Profit with Purpose: Mary Jo Cook on Using Business as a Force for Good
Mary Jo Cook is a visionary leader in sustainable business, social impact, and entrepreneurship. She spent nearly two decades at Clorox, where she pioneered product innovation and led sustainability initiatives, including the launch of the GreenWorks line. She led Fair Trade USA as the Chief Impact Officer where she was able to influence the standard of production to improve the lives of farmers and workers through implementing a “win-win-win” model. She served as CEO of Pacific Community Ventures. PCV’s mission is to invest in small businesses, create good jobs for working people, and make markets work for social good. She is a changemaker in creating a more equitable economy. Currently, she is on the board of various startups, and she is a mentor to many businesswomen. Overall, Mary Jo is a prime role model for what is looks like to use business as a force for good. With a wealth of experience in impact investing, and innovation, Mary Jo continues to champion the intersection of profit and purpose.
Lauren Stenger: Thank you so much for being here with me today, and carving time out of your busy schedule. I'm super excited to speak with you today to discuss your leadership in social entrepreneurship, sustainability, economic development, and overall using business as a force for good. So, before we dive into your various contributions in those spaces, I’d love to hear more about your earlier career and what motivated you to pivot from your path down accounting to a more managerial position.
What motivated you to pivot from your path down accounting to a more managerial position?
Mary Jo Cook: It is so great to be here. I'm honored when I look at some of the people that you've interviewed to be in this group, and I think it's absolutely amazing that you have taken it upon yourself to do this. So kudos to you, Lauren. And thank you. So, just a little context, I grew up in Deerfield, a suburb in Chicago. My dad was in banking. He lent to small businesses, and my mom was a math teacher. So, lots of analytics in our family. I went to University of Illinois and I decided I wanted to go in the School of Commerce and U of I is known for their accounting program, and I thought that would create a good overall base for business, which indeed it has.
But my junior year, I studied abroad in Salzburg, Austria, and while I was there, I took liberal arts classes, including skiing. That was my P. E. course. I realized as I had this kind of broader view of literature and art history and politics and the kinds of things we were studying there, that maybe accounting wasn't going to be where I ended up. But I was pretty far along in the program, so I finished the degree. I got my CPA. I worked for 2 years at what's now a Big 4 accounting firm that included a 3-month stint doing expat work in London, which was really wonderful. It was a really great grounding experience. One of the other things I learned, though, was that I wanted to be more proactively making the business decisions versus accounting for them afterwards. That led me to think about general management, business leadership, and I figured at the time that the best way to make a pivot like that would be to get an MBA. So, I enrolled in University of Chicago where I got my master's in international business with a concentration in marketing.
Lauren Stenger: That's cool that it was able to give you a really solid foundation, which probably helped at your time at Clorox. So, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your role at Clorox and especially about your leadership in spearheading the GreenWorks line back in 2008 before sustainability was a buzzword. What were some challenges you faced through creating that line?
What were some challenges you faced through creating Clorox’s GreenWorks line back in 2008?
Mary Jo Cook: So again, let me give you a little bit of context. I was put in charge of a product innovation group where I led a multi-functional team, including market research, brand, product development, sales and so on. Our job was to create new product platforms that consumers would love and would make financial sense for Clorox. To do this, we were continually asking ourselves. “What problems would our products solve for who? Who was the audience we were trying to reach? What would our products or services allow them to do differently or better or more conveniently than they were doing today?” We were looking at trends, we were looking at new technologies at the Clorox company, strengths and expertise, and assumptions we had made about our business that we could challenge, all in the guise of identifying interesting problems and creating new solutions.
So the first platform we created was combining tools and cleaners to make cleaning easier while providing the same or better results. That was products like Clorox Bleach Pen, which actually won a Business Week award, Clorox Toilet Wand, and that gave us some street cred within the organization because we were generating successes and something that was pretty close in. Although at the time it was considered pretty innovative on the Clorox side to combine the tool with a cleaner, you know, a product, a tool when we thought of ourselves as more of a formulation company.
So then now to get back to your question, another platform we were looking at was more natural products. And that really came about from again, trends, People were increasingly paying attention to environmental and health issues. It also came about because the technologies were improving, so the ability to actually create a good product at a reasonable price with natural technologies had gotten much better over the years. Then the other big insight we had, and I think what helped it be successful within Clorox, was that if we marketed it as green works from Clorox, it tied it back to the brand and the company, but it also gave consumers a reason to believe it would work. So for some consumers, “Oh, I don't want anything to do with Clorox”, but for a lot of consumers, it was like, “No, no. I trust that Clorox really knows what they're doing when it comes to cleaning. Now they're offering a more natural alternative”. The way we got it sold within the company was really, what's the business case for this? How would it reach new consumers and create incremental revenue? How could it be a line of products, not just one product? How would it build on Clorox's formulation expertise to take us into new places, but not places that were like something we had no business doing that we didn't know anything about? How could we show that over time, and this is true of many new products, the margins would start to become really attractive?
In the initial years, it's hard. You're investing a lot to get consumer awareness and all that. But over time, there was a good business case for why we should do this. We also use GreenWorks to talk about natural and sustainability more broadly. Because of that conversation, or at least in partly because of that conversation, other people at the company started looking at Burt's Bees and we acquired them. I don't know if we would have done that if we hadn't taken the first step by looking at natural internally with the work we were doing. Then I suggested, “Well, hey, if we're going to really be making this push towards sustainability, we probably need a role in the company to be thinking about this”. So I expanded my role to be innovation and sustainability.
“Over time, there was a good business case for why we should do this. We also use GreenWorks to talk about natural and sustainability more broadly. Because of that conversation, or at least in partly because of that conversation, other people at the company started looking at Burt’s Bees and we acquired them. I don’t know if we would have done that if we hadn’t taken the first step by looking at natural internally with the work we were doing.”
And then in this position, our team helped other teams at Clorox think about how sustainability could do three things. It could mitigate risks. So think about the amount of risk from climate change that companies need to address. If you're working on sustainability, you can proactively mitigate that risk. It can reduce footprint and costs. If you've used any plastic water bottles over the years, they've gotten thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner. Yeah, that's good for the environment, but it also saves a boatload of money for the company, and it could spark growth. Think of new businesses. I don't know if you saw today's paper, but Allbirds just announced the first net carbon zero shoe. That's creating new business for them. But at the end of the day, the biggest challenge in all of this is making sure there's a business case for this. It's not just like crunchy granola. It's like, no, this is a good business.
Lauren Stenger: Yeah, definitely. That's really interesting. I think that's super important to think about especially in today's world of impact investing, you know, prioritizing triple bottom line. And that's really cool that you were able to learn that early on before everyone else was doing sustainability initiatives and all that. So just to reflect on your 20 years at Clorox, what are a few key takeaways that you carried with you to your next endeavors?
What are a few key takeaways that you carried with you from Clorox to your next endeavor?
Mary Jo Cook: It's not super popular these days to stay at one place as long as I did, but I think you can be at one company for a long time as long as you're constantly learning and creating new opportunities for yourself. So I started in brand, I did some strategy work, I did some innovation work, so it was almost like going to new companies as I created new jobs, but the benefit was you already knew the people, the systems, the process, so you could get things done. So that was one thing I learned. The second thing I learned is that building relationships is key. Many of the people I worked with at Clorox were instrumental, not only in my success there, but also in things that I ended up doing down the road. And then the third thing I learned was how to run a business. If you think about the products that we were launching, they're individual little businesses all rolling up to a bigger business within Clorox.
And for me, it really boiled down to three things. Who needs your product or service? Who are you targeting? Not everyone in the world is going to want what you're offering. What problem does your business solve? What opportunities does it create? Why is it better than what they're doing today? There's always cost to switching from what you're doing. So why should someone switch? Then what's the business case? How can you delight your consumer and make a reasonable financial return over the long run? What will let you continue to lead even as your competitors enter the market? Thinking about it very holistically as to what's the business reason for doing whatever it is you're trying to do.
Lauren Stenger: After Clorox, you joined Fair Trade USA as Chief Impact Officer. Could you speak a little bit about what drew you to this social enterprise and the mission there?
What drew you to Fair Trade USA and its mission?
Mary Jo Cook: As part of my innovation role at Clorox, I was often talking with early-stage companies and I thought that maybe something a little more entrepreneurial would be the right next step for me. I knew at that moment in my life I wanted to do something that was having a really positive impact on the world. And to be clear, I felt like my work at Clorox did good things, but I wanted to make a much bigger difference primarily to people who had been left behind. So, I spent probably a year, maybe more, just talking to people, networking, seeing what was out there, looking at different kinds of companies, different kinds of roles. And then, through a friend, I met someone at Fair Trade, and I thought, wow, this is really interesting because it's a social enterprise that operates like a traditional business. It's not like some charities where it would be so foreign to me. This is a business, but the business is to influence global supply chains to improve the lives of farmers and workers while letting consumers purchase in ways that are aligned with their values. So, there was the consumer connection that I knew about, there was the business approach to it. It just felt like something that would make sense and where my skills could be easily transferred.
“This is a business, but the business is to influence global supply chains to improve the lives of farmers and workers while letting consumers purchase in ways that are aligned with their values. So, there was the consumer connection that I knew about, there was the business approach to it. It just felt like something that would make sense and where my skills could be easily transferred. ”
If you think about the business model, and this is where sort of this force for good ideas started to come to me, Fair Trade really wins on three fronts. It creates a win for farmers and workers through a standard production that creates environmental, economic and social benefits like access to markets, no child labor, safe and healthy working conditions, elimination of the worst chemicals in the supply chain, consistent compensation, that kind of thing. So it's a standard of production that creates a stronger business. It's also a win for businesses who source your trade because it helps them strengthen their reputations, secure their supply chains, and better connect with their consumers. It’s also a win for consumers because it allows consumers to make their purchases in ways that are aligned with their values. We used to call it “every purchase matters”. You have a choice. You may not think as an individual you have much of a choice, but you have a choice if you choose to spend your dollars on this chocolate bar or that chocolate bar, this car, that car. You're voting with your dollars, and Fair Trade is a way to allow people to vote with their dollars that align with their values.
“You’re voting with your dollars, and Fair Trade is a way to allow people to vote with their dollars that align with their values.”
Lauren Stenger: Can you share a story of something that really stood out to you at your time? Maybe a really impactful relationship between a business and Fair Trade?
Can you share an impactful story from your time at Fair Trade USA?
Mary Jo Cook: Yeah, I'm going to give you three quick ones. The first is a little bit of a tangent because you asked about like the benefits of Clorox. When I was at Fair Trade, we had to redo our logo, and it's expensive to redo a logo. So I called up some graphics folks that I'd worked with at Clorox and I said, “Here's the thing. I need a new logo, but I don't have any money. I will let you take as long as you want and I will give you as much creative discretion as I can, but it has to be pro bono”. And they were like, “Oh my god, this is amazing. Rarely do we get a lot of creative freedom. Rarely do we get a long timeline. We'd love to do this for you”. So that's an example of how you can build these relationships and leverage them years down the road.
“It was a way to ensure there was going to be a consistent supply of artisanal and not just mass-produced stuff. It fit with the consumer because that’s what they were looking with for West Elm. The artisans actually got better wages and now had a market for their textiles, a reason to keep staying in business. So that’s kind of the magic of how Fair Trade works. ”
In terms of some specific partnerships, a big partnership was with Whole Foods in produce. We helped Whole Foods source things like bell peppers from Mexico, or we actually created a program sourcing mangoes from Haiti before that poor island had completely imploded, or bananas from Costa Rica. For Whole Foods, they could offer their consumers quality products with knowing they're not going to have child labor or heinous environmental situations in the supply chain. Fair Trade also fit with their brand promise of products that are better for you and better for the planet. It made sense for Whole Foods. For their consumers, it strengthened their loyalty to Whole Foods. You can find Fair Trade a lot more places now, but at the time you didn't find it in that many places, and it was like, “Wow, this is something different that Whole Foods is providing that is what I want as a consumer”. And then, of course, for the farmers, they got better pricing. They got access to a big national grocery chain, Whole Foods, and it made more money for them. So that's one example of a win-win.
I'll give you one more because it's a completely different category. We partnered with West Elm to source Fair Trade certified textiles. I went with the West Elm team to India. We met with artisans working in factories. West Elm wanted this because it fit with their brand. It was a differentiated product. It was a way to ensure there was going to be a consistent supply of artisanal and not just mass-produced stuff. It fit with the consumer because that's what they were looking with for West Elm. The artisans actually got better wages and now had a market for their textiles, a reason to keep staying in business. So that's kind of the magic of how Fair Trade works.
Lauren Stenger: So transitioning to your role as CEO of Pacific Community Ventures, could you elaborate a little bit on that business model and how this social enterprise uses business also as a force for good?
Transitioning to your role as CEO of Pacific Community Ventures, could you elaborate a little bit on that business model and how this social enterprise uses business also as a force for good?
Mary Jo Cook: Yeah, sure. So, I mean, I absolutely love my time at Fair Trade and I always wanted to see what it was like to be in charge and like lead the culture of an organization, lead the business of an organization, etc... So Pacific Community Ventures provides loans and mentoring to small local businesses, strengthening communities and creating jobs. Here's how the model works: Traditional banks, think of Wells Fargo or Chase or whoever, donate money to Pacific Community Ventures which we then lend to diverse small business owners who don't have the credit scores or track records to qualify for regular bank loans. Those small businesses pay us back, and then we can relend the money. So it's this nice cycle where the money doesn't go out and go away, it comes in and gets recycled in the community. The goal is that over time as the individual businesses grow, they'll get the track record, they'll get the results, they'll get the credit scores, and they can rejoin the traditional banking system. That's the first part of the model.
The second part is that we support these entrepreneurs with pro bono mentoring through our businessadvising.org platform. Think of it as like a match.com or whatever the latest one of these is today. The platform would match businesses, our customers, with volunteer advisors who are skilled in areas like finance or marketing or e-commerce or sales or whatever. The advisors often came from partnerships with bigger businesses, sometimes the banks who are donating the money, but sometimes people like Google are into it. Kaiser Permanente was one who saw these as a great employee engagement opportunity and a way for their employees to contribute back to the community.
So it was like, we need advisors for our business, but we're not going to pay for that. Companies need employee engagement opportunities. Match made in heaven. And then we also helped our companies, our small businesses, create good local jobs. We coached them on how you can create a living wage, how you can offer basic benefits, how you can have predictable scheduling. That's one of the biggest problems for low wage workers is that you don't know day to day what your schedule is going to be. How are you supposed to do childcare or organize your life or go to school in the evenings when you could be called in a moment to work a night shift? We showed the small businesses who were kind of wired this way that by creating better jobs, we have better retention, and it actually saves you money in the long run.
So that was the business model. Get money from the banks. Lend that at affordable rates to small businesses who couldn't get bank loans, pair that with mentoring, and then recycle that money in the community to build good businesses and good local jobs.
“Get money from the banks. Lend that at affordable rates to small businesses who couldn’t get bank loans, pair that with mentoring, and then recycle that money in the community to build good businesses and good local jobs. ”
Lauren Stenger: Wow, that's a very impactful business model. Similar to how you shared a story from Fair Trade, do you mind sharing a story of helping someone at Pacific Community Ventures that stood out to you?
Do you mind sharing a story of helping someone at Pacific Community Ventures that stood out to you?
Mary Jo Cook: Yeah, so we lent $200,000, so that's a meaningful sum of money, to a bakery founded by a woman entrepreneur. She had created a home-based cupcake catering business, and she wanted to launch first retail location. We paired her with a pro bono mentor to advise her on operations and inventory as she scaled. Fast forward, I don't know, eight years maybe, and her bakery has seven stores split between the San Francisco Bay Area and Atlanta and employs dozens of people. And without our capital, it would have been very hard for her to expand this in home business, because she didn't have the assets or the track record. And without our mentoring, I think it would have been much harder to do so profitably, as she was trying to open different locations. So that's kind of how that works.
Lauren Stenger: Wow, that's, that's amazing. That's a great success story. Thank you for sharing that. You've definitely spoken about this throughout our conversation, but I would just like to ask again to encapsulate it all. What do you believe it takes for a business to actually and effectively be used as a force for good?
What do you believe it takes for a business to actually and effectively be used as a force for good?
Mary Jo Cook: Here's how I would boil it down. First, the product or service the business is offering actually has to do something useful, something good, something helpful. You can't harm the world with your business and then donate your way out of it by giving to philanthropy, which by the way, is the model of the old robber barons as we think about how the country was built. It's also more recently, think about the Sacklers. Their business model around opioids is horrendous. But then they're going to donate their way out of it by giving money to the Met? Like, no. So the first thing is, what is the actual product or service you're offering, is that doing something useful for somebody, and are you doing it in a way that's good? So that's the first thing I think about. What's your product or service?
The second is that the business cannot just focus on shareholder return. And this coming from University of Chicago, who espoused that idea. I completely disagree that shareholder return is the only metric that matters. We need to take a multi-stakeholder approach to capitalism, one in which companies exist for the benefits of customers, suppliers, employees, and communities. And yes, investors too, but investors aren't the only beneficiary. They're one beneficiary. One might even add that our planet should be a stakeholder, given the obvious and growing threat of climate change. There's something called the Business Roundtable, and 180 large corporations all signed a pledge to approach business through this lens. I don't know how many are actually operating this way. Many are probably trying to make some progress. Some maybe not so much, but I believe it's essential to the future of capitalism in the world.
“We need to take a multi-stakeholder approach to capitalism, one in which companies exist for the benefits of customers, suppliers, employees, and communities.”
One of your prior guests, Brian Nicholson of Red Jacket Orchards, he shared a very similar philosophy. So it's, you know, you can put whatever words around it, but it's like, are you doing something useful and are you doing it in a way that includes multiple stakeholders? That's how business becomes a force for good.
Lauren Stenger: So my next question is about the consumer. What do you think consumers should be looking for when trying to support sustainable brands?
What do you think consumers should be looking for when trying to support sustainable brands?
Mary Jo Cook: Certifications can help. Certifications are a shortcut. There are a lot of certifications, and they can be confusing, but they are a shortcut to say, “Hey, if this is fair trade certified, it's had to do something to get that badge of approval”. Another good one is B Corporation, which is a way of taking your regular corporation and it's a slight difference legally to the incorporation mark, but what it does is agree to work on and transparently report on things related to environment, social impact, financial. B Corporations can be small corporations, but like Athleta is a B Corporation, so they can be huge. Danone, the yogurt company, they're a B Corporation. So if you're looking at companies who have gone out there and said, “I'm committing to doing business in this way, I won't get it right every time”, that's a shortcut. So certifications can help.
Make sure what they're certifying is something you care about. The other thing you can do is, it's probably not practical for every single purchase you're making, but for things that you buy a lot or for things that are more expensive, look at the websites of your favorite brands. Do they publish a sustainability report? Go back to multi-stakeholder capitalism idea. How are they sourcing and disposing of their products? What kind of ingredients are they using? How are their employees treated? No company is going to be perfect on all attributes, but are they at least making an attempt to behave responsibly across all elements of their business?
So that's another way that can help you. But obviously, that's not practical for every single thing you buy. Actually, one third one is to think about the retailers that you support. Are you comfortable trading off same-day shipping for what it means to the people in the supply chain? Maybe you are, and maybe you need that for everything, or you can say, “Hmm, I don’t actually need things the same day. Maybe there's a different local store that I want to buy from, and I'll get it tomorrow”. I think those choices of the retailers you're supporting, that also can make a big difference as you think about how to purchase in ways that are more sustainable.
Lauren Stenger: What activities or projects are you currently pursuing? And how do those currently reflect your professional and personal values? Yeah, I'd love to just hear what you're up to currently.
What activities or projects are you currently pursuing, and how do those reflect your professional and personal values?
Mary Jo Cook: I'm currently working part-time, and my biggest focus is supporting entrepreneurs. I'm doing that in two ways. The first is through board work. I am or have been on the board of three startups. They're all for profit, they're all venture backed, and they are all trying to use business to do something good. Ganaz, which is a takeoff of the word to earn in Spanish, is a public benefit corporation. A public benefit corporation, by the way, is if a B Corporation had to report on all sorts of things, a public benefit corporation is a little less on the reporting side, but you incorporate and you say, “Here's the benefit that my business is providing”. Every two years or so you update how you're doing on that. It puts a stake in the ground that you're going to take this approach to business. So Ganaz is a public benefit corporation, and they've got a human resource software as a service platform to help growers find, hire, onboard, pay, and communicate with workers. What we're trying to do is make farming better for growers and for the workers that they employ to do this hard work. The second one is called VIA Global Health. It's an impact investment with a new distribution model to expand access to medical supplies, primarily in areas that distributors aren't effectively reaching. Then the third is Mightly, which is an organic fair trade e-commerce kids clothing company that offers high quality clothing at reasonable prices and has a lightly loved program to allow consumers to resell their clothing on the Mightly site. And interestingly, two of those three companies were founded by people that I worked with at Fair Trade. So going back to having these long-term relationships, that's one thing I'm doing.
I'm also an investor and a mentor in two platforms that are supporting women entrepreneurs. One is called Astia, and the other is called How Women Invest. And in that role, I'll screen companies, and help determine if these investments are good, provide pro bono input if a company can find that useful. So it's another way to be involved with entrepreneurs. That's where I'm spending I would say the bulk of my time.
Then the other thing I'm doing are a few kind of more passion projects. I volunteer with The Sierra Club's Inspiring Connection Outdoors program. It's very much aligned with the idea of nature as healing that you and Dr. Don Rakow discussed a few episodes back. We take local kids on hikes or camping trips to expose them to the joy of outdoors. The second thing I'm doing is teaching ESL to hardworking immigrants who are the backbone of our economy, and despite the ugly and dangerous rhetoric coming from so many of our so-called leaders these people are good, hardworking people and if we can help them get fluent in English that will help them assimilate and be successful here.
Lauren Stenger: My final question for you is if you have a piece of advice for people like me who are towards the end of their college time and entering their post grad life. Do you have any advice for entering their first job and ways to have a successful career like you.
Do you have any advice for those entering their first job and ways to have a successful career?
Mary Jo Cook: I would say, think about a few things. The first is what kinds of skills and experience are you going to get in a particular job? Because the job itself may or may not even exist 20 years from now or 10 years from now or 5 years from now. What is it you're learning and how might that be applied in a multitude of situations? It's less about the individual job and more about the skills and experience. The second is building relationships. Who can you learn from? Who can you mentor? Who do you stay in touch with even as you leave this job and go to the next job? That network of people that you're creating and creating in a genuine way, not just how can I use this person down the road, but like how can I stay in touch? How can I be interested in what they're doing? Those relationships really matter, and I think they matter more than ever. As things become more and more digitized, having some human relationship matters a lot. The last thing I would think about is what's a category, sector, service, or a role that gets you really excited. It may not be that you're super excited about the category in the company you're working in, but the role is really interesting. Or it may be, wow, this is a space I really want to work in agriculture. I don't know if this is the best role, but it gets my foot in the door with agriculture. Or I really want to work in human resources, and this is a company that allows me to take that first step.
You're unlikely to find the perfect intersection of every single thing you love about the job, but there has to be something that you love about it to make you want to do it and be good at it. And, you know, people do things better when they enjoy what they're doing. So those are the things I would think about: skills and experience, relationships, and that piece of something that you love.
Lauren Stenger: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I definitely learned a lot and I know my audience, the people listening definitely will learn a lot as well. It was really great to hear just about your very amazing career and all the ways that you've made impact in the world. Thank you so much.
Mary Jo Cook: Thank you. See you later.
