Publications
Studies, playbooks, reports, articles, and practical frameworks from the Institute for Real Growth.
Playbook
The CMO-CSO Partnership as a Growth Mechanism
IRG's playbook with Ipsos, Ad Net Zero and Google sets out why the marketing and sustainability functions grow faster together, and what the alliance requires.
Report
The Six Growth Paradoxes Facing Marketing Leaders
Phase One of Marketing2030 reviewed over 250 studies. It found six contradictions leaders must hold at once, not resolve.
Interview
Reconnecting Business With Humanity: Inside IRG’s Community of Marketing Leaders
Aljan de Boer describes what a community of 800 chief marketing officers is for, why he frames the work as human-proofing the future, and how marketers translate social
Interview
How IRG Got from Shareholder Value to Stakeholder Impact
Marc de Swaan Arons traces the Institute for Real Growth from a WPP research initiative to an independent program with 850 CMOs through it. He sets out what
Talk
Holistic Strategy: Growing the Pie So Every Stakeholder Is Better Off
Session 5 of the IRG100 2025 program. Holistic strategy is defined against traditional strategy, given five principles and seven steps, and paired with the measurement problem it creates.
Playbook
The Aspirational Role of Business
The fourth Zoom session of the IRG and Oxford program asks what purpose is for, and what it takes to make it guide decisions rather than decorate them.
Article
The Age of Solitude: Why People Are Choosing to Be Alone
Time spent alone rose sharply between 2010 and 2023, and researchers find the shift is largely voluntary. This essay argues that brands helped remove the friction that used
Framework
Roots and Heritage: Grounding a Growth Story in Where the Company Came From
The opening development session of the IRG100 program argues that a company's origins are a source of advantage, and asks leaders to reconnect with them before they reimagine
Playbook
Why Transformations Fail, and Kotter’s Eight Steps
The sixth Zoom session of the IRG and Oxford program works through the human reasons transformation efforts fail and the change process participants are asked to use.