Ep. 15: The sustainability communication woes of CSOs, with Ellen Weinreb

The role of the CSO has changed significantly over the years, from a backroom marketing function to being key figures in their company’s business operation and growth. Roughly 183 public companies in the U.S. now employ a CSO, up from 29 in 2011, according to a recent report from recruiter Weinreb Group. Of those, more than three-quarters sit on the company’s leadership team while just over a third report directly to the CEO.

With this elevated status comes increasing responsibility for CSOs to be the chief communicator of a company's social and environmental efforts — both internally and externally. Yet with many CSOs coming from technical backgrounds, they aren’t always prepared to be the person behind the podium. In this episode, Mike connects with Ellen Weinreb, one of the world’s leading sustainability recruiters who has worked with countless CSOs over the years, to better understand the ever-evolving role of the CSO and what this means for sustainability communication.  

You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube.

TRANSCRIPT

Mike Hower: The role of the CSO has changed significantly over the years from a backroom marketing function to being key figures in their company's business operation and growth. Roughly 183 public companies in the U S now employ a CSO, up from 29 in 2011, according to a recent report from the Weinreb group.  Of those, more than three-quarters sit on the company leadership team while just over a third report directly to the CEO. With this elevated status comes increasing responsibility for CSOs to be the chief communicator of a company’s social and environmental efforts, both internally and externally. 

Yet, with many CSOs coming from technical backgrounds, they aren't always prepared to be the person behind the podium.

Today, we're going to connect with Ellen Weinreb, one of the world's leading sustainability recruiters, who has worked with countless CSOs over the years to better understand the ever-evolving role of the CSO and what this means for sustainability communication overall. 

Thanks for being here today, Ellen.

Ellen Weinreb: It's my pleasure. 

Mike: All right. So the first question I have today is about a recent Wall Street Journal article that your organization was actually mentioned in that was all about CSOs and how their roles have been evolving and there's one quote that really stood out to me, that was — “CSOs often have the responsibility of communicating the company's strategy, both to internal and external stakeholders, to create buy-in for sustainable principles.”

Can you tell us a bit more about how the role of the CSO has evolved to be? A little bit more comms focus in some aspects in recent years, and what are some of the key challenges they're facing, particularly with as you're helping to place these leaders in different companies? 

Ellen: It's interesting that you say the CSO role has evolved to be more communications-focused because you could also argue that it's become less communications-focused, and that is given the drivers around data and reporting and compliance. 

Absolutely. And at the same time, it is the stakeholders and the demands on a CSO have increased, and therefore the demands for the communication aspect of their job has increased.

So, it is largely these stakeholders. It's uh — a couple years ago, the CSOs were going on investor roadshows and so they're developing decks and they're going on tours around the country with the CEO to talk about sustainability. And then also in those investor calls, sustainability, ESG-related questions have increased a lot.

So, sometimes the CEO, or the CFO, is handing the mic over to the CSO to answer those questions.

Mike: Mm-Hmm 

Ellen: Those stakeholders have evolved largely around the investment sector and then also around boards. In our research on chief sustainability officers, we found that over 80 percent of CSOs are reporting directly to board committees, and so there's some standalone ESG committees and then there's also nominating a governance committee that the chief sustainability officer is reporting to on a regular basis.

And, so, there's more senior-level communications than there was when this job was created.

Mike: That's interesting. That kind of goes into my next question, which —  this is also mentioned in the article but I know we were talking about this before we started recording, about this great research you put out every, I think, every other year you said? 

Ellen: Right.

Mike: The Weinreb, the Weinreb Group, 2023 chief sustainability officer report, which came out relatively recently, one of the key takeaways that I saw this is showing the importance of communication CSOs is influencing without authority has made it in the top three competencies required to be an effective CSO.

And at the end of the day, communication is all about influence, and particularly when you don't have authority, communication skills are even more important. 

Can tell us a little bit more about what it means to influence without authority and how CSOs can leverage their comms skills to achieve this?

Ellen: CSOs are chief translators and they're influencing without authority, meaning that they don't necessarily have a big team. There's often just four people on average on a CSO’s team. And at the same time, there's a lot of dotted lines to the finance office and the auditor's office, and the controller's office and general counsel and managing the controls.

This CSO, who's really peppered throughout the organization and the various functions, needs to be able to communicate to each of those functions in a way that is understandable by the audience with whom they're speaking. So this role is very heavy on the translating and interestingly that's something I'm going to be looking into further.

We're going to update the report that will come out next February and we're already starting to do work on looking at where CSOs are going and how that role is shifting. So, we've been doing this report for 14 years now, and I'm looking forward for the next one to come out.

Mike: Awesome. Yeah, I know this, this research is all very helpful, especially as we're trying to navigate this ever-changing space we're all operating in.

I'd like to dive a little deeper into just what you've seen, with your own clients, like, as you're trying to fill CSO roles in particular, maybe even just senior sustainability roles, as you mentioned, a lot of times these days, uh, what's needed are people who can deal with the compliance issues, but also people that are a little more technical or can do the deeper dive into the more complicated, technical aspects of sustainability.

People that are good at that aren't always the best at communication. Do you see that as a challenge? Is it a common challenge where you might have a candidate who's really qualified for the technical aspect that maybe struggles with the communication side or that would allow them to influence without authority? 

Ellen: What we do, you know, what our bread and butter is, is that we hire CSOs and we support CSOs to build out their teams. And so, whether or not it's a communicator role or it can be issues management, there can be an investor relations liaison, which has a heavy communications aspect, and then there's also the reporting. 

Oftentimes what we've seen is. where the hiring has been around communications, is heavily on reporting and storytelling. Now the reporting is definitely — the resources are going into that data and the controls. And so the question is, “What is needed to build out that team? And do you need a communicator, or if so, what kind of communicator and where might the dotted line be into within the company?”

Mike: So as the role of the CSO is increasingly elevated, as we were talking about, the importance of personal branding is becoming more important than ever. How can both aspiring and current CSOs work to develop their personal brand, maybe on LinkedIn and elsewhere, that allows them to succeed? And what are some of their challenges for developing their personal brand? 

And I can also add some tips to this too, but I'm curious what you think. 

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well.

So, you know, it's interesting how these CSOs are branding. There's personal branding and then there's also how they're supporting their company and the good works that their company is doing or the sustainability efforts that they're doing. And I'm on LinkedIn as a recruiter anyway, so it's a really valuable tool to me as a recruiter. So I've been keeping a very close eye on LinkedIn more than the other platforms.

I've seen a big drop that's on Twitter, or X —  I don't think we need to go there so much. Probably for the sake of our conversation, we could focus on LinkedIn, although I have recently seen TikTok videos, so that might be the future. Although Facebook never really took off for, I think it didn't really take off for CSO.

Again, it does come back to LinkedIn as a tool and I think the advice for CSOs is to be authentic and at the same time, the question is — it's related to your earlier question — is, “Do you want those CSOs or do those CSOs wanna hire some support to help them with PR and communications?” 

In some cases, some CSOs would hire somebody to manage their LinkedIn presence. And so that's something — I'm just curious — are you seeing much of that?  

Mike: Yeah. I mean, LinkedIn is really interesting. I've been on it probably since like, I first got into my professional career, I don't know it was probably 15 years ago. That was back when it was just here's your resume online. And, I think it was probably five years ago where it evolved into what it is today where it's more about people putting content and ideas out and it's not just a place you go when you're looking for a job anymore. 

It's almost turned into an always conference, an always virtual conference. My girlfriend makes fun of me because she's a dietitian, completely different industry, and she doesn't understand why I spend so much time on LinkedIn.

I tell her, “This is actually where I get most of my business, comes as a consultant, comes through this now because people know me through LinkedIn. I put content and then people think of me when they need help.” 

But it's not just for consultants anymore. I think it's for anyone who wants to be considered a thought leader, which is incredibly important, especially if you're a senior level of any industry, particularly the CSO, you have to be putting out content there.

As a former journalist and writer, it really does break my heart that I'll spend hours working on a deep dive thought leadership piece for GreenBiz (now Trellis) or some other publication and I'll probably get less eyeballs on that than I will get in something that took me five minutes to write to post on LinkedIn.

Ellen: Right.

Mike: And so, cause you're just, it's just interesting — 

Ellen:  It is where the eyeballs are, right?

Mike: Exactly. Yeah. And I think because I'm independent, I have more leeway. I don't have legal teams tell me what to say or what to do. And so I think I could be more authentically myself, which resonates. But I think the challenge CSOs face is that they are a figurehead of their company.

Sometimes some companies, every company has kind of a different policy, but I've heard wide range of some companies will say, “If you're the CSO, your LinkedIn technically belongs to you, but you're an extension of us. So anything you say there, it's official communication from us.”

So you have to go through legal or whatever.

Other companies might say, “Do whatever you want on Linkedin, just don't say anything crazy.”  So I think some CSOs are more constrained than others so some CSOs might have to have  their PR team — maybe their PR teams are actually the ones developing the content. 

You can really kind of see it, like, you can see who's posting stuff that's been incredibly “PR-ized” as I'd like to say (laughs). It's very, “Here's what an announcement and here's what” — and it's definitely not written — it doesn't feel like a human said it. It could be ChatGPT these days.

Ellen: Yeah, Exactly (laughs). That’s another question.

Mike:  And then others, I mean, I don't know if, I can't think of any CSOs that come to mind where I think that maybe it's always coming from them, unless it's something simple such as, “Hey, this is what we did.”

But I have actually had, I mean, I've actually had CSOs approaching me asking me even for help with, “Hey can you help me come up with a thought leadership strategy? And a big part of that would be LinkedIn. How can we show up on LinkedIn?”

And some of the big challenges are they don't have time to be on LinkedIn all day, which is fair.

They have stuff to do. They have to decarbonize their companies. So, how do you balance coming across authentically when you almost have to have somebody helping you create the content and stay active on there, but you also have to make sure it's still you?

And I don't think anyone's cracked that yet, but I was actually talking to a CSO of a tech company, probably two weeks ago, and he was actually saying his LinkedIn to him makes him feel more secure in his job because he's like, “I could get fired tomorrow, but my personal brand is super important and LinkedIn is basically where it's on display.” 

So, he does spend more time posting, not so much original ideas, but just being active about, “Here's what my company is doing, here's what we're doing,“ and kind of sticking to the company messaging.

But, he was even saying how he's realizing now that he needs to spend a little more time on LinkedIn and making sure that he stands out more.  

Ellen: Mm hmm. I mean part of our research looks at the longevity of CSOs and a lot of CSOs are in their position not too, too many years. You know, I think when we first did our report, it was like average 13 years in a position and now it's probably more around four.

And so that's true. Your followers stay with you even when you leave that company. There is the balance of supporting the wins of your team and you're showcasing your company and at the same time holding on to your personal brand and knowing that that's going to stay with you for the long run.

Also, I've seen that there's different modes of communication on LinkedIn. The posts tend to be longer because I think it used to be when there was a time where we were, we were stuck to our 130 characters and then I think it went to 165 characters, but now on LinkedIn your posts can be as long as you want them to be.

I have noticed that there's more thought leadership and pieces to that. Also, there are carousels, the photos aren't just one standalone photo, there could be a carousel of multiple photos. And then I'm also seeing video out there such as Christina Wyatt, who’s CSO at Persefoni, does a really good job. She's been introducing videos and I think she's taking a walk, you see her walking. She's been in airports or just walking along the block and she's giving an update on CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) and that's helping her a lot, but it's also helping for Persefoni as well. 

I also like the videos that Diane Holdorf has put out. She was the CSO at Kellogg years ago, and she's been at WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development) for a long time. So she's not a current CSO, but she's been using that. She goes to COP and Davos and she shares videos and I've seen some other CSOs take that on where they share these little video updates and they can be very authentic.

Mike: Yeah. I've definitely seen that myself and I actually saw LinkedIn, uh, maybe, I don't know if they're rolling this out to everybody yet, but you're mentioning TikTok earlier, LinkedIn is testing out a TikTok-type function and it looks like it's almost a you stumble upon random videos (feature), so it'll be interesting to see how that works where you just scroll through and it's just like CSOs or sustainability people doing TikTok-type videos, which could be good or bad, I guess, depending on the content (laughs).

Ellen: Right, right. And then, and then AI certainly, right? How can AI support the communications and the social media for CSOs going forward? 

Mike: Yeah. I mean, that's a —  

Ellen: That's a question for the future (chuckles).

Mike: That is a question that's been, as a communications guy, that's definitely something I think about a lot. What's the future going to look like for content creation?

Right now AI is nowhere near good enough to completely replace communicators, but it can definitely help. I use it all the time to help me with this podcast. I don't currently use it for my writing, but it can be helpful for research. And there's ways to kind of help you save time instead of Googling around for stuff. And it's, you have to be careful because half the time it's wrong, so you have to double check it. But as it gets better, like who knows?

And then also on LinkedIn, I think it's been interesting to see, and this is kind of a bigger conversation than just the CSO topic, but I think it's really great when people share their whole selves. I think that's kind of what we're moving into even just, I'm a millennial, like my cohort kind of takes over and as Gen Z moves up — we grew up more with social media, so we're used to sharing more of ourselves publicly. 

I'm seeing that actually started to filter into even the corporate world where it used to be, “Keep your problems at home, suck it up.” That was kind of the corporate ethos. Now, whereas I think we're moving towards more of, “Bring more of yourself to work. It's okay to be a human being in a corporate environment.”

Obviously there are still boundaries, but I think that also comes into play with how we come across on social media. When you're hiring somebody, you want to know their whole selves. You don't have to share every little personal detail, but we want to know who are you?

What are you about beyond just what are your qualifications?  

Ellen: I do think CSOs don't share much about their personal (life). Yeah, I've definitely seen milestones, a kid graduating from college or the passing of a parent, but there's not a lot of like, “This is what I did on my vacation.”

It's more reflections, maybe personal reflections. I do think CSOs are somewhat guarded or need to be, but that's just a really interesting question to navigate. 

Mike: Yeah. And for good reason, I mean, there's been, I've noticed even as LinkedIn's gotten more popular, some people are starting to bring Facebook-type habits over there.

Ellen: Yes. I've seen that. 

Mike: I've definitely heard of people losing their jobs over posting certain political points of view or putting out stuff that probably doesn't necessarily need to be there. And, I'd say in general, it's pretty civil, but yeah, there's definitely more of that happening where I think people need to be careful where it's like, “You can share pieces of yourself, but also still like a work environment. You don't have to be as open as you might be with your family or friends.”

Ellen: Mh hmmm.

Mike: Awesome. Well, shifting gears. We've kind of moved into this new era of where people are calling themselves fractionals. I call myself a fractional sustainability communications executive.

I know with tons of people that are former heads of sustainability or senior folks at inhouse sustainability functions or consultancies that are now going independent and calling themselves fractional this or that. , and I know , you're placing fractionals within companies.

So, I'm curious to see, you've been working in this space for a long time, you've seen kind of the needs change for sustainability functions. 

Why are we seeing this huge influx of fractional folks? And where do you see it going?  

Ellen: Yeah, we, we've recently, I call it “hanging a shingle.” We are offering fractional and interim placement. I am seeing more fractional leaders, or let's say fractional CSOs or fractional sustainability people, more than like, if you consider them job seekers or fractional seekers, I'm seeing more seekers out there. Certainly it's like a supply and demand.

I'm seeing more seekers out there than I'm seeing offerings are looking for. So, where I see the biggest market for fractional from like who's looking for fractional, is largely in the VC early stage, pre-IPO companies, where they are growing and they don't really need or have the resources for a full-time person.

It's out there. I mean, another way to look at it is, or just question to ask you, Mike, is how is fractional different than a consultant? 

And so,  what, you know, what is the difference there? I mean, I see a fractional as, it's a fraction. So it's, two days, you're buying two days of a person's time or one day or four days.

There's that as an aspect to it, but how else do you see it?

Mike: Ellen. I love that. I don't usually get interviewed on my own podcast. This is great (laughs). Yeah, it's interesting. I've actually been kind of gathering fractionals here and there. I haven't even really seen them on LinkedIn, but over the past year I just keep meeting people who are calling themselves fractionals.

I started this informal monthly call for fractional folks and we've got over 25 people in the group now. And they kind of run the gamut. Some of them are people who got laid off and they're kind of saying they're doing this in between jobs and they're just — I think they just don't want to have a gap on their resume.

So, they're saying, “Oh, I'm just going to do this until I find something.” And they're, and I don't know if you've seen this too, but I have some friends that have gotten laid off for pretty senior sustainability roles and a year later, they're still unemployed. So this has kind of been their way of kind of staying in the game.

Then there's people like me who are just doing this because we want to do it. And, this is what we want to do as our, this stage of our career, we just, we don't want a full-time job, we want to be doing the fractional work.  I'm a sustainability comms person, so I'm not doing the same thing as maybe a fractional CSO would. 

I have a friend who is a fractional CSO essentially for a major energy company. And he essentially he's giving them about two days a week of his time and they don't have an in-house sustainability lead who's senior enough to really run the program.

And so, he's really kind of acting like the sustainability lead and not just from the environmental perspective, but also social and he's really helping them prop up the program. Then the ultimate goal would be to develop the program and then help them hire a senior sustainability person and then maybe train them and then move on.

He doesn't want to work there full-time.  It's just a sliver of his time. And then for someone like me, that's more comms-focused, I work with a major CPG brand and they've got a pretty big sustainability team, and they actually have a few sustainability comms-focused people in-house, but they just still don't have enough people to do all the work that they need to get done.

And so, it's been a really great engagement where I’m embedded with the team. I have an email with them. They actually sent me a company laptop, but I'm not a full-time employee, yet I'm kind of deeper in than, say, a Deloitte (consultant) would be.

I think that's the main difference is that traditional consulting, it's more of like, “Okay, I'm coming in as an outsider. I'm going to — “

Ellen:  Right. So you're more in-house? 

Mike: Yeah. So it's more of like, you're kind of in-house — but this is why I love it — because I'm kind of in-house, but I don't have to deal with any of the politics.

You're kind of like all the benefits of in-house minus the negative parts(chuckles). But that being said, I mean, I do run out my time with more traditional consulting stuff that might be project-based such as doing a report for a company or something. 

So I'd say fractional is more like an offering than a role. I'm still trying to figure out how to position what I'm doing, but I am a fractional person sometimes, but I can also be hired as just a traditional consultant. But I would say —

Ellen: You're fractionally fractional (laughs).

Mike: Exactly. And I think it's interesting to your point of the whole supply and demand thing, because the more that people hear about this as an option, I think the more interested they are, because right now a lot of in-house folks, when they're thinking about resourcing, they're basically thinking, “My options are either I hire an in-house person or I go to an expensive consultancy and they charge me a bunch of money and then most of the work's going to be delivered by a junior person.”

So the idea is that instead of doing either of those, you can go directly to a senior, experienced person and because we have no overhead, we can actually charge less than we would at a big agency, but then we take home more. So, it's kind of like an actual win-win.

Ellen: Mm hmmm.

Mike: And so actually this group that I've been a part of, we're trying to figure out, we're probably going do a big push in the next few months just to educate people on this.

Ellen: It's like you're gonna have to increase the demand, right? It is also interesting to see who wants to be fractional from that professional next step. 

It is sometimes the CSOs who have left their job and they're looking at what's next. And I think they've been won by influence by the millennials who are having a good time with the digital nomad and the flexibility and flexible work. And they have a really nice work-life balance and nice work style. So they're making that decision.  

And also post-COVID, they had been going into the office and then they don't need to go in the office, and then they're being asked to come back to the office, but maybe they don't want to, and maybe they want to live in who knows where and have that flexible lifestyle. So, fractional certainly supports that. 

Mike: Yeah, there's definitely that. And I know some folks that they've just burned out. They're just like, “I've hit that point in my career where I just feel like I'm not making the impact I want to have” and they're tired of the corporate red tape and they're just like, “I just want to go and try my hand, do my own thing.”

So, there's definitely those, there's a lot of reasons why people do it.

Ellen: Yeah, burn out. It's real. Yeah. 

Mike: Yeah. So it's interesting. I think it's definitely an area to keep an eye on because I do see it evolving, especially as there's more positive case studies of fractionals making a good impact. I think it's going to develop into more of an option for people.

Especially, to your point, in this post-COVID world where you can work from anywhere. I'm in California and most of my clients are on the East Coast, they don't care where I am. And so that's also changed where you can kind of work wherever and so companies can hire a CSO wherever the heck they are.

Great. In the same vein of things are changing constantly in this space. I think this is why you do your research to keep the tab on it.  

Where do you see the CSO role changing? And I know asking for 10 years out in this space is kind of crazy because it's changing every six months, but maybe in just the next five years, let's start there.

Where do you see it changing? And I don't know if the outcome of this election will have any impact on that, but where do you think the CSO role is going to be in five years?  

Ellen: I do see it evolving. It's just going more towards regulatory — as I had shared before — regulatory and compliance. And it does feel like it's gone full circle. When I started in this field about 20 years ago, a program was good. We were looking for a program to be beyond compliance, that was the term we used. It's like, well, the regular environmental health and safety or restricted substances.

There's this low bar and we're going to start to develop a sustainability program that's going to be beyond compliance. And now the compliance demands are so heavy that it's as if a company can just keep up with the compliance, it's a challenge. And so, the challenge right now is how to keep your eye on the prize when it comes to impact and moving the needle and not spend so many resources on regulatory and compliance that you lose sight of what this whole initiative is about. 

Mike: Yeah, I hear you on that. I had a lot of my friends who are senior sustainability folks, I hear them grumbling about this all the time where they're, they're always saying, you know, “The world's burning while we're reporting everything.”

Ellen: Mm hmmm. At the same time, I was talking to another person recently and he was mentioning, I think, I don't know, I remember if this was in your report, this concept of being a corporate chameleon,

Ellen: Yeah, that's, that's our report. Mm hmmm.

Mike: Yeah. And I've heard other, I think I heard another person just say, I don't know if he read your report or he just mentioned this the other day too, this concept that he disguised himself as a corporate chameleon because he says, “I want to stay employed and I can't have any impact if I'm unemployed. So I need to make sure that even if I'm not doing the exact work I want to be doing right now,” basically he's doing a bunch of compliance stuff that he doesn't want to be doing, he knows if he sticks around long enough, the tide will change and he can build that trust with the C-suite to hopefully get back to the impact.  

But then others are just, “I'm ready to quit. This isn't what I signed up for.”

So yeah, I think it is interesting. I mean, you're seeing, we're just seeing content coming out all the time about people burning out.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. And we're hoping to get some of that in our report that we've got in February and I'm getting more people, another interesting thing is I'm getting CSOs from Europe reaching out saying, “Hey, I want to talk to you about burnout.” I do wonder if there's some comparison because CSRD is in Europe and it's impacting 5,000 companies in Europe.

And so, that's also something to consider is how might it be different geographically.  

Mike: Right. Yeah, that's definitely fascinating. Great. So to wrap up, I just wanted to ask a little bit more about your own career journey.

You have a very fascinating background, both as a sustainability consultant and then obviously as a recruiter and an entrepreneur. I'm curious if you could just tell us a little bit about your  career journey in sustainability and any of the milestones or anything that you learned along the way that you want to share?

Ellen: Right. I can go back to college, perhaps, in terms of turning points or milestones. When I was in college, I was selling handmade beaded jewelry on campus at Wellesley. And then I was also peddling in Burlington, Vermont for the summer. I was selling this jewelry on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont.

And some activists come up to me and saying, “Where did these beads come from and who made them” and basically pointing out are these beads being created in sweatshops in Asia? And the answer was probably yes, but the true answer for me was I had never thought about it.

And that, you know, I was 20 years old. That opened my eyes to supply chain and where did things come from and what conditions are people having when they're working in that area? 

And so, that was a moment for me where I was looking at the bigger picture.

And then ended up going to the Peace Corps in Cameroon and I was helping coffee farmers, but I was also helping artisans who were making handmade stationery for the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Switzerland's Christmas catalog in rural Cameroon.

I also was thinking about artisans and craftspeople and wanting to make sure that they were getting a fair wage. I was also interested in fair trade and coffee. So then I went to business school and I chose the Yale School of Management because they had the largest net impact chapter — it was called SRB (students responsible business) at the time.

I wanted to go to a school where I wouldn't feel marginalized for wanting to do good in the world. And so that was the kernel and at the time in business school I called it corporate social responsibility. But at the time, i was really about looking at the bigger picture and the company's impact on society and the planet.

Once I arrived at Yale, I realized that because at beginning earlier in SOM, I was thinking about a career working with smallholders, and then once I was arrived at Yale, I realized I had access to so many large corporations. And so I was able to influence first as a consultant. I was doing consulting around sustainability. I did consulting for Hewlett Packard, Nike, LL Bean. 

And then around 20 years ago, I got into the niche of recruitment because I am a matchmaker, it is my superpower. In my sleep, I find husbands for wives or wives for wives (chuckles). I find a lot of and connect dog owners with puppies or we've fostered a lot of puppies in COVID. We found there are new owners, they're forever homes

The connecting and matchmaking is something that I do in my sleep. And so I get a lot of pleasure on helping our clients, corporations find the best people for the positions. So that's my career in a nutshell. 

Mike: That's awesome. Yeah. I think you're like the sustainability recruiter, so you've done a great job making yourself known for that. So you obviously do a good job doing that.  

Ellen: Thank you.

Mike: And then one final follow-up question to that, as a recruiter, you deal with lots of people looking for jobs in sustainability, and I pro bono help people give career advice. I do these monthly calls to try to help people break in as well. It's always a challenging thing to do for people when people ask me, “How did I break in ?”

There's no linear path. Everybody has their own way and I usually just end up telling people, “You kind of just have to stick it out, keep trying, and eventually we'll get there.”

But, I'm curious if you have any more helpful advice than that, even with what you see when people are, you know, people of all levels, maybe, I know you mostly deal with more senior people generally, but, what would be some advice to anybody trying to break into sustainability or someone trying to pivot mid-career? What are some tips that you would give them? Maybe some practical advice you might give them?

Ellen: Sure. I mean, they can follow me, Ellen Weinreb on LinkedIn or Weinreb group on LinkedIn, and we also have resources on our website for job seekers. That's Weinreb group dot com. 

And then, also, I think the hardest part of our job is that we have, I don't know, we'd talk to, let's say 50 people for a job and we have to reject 49. And, you know, one at the end of the day gets hired. It’s a tough market out there. Stick with it. Especially if you're coming in second place or third place, you're really close. You've got a lot of qualifications that are getting you almost there.

And then the other thing is that sustainability doesn't have to be in your title. Sustainability can be part of your life. You can join a sustainability committee, you could start a sustainability committee at your company or in your department, and you can look at things from a sustainability angle.

And so there's other ways to bring it into your life if it's not in your job description or in your title.  

Mike: Well, I think that's a great place to wrap up. Ellen, thank you so much for your time today. This is super helpful.  
Ellen: Thanks so much for having me.