Building Bridges Between Corporate Leadership and Social Innovation: How Match for Impact is Transforming the Sustainability Talent Gap
Description
In this ground-breaking episode of Straight Talking Sustainability, host Emma Burlow sits down with Silja Chouquet, former pharmaceutical executive turned social entrepreneur and founder of Match for Impact.
With extensive experience weaving between corporate leadership roles and startup ventures, Silja has identified a critical gap in the sustainability and social innovation landscape: highly skilled senior executives wanting purpose-driven careers have nowhere to go, while impact startups desperately need their expertise but cannot afford them.
Silja's journey from pharmaceutical strategy consulting to creating her own social enterprise (Marikoi, which brought patient experts into pharma boardrooms) gives her unique insight into both worlds. She witnessed firsthand how the pharmaceutical industry successfully embedded patient advocacy into every role, moving it from a siloed department to an essential part of corporate culture. Now she's applying that same transformation model to sustainability and social impact.
Match for Impact addresses the "bore out" and burnout epidemic affecting senior corporate talent by creating 90-day fractional pro bono placements with social ventures and impact startups. This isn't mentorship or charity work; it's a two-way leadership exchange where executives gain hands-on experience with sustainable business models while startups access senior strategic guidance, networks, and credibility they could never afford to hire.
The conversation explores the structural barriers preventing corporate leaders from transitioning into impact roles, including the "Mother Teresa" assumption that purpose work requires salary sacrifice and the "overqualified but inexperienced" paradox that keeps talented people trapped in corporate squares. Silja argues that business transformation cannot happen through isolated sustainability departments; it requires leadership that has carried the bag and experienced systems change on the ground.
Through partnerships with Day One (Europe's largest MedTech accelerator) and Catalyst Now (the world's biggest network of social innovators with 6,000 members), Match for Impact is building a movement to make systems change leadership experience mandatory for corporate advancement. Just as pharmaceutical companies once required sales experience before headquarters roles, Silja envisions a future where impact experience becomes essential for business leadership.
The episode tackles uncomfortable truths about innovation funding, including how unicorn-chasing mentality wastes valuable solutions that could be profitable and impactful in different markets. Silja challenges the scarcity mindset that forces startups to compete rather than collaborate, arguing we need every available solution working together to address global challenges, not just one magical answer.
In this corporate sustainability and social innovation episode, you'll discover:
- Why senior executives are experiencing "bore out" alongside burnout in restructuring organizations
- How 90-day fractional placements create two-way value for both corporates and startups
- The "carry the bag" principle that made pharmaceutical patient advocacy successful and how it applies to sustainability
- Why unicorn funding models are partially responsible for innovation system failures
- How MedTech solutions developed for US markets miss profit opportunities in low and middle income countries
- The portfolio career model that allows executives to maintain income while building impact experience
- Why impact cannot remain siloed in sustainability departments but must infuse every business role
- How corporate experience in launching products and building commercial models accelerates startup success
Key Social Innovation and Leadership Insights:
(04:47 ) The transformation journey: "I joined the pharmaceutical industry after a career in strategy consulting, because for me, that was really business as a force for good... I then actually ventured out to create my own social enterprise called Marikoi, where we were upskilling and training patient experts to become a voice in the boardroom of pharma."
(09:25 ) Impact everywhere: "We've seen it in cycles again and again. So I used to work in social media and there was a social media department, right?... And then it became part of every product... Same happened with patient advocacy... And I think now in the impact side, that's exactly where we need to go."
(12:16 ) The Match for Impact model: "We are matching senior executives that are in that transition mindset with pro bono roles in social ventures for 90 days. So this is fractional, this is not mentorship and this is also seen as a two-way leadership exchange."
(14:23 ) The carry the bag principle: "I had to carry the bag and I had to talk to my key opinion leaders... And it gave me the basis... I could come back... into strategic planning... and say, look, this is a great strategy. It never worked on the ground... And that is a very important point. Everybody else had had that experience."
(20:48 ) The unicorn problem: "I believe unicorn funding is in a good part responsible for the mess we're in with innovation in the world... You can't put the onus on one innovation to be answering... We need every solution at the moment to work and to save the planet and we need to work them together."
(24:38 ) Market development barriers: "If you're a MedTech, then usually US is the market you need to go in first... but your solution might actually work and be profit making much quicker in a low and middle income market... but you're not developing it for those markets."
(30:03 ) Purpose and culture: "Culture eats strategy for lunch, but purpose sets the table... You can ignore the purpose part of the equation, but the companies that will figure this out and that will build the cultures that are embedded in the systems and are changing it are the ones that will succeed."
(32:29 ) Solutions already exist: "We have all of the solutions to solve this. The solutions are there... It's how do we get them into the system, right? So let's learn from each other."
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