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Publications

Studies, playbooks, reports, articles, and practical frameworks from the Institute for Real Growth.

Two speakers on stage at a business conference. Cover image for The CEO Presented the Hits, and the CMO Presented the Misses.
Interview

The CEO Presented the Hits, and the CMO Presented the Misses

Keith Weed on nine years running marketing, sustainability and communications at Unilever: the targets nobody knew how to reach, why he took the missed ones on stage himself,
Bare tree in a quiet winter landscape. Cover image for Growth Has a Winter: A Founder on the Contraction Nobody Puts on the Chart.
Interview

Growth Has a Winter: A Founder on the Contraction Nobody Puts on the Chart

Elana Rosenfeld built a coffee company from a garage and sold most of it. She takes her definition of growth from nature, would choose values over purpose if
Empty desk in a bright modern office. Cover image for Fire Yourself Every Eighteen Months: A Chief Brand Officer on Not Owning the Past.
Interview

Fire Yourself Every Eighteen Months: A Chief Brand Officer on Not Owning the Past

Marc Pritchard on building good into the business model so a bad quarter cannot cut it, the campaign that became simultaneously the most liked and most disliked, and
Open road winding through mountains. Cover image for Operational Progress Creates Strategic Degrees of Freedom.
Interview

Operational Progress Creates Strategic Degrees of Freedom

Hubert Joly on why Best Buy waited four years before defining its purpose, the childhood photographs he asked his executive team to bring to an offsite, and a
Crumpled paper drafts scattered on a desk. Cover image for Ten Versions Before the Right One: Writing a Purpose for a Company Not Yet Born.
Interview

Ten Versions Before the Right One: Writing a Purpose for a Company Not Yet Born

GSK Consumer Healthcare's chief executive and chief marketing officer on six months of fortnightly meetings, the wording they were told to change, and the brand whose whole promise
Crowd of people walking through a city street. Cover image for You Cannot Have Humanized Growth When Humans Are at Risk.
Interview

You Cannot Have Humanized Growth When Humans Are at Risk

Old Mutual's CMO on lobbying his executive team one member at a time, the actuarial modeling that made a vaccination program a business case, and the one market
Server room lit with blue light. Cover image for Companies Do Not Have Machine Learning Problems.
Interview

Companies Do Not Have Machine Learning Problems

Daniel Hulme on the font in a browser cache that predicted loan defaults, the airline that collected everything except its competitors' prices, and why he says AI ethics
Interview

Look Backwards Before You Look Forward, and Put the S Back in ESG

Angela Ahrendts describes the method she used at Burberry and Apple, why she thinks short-term reporting is the real blocker, and why she expects the next chief executives
Interview

Sustainability as the Business Model: Arçelik’s CEO on Credibility, Coalitions, and Marketing

Hakan Bulgurlu explains why he treats sustainability as the company's single purpose, why he climbed Everest to earn the right to say so, and what he now expects