Hilary Lovell

Let’s set the scene: what’s your personal connection with purpose?

Coming from a client services angle, the part I connect most with is people: whether that’s building a healthy team culture, where our people are looked after and paid well – or making sure our supply chains are transparent, clients align with our values and more broadly: that industries are held to account to improve standards and pay for global workers.

A close friend Susanna Wen co-founded Birdsong, an ethical fashion social enterprise that supports communities in London. I’ve learned SO much through her work that inspires my continuing education around people and our planet, and how the decisions we make have a ripple effect out to our community and beyond.

Nice. How does Sonder & Tell approach internal culture and looking after our people?

Kate and Emily founded Sonder & Tell to tell brands’ stories, and to create a space that is the antithesis of Mad Men agency booze and late-night-pitches culture. This has evolved into the culture we have today: we consciously create a welcoming space that allows our team to work as they prefer, with flexi hours and oodles of trust.

The trust has helped us to foster a culture of radical candour, which helps us all to grow: and as with anything that’s worth doing, we have the difficult conversations when we need to.

And how does that impact our approach with clients?

As a team we’re all responsible for making decisions about the business: we have a traffic light system for new clients, with certain sectors green lit, and others a hard no. For grey areas, we bring the conversation to the team and ask: do you feel aligned with this brand? Are you comfortable working with them?

It’s an attitude we share in our approach with clients, too: including their teams in conversations and understanding their hopes, fears, dreams, so that we can create brands that feel true to them too.

So, B Corp certification. What does it mean for S&T?

Going back to the reason Sonder & Tell exists: we believe stories are a powerful tool for change. We help B Corps, social enterprises, registered charities, purpose-driven start ups, and larger businesses with forward-thinking ideas, to tell their positive stories in a way that connects with their customers, teams and investors – helping them increase their reach and deliver a bigger impact.

Having the certification gives us a moment to pause, reflect and celebrate what we’ve achieved as a team and a community, for all of the brands we’re proud to have worked with: SOJO, Wild Nutrition, DASH, Action Against Hunger, KatKin, LOAH (and more!).

It also allows us to take a moment to look to the future, and make sure our commitment evolves as the team grows and the challenges our clients (and the planet) face change.

What was the easiest and most difficult thing about the Impact Assessment and certification process?

The easiest thing: working with our verification analyst who analysed our results, asked for extra information in certain areas but also guided us – we lost a couple of points for our bank (financial whizzes: PLEASE can someone open a B Corp business banking service that isn’t Coutts!) but gained a couple of extra customer stewardship points.

The hardest part: is actually tricky to think of! The Impact Assessment holds a huge amount of detail and requires a lot of technical documentation, so I think if you weren’t a process or details person that could be really challenging.

What’s one thing that surprised you during the journey?

Really early on in our Impact Assessment we realised that more than a quarter of our clients are also purpose-driven enterprises, which makes sense: we work with clients who share our ideals and vision for the world, but seeing that in stats was a really affirming moment!

Also, achieving B Corp has always been a huge ambition of mine, and getting S&T there was a goal when I started a couple of years ago. I thought we’d reach this moment and put our feet up to celebrate. But actually: it’s a milestone in our journey and fuel for the future. We’re using the certification to look at the areas we can grow, improve and build on what we do – like our recent start-up strategy workshops – so that we can tell more positive stories and deliver impact for more purpose-driven brands.

Any advice for brands looking to get B Corp certified?

The certification is an outward sign of the values your business holds – make sure you’re living and breathing those things before you apply. I worked closely with our friend and sustainability consultant Amirah Jiwa at the start of our process and her expertise was invaluable in understanding how to turn what we already do, into tangible answers for our initial Impact Assessment.