Going beyond the business to get to know Musidora Jorgensen, Chief Impact Officer at World Wide Generation. With over 20 years of experience in the technology sector and a belief that business can be a force for good in the world, Musidora leads World Wide Generation’s growth, operations and partnerships across their global markets.
Sarah: I love your title of Chief Impact Officer – it’s not one you see every day! I would love to hear what your mission and goals are in this role as well as what your day-to-day looks like.
Muzzy: As Chief Impact Officer, my job is all about making sure we’re delivering maximum impact for our clients, partners and other stakeholders. World Wide Generation (WWG) is a fast-growing sustainability fintech global business and we’re constantly expanding into new regions. My job is to support that growth journey while keeping us aligned with our mission and delivering results. I love it because it draws on my experience in many technology commercial roles, maximizing efficiencies, building culture and high-performing teams, and sustainability to make sure that we can support our clients across the world in delivering their overall sustainable transformations.
Sarah: Is there an overarching mission that you try and think about as you work with your various stakeholders?
Muzzy: World Wide Generation’s mission is to help deliver global solutions that support the financing and delivery of the 17 UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and so we’ve created a global sustainability data, finance and solutions exchange. We’re focused on how we can support a more sustainable future and recognize that businesses play a crucial role in making that happen. My goal is to ensure that when we are working with our clients, our partners and through our regional channels, that we are simplifying the process of sustainability – helping our clients to get started, navigating their way through all of the complexity that sustainabilitycan present and then executing their strategies effectively and ultimately driving the positive outcomes we all need for a more sustainable world.
Sarah: You came up through several big tech companies. Is there anything about that experience that informed how you approach your role today?
Muzzy: I’ve worked for lots of big tech organizations and have seen how technology can solve business and global problems, drive innovation and enable great change in the world. But for me, the positive impact technology can have on people has always been the thread that runs through everything I’ve done. One of the biggest challenges we face is climate change and the future our children will inherit if we don’t take action now. Technology can be one of the great accelerators of changes needed from a sustainability perspective. At the heart of it, again, are people and the changes that we all need to go through to support that. I am passionate about enabling people to make the changes needed to ensure together we can all be much stronger and have a more sustainable future.
Sarah: How do you motivate people – especially business leaders with competing priorities – to adopt sustainable approaches and how do you communicate the value of those choices?
Muzzy: We’ve got into a position where we need to ensure that we don’t exceed a global temperature that is 1.5 degrees above preindustrial measurements to prevent a host of negative impacts in terms of resources being available, scarcity of water, devastation on biodiversity, food production challenges and more. We’re in the critical decade to create that change now and business is at the center of being able to achieve these global goals. As a business community, we need to rethink our operations to create more sustainable outcomes. This involves changing business models, serving clients differently, and managing supply chains in new ways. It’s a complex challenge that needs systems change but at the heart of it is the ability to identify where we can make the biggest impacts and leverage data to support those changes. Regulations are increasingly driving this shift, with governments worldwide requiring organizations to align with various frameworks and Autumn 2024 26 Autumn 2024 27 reduce their environmental, social, and governance impacts – that’s the ‘stick’. But what’s the ‘carrot’? How do we communicate the rewards that these changes can bring? Research shows that companies that are aligned to sustainability or purpose are outperforming the stock market by 11% and attracting more talent, as younger generations in particular want to work for brands and leaders who can prove their impact on society and the planet. Additionally, financial institutions like banks, insurers and stock exchanges are looking to support and invest in organizations that can show their sustainability credentials – through better access to liquidity, additional loans, and better interest or insurance rates, for example. But proving those credentials is actually a really tricky thing to do at the moment because that sustainability data that allows an organization to compare progress or prove sustainable practices is often scraped from out-of-date data that is sitting in lots of different places within an organization. It’s not realtime and it’s really hard to pull it all together. Part of what we’re trying to do with our platform is make it easy for organizations to be able to get their sustainability strategy underway and gain access to real-time, trusted, comparable data that allows them to move from just having inputs and outputs to real and measurable outcomes and impact.
Sarah: Any great success stories that have energized you recently?
Muzzy: Absolutely. A global food production company uses our platform for their sustainability reporting and has been for the last three years. Every year they have increased the remit of what they’re reporting on and actually won a Reuters award for it recently which is amazing to see. The Singapore Stock Exchange, SGX, also uses our platform to look at the sustainability credentials of the listed companies that sit with them which is helping to support the overall transition that they need to go through. We’re also supporting SME’s who are at the end of lots of big global supply chains and need to provide sustainability data to back up the chain, which is helping them to compete on a global scale.
Sarah: Shifting gears a bit, I know you’ve been nominated for and won a number of awards around allyship and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. How do you keep that work front and center both individually and within your organization?
Muzzy: I’m the mother of three daughters so I’m personally driven to ensure they see a different world than the one I’ve seen coming up through the line, particularly in the male-dominated tech industry. The argument has been proven that DE&I is not just the nice thing to do and the right thing to do – it’s good for business as well. The stats are stark – organizations who have a diverse board, who’ve engrained equality and diversity and equity across all business units, outperform those who don’t, every single time. And that really comes down to having diversity of thought around problem solving, having different people around the table with different perspectives, experiences, and ways of looking at problems. For me, it’s always been a no-brainer. In the technology industry, I’ve noticed there’s a significant shortage of women entering the field, particularly in STEM – science, technology, engineering, and math. I believe part of the issue is the misconception that you need certain qualifications to succeed in tech, which isn’t true – it’s crucial to have diverse experiences. Another challenge is the lack of visible role models who can share their journeys and challenges. So, it’s great we’ve got inspiring women like Alex Curran leading Aptitude Software and showing that it’s possible to start in a graduate program at a company and ascend to CEO, and WWG’s Founder and CEO, Manjula Lee, who has been trailblazing in the world of fintech for many years now.
Sarah: Any career highs or lows that stand out?
Muzzy: Oh, plenty of highs and plenty of lows! There’s a great saying that I love which is “smooth seas don’t make great sailors.” No one gets where they want to be without overcoming challenges, learning from them and using those learnings to navigate and build out our skill sets further. I wouldn’t be here today had I not had both the highs and the lows. Those experiences shaped me and allowed me to support others facing similar challenges. I count myself very lucky that I’ve had a 25-year career in the tech industry. I’ve seen constant change and innovation that has solved many problems for clients and industries within that time. And I count as one of the highs, the change I’ve seen in the industry in recent years with more people from diverse backgrounds in leadership roles and across organizations leading the change to drive greater impact for their organizations, communities and the wider world.
Sarah: Excellent. Any go to leadership or career podcasts or sources?
Muzzy: I’m a big believer in #leadersarereaders. That we must never rest on our laurels and remain curious and open to learning new things. I’ve always been someone who’s wanted to learn and so I read as much as I can. To me that means keeping up to speed with what’s going on in the world, across industries, learning from great leaders – listening to podcasts etc. I love Diary of a CEO, which is a great podcast over here in the UK that looks at the journeys of individual CEOs and what they’ve overcome. I’m a subscriber to the Harvard Business Review as well as keeping up to date on the constantly changing world of sustainability.
Sarah: Any final words of wisdom or advice?
Muzzy: For me, it’s important to focus on where the opportunities lie in any challenge I’m facing. I always ask myself what I can learn from the situation and how I can apply those skills and experiences to future endeavors. Having a growth mindset is key—it’s about believing that I might not be able to do something yet, but I can find a way. My career advice is to ask for help, be open to learning and feedback, always look for ways to add value in your current role and to always treat people with kindness.
Sarah: Thank you, Muzzy!