Impact Interview: Amirah Jiwa

Name: Amirah Jiwa

Role/Function: Head Of Impact At Vibrant Foods

1. What are you working on these days?  

I'm currently leading impact at Vibrant Foods, the parent company of several of Europe's leading South Asian food brands: TRS, East End Foods, Cofresh, Everest and Fudco. Though the brands within the Vibrant Foods family have been household names for decades, the group structure is fairly recent and so a lot of what I'm doing at the moment is establishing policies and processes to standardize sustainability data collection and reporting across the entire business.

I'm also working on our first Impact Report which will outline our priorities for the next few years. We deal mostly in agricultural products like spices, pulses and flours, so there is lots of potential to make impacts connected to climate, nutrition and farmer livelihoods. I can't wait to see what we're able to accomplish in these areas.

2. What was the “aha” moment that sparked your interest in social impact? 

There was single no 'aha' moment — I feel as though I've been developing my commitment to social justice and impact my whole life!

I'm a daughter of immigrants whose parents were also immigrants. My mum's family is Burmese but moved to India after the military junta took over there in the 60s. And my father's family is originally Indian but had been working in Tanzania for a few generations. Then, both my parents ended up in Europe where I was born. Given this global heritage, I grew up very aware of how big — and unequal — the world is and was always looking for ways to make a positive difference.

I originally expected I'd make this difference through a career in international development. However, when I started to explore that sector in college, I encountered power structures that made me uncomfortable and a pace of change that dissatisfied me — so I ended up driving impact through business instead.

3. How did you break into the social impact space? 

During college, I did a summer internship with Warby Parker, a direct-to-consumer brand that helped pioneer the buy-one-give-one model of corporate impact. This model is now considered a bit outdated but then it offered a way of 'giving back' that was more connected to a brand than the typical corporate philanthropy that was prevalent at the time. As well as the giveback program, Warby Parker had a lot of interesting initiatives around product recycling, supplier standards and employee engagement.

Though I wasn't interning directly with their (one-woman!) social impact team, my time at Warby Parker exposed me to how impact can come to life within different functions and exposed me a "new" way of doing business that was more impact-driven than I thought was possible. That's where I caught the responsible business bug, and after that I never took an internship or role that wasn't connected to a brand's impact initiatives.

4. Working in social impact is often about driving change. What is the skill or trait that has been most important for your work as a change agent? How did you learn or hone it? 

I think it's absolutely essential to 'meet people where they're at' in terms of understanding and interest when bringing people on board with what you're working on. Driving impact within a business is truly cross-functional work that requires people from all levels and functions of an organization to get involved but one size does not fit all when it comes to motivating people. Instead, you need to understand someone's priorities and try and align your goals with theirs to increase the likelihood of getting something over the line.

In my opinion, the best way to hone this skill is to learn as much as you can about different functions — be it operations, marketing, product development or finance. The more you understand what different people or departments are doing and think about day-to-day, the better position you'll be in to see how impact might most easily fit into that. I also recommend reading publications like Fast Company, Courier Media and Morning Brew to get a sense of broader business trends and a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of various business functions.

5. What most excites you about the social impact space right now?

That impact is increasingly being integrated directly into business models and products. Those of us who are impact practitioners have been throwing around terms like 'shared value' for a long time, but it feels like we're finally seeing great brands where social and environmental impact is made directly through the revenue-driving activity, rather than via an add-on activity or initiative.

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