EP 24: Sally Hill, Founder of Purpose Conference On making the purpose sector the place that people want to be

The Purpose Conference was first staged in Sydney, Australia in 2015. Today, Purpose is a stand-alone company and community. After a 4-year hiatus, 2022 marks the fourth Purpose event, coming at a time when the movement for social purpose-led business is growing with intensity. It’s a movement driven by employees, customers, consumers, investors; people realising that we need to accelerate the pace of change and business is the means in which to do this most directly.

 

In this episode, our guest is Sally Hill, founder of Purpose and a long-time advocate of responsible and sustainable business. She is a a leader, thinker and doer in the world of purpose-driven business. 

 

Sally founded Wildwon, one of Australia's first B Corps and established the Purpose Conference in 2015. Sally curates the Purpose program and is the connector of Purpose’s partners, community and team.

 

Immediately prior to rebooting Purpose in 2022, Sally worked with Climate 200, bringing business on board to support the historic 2022 ‘climate election’ result.

 

You can get a taste of our interview here:

 

• Sally shares her journey from GetUp campaign co-ordinator, through various CSR and sustainability roles, to WWF, to launching her own experiential agency, Wildwon and launching Purpose Conference. Her journey continues taking her to a number of roles including NSW Circular and Climate 200, before returning to Purpose to where she is today.
• She shares some of her learnings from these various roles and how they have contributed to her thinking and approach today 
• Sally explains that while government is driving change, the pace is slow. This influences her belief that while business is the cause of many of society’s problems,  harnessing business and capitalism to solve the issues is the best opportunity we have to do it at an accelerated pace and at scale
• She shares some stats from recent BUPA research about Gen Z workers attitudes to businesses demonstrating strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments
• We talk about the lack of employee engagement in workplaces in Australia and New Zealand and the impact this is having on businesses, workplaces and the economy
• Sally highlights some of the speakers that will be at Purpose and the innovations they are creating in service of solving big societal issues
• She shares her hopes and aspirations for what the Purpose Conference can achieve 
• We talk about the link between the business world and government policy and the innovation opportunities this opens up