Our Principals and Founders
Paul Gilding
Director and CEO
Paul is one of the world’s most experienced and respected corporate advisors and advocates on the implications of sustainability for business strategy and the economy.
He works with the CEOs and Executives of many leading corporations around the world and has spoken to hundreds of business conferences and public forums. Amongst his various current roles, he is a Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership, where he researches and teaches on the inevitable global economic transformation around sustainability.
With nearly 40 years experience on sustainability as a corporate advisor, activist leader, businessman and thought leader, Paul provides deep insights into the challenges and opportunities that environmental and social trends present for society, companies and investors.
His book The Great Disruption was published by Bloomsbury in the United States and Europe in April 2011 to wide acclaim. It has been translated for publication in Germany, The Netherlands and Brazil. His views have been featured in major media outlets around the world including by Pulitzer Prize winning writer Tom Friedman in the New York Times, where Friedman concluded “Ignore Gilding at your peril.”
Paul’s experience and career has seen him go from serving in the Australian military, to being global head of Greenpeace to being owner and CEO of two companies, strategy consultancy Ecos Corporation and energy efficiency company Easy Being Green.
He has advised the Boards and Executives of companies including Unilever, BHP Billiton, DSM, DuPont, Ford Motor Company, Fonterra and many others. Through this work he has developed close working relationships with a large number of Chairmen, CEOs and executives, helping them to deepen their understanding of sustainability issues, particularly the relationship to business value and strategy. He has also maintained close links with the NGO community and helped to develop stronger partnerships, understanding and relationships with business.
He lives on a farm in southern Tasmania, Australia with his wife, where they grow vegetables and raise chickens, pigs and their children.
Joakim Bergman
Director
Joakim has spent his adult life driving social change. Swedish by origin, he studied law but soon after landed at Greenpeace, where he discovered his passion for campaigns. In the early 1990’s his time as Campaign Director of Greenpeace Sweden saw some of the organisation’s earliest innovation in market campaigns, including on chlorine bleaching in the pulp and paper industry and the PVC campaign. He went on in Greenpeace to various roles including CEO of Greenpeace Sweden, Deputy CEO of Greenpeace International and a board member of Greenpeace USA and Central and Eastern Europe.
In 1996, Joakim established and ran a solutions focused market campaigning business in Sweden. Over nearly two decades he has developed unique experience in driving market growth strategies for sustainable products for large international corporations. His clients have included companies in forestry, health and nutrition, building materials and recycling.
Joakim has also worked at Action Aid Sweden, advising them on how to become a campaigning organization and advised numerous other NGOs on how to improve their campaigning. Joakim has lived in the Netherlands and Australia, where he developed a passion for surfing. He is now based with his family in a small fishing village in the south of Sweden despite the lack of surfing opportunities.
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