Life is like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you’re gonna get.
– Forrest Gump –
I am a Corporate Responsibility expert for textiles, fashion, FMCG, end-consumer goods.
And an INSEAD IDP-C certified international board director.
The Essence (30sec)
白姫 – しらひめ – Shirahime, this blog and website, has its inception in my own need to collect, understand and digest factual and accurate information on how businesses choose, or not, to be forces for good. Why that is the case, but also how they can become better. The site was hence created fairly shortly after I arrived in London, returning to Europe from Japan, as a ‘thought and learning library’ of sorts.
Why 白姫?
白姫, pronounced she-ra-he-meh in Japanese, means translated ‘Snow Goddess’, and is inspired by the title of a breathtakingly beautiful short-story manga collection by the creative group Clamp.
Today I work with committed companies to help them become ‘future fit’ and leverage their influence as a force for good.
The Full Story (2min45sec)
A few months ahead of the financial crisis hitting Japan in 2008 for real, a good three years after my arrival in the country, I had the comfortable, safe and secure life of a small-scale corporate ‘salary woman’: I had won an award, got immersed in employee engagement, paper trail compliance, and corporate responsibility. At nights and on evenings I helped grow and scale volunteering opportunities for Japan’s first ever food bank.
Only: appearances were not quite what they seemed: The corporate project I worked on was a human, economic and visionary disaster. It left me – and many of my then colleagues – at the brink of insanity (literally!).
I quit. Confident that only the sky was the limit, and better, more interesting and rewarding opportunities were plentiful.
Fast forward to spring 2009. The financial crisis kept ravaging the Japanese economy, and far from finding another job, my visa was expiring. Wanting or not – my Japanese adventure was about to come to an end.
What at the time was an unexpected and unwanted experience, became in fact a turning point. In the months between me leaving my corporate job, and then later leaving Japan for good, and thanks to my friends at Second Harvest Japan and Tokyo English Life Line, I learned more about both, my skills as well as my values than I ever had had the opportunity to.
Business as a Force for Good
– INSEAD –
Most importantly, I learned that businesses can be a force for good – but often choose not to be so. And I learned that all change starts small. That that we, individually, can choose to be forces for good, too.
Winner 2011 Observer Ethical Award (the British ‘Green Oscars’),
Category ‘Ethical Blog’.
10 years on, the blog not only won an award, but maybe more importantly, still serves its original purpose: fostering critical thinking and continuous learning on the topic of sustainability and (good) governance in consumer good industries, and building expertise that in turn is channelled into helping and supporting committed businesses to become the forces for good they envision themselves to be.
