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Serving people and planet: an interview with Rajiv Joshi

Published

Rajiv Joshi discusses the creation of The B Team, world scale challenges and his advice for MBA candidates

Rajiv Joshi is a founding member and former MD of The B Team, a not-for-profit initiative formed by a global group of business leaders to catalyse a better way of doing business, for the wellbeing of people and the planet. He is currently developing Bridging Ventures and is part of climate action campaign Mission 2020, whilst serving as Executive-in-Residence at Saïd Business School and Advisory Council Member to the Ownership Project. The Ownership Project investigates how ownership influences businesses and the communities in which they operate, with a special focus on multi-billion dollar, multi-generational firms. Dr Mary Johnstone-Louis of the Ownership Project interviewed Rajiv.

Rajiv Joshi - conversation
Rajiv Joshi

1. You are a founding member of The B Team, having led the organisation as its Managing Director over the past seven years. Why was The B Team created? Who are the key leaders involved and what is its theory of change?

The B Team was established by Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz, who also served as the Founding Co-Chairs of the organisation. B Team leaders are former heads of state, civil society leaders and global business leaders including Paul Polman (Chair of the B Team as well as being Chair of the Board at Saїd Business School).

The B Team was created in the wake of the global financial crisis post 2008. As a collective, our vision was of a future where the purpose of business would be to drive social, environmental and economic benefit. Our mission was to galvanise a growing movement of business leaders using their voice and demonstrating a better way of doing business for the wellbeing of people and the planet. So far the group has focused on tackling climate change, fighting corruption and addressing human rights. This has involved building unlikely alliances, securing commitments and advocating for the world to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; championing corporate ownership transparency and principles of responsible tax practice; and highlighting the challenges of modern slavery, labour rights and gender equality in corporate value chains.

2. Oxford Saïd aspires to be a world-class business school community tackling world-scale problems. What are the challenges in which you feel business can play a key part right now?

In my opinion, business can help to deliver on the most important agenda of our time: meeting the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and hastening a just transition toward a thriving net-zero emissions economy well before 2050. This will involve contributing to a rewiring of our global economic system, redefining incentive structures, transforming finance, accounting for true impacts, ensuring fair rewards and ultimately creating a regenerative, net-positive economy in service to people and the planet. It's time to radically question whether our economic system is fit for the future, whether we are cultivating business leaders with the right set of values to navigate the future, and whether the businesses we support are helping humanity thrive or hindering our long-term viability as a species. We need revolutionary change.

3. Your host at the School as an Executive in Residence is the Ownership Project at Oxford Saïd. What did your time at The B Team teach you about how business leaders see their role in light of these challenges today?    

Working alongside The B Team has shown me what’s possible through radical collaboration and common understanding. The B Team leaders are unique in that they have succeeded largely by seeing through silos and maintaining a deep sense of empathy. Now we need to find ways to scale this up, connecting academia, social movements, philanthropy, art and other key influencers in charting the course towards a new economy.

4. What is necessary to ensure that business plays the role you envision in the world?

We need business leaders who are willing to call out corporate political capture and threats to democracy and good governance. We need business leaders with enough conviction to disclose their social and environmental risks and to base business strategy on minimising the true costs of their activities on society and the environment and maximising their positive benefits. This will require a paradigm shift including several steps:

  • Revolutionary Collaboration - Shifting from a mindset of 'compete and consume' to companies collaborating and conserving, for example with green R&D sharing and better dispersal of innovation across industries.
  • Redefining Value - Shifting from the 'ends justifying the means' towards the 'means justifying the ends', equipping consumers with information to make better choices in the marketplace, so they can vote with their wallets based on how a product has been made and what it stands for.
  • Redefining Success - We need to transform metrics of success, so companies measure their impacts and are celebrated based on how they are helping humanity thrive vs their ability to generate short term value for shareholders.
  • Redefining Leadership - Transforming business education to cultivate a new generation of compassionate and innovative business leaders; who understand how to retain and support talent that cares deeply about the purpose of the company and how it operates, whilst leading by example in living sustainably. 
  • Reinventing Incentives - Transforming policies, frameworks, and incentive structures to motivate behaviour change, we need to stop investing in the old world and start investing in the new world. Shifting subsidies, tying compensation to social and environmental performance, publishing CEO-worker pay ratios and ensuring equal opportunities for advancement for women and men. 

5. If you were creating a call to action for business leaders now, what would it include? How would you measure success? 

I would call on business leaders everywhere to ensure they have a corporate purpose that clearly advances the wellbeing of people and the planet.

I would ask them to co-invest at a sector level with other stakeholders in R&D and solutions, to make a just transition towards a low carbon economy and divest from investments that undermine this goal.

I would measure success based on flows of capital (climate finance), patent filings, examples of innovation captured through storytelling and the examination of purpose statements for a cross-section of companies and metrics that would naturally flow from this.

6. What advice would you give our MBA students who want to turn their degree into positive impact?

I would encourage you to focus on having a clear set of principles and values, a moral compass to guide your decision making (one I learned from Jochen Zeitz, former CEO of PUMA when The B Team was being formed, and another ethical maxim called the Golden Rule which I was inspired to further integrate into my own life after speaking to Paul and Kim Polman). 

I would advise you to consider forming a small tribe of life advisors who can provide you with independent support and guidance on your journey.

I’d encourage you to regularly journal and reflect, maintain a clear North Star and try to maintain a positive focus. Never give up, but always lead by example. Remember if you aren’t sustainable, it will be difficult to inspire your organisation or indeed the world to move in that direction. For the world to change, we all need to change!