What does it take to lead a life shaped not by convention, but by values? For Mark Goyder, the founder of Tomorrow’s Company and a lifelong advocate for responsible business, the answer lies in embracing failure, resisting conformity, and holding fast to a sense of purpose that transcends profit.

Speaking on The Responsible Edge podcast, Mark reflects on a career that has spanned politics, business leadership, and decades of work pushing companies to rethink their role in society. His story is less about climbing a straight ladder and more about weaving together experiences—volunteering, factory work, political campaigns, and boardroom debates—into a philosophy of leadership rooted in human values.

From Quaker Roots to Cambridge Disillusionment

Mark’s early influences were profoundly shaped by family. His mother, of Quaker origins, embodied calm resilience, while his father campaigned for responsible business long before it was fashionable. Sent away to boarding school, Mark witnessed the racism and elitism of the system, sparking a radical streak.

But it was through community service volunteering—working with Punjabi communities in Shropshire and later with young offenders—that he discovered his ability to lead, persuade, and organise.

“Suddenly,” he recalls, “I found I could communicate, I could persuade people to do things.”

It was a turning point that revealed leadership as service, not authority.

Failure as a Teacher

Mark’s career, by his own admission, was not a linear path. After roles in HR and general management, he entered politics with the Social Democratic Party, standing for parliament twice and serving on Kent County Council. Despite tireless campaigning, he saw little electoral progress. Personally, he also faced the devastating loss of his infant son—an experience that reframed his sense of failure.

“Nothing succeeds like failure,” Mark says.

The lessons he thought were distractions—writing press releases, building grassroots campaigns, persuading people on limited resources—later became the foundations for his work with Tomorrow’s Company. Failure, in his words, is never wasted.

The Birth of Tomorrow’s Company

In 1990, Mark was invited by Charles Handy to direct a programme at the RSA that asked the radical question: What is a company for? The resulting Tomorrow’s Company inquiry brought business leaders together to explore the role of purpose and relationships in corporate success. Its landmark 1995 report introduced the concept of “enlightened shareholder value,” later enshrined in UK company law.

For Mark, this was a pivotal moment: a chance to translate years of hard-won lessons into a new vision for business.

“Human business is effective business,” he argues.

Purpose and values, once seen as “soft” add-ons, are now recognised as central to success.

Protecting Purpose in a Corporate World

One of the central questions Mark wrestles with today is how companies can retain their values once they grow or are sold. He points to the Ben & Jerry’s-Unilever saga as a cautionary tale. Founders can write protections into agreements, but ownership structures and market pressures often erode original purpose.

“The idea that you can talk about a purposeful company independent of talking about ownership is for the birds,” he insists.

True purpose requires governance that ties values to decision-making at every stage—what he calls the “seven ages of the company.”

Reinventing for the Next Generation

Now, Tomorrow’s Company is turning its attention to education, working with schools to help 14- and 15-year-olds discover their potential and imagine new ways of engaging with work. It’s a return to Mark’s own formative experiences with community service, completing a circle that began in Shropshire decades ago.

At the same time, he is championing “game-changing ideas” with networks of responsible business organisations—from new governance models to place-based investment. The goal is not just incremental change, but systemic reform.

A Rebel’s Advice

If there’s one message Mark offers to young leaders, it’s this: don’t let conventional definitions of success box you in.

“Be a rebel, be a pirate if that’s what it takes to reconnect with the real soul inside you,” he says.

For someone who has combined politics, business, and activism into a restless, values-driven career, the advice rings true. The future of responsible business, as he sees it, belongs not to those who follow the rules, but to those willing to challenge them.

Her answer is deceptively simple: follow the money.

“If we can quantify the financial impact of aspects of sustainability, it will get the attention of the people that make the decisions,” Rebecca explains. “It pains me to say it, but money makes the world go round. So why don’t we try and make it work for us?”

This pragmatic, almost clinical recognition—that the path to impact runs through balance sheets—sets Rebecca apart from many in her field. For her, leadership isn’t about inspiring slogans or glossy ESG reports; it’s about building a language that boards and CFOs can’t ignore.

From Science to Strategy

Rebecca’s path into sustainability was neither linear nor preordained. A geophysics degree at Durham gave her the tools to interrogate the natural world—from the mechanics of California wildfires to the physics of the Earth’s core. But it was the undeniability of climate science, laid bare by her lecturers, that sharpened her resolve.

“These lecturers were able to describe it and put out the evidence in such a way that it felt so undeniable that I just couldn’t ignore it basically.”

Yet her first job, in a manufacturing firm, revealed a different frontier: gender inequality. Just 25% of the workforce were women. Rebecca threw herself into a gender balance working group, pushing back against everyday microaggressions and building awareness. Responsibility, she realised, is as much about culture as carbon.

The Double Materiality Moment

Today, Rebecca works at the cutting edge of “double materiality”—the idea that sustainability is no longer just about a company’s impact on the planet, but also the planet’s impact on the company. The EU’s CSRD regulations have made this dual lens unavoidable.

For Rebecca, this shift represents both a professional opportunity and a philosophical pivot: finally, the environmental crises of our age are being translated into the one language corporations fully understand—risk and return.

But she warns against complacency. Reports, she notes, can often feel like sterile artefacts of what’s already happened. The challenge is to make them drivers of change—spotlights that illuminate failure and possibility in equal measure.

Women in STEM, and the Power of Storytelling

Rebecca is also passionate about who gets to shape these narratives. Having studied in male-dominated science departments, she has seen how representation—or its absence—matters.

She lights up when discussing a recent article celebrating women scientists whose contributions have been forgotten, their names erased from the textbooks.

“If we want to get more women and young girls interested in science and then studying it, potentially then having a career in it, they need to see the role models and feel inspired by them.”

Here, communication is as critical as science. The stories that stick—the ones that change who sees themselves as a “scientist”—are often told not through reports, but through film, books, even TikTok reels. Sustainability, in other words, is as much cultural as it is technical.

Leadership at the Edge

What does it take to lead responsibly in this environment? For Rebecca, it is the ability to hold two ideas in tension: optimism and realism.

“Some of the clients I work with make me feel better about it. Some of them don’t… but I think you have to remain optimistic in this job, or what’s the point?”

That pragmatism is a lesson for leaders everywhere. Hope without realism is naivety; realism without hope is paralysis. The responsible edge lies in the uncomfortable space between.