[Please forgive a quick announcement about career news for me. Last week, Paul Polman and I were surprised and honored by our place topping a ranking of global management thinkers. Here’s what I posted the next day, with a video of my short thank you speech, followed by Paul’s take on what this says about the sustainability and net positive movements. I’m also so moved that sustainability is getting this level of recognition.
We owe it to all the work done by people in this field for decades. In addition to all the CSOs doing the hard work inside companies, my intellectual inspirations and thought partners have included (and this can’t be complete) Ray Anderson, Paul Hawken, Hunter Lovins, Donella Meadows, Stuart Hart, John Elkington, Jonathan Porritt, Amory Lovins, Bob Willard, Janine Benyus, Yvon Choiunard, Bill McDonough and Michael Braungardt, Dan Esty, Daniel Quinn, Kate Raworth, Daniel Aronson…]
My Post Last Week
Last night was surreal — a pinnacle career moment.
My Net Positive co-author, Paul Polman, and I were named by Thinkers50 as the #1 management thinkers in the world.
Below is what I said in my acceptance, mostly in a fog.
Thinkers 50 Acceptance (1 min Video)
In short, besides thanking Paul for his leadership (and being one of the truly great CEOs), I talked about the long road of corporate sustainability from the hinterlands when my mentors and inspirations (I wish I had had the presence of mind to name them all) began working on this decades ago. And I thank all the people working in sustainability for their tireless, upstream work.
But now, sustainability IS mainstream business — even while under attack and even with so much more work to do. The theme of the ENTIRE Thinkers50 2-day event was regenerative business. That was unimaginable 10 years ago.
So thanks again to Thinkers50 for a big vote of confidence for sustainability and recognizing our work.
(Fyi, see some great overviews and pictures of the event on LinkedIn from Thinkers50 and top-ranked big brains Amy Edmondson, Scott Anthony, Amy Webb, Natalie Nixon, and Wendy Smith (who recorded my talk – thanks!))
Paul’s Thoughts
I’m deeply honoured that Net Positive, co-authored with my friend and colleague Andrew Winston, has been recognised by Thinkers50 as the top management idea of 2025.
My sincere thanks to Thinkers50 for continuing to shine a light on ideas that help business serve humanity better, and to the extraordinary thinkers on this year’s list whose work inspires and challenges us all to raise our game.
Net Positive is about reimagining the role of business in society, moving beyond “doing less harm” and toward doing more good. It argues that the only companies fit for the future are those that repair the harm of the past: that restore nature rather than destroy it, pay living wages rather than externalise poverty, and design growth that strengthens the social fabric instead of fraying it. In short, it’s about creating value by fixing the world’s problems, not creating them.
This is not idealism; it is realism of the highest order. In a world of planetary boundaries and social fracture, business as usual is self-defeating. The only viable strategy is one that gives more than it takes, from people, from nature, and from the generations to come.
While this recognition is a wonderful honour, it’s important to remember that legacy is not measured by awards, but by the impact we leave on the world and on others. The true test of leadership is whether we build systems that restore rather than extract and empower rather than exploit.
I regard this recognition not as a summit reached, but as a signal to keep climbing. Ideas only earn their worth when they drive action, when they help us rewrite the operating code of an economy still built on extraction and short-termism.
My gratitude to everyone advancing this agenda.
(I commented on top of this re asking the core question in Net Positive, Is the world better off…)
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