I help founders, owners, boards and investors through decisive transitions: in a company, in a negotiation, in an entire sector — and in the person carrying it all.
«Twenty years of work on one question: what does it take to create real impact — for people, and for the living world that carries us?»
Negotiated the precursor before and the Accord after the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh. One of the first legally binding frameworks for systemic change in a global industry — it protects millions of workers to this day and has now scaled to Pakistan.
Co-initiated with peers from the largest global fashion brands. What began as a pledge became an industry mechanism for living wages.
A participatory human rights program for global factories. Designed and scaled. It’s an effective mechanism to fulfil the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. In essence: dignity.
Helped shape its architecture and advocated for it across Europe, while remaining clear-eyed about where the final design created unintended consequences. Voluntary responsibility became law.
Fifteen years. Sustainability moved from department to business model — as VP Corporate Responsibility, and as sparring partner to the executive board and the owner family.
Joined in 2022, Managing Director since 2024. Microplastic-free, home-compostable materials for packaging. Led the transition from pre-product development to commercial revenue while navigating severe capital constraints.
Each initiative was my teacher.
I learned how to move a stuck negotiation to signing; that the unspoken sentence is the most expensive one, because it blocks change; that adversaries make the strongest co-signers, if you go through the process together.
And that failure teaches most of all — I have adapted and rebuilt often enough to know what freeze and fear feel like from the inside, and to continue moving and finding my way back to myself and my purpose.
The most important thing though is that I have seen that change is possible at levels that our minds consider impossible. The work is therefore not idealism. It’s a question of the right people in the right room and of concentrated execution.
Three to five partners at a time. Which mandate fits depends on the transition you are in.
Some problems are bigger than any single company: they need a sector that binds itself. I have negotiated such agreements — the Bangladesh Accord, ACT on Living Wages — and I support new ones today: from the first conversations among unlikely allies, through the negotiation itself, to the delivery structures that make the outcome hold.
Every mandate begins with a diagnostic: four to six weeks, a clear reading of the transition you are in, and a written decision map you keep. Where it fits — on both sides — it continues as the Threshold Container: nine months of strategic counterpart through the hardest passages, where company strategy and the personal reality of the transition are addressed in the same conversation, because separating them is often what keeps the company stuck.
Not every company needs another full-time function. But boards and CEOs still need senior sustainability judgment at the table. I carry that mandate for owner families, boards and executive teams — connecting regulation, commercial strategy, governance and implementation.
For family offices, PE and VC investors when a founder or portfolio company is entering a critical transition. I work with the founder — not around them — to restore clarity, alignment and execution. Mandates can include founder transition work, board roles, and strategic or impact diligence.
One thing twenty years at the table have taught me: agreements need places.
Tierra Allegra is my venture to create these spaces — among the first, a house at Lake Constance made for the Klausuren in which sector agreements are negotiated and made binding.
The beauty of such a place: it brings the work together with what the work is for — Earth and community, a daily reminder of why it matters.