocolate supply chains to ocean plastic and the carbon footprint of the internet.
For brands planning a campaign
This reframe is the strongest hook for educational content aimed at a brand that is already purpose-driven or B Corp certified: it gives audiences a way to talk about purpose without framing it as a trade-off or compromise. A collaboration could put Fiona Ras-Jones in the position of naming the shift, with the brand's own work serving as proof rather than argument.
Impact has to be built into the product, not added on the side
They draw a sharp line between aligned business models and donation-style schemes.
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In their account, impact comes through what the company sells: each unit sold reduces a specific harm compared with the standard alternative in that category. They apply this test to every example, distinguishing a mission-led business from one with a charitable gesture attached.
For brands planning a campaign
A useful evaluation criterion a brand can share with its audience or clients. The brand could publish it as a short self-assessment, with Fiona Ras-Jones explaining the distinction and the brand showing how its own product meets the test.
Their later framing is narrower: most company purpose statements fail because they are broad, such as “building a better world,” and function as values rather than drivers.
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They need a problem. They illustrate this with Ella's Kitchen on childhood obesity at school entry, Tony's Chocolonely on slavery in the supply chain, and Ocean Bottle on plastic in the ocean.
For brands planning a campaign
A ready-made editorial angle for a consultancy that helps companies sharpen their purpose: ask readers whether their purpose addresses a problem. The brand can then position its own work as the follow-through once a problem is chosen.
When a company still feels tension between purpose and profit, they point to four ordinary causes rather than an unavoidable clash: the company has a cause but not a purpose; the purpose is not well defined; there is no strategy to deliver it; and the team does not understand the link between purpose and profit.
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They present all four as fixable.
A short diagnostic checklist that turns a vague complaint about internal friction into a self-audit readers can run in a few minutes.
For brands planning a campaign
The checklist is the most workshop-ready material in the set. A brand could license or co-produce it as a downloadable diagnostic and book Fiona Ras-Jones to walk an audience or client team through the results, linking educational content directly to a speaking or consulting format.
Turning a reader into a participant: the industry-impact exercise
One post walks readers through a pen-and-paper exercise: list the negative social and environmental impacts of your own industry.
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They anticipate three objections—that the problems feel unoriginal, that they are not big enough, and “who am I to do that?”—and answer each one, including with a Marianne Williamson quote against playing small. If it still feels like too much, they tell readers to get closer, start smaller and experiment.
Direct instruction to readers, with objections handled before they arise.
For brands planning a campaign
This is the clearest template in the set for a lead magnet or session activity, with objection handling for audiences sympathetic to purpose but hesitant to start. A brand could pair the exercise with its own worksheet and have Fiona Ras-Jones explain why small, unoriginal problems are still worth solving.
Recurring proof points and a shift toward problem-led framing
Tony's Chocolonely appears in three of the four posts as the anchor case, and Wholegrain Digital in two, while OceanSaver, Notpla, Ocean Bottle and Ella's Kitchen appear once each.
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Together, the posts move from the balance-versus-align claim toward defining purpose through a specific problem. The examples increasingly show what a well-chosen problem looks like, rather than what an aligned model looks like.
The posts do not identify brands they have worked with or describe those engagements. The only commercial invitation is a recurring suggestion to send a direct message about becoming mission-led; ask for examples of past brand partnerships and what they involved.
For brands planning a campaign
A brand should bring its own case material: their posts draw on third-party examples rather than a client roster. The shift toward problem-led framing also offers a basis for a collaboration, such as a joint piece on choosing the right problem to organise a purpose around.
A consistent post structure built to support consulting
Each post follows the same shape: a plain, provocative opening claim, development through three examples or a short checklist, a direct question to the reader, and a closing invitation to make contact about mission-led business.
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The posts use prose and bulleted lists.
Claim, then examples or checklist, then a reader question, then an invitation to continue the conversation privately.
For brands planning a campaign
A collaboration would likely follow this teaching-first format, with a soft call to action at the end. It suits a brand seeking educational content that reads as expertise rather than promotion; partnership material should stand on its own as an argument before the brand appears.
The posts do not identify any sponsorship, client work, employment, ownership, affiliate or investment relationship with the named companies, which appear as teaching examples.
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Ras-Jones writes about aligning purpose and profit and offers to help businesses become mission-led via direct message. Ask directly whether that service involves any commercial relationships.
Tony's Chocolonely
Mention
Used as the lead example of a business whose sales reduce slavery in the chocolate supply chain.
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They return to it in several posts as the clearest case of purpose and profit moving together.
Fiona Ras-Jones's posts read as a short course in mission-led business: how a company can make money and pursue its purpose through the same act.
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Start with the argument that purpose and profit should be aligned rather than balanced, since balance implies more of one costs you the other.
Then read the post arguing that a purpose without a specific problem behind it is only a company value, and finish with the pen-and-paper exercise for finding the problem your own industry creates.
Each post follows the same shape — a plain claim up front, three examples or a short checklist, and a question to the reader — so the pieces work in any order.
Recurring cases (Tony's Chocolonely, Wholegrain Digital, OceanSaver, Notpla, Ella's Kitchen, Ocean Bottle) show the argument in practice.
Mission-led businessPurpose and profit alignmentProblem-led purposeSustainability and social impactBusiness model designDiagnostic checklistsLinkedIn postsPurpose-led founders
Hannah Keartland writes about the same problem from the same angle: purpose-led businesses growing positive impact and commercial success together, rather than choosing between them.
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They use Tony's Chocolonely as their anchor example, name the idea Product-Market-Impact Fit and run a B Corp consultancy. Readers who like Fiona Ras-Jones's framing of impact through the product will recognise the argument immediately.
Hannah Keartland's posts examine other companies' impact reports and commercial results, asking whether the product is genuinely wanted and the reporting honest.
Fiona Ras-Jones focuses on how a business is built and how it chooses the problem its purpose addresses.
For buyers seeking report reviews or sales figures, ask for those specifically.
Thomas Palm also writes about making sustainability operational rather than treating it as a statement: how suppliers account for the carbon footprint of what they make, why compliance and sustainability teams should share one data source, and what customers will soon require.
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Readers following practical sustainability writing will find the same underlying question: is the impact real and measurable?
Thomas Palm writes from inside a software vendor about supplier carbon accounting, product-level data and standards such as Catena-X, for manufacturers.
Fiona Ras-Jones focuses on strategy and business models for founders deciding what their company is for.
For buyers seeking tools, data systems or standards, ask for implementation detail.
Jaime Martin Ko Atilano covers sustainability as a business topic for large enterprises: regulation, reporting standards and how sustainability connects to financial and supply chain performance.
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Both write for people already convinced sustainability belongs in the business, not beside it, and translate that view into decisions rather than advocacy.
Jaime Martin Ko Atilano's posts include a promotion announcement and a Climate Week recap for an enterprise software audience, built around CSRD, GHG Protocol and ERP systems. Fiona Ras-Jones writes teaching posts on defining and aligning a purpose, with worked company examples and an exercise readers can complete.
Fiona Ras-Jones's LinkedIn profile reported 6,130 followers on 11 October 2026.
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Four posts from June 2024 to August 2025 show the subject matter on offer: mission-led business strategy, purpose statements anchored to a specific problem, and the difference between balancing and aligning purpose and profit.
For placement, treat this as an English-language LinkedIn channel aimed at people running or advising purpose-driven companies.
A purpose-driven consultancy or B Corp brand planning educational content and a speaking engagement has a plausible route to a leadership- or founder-level audience.
Per-post reach and engagement are unknown, as are followers’ locations, professions, sectors, company sizes and seniority.
Request recent post analytics—impressions, engagement rate and follower growth over the last 90 days—and, if professional segmentation matters to the campaign, any audience survey or platform-provided industry and job-title breakdown.
Ask for results on a long educational post and a short opinion post to compare formats.
Fiona Ras-Jones's posts contain no sponsorship formats, partner specifications, media kit, brand-partnership offer, paid collaboration example or published inquiry route.
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The only call to action invites readers to send a direct message about helping a business become mission-led, pointing to a consultancy or advisory conversation rather than a media or sponsored-content offer. Brands should ask what could be commissioned, at what scale and on what terms; any partnership would need to be scoped from scratch.
Fits well: a purpose-driven consultancy or B Corp brand commissioning an educational content collaboration and a speaking slot, with the brand's own mission-led work as the worked example.
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The posts are unusually ready for this shape.
Fiona Ras-Jones makes one clear, repeatable argument: mission-led businesses align purpose and profit rather than balancing them, because impact happens through the product itself.
They teach it with named companies (Tony's Chocolonely, Notpla, Wholegrain Digital, OceanSaver, Ocean Bottle, Ella's Kitchen).
Two pieces are effectively pre-built for a brand to license or co-produce: the four causes of purpose–profit friction (cause but not purpose; purpose not well defined; no delivery strategy; team does not connect purpose to profit) and the pen-and-paper exercise listing the negative social and environmental impacts of your own industry, which addresses the three objections readers raise (the problem feels unoriginal, too small, or not theirs to solve).
The posts follow one structure — claim, examples or checklist, question to the reader, invitation to continue the conversation privately — which reads as expertise rather than promotion and suits an educational series.
The closing pattern points to the requested deliverable: content that stands on its own as an argument, with a soft route to a longer conversation such as a workshop or talk.
The limits matter for planning.
LinkedIn is the only channel shown, with 6,130 followers recorded on 11 October 2026; per-post impressions, engagement rate and audience composition are not provided.
There is no documented media kit, rate card or sponsorship format, and none of the posts names a client or paid partner.
Treat this as an expertise-led booking with a plausible leadership audience, not a reach buy.
Before committing, ask for recent post analytics (impressions, engagement, follower growth over 90 days), a short list of comparable collaborations, and what, if anything, has been commissioned previously.
When to choose a specialist
Poor fit: a paid product-promotion campaign with defined deliverables per format, performance guarantees, or a required spread of channels and formats.
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The posts show one channel (LinkedIn) and one format (written posts).
They include no video transcripts, podcast appearances, articles or other formats, leaving short-form video, a recorded webinar or a multi-platform launch without examples to assess.
There is no documented commercial offer: no media kit, sponsorship formats, rate information, dedicated inquiry page or published paid-collaboration example.
The only commercial call to action is an invitation to send a direct message about helping a business become mission-led, which reads as an advisory conversation rather than a sponsored-content offer.
Campaigns requiring follower-volume targets, audience breakdown by sector or seniority, or proof of past campaign performance cannot be assessed from the posts; only a single follower count is available.
Case-study-led content is another mismatch: the argument uses third-party examples rather than clients, so a campaign demanding named testimonials or client results would need new interviews.
Route these campaigns elsewhere, or adapt them to the educational shape described in the fit note and establish terms, formats and proof points directly.
A worked campaign example
Brief: a certified B Corp consultancy wants educational content to help its clients move from a vague purpose statement to a mission-led business model, plus a speaking slot at its annual client event. This is the stated reader brief for this page.
Worked angle — 'Does your purpose have a problem behind it?'
Series: three LinkedIn posts published from the consultancy's account, with Fiona Ras-Jones credited as author, plus one downloadable worksheet and a 30-minute conference session.
Post one — purpose or value?
Opens with the claim that most purpose statements fail because they are too broad ('building a better world') and end up working like a company value.
Introduces the test: if your purpose does not name a problem, it is not driving anything.
Works through two short contrasts, using the same framework applied to three examples in the posts (childhood obesity for Ella's Kitchen, slavery in the supply chain for Tony's Chocolonely, ocean plastic for Ocean Bottle).
Post two — the four causes of internal friction.
Turns the diagnostic into a self-assessment: the company has a cause but not a purpose; the purpose is not well defined; there is no strategy to deliver it; the team does not see how purpose connects to profit.
Each gets two sentences and one question a leadership team can answer in a meeting.
Post three — the impact-list exercise.
Walks readers through listing the negative social and environmental impacts of their own industry, then handles the three usual objections in order, including the 'who am I to do that' response.
Ends with the instruction to get smaller and experiment.
Worksheet: the four-cause diagnostic on one page, with the industry-impact exercise on the second side. Test before publication that a reader can complete the blank version and act on the output.
Session: 30 minutes at the client event, walking one volunteer leadership team through the diagnostic live, with the consultancy's own mission-led work as the closing proof point.
Why this works: the material already exists as argument and exercise, so the collaboration is adaptation rather than invention; the teaching-first structure suits a brand that wants to read as expert rather than promotional; and the arc runs from public content to a live room, where a consultancy can convert interest into work.
Agree up front: use the consultancy's own case as the proof point in place of the third-party examples, allowing time for interviews and approvals; paid-relationship disclosure on every post; who owns the worksheet; and commercial terms, since there is no published rate or format to benchmark against. Before briefing, request recent per-post analytics and an example of any comparable collaboration, and confirm in writing that they take on paid content work.
Choose Hannah Keartland when impact reporting is central to the deliverable.
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The two posts offer a close reading of a specific impact report (Pollen Careers), naming three strengths and three open questions, and a case for linking commercial success to product quality through a framework called Product-Market-Impact Fit.
A brand seeking an educational asset on how to write or critique an impact report, or a speaker who works through a real report line by line, gets more from this material than from Fiona Ras-Jones's framework posts.
Keartland writes from inside a B Corp consultancy (Keartland & Co), making their published voice a fit for a campaign seeking a consultant's client-facing perspective on impact reporting.
The tradeoff is how the teaching is carried.
Keartland's posts centre on a named company or report under review, with the argument built around that example.
Fiona Ras-Jones's posts offer a repeatable framework that works without a specific subject: align rather than balance purpose and profit; give purpose a named problem; understand the four causes of purpose-profit friction; and use a pen-and-paper exercise to map a reader's own industry impacts.
A brand seeking a self-contained series its audience can apply to their own business, rather than a discussion of someone else's report, gets a cleaner fit from the framework.
Consider Thomas Palm when the audience is industrial or manufacturing supply-chain teams and the question is how to collect and standardise product carbon footprint data.
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Both posts cover supplier-level carbon accounting: Ford's Kuga line as the first with a product carbon footprint calculated on primary supplier data, and the organisational gap between compliance and sustainability teams working from the same material and supplier data. A campaign seeking a speaker on supplier data expectations, Catena-X or IMDS-style reporting, or how voluntary supplier requests become minimum requirements speaks directly to this material.
The tradeoff is a change of reader and subject.
This material is for a purpose-driven consultancy or B Corp brand teaching mission-led business strategy — purpose, profit and how impact sits inside the product.
Palm's posts address enterprise sustainability reporting in manufacturing, with technical detail on carbon footprint calculation, supplier data standards and regulations that scale yearly; one is written from the perspective of a vendor offering its tool to suppliers.
They have little to say about small or consultancy-led purpose work, and neither post offers a teaching framework a consultancy client could apply to their own business model.
Taking this route means rewriting the campaign around enterprise supply-chain data.
Jaime Martin Ko Atilano is the better choice when the deliverable calls for enterprise software sustainability rather than business-model design.
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The two posts cover a promotion to Sustainability Principal at SAP for the US East and Canada market, and a Climate Week NYC programme that includes a workshop on closing the sustainability execution gap through ERP data. A brand seeking a speaker on how reporting frameworks such as CSRD, GHG Protocol and ISSB/IFRS translate into ERP-centric execution, or a partner who convenes large-enterprise customers, matches this material.
The tradeoff is audience and independence.
These posts come from inside a software vendor, tying the account of sustainability execution to one platform's view; a consultancy commissioning educational content about mission-led business would have to work around the vendor framing and enterprise-IT vocabulary.
The posts describe a career move and an event programme rather than a teachable method a client could apply, making the collaboration closer to an enterprise-vendor speaking slot than an educational series.
The audience shifts from a consultancy or B Corp crowd to sustainability and IT leaders in large enterprises.
Four LinkedIn posts by Fiona Ras-Jones address aligning rather than balancing purpose and profit, finding a problem for a business to work on, why purpose and profit still clash, and purpose statements that lack a problem behind them.
The posts have no publication dates, so the ideas are described by how they build on each other rather than as a confirmed chronology.
The LinkedIn follower count was 6,130 on 11 October 2026.
Two posts each from three creators named as similar provide comparison notes.
Fiona Ras-Jones's posts do not say anything about books, shows, businesses or client engagements, and do not include a media kit or rate information, per-post analytics, or video, audio or article formats.
Those gaps are stated where they affect a decision and are not treated as evidence of what Fiona Ras-Jones does elsewhere.
