Anita Roddick

And the pattern isn't limited to politics.

Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Anita Roddick all use speeches to pour their personalities into their companies.

Lancaster cites a 2003 study finding that half of a company's reputation flows from the reputation of its CEO.

Half.

I mean, there's lots.

Gloria, Anita Roddick.

I tell you what, Anita, because she would say it like this, effing and jeffing.

I mean, she rang me once and told me off badly and I love her though.

But she, I think, yeah, it's going to be Gloria and Anita Roddick.

Strong women, fierce, but full of love and warmth.

You know, the type that will cry with you.

And I went to kind of a strange university and we did march in Washington and didn't burn any buildings.

But I knew Ben and they were one of the originals because they, he, and it's like the body shop, Anita Roddick, who I adored.

She passed so young and it wasn't that she wanted to sell potions.

She wanted to give indigenous cultures a, you know, a platform to talk about what they made.

not supposed to go around.

Talking of the business relationships, Anita Roddick was the founder of The Body Shop and I know you're a close friend and mentor to you over the years.

I suppose beyond the shared commitment to ethical business, what was the most practical or challenge piece of advice that she ever gave to you?

Oh, it was more leading by example, really.

So for those that haven't heard that term before or that name, The Social Venture Network was a group of business leaders, usually founders of businesses, who started coming together in the late 1980s, recognizing that they had built big businesses, but they weren't necessarily consistent with their values, what they produced, the product or the service, or they weren't fully optimizing their values in the context of the business.

So you'll know names like Ben & Jerry's, uh, The Body Shop, Anita Roddick, uh, Yvon Chouinard at Patagonia, household names of brands.

And I got the opportunity while at the business school to sort of peek under the tent.

And I remember the first, the first night of the first convention, they created the marketplace of ideas.

Their wares weren't ice cream and yogurt and, and, and, and, you know, uh, lotions.

They were their passions.

So, you know, Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm Yogurt was talking about, um, family farms, and Ben and Jerry were talking about bovine growth hormone, and Anita Roddick was talking about education.

Um, it was beyond powerful, and it said to me, coming from a family of nonprofit executives, of physicians, et cetera That in busi-- one could use business, with leadership and business, to actually affect social change cons-consistent with your values.

Gary Hirshberg from Stonyfield was an early mentor, and he introduced me to all these founders of socially responsible business.

So I hung out with Ben from Ben & Jerry's and Anita Roddick from The Body Shop, and they started to make business seem like a great idea.

Whereas as a kid, I was raised in Amherst, Mass., kind of this academic world where business was not in my...

My grandfather was a barber, but other than that, there were nobody...

I'm not sure how many, to be honest.

I've, I've washed my hands of them, but I think they were a really brilliant ethical brand back when it was Anita Roddick, but she sadly-

Yeah

... passed away about two decades now.