Impact Interview: Lis Best

Name: Lis Best

Role/Function: Founder & CEO, Coaching For Impact

What She’s Currently Working On: 

I spend a lot of my day working one-on-one with women in the sustainability space as a coach/secret weapon and consulting with companies on ESG issues, either on a freelance basis or in partnership with women-owned firms like qb. consulting.

I am also currently working on two really exciting new projects for this fall:

My Women Changing the World podcast launches this week (!), and it is a podcast on a mission to bring you some of the most amazing women I know. From corporate sustainability to straight-up magic and everything in between, it’s an introduction to some of the real-life humans who are birthing the new.

Also, the doors are officially open for the Girls Club, my 5-month mastermind for women changing the world, which kicks off in October. It’s an intimate community of powerful women in the impact space who are dedicated to lifting each other up, cheering each other on and opening doors for each other. This was my vision when I first started my business, and I’m so excited to see it becoming a reality.

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

I can’t remember a time that I didn’t care about doing work that would make the world a better place. Prior to going back to grad school, I had been working in public policy journalism, and my first “big” article was all about bamboo houses and sustainability.

I remember writing in my personal statement that I really wanted to focus on education and women’s empowerment overseas in my career (kind of funny to consider how that has manifested over the past 11 years!), but I didn’t really have a sense of what job that would look like (and I knew I needed to figure it out sooner than later).

My “aha” moment that sparked my interest in corporate social impact was in my first quarter at UCSD’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. Nike’s Hannah Jones came to give a career talk about her work leading corporate social responsibility for the company. She described what a given day looked like for her — advocating for climate action, addressing human rights issues in the supply chain and communicating about how the company was tackling big challenges – and I was completely sold. I had no idea how I was going to get into what was then the CSR space, but I was absolutely convinced that it was what I wanted to do for a living.

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

When I was first hoping to get into the space back in 2010, there were so few opportunities. I applied for dozens of internships that I found online but basically heard crickets. It wasn’t until I shifted my focus and applied for internships with alumni of my program that I started gaining traction. (Pro tip: If you’re looking for an internship, start with your alumni network!) I ended up landing a total dream internship at Qualcomm working for a totally amazing alum, Molly Gavin, on policy issues related to ESG, like privacy and the climate negotiations. It wasn’t exactly CSR, but it felt very close.

My internship turned into a full-time job after graduation, and while I was working on the international government affairs team, I asked a ton of different people outside the company who had successfully made sustainability and social impact their full-time jobs how they did it. Many of them told me that they had basically “volunteered” their way into their roles by starting their companies’ programs on the side in addition to their day jobs. So I started putting my hand up for absolutely everything CSR-related that I could possibly get involved in. Earth Day blog post? I wrote it. Leading our CDP water response? I said I’d do it. Starting our human rights program? I raised my hand. Eventually, I was spending most of my time working on sustainability issues, and soon after that, the function was brought into our team.

While the sector is totally exploding with new jobs today, there are still a lot of opportunities out there to do social impact work at organizations that haven’t necessarily listed roles on their websites yet. If you’re at a company that needs to get started on this stuff, and there’s a business case for you to be the person who leads it, don’t be afraid to put yourself forward.

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

There are three things that most excite me about the social impact these days.

The first is how many brilliant women are not only working on these issues but also taking steps to really prioritize their own desires, development and well-being so that they can do it for the long haul. We can’t pour from empty cups, and personal sustainability is a really important part of doing work that, for so many of us, is near and dear to our hearts.

I am also really enjoying watching more and more women in impact take up space and share the incredible things they’re doing with the world. It’s so inspiring to know what people are up to in their day jobs, and I am a sucker for good news.

Finally, I am loving all the #womensupportingwomen vibes and talk about feminine leadership that I have been seeing lately! Seeing other people embody this from positions of real power gives me so much hope for the future. Feminine leadership is wildly compassionate and overwhelmingly generous, and I really do think that it’s going to play a huge role in how we address the major challenges that are facing us today.

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