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Finding Purpose in Profit
Growing up, Kim Coupounas (MBA/MPA 1995) explored careers as varied as attorney and Anglican priest. “I knew that I wanted to lead and to fight for justice and social good,” she says. “Ironically, I’m doing that now but on a far different path than I originally intended.”
Today, Coupounas directs the Colorado field office of B Lab, a nonprofit organization that seeks to redefine the meaning of success in business. B Lab’s mission is to assemble a global community of Certified B Corporations—companies that meet certain prescribed standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability.
“I was hired in 2014 to change how business is done in Colorado and to make it the leader in responsible business practice,” she says. “For the past three years, I have been traveling around the state, helping companies to morph themselves into best-in-class businesses that consider impacts on all of their stakeholders, not just shareholders.”
Coupounas, who often refers to her B Lab role simply as that of storyteller, says entrepreneurs enjoy hearing about other company founders who have successfully followed the B Corporation path.
“My life’s purpose, and the work that I am fortunate enough to do every day,” she observes, “is inspiring people to use the power of business as a force for good.”
(Published August 2017)
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